“Katy!” hissed a voice that carried down the empty corridor outside Lady Moretaine’s bedchamber. “Katy—this way!”
Katy, who had taken her leave of the countess at the sound of the bell signaling it was time to dress for dinner, looked swiftly around, then followed the whisper around a turn in the corridor. A hand beckoned from an unused bedchamber. Having no doubt to whom the hand belonged, Katy entered the room and closed the door behind her.
The hand, and the body attached to it, had retreated to the far side of the room, with the exaggerated stealth of a conspirator in the pantomime the servants had been allowed to view last Twelfth Night. Beaming at Katy, finger to her lips, was Clover Stiles, an upstairs chambermaid so bent on becoming a dresser for a fine London lady that she did not even walk out with the footmen or the young men from the village. She had ambition, did Clover Stiles. A fifteen-year-old scullery maid when Katy had come in from the snow, Clover had taken the waif under her wing, and not even Katy’s continued silence nor her rapid rise in status had curbed a friendship born so long ago.
The two girls were a striking contrast—Katy, delicate and blond; Clover, a big-boned, dark-haired farmer’s daughter, seemingly born to nurture the weak and wounded around her. “Well?” Clover demanded. “You were in the bookroom, alone with him for an age, my girl. Did he behave himself?”
Katy blinked, appearing genuinely startled. She nodded. Decisively.
“Well, let me warn you,” Clover said. “The master used to be a great one for slap and tickle. Not that he did more, I grant—many’s the time I’ve heard Mrs. Tyner boast that Damon Farr knew better than to muddy his own pond—“but he cut a swath outside these walls, from tavern wenches to a widow near twice his age.”
Satisfied by Katy’s wide-eyed stare, Clover gasped for breath and plunged on. “And now he’s come home a sour old crab, aglowerin’ at everyone, even his ma. Not too big a surprise, I say, to find he left his better self back in that far place where they was fighting. So y’ve got to remember he’s a man, and you’re naught but a rare morsel, fit for pluckin’. With you not even able to say yay or nay nor scream for help, he’s like to snap you up and spit you out afore you knows what’s happenin’.”
Slowly, Katy backed away from her friend. No. No, he wasn’t like that. Even though she had ample reason to know that men tended to think with something other than the brains God gave them, she found herself shaking her head. Damon Farr was an honorable man. Crotchety. Narrow-minded . . . but not more so than the rest of his class. He was . . . a man wounded in war. And, even as she fought him, her heart went out to him. The lines on his face called to her to soothe them.
“Katy, are you listening to me? I heard Mapes and Tyner talking. They said you might be going to help the colonel in the bookroom. Is that true?”
Katy laid her hands, palms together, up to one ear, pantomiming her question.
“Well, of course, Mapes was listening at the door,” Clover declared, well accustomed to Katy’s sign language. “Butlers have to know what’s going on, now don’t they?”
Katy plumped herself down on a ladderback chair, frowning mightily. Propping her chin on her hands, she glared at the Turkey carpet.
“Forgive me, love,” Clover cried, dropping to her knees beside Katy’s chair. “’Tis just I’m that worried about you. The countess’s pet you may be, but to the colonel you’re fair game. Miss Nobody from Nowhere. Just be careful is all I’m saying. For all he looks twenty years older and as sour as Billy be Damned, he’s a man. And with you twitchin’ your tail right there in front—”
Eyes sparking green fire, Katy shot to her feet, quivering with rage, fists clenched at her sides.
“Well, indeed I’m sorry, love, but there’s the wood with no bark on it. He’s a man, you’re a woman. You’ll need eyes in the back of your head. And knitting needles in with your hairpins mightn’t be amiss.”
Knowing full well that Clover was right did not mean Katy could accept her words with grace. But Clover was a friend. Katy took a deep breath, forcing her anger to drain away. Was that not what she always did? Only true ladies, cosseted and well-dowered, could afford to lose their tempers. She proffered a smile, albeit wan. Pantomiming her need to dress for dinner, Katy Snow, waif, left Clover standing in the bedchamber, her brow still wrinkled in concern.
~ * ~
Chapter Five
Katy lost a spirited, if silent, argument with Lady Moretaine about her strong desire to once again abandon her customary place at the countess’s table. A decided, “Nonsense!” was all the reply Katy received. That, and a violent shooing motion as the countess sent her back to her room to dress.
And now, here they sat, the three of them, Lady Moretaine talking nineteen to the dozen on one side of the master of the house and Katy, eyes sparking fire on the other, quite certain this dinner gave new meaning to the term awkward. The colonel offered an occasional mumble or glum nod to his mother and even glummer looks at Katy’s décolletage, which seemed to be what had turned him so twitty in the first place. One glance at the neckline of the primrose lustring gown the countess had insisted was all the crack in London, and the colonel had turned positively purple. Not once had he spoken to her, but he’d sneaked more than a few peeks. Blast the man!
As soon as the two ladies left the colonel to his port, Katy fetched the countess’s shawl, draped it over her shoulders, then pleaded to be excused. Lady Moretaine, not unaware she was about to suffer a tedious session with the son who seemed to have turned into an ogre, waved the girl upstairs. If only she had had a premonition, some inkling of how Damon would react to Katy Snow’s elevation . . . No, she would not have changed a thing. The child was most certainly a gentlewoman, if not a lady. Worthy of her trust. She had not made a mistake.
“So, mama,” said the colonel as he strode into the drawing room, after perhaps more port than was wise, “just what were you thinking when you dressed mutton as lamb? Or is it, perhaps, appropriate to expose a guttersnipe as if she were Harriette Wilson? Shouldn’t the gown have been red, instead of pink?”
“Sit down!” his mother snapped. “And mind your manners.” When the colonel had slumped onto the opposite end of the sofa on which she was sitting, the countess said, “I am happiest with beautiful things around me, Damon. It is a fault I freely acknowledge. Furniture, paintings, carpets, Oriental vases, ormolu clocks, marble sculpture, gardens . . . beautiful people. I do not wish to have my companion in drab, looking like a cloud about to pour down rain. It pleases me to see her shine. As I have told you, if you cannot like it, we shall remove to Bath.”
Damon dropped his head into his hands. “My apologies, mama. I fear I have come home, but have not left the crudities of war behind.” He drew a ragged breath, finding he could not let the subject go. “Mama, I cannot understand why you did not try to locate her people. She can write. Why did you not ask her who she was?”
His mother shook her head. “My dear, can you truly think we did not? But she refused to answer. Just sat there with her hands folded in her lap, head bowed, as if she knew we were going to toss her down the front steps if she did not tell, yet she would not do it. Nothing would move her. I promise you, we tried.”
“Of course you did,” the colonel murmured, thoroughly ashamed of the confused and angry thoughts chasing through his head. Had he himself not recognized the same stubborn desperation in the chit when he had attempted to discover her history. “She’s a baggage, mama. I know it. I do not believe she cannot talk.”
Silence hovered between them, as Lady Moretaine’s brow wrinkled in thought. “But why?” she inquired at last. “And surely she could not have maintained such a masquerade for so long?”
“What sets us apart from our servants, mama?” Damon asked. “From the common soldiers on the march, the women trailing in the dust of the baggage train? ’Tis easy enough to take mutton and dress it as lamb, but the way we talk is bred in us. The upper class speaks in accents all its own, carefully po
lished by parents and tutors until it is perfection. For everyone else the way we talk depends on where we live. From broad Yorkshire to the almost unintelligible mutterings heard in the London gutters. Clearly, your Lady Silence is hiding her origins.”
“You know, my dear,” said the countess mildly, “you have come home with a remarkably nasty mind.”
“Yes, mama, I know.”
“Damon?” Lady Moretaine paused, uncharacteristically uncertain. “Perhaps I should not have suggested Katy assist you in the library. But she loves books, and I thought she might be useful. Yet now I realize that I, too, have been guilty of placing Katy in an anomalous position. Neither fish nor fowl nor rare roast beef. If I truly knew her to be a young woman of good family, I would not have thought of offering her to you—” The countess broke off, crying, “Merciful heavens, Damon, what have I said?”
“The truth,” he replied, reaching out to lay his hand over hers. “Only the truth.”
“Shall I ask the vicar if he knows a young man who might serve as your secretary?” Lady Moretaine asked in a small voice.
Damon was surprised by the depth of his revulsion. Was he actually looking forward to dueling with the devilish little minx? And watching her roaming about the bookroom, wiggling her—
Brightening his day.
“No, mama, thank you, but that will not be necessary. We will see how the girl goes on. Though, I beg of you, do not tell all and sundry that I have acquired a female for a secretary.”
With her head low over her chestnut mare’s neck, Katy galloped across the meadow as if escaping the hounds of Hell. Away from Farr Park. Away from Colonel Damon Farr. Away from emotions so tumultuous they terrified her. Men were to be ignored. Shunned. Evaded when necessary. Fought, if nothing else would do. Escaped, when all else failed.
But now it was she who was being ignored. She’d swear the colonel hadn’t raised his eyes to her during so much as one of his curt commands, yet many a time this past week she’d felt his gaze burning into her back. Devil!
Yesterday, her hands had shaken so badly, she’d slopped tea into his saucer. Appalled, she’d dashed to the kitchen, where everyone had gathered round, urging her to tell them what was wrong. Had the colonel misbehaved? Lady Moretaine must be told immediately. Katy, thoroughly mortified, had just kept shaking her head. No, no, no, no! She was fine. An accident, nothing more.
And then the miserable man, when accepting his second cup of tea, had actually looked at her . . . and smiled. “Not so solemn, child,” he’d told her. “The world won’t end over a few drops of tea in a saucer.”
More like a sea of tea. But at sight of that smile, as rare as hen’s teeth, her treacherous heart had done a jig in her chest, leaving her breathless. During all the years since he had so casually offered her shelter, she had loved him blindly. But when he returned cold and unfeeling, she’d felt betrayed. Her girlish fantasies shattered. And yet she could not turn away. If he had so much as an inkling of the havoc he was wreaking on her feelings, how easily he could—
As she approached a line of trees, Katy slowed her mare Mehitabel to a walk, remembering as she entered a winding ride through sun-dappled woods the year her figure had suddenly blossomed into womanhood. When even the well-trained Farr Park footmen followed her with their eyes as she crossed a room. The men working in the fields or in the village had been less subtle. Gestures, whispers, appreciative grunts and whistles marked her path. She was naught but a servant. Easy prey.
Just when she thought she had found sanctuary.
Millicent Tyner, sharp-eyed as a housekeeper must be, had sat her down for a good long talk. Katy listened attentively, making no attempt to indicate she was already well aware of the vicissitudes of men. In fact, she paid little attention until the housekeeper, in her usual frank style, warned her that it was she, Katy Snow, who could well precipitate her own downfall. If she did not hold her heart close, she would be ruined. “Men are not for women like us,” Mrs. Tyner told her. “You cannot hope to marry higher than a farmer or an innkeeper. Best keep what you’ve got to yourself and rise to housekeeper in a fine home. Goodness knows you’ve got the wits for it. But give rein to your feelings, child, and you’re lost. Lie with a man, and he’ll soon be gone, leaving you fit for nothing but Haymarket Ware.”
At the question in Katy’s eyes, she added, “That’s a whore, child. Cyprian, courtesan, filly o’ joy, share-amy—whatever strange words they use—’Tis all the same. A girl’s ruined. Useless to any decent man or to serve in any decent household. Your friend Clover listened to me, a good girl is Clover. Keeps to herself, with her eye on being dresser to a titled London lady. And she’ll do it, she will, as long as she keeps her legs tight scissored and her head out of the clouds.”
Head out of the clouds. And much chastened by reality, Katy was making every effort to do that. Alas, not successfully. The few hours she spent each day in the bookroom—sorting the household mail, finding long-unused volumes of history on high shelves, making notes from the colonel’s dictation, sharpening quills, refilling the inkwell, and serving tea—were treasured moments. For the most part, the colonel remained glum and irascible, but once having decided on the course of his writing—a comparison of battles of historic significance—he had set to work with an intensity bordering on obsession. She might be young and inexperienced, but Katy could not help but wonder if the colonel was attempting to exorcize his years of war by finding refuge in someone else’s battles.
And there she was, feeling sorry for him! Which made her poor heart grow more tender, even when she knew that on her own particular battlefront he was the Enemy. It was nothing but propinquity, of course. Shut a single man into the same room with a single woman, particularly when both were young in age, if not in spirit, and the result was almost inevitable. So why had her dear Lady Moretaine suggested such a remarkable arrangement? Was Katy the bait to tempt the colonel out of his sullens?
A sacrifice to her son’s baser needs?
The countess couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . .
Katy found her mare had come to a halt in a clearing and was happily cropping a lush stand of grass. Propinquity. No wonder young ladies of good families were guarded almost as closely as the crown jewels. Propinquity was lethal. Even now she could feel his eyes on her, her heart beginning to beat like a drummer sounding Charge. Her mare lifted her head, whinnied.
Oh, dear God! Not a fantasy. He’s here!
“Good morning, Katy,” said the colonel from atop his black stallion, Volcán, who had survived the war with scarcely a scratch, as miraculously as his rider.
His thighs were quite beautiful. Far better displayed on horseback than in the library. Katy tried not to stare, but here in this lonely place, she knew better than to look her employer in the eye. She nodded her head in regal greeting.
“Do you always ride alone?”
And how else would she ride? With a retinue of grooms, as if she were the lady of the house?
“Of course,” the colonel murmured. “How foolish of me. Lady Moretaine’s remarkable notions have addled my wits. I forgot you are merely a servant. A servant out for a morning ride on one of my finest mares.”
Almost—but not quite—a sound escaped her lips. Katy swallowed her shock. Bastard! It was the worst word she knew. How could he attack her so? She was his helper, his secretary. And what right had he to tromp on the flutterings of her heart, no matter how misguided they might be?
Unable to defend herself, Katy sat slumped in the saddle, head bowed, demonstrating her dejection as graphically as she could.
“You think me harsh?” A tiny nod of assent. “Come, child, do you think I attained my rank by coddling my men and blowing kisses to the enemy?”
Katy pressed hands and reins over her mouth, stifling a laugh. The devil! How dare he make her laugh? Peeping at him over her fingers, she noted that he was once again looking grim. The clearing was small, their horses nearly nose to nose. His dark eyes were deep haunted p
ools into which she could so easily tumble.
“You will recall,” he told her, “that I did not want any distractions from my work. Therefore, I find it easier to think of you as one of the young men under my command. This is not,” he conceded, looking even more morose, “always effective. When I find you wandering in the woods, all alone”—his already disconcerting dark eyes ranged over the tight fit of her forest green riding habit—“I am forcibly reminded that you are female.”
Ignoring the flush she could feel staining her cheeks, Katy took her reins in one hand, waved the other in a broad circle, then pointed her index finger at her employer’s chest.
“Yes, yes,” the colonel responded impatiently, “I understand you stay on my land, but, nonetheless, I fear for your safety. You are not exactly . . . that is . . . you—ah—tend to attract attention, Katy Snow. You are not easy to ignore.”
Was she not? Katy’s traitorous heart soared. Fool! That way lies disaster.
“If I assign a groom to ride with you,” Colonel Farr said into the awkward pool of silence that had formed after his last remark, “I will elevate your status beyond what is comfortable for either of us. Yet I am reluctant to curtail your riding, as it is a privilege granted by Lady Moretaine. One you enjoy?”
Yes, oh, yes! Katy nodded vigorously.
“Then I shall merely ask you to stay on my land and keep a cautious eye out for strangers. If you see anyone not known to you, ride the other way.”
As if it were only strangers she had to fear!
“You may go, Snow.” The colonel waved her on. As she carefully guided her mare by him, he added, “And find my copy of The Iliad. Now there’s a war that lasted even longer than ours on the Peninsula.”
Wars! Is that all the man thought of? When love was so much more satisfying. As she knew quite well from all the years she had held his youthful image in her heart. For Damon Farr, her savior, difficult as he now was, she would do anything—
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