Knight forced a smile and nodded. “Oh, I understand, milady. I understand entirely.”
“The crone knows no end in her corruptions,” Big William said.
Fontaine paused before entering the kitchen, for she’d heard Knight’s voice in conversation with Marta and Big William and could not help eavesdropping.
Big William had been able to spend more and more time in the company of Marta and the other servants who frequented the kitchen rooms. Since being reassigned to the position of Fontaine’s personal coachman, Big William had been able to enjoy many more hours of much-deserved rest and simple time, and Fontaine was happy to see it. Big William, an elderly man in his sixties, unusually tall and now white-headed, had served the Pratina family for nearly thirty years. Fontaine trusted and loved him and was glad to see him so less overworked and with time to sit for a change. Furthermore, he’d become fast friends with Knight, who showed the man nothing but respect and comradeship. Knight’s kindness to Big William only served to further fluster Fontaine, for with each passing day, Knight seemed to seep deeper and deeper into the meat of her heart. In fact, of late, she’d taken to avoiding him, certain he could read the delight in her eyes whenever they met. But something about this conversation interested her above others, and so she waited, listening.
“She’ll be rushin’ to hell in a bushel basket when the time comes, she will,” Marta said, lowering her voice.
“Still…it would keep the young miss safe…for a time, perhaps,” Big William added.
“Then…then you think I should play at being her lover?” Knight asked.
Fontaine’s hand flew to her mouth to stop the scream of heartache begging release. It had come already? In only three weeks, her aunt meant to abandon Lord Greenville for Knight? Further, were Big William and Marta in agreement with the travesty? Choking back her tears she thought, At least he only means to play at it…instead of being heartfelt in his intended attentions toward her. But the thought did little to soothe her pain, and she wanted to know no more of it.
Entering the kitchen Fontaine said, “And what are you three gossiping about this evening, then?” All three glanced away guiltily for a moment. “May I join you?”
“In fact,” Knight began. “I would speak to you a moment privately, if you would allow it, miss.”
Fontaine was somewhat touched, for it appeared as if he meant to confess to her as well as he had to her friends. Did he then consider her to be one he could confide in? It was a comfort, but a harsh one.
“Very…very well, Knight,” she stammered, her heart beginning the strike in her bosom like a mad hammer. Knight rose from his seat at the kitchen table and motioned she should enter the sickroom with him. The wild beating of her heart was deafening in her own ears as she entered the sickroom, Knight closing and bolting the door behind them.
“I’m not certain this is entirely proper, Knight,” she began. Her nerves were getting the better of her. His proximity in the tiny room, which held so much meaning for Fontaine because of their moments together during his convalescing, caused that she should begin to tremble slightly.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Fontaine,” he said, lowering his voice and smiling at her. “But the two of us have spent a great deal of time alone in here on winter’s nights not too recently passed.”
“What…what did you wish to speak to me about?” she asked, for she could think of no further argument to offer. And she feared she would faint from heartache if she lingered on those beloved memories any longer.
She watched as a frown puckered his brow and he drew in a deep breath as if preparing to present the worst kind of news. Instantly, Fontaine felt a sort of feral panic begin to rise in her. Did he mean to leave Pratina? Was he leaving her so that he would avoid her aunt?
“First, I must beg your confidence, silence of this matter, and…and complete trust, miss,” Knight said.
“You…you have it, of course,” she managed, though she thought she might melt at his feet in tears of beseeching him to stay, to abandon her aunt and become her own.
“Very well,” Knight began. Fontaine was momentarily distracted by the brilliant flash of his eyes, by the pure magnificence of his face and form. But his next words drew her back to reality.
“Your aunt approached me today with…with the suggestion of…of an arrangement.”
“That being?” Fontaine said, her voice breaking and betraying her withheld emotion.
Knight seemed anxious, and Fontaine understood why…to tell her of her aunt’s intentions toward him must indeed be difficult. Yet part of her began to loathe him for it.
“For the sum equivalent to two years’ wages…” he stammered.
Fontaine closed her eyes for a moment, sickened by the realism her aunt truly offered to pay Knight for his attentions.
“For two years’ wages…she has asked that I…that I,” he stammered. Fontaine was pleased he felt it hard to utter the fact to her at least.
“Pay court to her, so to speak?” Fontaine finished for him. She turned from him as a tear escaped her eye, traveling down one cheek.
“To…to pay court to you, so to speak, miss,” he finished.
“What?” Fontaine exclaimed, whirling about to face him, indifferent to the fact tears were now streaming down both her cheeks. “What did you say?”
Knight swallowed hard, cast his eyes to the floor, and answered, “She wants me to persuade you…win over your affections.”
“Wh…wh…why?” Fontaine sobbed. It was a cruel trick! The cruelest her aunt had ever conjured. And Fontaine knew instantly that her aunt had been able to read her emotions better than she thought. She felt she’d hidden her feelings for Knight deep enough that no one could find them. But she hadn’t.
“Please don’t cry so, Miss Fontaine,” Knight begged, an expression of enduring agony passing over his face. “I…I think…I think it isn’t all bad. She…she wants you to have…to have a…a relationship…a pleasant relationship to remember after…”
“After I’m married to some elderly, crippled lord who will care for me until he dies and I am left a young widow? Is that what she told you?” Fontaine shrieked.
“Please, miss. Lower your voice. She’ll hear you and…” Knight rather commanded.
“She means me no pleasant memories, Knight!” Fontaine sobbed. “She means to harm me, break my heart, and…”
In the next instant, Fontaine found herself wrapped tightly in Knight’s supremacy. He’d reached out and clamped a strong hand over her mouth, pulling her back against his chest and strapping her there with his free arm.
As tears fairly flowing from her eyes, she felt her breath leave her as he put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “You must keep quiet, miss…lest she hear you and discovers my allegiance does not lie with her.” Fontaine could feel the coarseness of his whiskers on the flesh of her neck, his hot breath on her cheek, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into his arms, beg him to protect her, to love her and keep her with him.
“I mean to repay the debt I owe you, Miss Fontaine Pratina,” he continued in a whisper. “And if playing the secret lover to you allots me more time to consider on how to do so…then I well mean to play at it.” All resemblance to a humble coachman was gone from him. From his rather rough handling of her to the resolve in words, Fontaine sensed nothing but dominant determination in him. Even in the way his lips softly caressed her ear as he spoke did she feel of his inimitable strength.
“Now,” he whispered, “May I count on your being rational—and quiet—if I release you?” Fontaine nodded and squeezed more tears from her eyes. He seemed unconvinced and, removing his hand from her mouth, demanded, “Promise it.”
“I…I promise it,” Fontaine breathed.
“Very well,” he sighed, releasing her. Yet when he did, she only longed to return to his arms, to be held securely against him, to feel his breath on her neck.
“She has ordered that I cannot speak
of this to anyone,” he told her. Fontaine did not turn to face him again, however, for tears were still falling to her cheeks. “But well you should know by now, my loyalty is not to such as her, and I ask you…what would you bid me do?”
She turned to him then not caring if he should see her crying. “I would bid you leave here!” she exclaimed in a whisper. “I would bid you to save yourself from her evil ways, her ability to corrupt the lives of others!”
“She’s no power to corrupt me, miss,” Knight assured her.
“She corrupts everything she touches! In one way or the other, everything in her wake is damaged,” she sobbed.
“Even if it is true…you fight it, do you not?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Fontaine sniffled.
“Have you followed suit of her? Integrated her ways, her mannerisms, her corruption into your own soul? No, you have not. You have remained true to what you believe to be right and wrong. Why do you then hold so little faith in me?” he asked. When she could not answer, for she did not want to reveal all she was to him, he continued, “I’ll tell you why—because I am a man. It is as simple as bluebird’s song. Men have betrayed you. Oh, not men like Big William, Daniel, or your father. Other men…the men she associates with. No doubt they’ve shown no unyielding symptoms of morality…and you count me the same.”
“You do not know her the likes that I do,” Fontaine whispered, defeatedly. “Aristocracy…it is a corrupt breed of human being. Wealth and personal pleasure are all it holds as valuable, and I loathe being born to such a class.”
“You are not like her…or those who align themselves with her,” Knight said.
“Am I not?” Fontaine said, as an unusual contemplation began to fill her mind. She wanted Knight for her own. Wanted his smiles to be to hers, wanted to be in his embrace. Was she really so much different from the other women of her association? “And you, as good as your intentions appear to be…you think this…this farce will somehow defend me from her will where I am concerned?”
“I think it may procure further time needed for me to repay the debt I owe you, yes,” he said.
He was quite chivalrous, if rather misdirected in his belief that chivalry still triumphed. And there was the reality that she was in love with him. With all her heart Fontaine knew in those few moments spent in the glow of Knight’s intended heroics, she loved him. And perhaps her aunt was right…perhaps she would thank her aunt one day, thank her for forcing this astounding man to pay his attentions to her so that she could look back on him as a beautiful dream she held once upon a time.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks and straightening her bodice, Fontaine said, “Very well, lover. Would you enlighten me…inform me of the rules of engagement in this matter?”
Knight smiled at her. “You trust me then?”
“I trust that your intentions are valiant, Knight…and who knows what is to come? Perhaps the earth will take to quaking and swallow Aunt Wetherton up before she has a chance to damage anyone further,” she answered.
Knight chuckled and drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Perhaps it will, miss,” he said, offering the cloth to her.
Fontaine accepted the handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “The rules, then. For I’ve no doubt she had stipulations.”
“She did, indeed,” Knight admitted. “First, our affair must be in secret. No one is to know of it,” he explained. “Of course, I’ve already told Marta and William…and you.”
“Of course,” Fontaine said, smiling. This detail in itself gave her comfort…that he cared for her above her aunt, in this it was obvious.
“Second, you must believe me to be in earnest,” he said. “Therefore, miss…you must act as if you’ve some secret happiness tucked away.”
“Of course,” Fontaine said again. And she thought then, this part of the farce might come easily enough, for she would have a secret happiness tucked away…a knowledge she had gotten the better of her aunt for once.
“Third…” Knight paused. “Third…it ends when she commands that it ends.”
“Thus, we are assured we have an unmeasured amount of time for you to whisk me away from my pitiful existence as an heiress of aristocracy,” she said.
“Yes,” he unwillingly admitted.
“And what of you then, dearest Knight?” Fontaine asked. “Are you then to receive compensation for…another farce such as this?”
“You know her better than I think, it is clear,” he admitted. “But I promise you this, miss…when the task is done and I have repaid my debt to you…somehow…I will quit this place before she has a chance to offer me another amusement.”
Fontaine let her eyes plead with him, reached out, taking hold of his arm as she said, “I ask that you leave when the task is done…whether or not you feel you have repaid the obligation you feel toward me.”
“If I fail, I’ll not abandon you to…” he began.
“Promise me, Knight,” Fontaine pleaded. “Promise me you’ll leave when it is done…no matter the outcome on my behalf.” She could not see him fall further prey to her aunt’s conniving. Selfishly, she would have his attentions for her own for a time…allow him to believe he could help her. But then, then he must be put away from the evil that now permeated her own life. He appeared as if he might argue the point with her for a moment, but the pleading in her eyes must have influenced him.
“Very well, miss. If I fail to help the earth open up and swallow your aunt, or otherwise to liberate you from her clutches…I will take me leave of this place, as you wish,” he said.
Fontaine sighed, relieved. In his promise to her, she knew Knight would be safe. Eventually.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Still,” Fontaine began, encouraged by the mischievous twinkle in Marta’s eyes as she told her friend of her agreement with Knight. “I find…I find I am greatly unsettled about the entire affair.”
“Affair?” Marta giggled.
Fontaine smiled and shook her head. “You know what I mean, Marta,” she said. “How does one proceed?”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt in me that Knight will ensure ya know exactly how to proceed, me lass,” Marta said, a delighted smile emblazon across her face.
“It’s all in pretending, Marta,” Fontaine reminded her. Yet she was quite unsettled with the excitement, which rose in her bosom each time she thought of perhaps receiving Knight’s attention. “You’ve no reason to seem so amused.” Fontaine considered for a moment. “Still, he seems so deeply earnest in his desire to help me. To be prepared, willing to go to such lengths on my behalf. It is very sweet of him.”
Fairly slamming the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir her pudding down onto the stove, Marta said, “Sweet of him, is it? It’s nothin’ less than heroic!” Her eyes narrowed in an expression of concern. “Ya do realize the consequences far him were he to be found out, do ya not, lass?” In truth, Fontaine had tried to put the possibility of her aunt learning of Knight’s disloyalty out of her mind. “She’d have him whipped, in the very least of it! Beaten and thrown out! And he’d find himself in worse condition than he was when ya let him in this very servants’ door, he would.”
“He cannot be found out, Marta,” Fontaine told her. “No matter the consequence to me.”
“There can be no consequence to either of ya,” Marta said. “We must be certain of that, we must.”
Fontaine tried to swallow the worry, the anxiety rising in her throat. She had agreed to play a part with Knight, but she wondered if she should’ve simply denied him and taken whatever bitter pill her aunt had in store for her. Since her conversation with Knight the evening before, she’d questioned whether the entire episode should have been avoided at any cost to her own well-being.
“Yet the fact remains, Marta,” she began again, “What am I to do? How can I possibly convince Aunt Wetherton I am in earnest in my affection for him?”
Again Marta smiled. “With all the wisdom ya have far one so young…it amazes me ye
t the innocence ya have, as well, it does.”
Fontaine was rather defensive about the remark. “I am not wholly naive, Marta,” she reminded the woman. How could Marta imply such a thing? After all she’d seen Fontaine endure? Fontaine well knew the kind of woman her aunt was. Still, although she said nothing to Marta, she failed to see what her aunt would expect from her niece under such circumstance as having a secret lover. Her aunt knew Fontaine was morally upstanding, even if Milady Wetherton herself was not. Surely her aunt did not expect a secret lover to corrupt her in any way.
“Oh, but innocent ya are, lassy,” Marta began. “If ya weren’t such a sweet soul, ya’d know well enough a man such as Knight….well, he’ll be havin’ no trouble makin’ clear and certain to yar aunt that the two of ya are…involved.”
Fontaine frowned, still perplexed. What would be expected in convincing her aunt? Should she smile at Knight often in her aunt’s presence? Perhaps force an occasional blush when he was in the room with her?
Fontaine sighed and shook her head. “Well, she knows how firmly I feel in matters of morality. Certainly she does not intend that I should be corrupted in any manner.”
Marta laughed then said, “Of course she intends, lass!” Taking a seat next to Fontaine at the table she explained, “She certainly intends it. It’s in her very nature it is…to make yar life as miserable as she can. Oh, she’s playin’ the sympathetic angel, she is…tellin’ Knight she’s wantin’ ya to have a lovely, tender romance before marriage. We all know her far better than that, we do! What she wants is to see yar heart broken, fill ya with regret and longin’. And that, me darlin’, that alone is corruption…of the soul, it is.”
Marta was right. Carileena Wetherton was a wicked woman, and she knew Fontaine was not. Fontaine knew her aunt did not give up on procuring Knight herself simply out of kind-heartedness and concern for her niece. No, her plans were as selfish and villainous as ever they had been.
The Rogue Knight Page 5
