by Karen Ranney
Karen Ranney
My Wicked Fantasy
To twenty years of memories
and survival
Contents
Chapter 1
“Ye’ve a gift for dreamin’, lass. Don’t ever lose it.
Chapter 2
“Is she waking, then?” Archer asked.
Chapter 3
It was the same face Mary Kate had seen reflected…
Chapter 4
“She arose too soon, of course. Such a thing would…
Chapter 5
Mary Kate sat at the window of her borrowed chamber,…
Chapter 6
James Edward Moresham, heir to his father’s well-managed horse farm,…
Chapter 7
It took Mary Kate nearly a week to reach the…
Chapter 8
“You maintain a muteness which might be endearing, save for…
Chapter 9
She didn’t look insane, but then Archer wasn’t sure he…
Chapter 10
It was a quiet meal, but then, breakfast always was.
Chapter 11
Bernadette Aphra St. John, known to her intimate friends and…
Chapter 12
He didn’t knock, didn’t allow her to bid him enter…
Chapter 13
“Give him an extra measure of mash, Raymond.” Archer turned…
Chapter 14
Help him.…
Chapter 15
“Are you all right, boy?”
Chapter 16
She was to be given the freedom of Sanderhurst.
Chapter 17
Bernie solved the problem of transportation by buying a new…
Chapter 18
“Will you kiss me?”
Chapter 19
There was nothing to this business of being a footman,…
Chapter 20
The stench of fish, the pungent odor of the water…
Chapter 21
Archer opened the stronghold door, withdrew a velvet bag. He…
Chapter 22
He watched her, his face unreadable, the black eyes blazing,…
Chapter 23
He had felt his soul splinter.
Chapter 24
“I am the Dowager Countess of Sanderhurst,” Bernie explained, as…
Chapter 25
“No, no, the elephant’s tusk goes on that stand. See,…
Chapter 26
“At the risk of offending your vanity, you look as…
Chapter 27
Bernie insisted that Mary Kate join her and Archer for…
Chapter 28
“It’s a breech-loading musket, Mary Kate, not a snake.” Bernie…
Chapter 29
“Oh, thou Phytic oracle, that which sees all, which knows…
Chapter 30
His smile was a daunting thing to ignore. After a…
Chapter 31
Sometimes, at night, James could almost hear her call him.
Chapter 32
Mary Kate sat upon the second bench of the Sanderhurst…
Chapter 33
Archer stood at the window, watching the slash of lightning…
Chapter 34
When Mary Kate awoke, it was the deepest part of…
Chapter 35
It was neither his conscience nor his doubts that made…
Chapter 36
“So you’re off then, lad?” Samuel Moresham asked of the…
Chapter 37
His stepmother was a dainty thing, with blond hair that…
Chapter 38
Cecily had such dainty hands. Odd, that he’d never noticed…
Chapter 39
“Wasn’t it fortuitous that elderly Mrs. Gransted left me her…
Chapter 40
“It was quite a magnanimous thing for you to do,…
Chapter 41
It was dawn when Mary Kate woke, a scant three…
Chapter 42
Mary Kate unlaced the black velvet vest and shrugged it…
Epilogue
A melody cushioned her as she slept, a soft trickle…
About the Author
Other Books by Karen Ranney
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
“Ye’ve a gift for dreamin’, lass. Don’t ever lose it. The world can be a right cruel place if ye’ve not the knack to ignore it from time to time.”
Her father’s words echoed in Mary Kate’s mind like the sound of a long-ago bell. What would Patrick O’Brien say about her actions? Would he understand that this journey was the culmination of a dream she’d had for so many years? Or would he simply counsel her that she was being foolish, that nothing would come of stirring up trouble?
Mary Kate would never hear his opinion. Da resided with the angels, and had for too many long years.
She knew what she was doing was probably unwise. She might not find what she wanted at the journey’s end. But on the chance that she would, she’d sold every belonging she’d managed to acquire over the last four years, walked away from the small house on Bell Street, and was heading north, away from London. Memories of ten years ago provided her clues—the name of her mother’s father, a tiny village called Denmouth, a dream of whispers and plans.
She’d made better time than she’d expected, being able to secure a ride here and there, when she’d planned on having to travel most of the distance on foot. This morning she’d taken advantage of a farmer’s kindness and now sat perched in the back of his empty wagon.
“Took my produce to London town,” he’d said, bragging of the amount he’d made from the lot of it. She had smiled and congratulated him, climbing up into the back of the wagon with what grace she was still able to muster after five days on the road.
It had not been a hard journey, even though it was early November. The mornings were brisk, but the afternoons warmed so that the walk was pleasant enough. Strange, though, how the quiet had been so loud. Oh, there were the sounds of the forest, the infrequent vehicle making its way toward London. Occasionally Mary Kate would pass a farm or skirt a village. But it was the absence of conversation that had been a strange and novel experience. She had always been surrounded by people.
The wagon bed was commodious, wide enough that Mary Kate could sit and stretch her legs out before her, fold her cloak over her exposed ankles. In the corner was a crate, wrapped twice around with a length of cord, bearing the mark of the Etruria pottery works. She guessed the box was filled with cups and saucers, small plates, perhaps a gift for the farmer’s wife. Her own precious hoard of creamware, lovingly collected and regretfully sold to pay for this trip, had borne the same symbol.
There had been no money left for clothing, but had there been, she would have purchased a length of linsey-woolsey and made herself a decent dress and cloak to travel in, clothing not so fine and dust-gathering, both traits apt to stir a question or two. For the most part, however, people simply looked at her with curiosity and rarely spoke what was on their minds. And she probably would not have known what to tell them.
There was nothing about traveling to the City that endeared itself to Archer St. John. There would be no welcome in London. Only idle gossip and whispered conjecture, the enforced alienation from those individuals Archer had disliked long before they’d decided he was not fit for their company. A curious dichotomy, that. To be refused admittance from the very place he’d always shunned.
But word had come of the arrival of a St. John ship, the Hebrides, and there was still the possibility of news about Alice. A hint of that would coax even St. John the Hermit from his lair.
A corner of one lip curved upward as he reflected upon h
is nickname. His dislike of his innumerable relatives had spawned the name at school. His boredom at those events so cherished by the ton resurrected the name. Events of the last year had made it stick. St. John the Hermit. Not so much a man withdrawing from the world as one who created his own, more preferable, existence around him.
He read prodigiously, an occupation that was not generally shared by his peers. While he rode because it was the most expeditious manner of traversing his estate, he wasn’t horse-mad, a possession of temperament he found exceedingly silly in men of his age and station. He spent his time in pursuits that would not interest any of the people who spent their days lolling about in the salons of the day. Still, it was odd to be so aptly named by those who had no deeper interest in him than the cut of his coat.
One tanned hand reached out and gripped the leather handle above the door as the carriage careened around the corner. Another small smile, in deference to his coachman’s absolute interpretation of his employer’s every wish. Archer had indicated the Hebrides would be coming in from the Spice Islands and he wanted to be present at the interview with its captain; therefore, Jeremy would see that such a feat was accomplished.
With any luck, the captain would bring word of Alice.
Mary Kate peeked her head up above the high walls of the wagon. The sound of hooves approaching was growing louder, a warning of noise. The road was narrow, little more than an overgrown lane, barely able to accommodate two vehicles at once, and the turn that loomed a short distance ahead was surely one that urged caution.
Mary Kate had, after several abortive attempts at conversation, realized the farmer was nearly deaf. Surely that was the reason, and not sheer foolhardiness, for his stubborn refusal to pull off on the side of the road and wait for the other vehicle to pass. The steady drone of hoofbeats seemed oddly portentous, a rhythmic melody, a low and tuneless echo that announced the sight of flashing bridles and deep-breasted horses.
A coach and four bore down on top of them, headed in the opposite direction toward London, the ebony blackness of both conveyance and horses indicating, perhaps, that this was not an ordinary brougham, nor were these everyday hacks.
Still, the farmer did not urge his stolid dray horses to a halt, nor did he seem overly concerned about the sharp turn in the road just ahead. Was it that he had not seen the carriage, or somehow misjudged its size?
Wasn’t it odd how time seemed to slow until it played itself out a trickle, a drop, at a time? Mary Kate saw the coachman stand, burly arms straining in an effort to slow his horses around the curve of road, his foot planted hard against a brake that squealed in protest. A second later, the lead team of horses was upon the farmer’s wagon, the narrow road and treacherous curve leaving no place for the horses to go. The frightened screams of the Thoroughbreds, the answering animal terror from the farmer’s draft horses, all merged into a high-pitched keening sound. The wagon rocked from the impact, then seemed to slowly turn over.
Mary Kate felt the hot breath exhaled from flaring nostrils, saw the great straining breasts, could almost feel the harness gouging into the horses’ sweat-sheened skin. The air was filled with muscled legs and sharp, iron-shod hooves, the smell of leather, splintering wood, shouts and screams, and a curious feeling of pain that was hers and yet didn’t belong to her at all.
And then there was nothing.
Chapter 2
“Is she waking, then?” Archer asked.
“It is to be hoped for, Lord St. John. The poor woman has been devoid of sensibility for some time.”
“Should she be tossing about so much, though?”
“Merely the body’s way of lessening the effects of ill humors.”
Archer St. John looked askance at the physician, certain that it was not so much the body’s ill humors as it was pain that caused the patient on the bed to softly moan.
He possessed little patience with this physician, and even less faith. For three days the man had spoken of pestilence and plague, boils and worm-rot, had bled the poor woman until Archer was certain there was not a spare drop of blood to be had from the unfortunate creature. And the only bit of information he’d had to offer was something Archer could have discerned quite ably on his own.
She was lucky to be alive.
He had taken responsibility for the caring of her, feeling that odd and uncomfortable pinch of conscience that forced him to admit he was partly to blame for the mishap. He was, after all, the one who’d insisted upon speed.
As it was, he’d been too late to meet the docking of the Hebrides, so he concerned himself instead with the placement of the unconscious woman in this small country inn, summoning a physician to care for her. The farmer had been uninjured, had been mollified by a payment that had more than covered the damage to his wagon and its contents. More than that, Archer could not do.
Even so, the fact that she had not woken in three days was disturbing. So much so that he’d banned the physician from using any more of his leeches upon her, thinking she needed her blood now more than they.
One of the inn’s maids scurried before him to open the door. She was staying with the unfortunate woman as handmaiden, to brush out her hair, bathe her brow, see to her intimate needs, perhaps say a prayer to summon her to full wakefulness. He silently wished her success in her petition to God.
Archer turned at the door, sent his scowl in the direction of the fawning physician, dampened the look somewhat for the occupant of the bed.
His victim had the brightness of a Eustache Le Sueur painting, hair a shade that mimicked dawn’s orange glow, lips too full for proper English standards, a retroussé nose. During the initial examination, the physician had lifted her lids to disclose eyes the color of a verdant forest. She was flamboyantly lovely, instilling in Archer’s mind thoughts of emerald green meadows or platters of ripe fruit, neither description apt for this setting or this moment.
Her head twisted upon the pillow, tangled in the webs of her dreams. Archer wondered what nightmare held her within its spell, what incantations her unconscious state brought to the mind’s eye.
Her hands were white, with softly rounded nails. On her left hand was a simple unadorned gold band. His luck was holding, then. How much better served he would have been to have struck down a filthy old crone, a gin-ridden beggar. No, his victim was a gentlewoman with voluptuous curves and skin like ivory silk, whose husband was no doubt searching for her now. The irony of the situation did not escape him.
Lost wives.
Did Alice remain senseless just as this woman did, waiting for rescue, for claiming? Or was she sleeping peacefully in a lover’s arms, replete, satiated, untroubled by guilt or conscience? Or had she simply hidden herself away, waiting for his sorrow, his penitence?
Where was his wife?
Every day, just as regimented as the sun setting, just as resistant to change, just as stubborn and willful, that question surfaced. No, truth now, Archer. It lay beneath each hour of his existence, awaiting the summons to full, conscious thought.
No.
He wasn’t in the mood for truth, he decided. It exacted too dear a penalty.
“She’s powerful bruised, sir. She’s all blue and green with it.” The young maid offered up that information as if he’d needed any further reminding of how close the young woman had come to being trampled to death. “She’s a dangerous-looking mark on her lower limb and a bunch of scratches on her chest.” That confession yielded a blush and a curtsy. “She’s lucky for all that, sir. My sister Sally had a powerful close brush with death once. Mr. Hoggin’s horse, a mean brute, kicked her, sir, and she was senseless for nearly four days. And all that time, not a word, not a sound…”
The sound of female laughter sparkled through the crowd in front of the small stone church. The bride was dressed in jonquil yellow, her blond hair so light it seemed to summon the brightness from the air around her, her beauty enhanced by the simplicity of her dress. Beside her, a man stood, his height topping hers by nearly a foot
. She seemed too dainty beside his masculine grace, too delicate next to his form. Where she was blond, he was dark, his features carefully crafted from bone, flesh, muscle. He stood with an attitude of easy grace, a daring look in his eyes that cautioned against trespass, hinted at a dangerous emotion he was careful not to betray.
The bride was surrounded by chattering women, the groom stood silent. While the bride smiled, her newly made husband remained somber. And yet there was emotion between them; what she radiated, he seemed to inhale, leaving the day itself untouched. And leaving them curiously separate and distinct. A couple, but not a pair.
A flash, a moment of time. Gone.
Chapter 3
It was the same face Mary Kate had seen reflected all her life. Green eyes muted with flecks of brown—forest eyes, her brothers had long ago teased, saying that if she were ever lost in the woods, they’d never be able to find her. Orange hair—there was no other shade to describe it—too brazen, too attracting of the kind of attention she’d never sought. Lips too broad as if on the verge of an eternal smile. Freckles across the bridge of a nose she’d always thought too small. A chin too stubborn for her station in life.
Mary Kate didn’t know what discoveries she was hoping to find with such an intent perusal. Some sign that she’d truly been insensible for three whole days?
She was lucky to be alive, if she heeded the breathless words of the young maid. Any aches and pains seemed a small price to pay. This homily had been echoed by the physician who companioned her bedside, hovering like a wraith until she’d been able to focus on his wrinkled, wizened face. Every day Dr. Endicott’s presence had been accompanied by his noxious tonic, prepared, he’d bragged, with cod-liver oil, honey, Dover’s powder, and a touch of fiery ginger. Mary Kate shuddered, thinking of it.
