October Revenge

by Farmer, Merry

  They stood together for several, long seconds. Angelica was happy that the whole thing was over and their life could begin at last.

  “Do you know,” Christopher said, breaking that warm, hopeful feeling. He continued to study the painting, rubbing his chin. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say this was Catherine Walker.”

  Mark tensed abruptly and broke away from Angelica to face Christopher, his eyes going wide. Angelica worried his cuts would open again, he moved so fast. “What did you say?” he asked in a choked voice.

  Christopher looked to Mark, his brow shooting up. “Catherine Walker,” he repeated with a shrug. “She’s the wife of one of my tenants.” He glanced back at the painting and shrugged. “This is the spitting image of her, only younger.”

  Mark marched across the room to Christopher, his face flushing. Angelica followed.

  “What was her maiden name?” he demanded, his voice shaking.

  Christopher appeared surprised and alarmed by the force of Mark’s reaction. “I…I’m not sure,” he said, stepping away from the fireplace. “She isn’t from Cornwall originally. I think her family is from Oxfordshire. I was young at the time and I don’t remember much, but I think she was sent to cousins who are our tenants after some sort of incident at home.”

  Mark sagged, and for a moment Angelica was afraid he’d fall. He caught himself on the back of a chair near the fireplace and pulled himself to his full height, clearing his throat. “Were the cousins called Jackson?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

  Christopher’s brow shot up. “Yes, actually, they are.”

  Mark’s jaw fell open, and this time he sat heavily on the arm of the chair. Angelica rushed to him, both to prop him up physically and to bolster him emotionally.

  “Shayles told me he lied,” he said, gaping at her. “Years ago, he taunted me, telling me Kitty killed herself in shame after what happened. This morning, he told me that it was a lie, that she lived.”

  “Do you think she’s Catherine Walker?” Christopher asked, looking as surprised as Angelica felt.

  Mark only nodded. He didn’t seem capable of words.

  Christopher let out a breath, brushing a hand through his hair. He glanced to the painting, then back to Mark. His expression steadied. “She’s happy, you know,” he said. “At least, I think she is. Been married to Charlie Walker for over twenty years now. They’ve got six children too—four strapping young lads and two girls. One of the girls, Nell, got engaged to a crofter, James Hughes, this past summer. They’re a right jolly family.”

  To Angelica’s surprise, Mark responded to the revelation by lowering his head and bursting into a sob. Angelica’s heart ached in her chest and she rushed to throw her arms around him, regardless of how much her actions ran the risk of opening his cuts.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered to him. “Everything is all right.”

  “It is,” he agreed, his voice thick with emotion. “I never thought it could be. I thought she was dead, but she’s not. She’s happy. She found love. Shayles didn’t destroy her.”

  It dawned on Angelica that Mark’s tears were happy ones, that the darkest specter that had hung over him for twenty-five years had been nothing more than a lie told by an evil man. It seemed likely that he had spent his life mourning someone who wasn’t dead at all, who was, in fact, far more blessed than he had been.

  “You’re welcome to visit Penrose House at any time,” Christopher went on hesitantly. “Consider this an open invitation. I’m sure….” He paused. “Well, I’m not sure, but perhaps Catherine would be happy to see you?”

  Mark shook his head, but Angelica wasn’t certain if it was a refusal or if he was simply too overcome at the turn his life—and his past—had taken to think clearly in the moment.

  “We don’t have to decide now,” she said, planting a soft kiss on his cheek. “We have all the time in the world to shape our life the way we want it to be.”

  Mark nodded, then stood. It felt as though his strength had returned as he faced her, pulling her into his arms. “The past is done,” he said in a voice that was both strong and warm. “The man I was died along with Shayles. But that merely means that I now have the chance to decide who I will be going forward.” He swayed forward to kiss her, softly, but with so much emotion it brought tears to Angelica’s eyes. “All I know is that I want to be your husband,” he continued. “I want to be the father of your children. I want to raise them with all the love I never had, all the happiness. Nothing else matters.”

  “That’s what I want too,” Angelica said on a sigh, kissing him back and wishing she could squeeze him tight instead of resting her arms lightly around him. He was right. His wounds would heal in time, and once that happened, the two of them would never be separated.

  Epilogue

  Penrose House was an inadequate name for the sprawling, agricultural estate that had been in the Dowland family for generations. It stretched across rolling hills on the north shore of the Cornwall peninsula, and as the early spring sunshine poured down over fields burgeoning with strawberries and other early market crops, Mark was convinced Sir Christopher owned a hidden gem.

  But he and Angelica hadn’t made the long journey simply to bide their time as Christopher’s guests before the final, intense round of debate over the women’s rights bill reached the Houses of Parliament.

  “The tenant cottages are just down here,” Christopher explained as he led Mark—Angelica clinging expectantly to his arm—along a path that skirted the newly planted fields. “I’ve informed the Walkers that you will be visiting, so they should be prepared.”

  Mark merely nodded in response. He couldn’t have answered with words if he’d wanted to. His heart thumped wildly in his chest, and his emotions ran riot. He wasn’t ready to face Kitty again, but neither could he avoid it if he wanted to fully embrace the new life he and Angelica had set out on.

  Although there were still days when Mark jerked awake in the middle of the night, haunted by memories, and surprised that Angelica was still there in bed with him. In the days after Shayles’s death, he had told her so many of the things that he’d been afraid to reveal about his life before she’d come along, about the numerous ways Shayles had manipulated him and kept him on a leash by his side. He wasn’t proud of the things he told her and he was fairly certain she didn’t want to hear most of them, but Angelica was nothing if not patient. She recognized that there were things he needed to exorcise from his soul, and she had been willing to be his confessor.

  What had surprised Mark was how little reaction there had been to Shayles’s death. True to his promise, Jack Craig had reported the death as a suicide, though Mark was still uncomfortable with the slight lie. The constable and undertaker who had come to Ravencrest Hall to deal with Shayles’s corpse had had nothing nice to say about the man. They hadn’t even questioned the events leading to his death. Mark had been surprised neither man had spit on Shayles as they carried him out of the house. There was no funeral, no gathering of mourners, and only a small notice of Shayles’s passing in The Times. When Mark returned to London for the opening of Parliament, no one was gossiping about Shayles or his death. It was as if the man had blinked out of existence.

  Mark’s thoughts returned to the present as Christopher led them around a corner to a row of attached, stone cottages with moss growing on the roof.

  “The Walkers are in cottage three,” he said in a respectful voice, pausing at the beginning of the row. His stance and the question in his eyes silently asked if Mark wanted to go on alone or if he needed friends by his side.

  Mark paused and took a deep breath, uncertain of the answer himself. He glanced to the painting he carried in his free hand as Angelica hugged his other arm tighter. What would Kitty look like now? Did she somehow bear the scars of that horrible afternoon or had she miraculously recovered the shy smile she wore in his artwork?

  “I’m right here with you,” Angelica whispered, shifting her arm to hold hi
s hand. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “What must she think of me?” he asked, dragging his eyes away from the painting to meet Angelica’s. He answered his own question with, “She can’t possible feel anything but hatred for me.”

  Angelica shrugged and tilted her head to the side. “It’s a possibility. But if she’s a strong woman, she’ll know the truth of things, then and now.”

  Mark stared at her, studying her. It still baffled him how a woman of such strength and character had come into his life. Angelica hadn’t just stood by his side in the final struggle against Shayles, she’d taken up the proverbial sword and fought on his behalf. And though she continually claimed her ferocity was learned through her own, frightening experience, Mark was certain it was so much more than that. His wife was an angel come to earth. He’d even taken up his paint brushes to depict her as such in the weeks after Shayles’s death. His art had taken on a whole new life, Angelica’s life.

  “Come with me?” he asked, fully aware of how vulnerable it made him sound. “I can only do this with your blessing.”

  Angelica smiled. “You have my blessing in this and so many other things.”

  She lifted to her toes to kiss him gently. Mark took one final breath, nodded to Christopher, and walked on.

  Angelica took the painting from him and handed it to Christopher when they reached the door of Number Three so that he could knock. Within seconds, as though the occupants of the house had been waiting on the other side of the door, it swung open.

  Mark caught his breath at the fresh-faced young woman who met him. She had Kitty’s round face and cheery smile. For a moment, Mark reeled back convinced that the woman was Kitty and that she hadn’t changed a bit. Then the young woman curtsied low to him and stepped aside, opening the door wider.

  “Is it him?” a woman asked from deeper in the cottage.

  “I think so, Mama,” the young woman who answered the door said.

  Mark felt frozen. Terror swept through him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to take the needed steps to enter the house. It wasn’t until Angelica nudged him and a middle-aged woman rose from a simple table deeper in the cottage that he was able to cross the threshold.

  He knew the woman was Kitty the moment he saw her. She had Kitty’s warm, kind eyes, her bow-shaped mouth, and her aura of simple joy. And while her body had grown older and rounder, her hair had faded to grey, and lines crossed her face, she was the same woman he’d known and loved.

  “You’re alive,” he gasped, swallowing a sob before he embarrassed himself in front of everyone present. For Kitty was not alone. A grim-faced farmer stood with his arms crossed beside the table, and two adolescent boys hovered at the edges of the room with the same wariness in their eyes.

  Kitty blinked at him, taking a tentative step forward. “Of course I’m alive,” she said haltingly. “Did you think—”

  “Shayles told me you’d….” Mark let his words drop and shook his head. It didn’t matter now. He took another cautious step forward. “You look well,” he said, suddenly painfully self-conscious. He had no business speaking to Kitty after all these years, after what had happened to her. If she looked well, it was in spite of him, not because of him.

  “So do you,” she answered, then dipped into a curtsy, adding, “My lord.”

  “Please don’t,” he told her, taking another step forward. “I don’t deserve your deference.”

  “But you are an earl,” she said, bowing her head slightly, though more out of shyness, it seemed, than respect.

  Mark shook his head. “I am a man with a great deal to atone for,” he said. “And no idea where to begin that atonement.”

  Kitty blinked and straightened, staring at him in surprise. “What do you have to atone for?”

  Mark opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first. He glanced to Angelica, who slipped up to his side and took his hand. Her touch gave him the courage to face Kitty.

  “I was responsible for…for what happened,” he said, his voice hushed and gravelly. “Shayles never would have….” He gulped a breath. “I put you in danger by association. I should have known he would attack anything I cared about.”

  Kitty gaped at him. “Lord Shayles was an evil, evil man,” she said, raising a hand to her throat. “So were his friends. They preyed on many of the girls in town, not just me.”

  Mark frowned. He’d known that, but it didn’t make the danger he’d put Kitty in right. “If I had been stronger,” he began, his throat closing up and stopping him from continuing.

  Kitty stepped forward. She sent a cautious look Angelica’s way, then focused on Mark. “You did everything you could.”

  “I didn’t,” Mark blurted, fighting the shame and the tears that threatened to overcome him. “I should have done more. I was pitiful, helpless. I simply stood there while they….” He couldn’t continue.

  But Kitty continued to gawk at him, open-mouthed. “You fought them tooth and nail,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the man Mark assumed was her husband, then continued in a hushed voice. “You ripped one of them off of me and blackened his eye. Why, two of them were knocked out cold by the time my father arrived.”

  It was Mark’s turn to gape. He’d remembered that afternoon so differently for so long, but a new set of memories, things he’d purposely forgotten, sprouted up through the story he’d told himself for so long.

  “They beat you black and blue,” Kitty went on. “I couldn’t stand to watch it. I kept screaming for them to stop, but they hit you so much your face swelled up, and when you fell, they kicked you until you passed out. All the while, you fought back.” She paused and swallowed. “I thought they’d killed you for certain.”

  Mark’s eyes snapped wide. He had fought back. He’d fought until the pain had overwhelmed him and he’d passed out. New memories surfaced over the ones he’d clung to. Kitty’s father had been standing over him, dabbing at his swollen face with a cold cloth when he’d come to. He had been in the process of telling the local constable what had happened and how Mark had fought in vain to save Kitty. Mark had forgotten all about that. He’d also forgotten how close Shayles and his friends had come to being expelled from Oxford for the incident and how only an enormous bequest of cash had prevented a young Shayles from being jailed.

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” he admitted at last. “I blame myself entirely for everything that happened.”

  “But it wasn’t your fault,” Kitty said, coming close enough to touch Mark’s arm. She did so with a cautious look at Angelica, and when Angelica smiled and nodded, Kitty let her hand rest on Mark’s arm. “You were my savior. I’m sure they would have killed me if you hadn’t been there.”

  She bit her lip, glanced over her shoulder to her husband again, then rushed on with, “I wanted to visit you in hospital, but Papa said it would be best for everyone if I came here, to Cornwall. You were so far above me, after all, and…and if I ended up in a condition—” she lowered her head, color splashing her cheeks, “Papa explained that you wouldn’t be able to marry me to make things right, that you would have to marry a woman of your own class.”

  She peeked to Angelica once more, then rushed on.

  “I’ve been happy here.” She stepped back, crossing to her husband and taking his hand. “John is the best husband any woman could ask for, and I love him.”

  John smiled fondly at her and raised her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “She’s a good ’un, my Catherine,” he said. When he glanced to Mark, the suspicion and challenge in his eyes had softened to admiration. “I should thank you for preserving her for me.”

  Mark was speechless. For so long, he’d held on to a version of things that had been as false as the stories and promises Shayles had made him. His life might have been so different if he’d known the truth from the start. But life happened the way it happened, and nothing could erase the past.

  “It was hard at first,” Kitty admitted. “A
nd I did have nightmares. Mostly, I wanted to be certain that you were all right. Papa sent me news now and then, but once you took up your seat in the House of Lords—” she said the words with awe and reverence, “—I followed your comings and goings in the newspaper. I…I heard that you’d married at last, and I was so happy for you. I just read about the exhibitions of paintings you will be showing this summer too.”

  Mark blinked as if shocked into propriety. “Forgive me. This is my wife, Angelica, Lady Gatwick.”

  “It is a pleasure indeed to meet you,” Angelica said, boldly stepping forward to take Kitty’s hands.

  Kitty stared at her, open-mouthed, for a moment. “You’re American.”

  “I am,” Angelica laughed. She turned back to Mark before saying, “We have a gift for you, if you’d care to accept it.”

  She gestured to Christopher, who stepped forward, presenting the painting.

  Kitty slapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes going glassy with tears as she looked at it. “You kept it,” she said. “You kept it all these years.”

  Mark’s face and neck went hot. He couldn’t bring himself to say that he hadn’t kept it at all. He didn’t want to think about where it had been, only that it had been preserved.

  “I’d like you to have it,” he said. “It seems only right.”

  “Oh, no.” Kitty shook her head attempting to hand the painting back. “You’re going to be a famous artist in no time. All the newspapers say so. I couldn’t keep something this valuable.”

  “I insist,” Mark said, his heart overflowing.

  Kitty nodded and held the painting, studying it with a wistful smile. Her children gathered around to look at it. Her daughter giggled and clapped a hand to her mouth, then whispered something to her mother.

  “I was young and silly then,” she told her with a fond smile.

  “We would be happy to accept this,” John answered with a smile. “Though I’m not sure where in our dozy old house a painting of this beauty should hang.”