Liam shot a look at Egan, but she continued to keep her silence. In the past, she had always spoken against uniting their own efforts with the work of the Shanavests of Carlow, Queen’s County, or Kildare. Word traveled quickly in the countryside, and what she had mostly heard of those groups in recent years had to do with their increasing tendency toward violence. Where her own small band would only go so far as to scare a landowner or cleric or sometimes steal back what had been taken from tenants, these others were known to burn houses, maim cattle, and even commit murder if they saw the need.
While both Liam and Egan tried hard to focus their efforts on helping the displaced, many of the Whiteboys from Dingle to Dundalk seemed only bent on revenge. For now, though, attending this gathering in Kildare seemed to offer benefits too great to ignore.
“’Tis a good two days to get there…and the same to get back,” Patrick said, voicing the concern that a few had already expressed quietly. “Most of us cannot just go off and leave our families and our farms. I’ve still got a harvest to finish…and I’m a wee bit surprised that the meeting is to be held now.”
“That’s the very point of having it now.” Liam crouched and picked up an old straw. “Wait until after the harvests are all done, and the English will be watching for us.”
Liam’s gaze met Egan’s. He was looking for her support. She nodded.
“Is Finn going?” Jenny asked next.
“He cannot...and well he should not.” Liam replied, studying the shredded bit of straw in his hand. Throwing it to the ground, he stood up and faced the rest. “Finn serves as our eyes and ears. We cannot afford to do without him for so long. Besides, outside of Cork, Waterford, or Tipperary, most of our brothers and sisters say he is something we’ve dreamed up.”
“Ye don’t have to go that far to hear that.” Everyone laughed and turned to look at Ronan, who was standing against a ruined wall, his muscular arms crossed over his massive chest.
“Liam and I should go,” Egan said to settle the matter before anyone could get distracted. “And while we are gone, Patrick can keep an eye on the runt here. Everyone else should go on with the harvest as if nothing were amiss.”
Egan looked around at the group. She knew them all. Jenny. Liam. Ronan. Patrick. All of them. All of them lived their entire lives in this little corner of Ireland, and they knew each other like family—celebrating and supporting each other through baptisms and weddings and funerals.
All seemed willing to go along with the suggestion. Jenny, though, was the one who brought up the problem Egan still had to resolve.
“We will all lend a hand and be sure Liam’s absence will not mean trouble for his family. His landlord shan’t miss him. But ye, Egan…to my thinking, ye shall be needing to do some fancy stepping to be away unnoticed for so long.”
“That’s my specialty.” She nodded reassuringly to the group. “Fancy stepping.”
“Aye, we have faith in ye, Egan.” Patrick asked. “So when must ye be going?”
“Ten days.” Liam answered. “’Tis the latest we can go, if we want to get there in time.”
CHAPTER 12
None of this made any sense. None of it!
The young maidservant held the robe as Catherine Purefoy pushed her arms in it. Her nerves just couldn’t take this. She hadn’t retired more than half an hour earlier, and now her husband wished her in the dining room?
What a night! Sir Nicholas’s comment at dinner had surprised her. Anticipation had then nearly killed her as she’d waited for the men to emerge from the dining room. Minutes had rolled into hours and there had been no news. Hope had finally given way to disappointment, though, and it became clear that she could not wait up any longer for them. Decency dictated that she should retire, so she had…though reluctantly.
How curious that Lady Spencer did not appear to share in the excitement, at all. What a strange woman! And daughter, too! Soon after the women had retired to the parlor after dinner, the young Miss Spencer had simply retired to her room with a book under her arm. Lady Spencer had gone up to bed soon after the daughter without a worry in the world, it seemed. Well, Catherine thought with satisfaction, Lady Spencer would have her time when Frances was ready for the marriage market.
“Are you certain that he did not wish for Miss Clara, as well?”
“Aye, quite certain, m’lady.”
“And Sir Thomas said he want me come alone?”
“Well, m’lady…not exactly in those words. The squire just asked for you.”
The older woman looked down in search of her slippers. The serving girl immediately produced them. Nothing made sense. Nothing, she repeated to herself.
She and Clara had kept their vigil for a while longer, but it wasn’t long before Clara was begging her, as well, to retire to her room. Catherine remembered thinking that this was a night for celebration, but the dispirited look on her daughter’s face had soon put an end to her own happiness.
“And did you say Sir Thomas is still in the dining room?” She pushed her feet into the slippers.
“Aye, m’lady. Waiting to speak with you.”
Catherine started for the door, but then thought of what she must look like in her robe and slippers and night cap. She turned abruptly to the maid. “Is Sir Nicholas still with him?”
“Nay, m’lady. The gentleman left the dining room a while ago.” She thought for a moment. “And there was no one in the parlor when we were cleaning up, either. Fey thought he’d retired for the night, as well…though I didn’t see him, myself, ma’am.”
He’d left a while ago, Catherine repeated to herself, hurrying downstairs. The house was quiet. The servants had apparently retired, as well. She hardly knew what to expect, but she knocked quietly on the dining room door before entering.
Her husband was still sitting in his usual chair. A single candle flickered brightly in the center of the table. A half empty decanter of port and a glass sat before him. He didn’t acknowledge her when she came in and closed the door. The passage leading to the kitchen wing was dark and deserted. They were alone.
“You wished to speak to me.”
He swirled the amber colored liquid in his glass and drank it down before looking up.
“Though I should not be surprised, you have failed again, Catherine.”
His voice was harsh—the attack wounding her dearly. She stood attentively at the opposite end of the table from her husband, her fingers clutching at the high back of the chair.
“I was under the impression that you had brought this silly chit up right. You assured me that this one would not disgrace me, that this one would know what to say or do…or how to act to fetch herself a proper husband.”
She shook her head. He was attacking the only bright thing that had come of this marriage. “She does, sir. Clara’s manners are impeccable. Her charm…”
“Not enough, by thunder.” He slammed a hand on the table, making her jump. She saw his hand shake as he poured more port from the decanter. “She lacks finesse. She acts like a simpleton. Young…naïve…innocent. The chit appears to the world to have no mind of her own.” His words were slurring, and she watched him push the glass away, ignoring it when it sloshed over the rim, staining the tablecloth.
“How else would you have her act?” Catherine could not comprehend him, at all. “She is the perfect young woman. Accomplished in the feminine arts. Moral. Deferential. Quiet.”
“Well, these things are apparently out of fashion.” He leaned back against the chair, glaring at her. “And I do not blame him for not wanting her. I have yet to hear her express an opinion on any subject. The chit has never taken a stand on anything. Defended anything. I never hear her speak without being spoken to first. She is just a pretty face. She has no soul. No substance. No presence. She’s a bloody ghost.”
Catherine felt hot tears rush to her eyes at this unfair and critical view of their daughter. She knew she could defend her. She could easily remind her husband that Clara was the
opposite of everything that he hated in Jane. That it was he himself who had required that she be brought up to be exactly as he described.
She fought to be calm, wracking her brain for the real reason that Sir Nicholas had not proposed as they’d expected. There must be another reason, she thought. Well, she was not going to shoulder the responsibility for this. No, indeed.
“There will be other suitors,” she said assuredly. “Clara is a noted beauty, and has a fortune to offer, as well. Others who are not as critical or fashionable will find no flaws in our child.”
“This is it.” He leaned forward. “Clara is not a child. I do not particularly care to be entertaining other suitors. I want this man. He is not like the other fops we saw hanging in the doorway of every party in London. His title and wealth be damned, I tell you. Even without them, I would gladly welcome this one into my family. He is a real man.”
Catherine stared, shocked at her husband’s words.
“I tell you, he gave me dressing down after you all left…the likes of which I have not seen since the Duke of Cumberland relieved General Hawley of his command in Scotland.” Sir Thomas rose to his feet, placing a hand on the table to steady himself. “Hang it, this one is not afraid of me in the least. The valiant rogue looked me right in my eye and said, ‘You are wrong.’ ‘You are wrong,’ he tells me!”
Sir Thomas’s shout echoed in the room, and Catherine glanced hesitantly behind her, glad she’d closed the door.
“The…talk…he wanted to have with me this night had little to do with Clara, at all.” He eyed her critically from across the way. “He had the gall to reprimand me…rebuke me…for the way I allow Jane to be treated.”
“Jane?”
“Jane. He does not care at all how I allow her to be treated by Musgrave. By thunder, he went on for a quarter of an hour about the insolence with which the new magistrate addresses her. He complained how we—” He pointed a finger at her and then back at himself. “—fail to include her properly as a member of this family. He talked unceasingly about Jane. Defending her. Do you hear me? Not Clara…he has no interest there. But only defends Jane and her bloody impertinence.” He laughed shortly and then drew a breath. “Oh, yes. He did say that your prize filly is far too young for him. He cannot possibly consider taking her as a wife.”
“What are we to do?” she asked nervously as Sir Thomas started around the table toward her. “We can’t change her age…how can we convince him otherwise?”
As he reached her, she could see the look in her husband’s eye. She’d seen it more than she cared to admit. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she tried to hide her distaste.
“Our guest will be staying the fortnight as originally planned. So it is now your job, madam, to see to it that while he is here, he recognizes Clara’s other charms.”
She swallowed hard as his gaze descended to her bosom.
“I can…I can plan a party…a ball,” she said as he began to move his hands over the silk brocade of her robe. “Girls are always seen in a far better light in such settings. I…I shall plan it for this coming week.”
“You do whatever you must,” he said vaguely, turning her toward the table.
At his urging, Catherine leaned forward onto her elbows. He lifted the layers of her robe and nightgown to her waist. She felt him position himself behind her and stared at the burning candle as he fumbled with his breeches.
“I shall send the invitations out tomorrow and…” She winced slightly and braced herself as he took hold of her hips and entered her. “I shall have Fey bring in half a dozen more workers from the farms to help with the serving.” Her husband’s tempo was increasing, and she felt the heat rising into her face. “I…I shall have her…have her get more help for…for the kitchen, too. And yes, a new…a new dress for Clara. Something more sophisticated and…and revealing.” She was glad to hear his final grunt of release. She frowned and waited as he backed away from her.
“Sir Nicholas was smitten with her in London,” Catherine said firmly. “He shall be smitten with her again.”
She pushed herself off the table, smoothed the nightgown and robe back over her hips, and turned around. Her husband was already at the door, ready to leave.
“You are ignoring the most critical thing,” he said darkly. “Jane.”
“Jane?” she repeated simply. “You do not believe he is seriously interested in Jane, do you?”
He shrugged. “Have one of your maids reveal the truth about her past to Lady Spencer or her daughter. That should effectively put an end to any spell Jane might have cast over him.”
“But do you…do you really think it is wise to let them know. I mean, Jane’s past is a shameful reflection on all of us.”
“Do it,” he ordered. “They will find out sooner or later, in any case. At least this way, we can be sure he is chasing the right girl.”
Catherine Purefoy watched her husband turn his back and open the door. As she watched him disappear into the gloom of the corridor, she decided that, for once, she couldn’t agree with him more.
***
Nicholas breathed in the cool night air as he walked casually in the direction of the stables. It was difficult to stay calm, but he needed to be patient and keep his wits about him. His talk with Sir Thomas had cleared his conscience and his path. He was free now to be himself and to pursue Jane.
She was a mystery, though. High strung, impetuous, yet completely lacking in vanity or self-absorption, she was unlike any woman he had ever met. And she was avoiding him.
After inquiring about her when they’d first came down for dinner, he’d been told by Clara that her sister was too tired from the activities of the day. She was resting in her room, but might possibly join everyone later.
Dinner had come and gone, but there had been no sign of Jane. Not that any of her family had seemed to care about, or question, or miss her presence among them. No one at the table had been as aware of her absence, or as disturbed by it as he.
After his blunt and candid chat with his host, Nicholas had thrown caution to the wind. Going up to her bedroom, he had knocked. No answer—no lights visible beneath the door. He’d even tried the handle, but it was locked. In spite of it all, though, he had known that she was not inside…and he was equally sure that her horse would also be missing from her stall.
A solitary groom stood smoking a pipe and leaning against a post by the entrance to the paddock when Nicholas stepped around the stone wall. Curled up at his feet, two dogs looked like piles of fur, and they lifted their heads with only casual interest as he approached. On the far side of the paddock, a lantern swung gently on its hook beside the main door to the stable. Even in the darkness, Nicholas immediately recognized Paul, the stable master and trainer in charge of Sir Thomas’s ongoing breeding venture.
When they had come back this afternoon from their ride to Ballyclough, Nicholas had spend a good hour talking to the man about the training of hunters. Breeding horses was not only a gentlemanly pursuit in Ireland, apparently, it was also a profitable one.
“Beautiful night, wouldn’t you say, Paul?”
“Aye, that it is, sir.” The older man straightened up and took the pipe out of his mouth. “We shan’t have too many more of these before the cold settles in.”
“I don’t mind the cold. That was a wild storm, though, last night. It seemed to fairly race out of the hills.” Nicholas stopped beside the burly man and glanced down into the shadowy fields where he’d seen Jane. He could still envision the black cape flying behind her. “It must have bothered the horses some, I should think.”
“Most of them were fine, but there is always one or two more high strung than the others.” He put the pipe back in the corner of his mouth. “But I keep my eye open. Always about, I am. So I look in on those that need it. Talk to them. The smell of pipe smoke comforts the horses, too.”
The two stood in silence for a moment. “I checked on yer mount last night. He was a brave young gentleman
throughout. Picked him up in Cork City, ye said?”
Nicholas nodded. Always about. Behind wisps of clouds, a moon was starting to rise in the east. He cast a sidelong glance at the man. Jane no doubt came through here regularly and at all hours of the day and night, so it would just figure that she would need an ally here. “How does Miss Jane’s horse fare? She is a pretty stepper over rough ground.”
“Aye, that she is. And Queen Mab fears nothing.” The man’s bearded face wrinkled into a smile. “And Miss Jane knew it the first moment she looked on the poor wee thing as a foal. Now, the rest of us could see plain as day that the filly was lame and unlikely to amount to much of a horse, but not Miss Jane.”
“Lame, you say. You couldn’t tell to look at her now.”
“To be sure, sir.”
“Did she name her?”
“Aye. She called her Mab after the queen of faeries. I can tell ye, sir, the good lass spent enough time caring for her and training her and spoiling her till even the mare believed she was Mab herself. ‘Tis been four years, now, and I can tell ye that horse knows she’s a queen.” He finished with a chuckle.
Nicholas glanced at the wing containing the row of stalls where he knew Mab was kept. The shadows of the night lay heavily across the line of doors. He wondered if the horse were there now.
“On our ride over to visit Parson Adams, I was watching Miss Jane. She is quite a skilled rider. One might even say she is a bit of a daredevil particularly when she knows someone might be watching.”
“Every gray hair I have in this head is there because of Miss Jane, I can tell ye.” Paul gave him a knowing nod and a grin. “Ye should see them, sir. There are times when I look down this hill and I see the two of them, horse and rider, moving together like a single creation. Across those fields they go, so fast that ye expect ‘em to sprout wings and take off for the heavens. Aye, sir, there are times I scratch my head and wonder if what my eyes are seeing is real or only my imagination.”
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