My Wicked Fantasy

by Karen Ranney

  “They’re fools.”

  “They say he’s besotted with an Irish wench, who cozens him out of temper with just a smile.” A breath against her cheek. A soft kiss against her temple.

  “Can she?”

  “Most definitely.”

  She grabbed his arm with both hands. “Forgive me, Archer, for causing you pain.”

  He did not speak, did not discount her statement. It was a sign then, just how much she’d hurt him. He said nothing as she leaned into him, turned her head so that her cheek pressed against his chest.

  His chin brushed against the top of her head. “You realize, of course, that we are at an impasse, you and I. We have learned to wound each other too well, and cannot go forward. Nor can we go back.”

  She nodded.

  “You have your quest, and I have mine.” His embrace seemed to grow tighter, as if to refute the speaking of the words that would separate them.

  “Alice was with child.” Ever since this afternoon, she’d wanted to speak the words.

  “Yes,” he acknowledged softly.

  “You hadn’t told me that.”

  “No.” His breath seemed halted, as if he held it in reserve for her next question.

  “Nor was her child yours.”

  “The gossips have done their work well,” he said, his tone resigned.

  She didn’t correct him, intent, instead, on another point. A question she should not ask.

  “Did you mind?”

  “Did I mind?”

  He pulled away from her, lay flat upon the bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling.

  “I have never spoken of Alice’s child,” he admitted. “I am only certain of its maternal parentage. Perhaps it was pride that prevented me from denouncing Alice, or perhaps some nobler impulse. It was not the child’s fault, you see.”

  She turned, placed her head on his shoulder, extended an arm over his chest. Wordless comfort, it was all she had to give.

  “She was proud of it, almost dazzling in her love for her child.”

  “And you? What did you feel?”

  “Like when I was six years old and loved a puppy and my father took it from me and had it killed. It was meant to teach me some odd and perverse lesson, of course, but I never learned what.” He reached out his arm and pulled her tightly to him. “To answer your question, Mary Kate, I found I very much minded.”

  A moment passed, a rearranging of limbs, closer. She wanted to touch every part of him, not as much in passion as in connection. A way to fight the darkness and their own personal demons.

  “Was this her chamber?”

  “Have you wondered that all along?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Since the night seems bound for confession, I have.”

  “She used to occupy the room my mother now romps in, although without footman.” He huffed a breath. “Our walls adjoin, and I sometimes wish there was a hallway between us.”

  She giggled, then caught the sound behind a hand.

  “No,” he said, taking her hand down. “I do not fault your amusement. We’ve had little enough of that, you and I. And although I love her dearly, she has become more earthy than I remember.”

  “Perhaps she takes a page from her son’s book.”

  “Her son sits alone in his room and pines for company, for all that he’s been called St. John the Hermit.”

  “I am here, Archer.”

  Instead of responding to that barely veiled invitation, he asked, “What will you do when you find your family, Mary Kate? Will you become an aunt to your brothers’ children, and tell them tales of your travels?”

  “About the gorgon I met, with fierce black eyes, who imprisoned me in his dungeon and made me eat scraped soup bones?”

  She felt the rumble of his laughter against her cheek. It made her smile in response. “I have not thought, honestly, of what I shall do, only that the lure of them is like a signal fire, something I must reach.”

  “And if you do not find them, what then? Will you become a servant again?”

  “It is an honorable occupation, Archer, one with no shame to it.”

  “I did not say it was, my fierce Mary Kate. Only that I find you oddly unsuited for it. You’ve the brazenness to be a duchess, and temperament for it, I think.”

  “Ah, but there are no dukes nearby, who are searching beneath cabbage leaves for me.”

  “If I were not a knight bound upon a quest, I would upend every cabbage in the land, for all that I’m an insignificant earl.”

  “You could not be insignificant no matter your station in life, Archer.”

  “Are you weeping?”

  “No.”

  “Your voice sounds strange.”

  “Nonsense. You are night blinded.”

  “I hear very well, Mary Kate.”

  He bent and bestowed a kiss of such gentleness upon her cheek that she almost confessed the pain of her heart to him. But then, such a statement would have cut through the cloth of darkness that protected them. The night rendered them both inviolate and more vulnerable than daylight. In the darkness, they could share their sorrows, but could not protect against them.

  “And you, Archer, what will happen if you cannot find Alice?” It was the perfect moment to tell him about her visit from James, about what she knew of their love, of their child. But James, by his own admission, would be far from Sanderhurst in but a matter of days. What good would it do to make matters worse? For that reason, and because she could not bear to cause Archer pain, she did not speak.

  “I think,” Archer said, his voice but a whisper near her ear, “I shall continue my quest until I am old and too tired to sit upon my horse or hold my lance. And then, perhaps, I will sit in my tower and remember when a red-haired wench coaxed me from my hermitage for a time.”

  “I hope you are kind in your thoughts of this woman. She did not mean to wound, was only confused and frightened and wishing to help.” Mary Kate held on to the arm braced across her with both hands. She wanted to turn in his arms, bury her face in his shirt, cry until all of the tears that welled up in her heart were spent and all that was left was salted air. But she did not, a gift of restraint she granted him without thought of reward or return.

  “No,” he said gently, “she brought me the greatest of gifts, from Persia and Abyssinia. Oil of laughter and essence of joy. I will treasure them all of my days.”

  “And take them out and look upon them, I hope, sometimes, and think of her fondly.”

  “No,” he said, his voice so swelling sweet that the tears threatened to spill again. “Some gifts are not meant to be taken from their memory box, but should be put away in a tight place where they will not be spoiled by sunlight or touched upon by age.”

  Time ticked by, shining minutes of utter perfection, undisturbed by speech.

  He held her in his arms, and she lay cradled there, distraught and silent. It was odd, but the night was not spent in love making, but in that simple embrace. A respite from a storm, a quiet time in a place accidentally created just for them.

  It was, had anyone thought to ask Mary Kate, a night filled with unbearable pain.

  Chapter 35

  It was neither his conscience nor his doubts that made Archer leave Sanderhurst for a tour of English ports. Instead, what empowered him was an almost desperate wish to end the suspense of his life, to find a fitting close to his marriage. He felt as if he existed in a cocoon he’d fashioned around himself, composed of wishes and pretense and an almost fervent willingness to ignore the irrefutable.

  He could not take one step into the future until he found his wife. If Alice did not wish to come back to Sanderhurst, then he would provide for her wherever she wished. If she had been deserted by her lover, he would set up a residence for herself and the child. In short, he would do anything he could to bring her happiness.

  He wished her joy and contentment in life, as if he himself could only attain happiness once he was assured Alice shared in it first.


  His coach was readied for the journey; he would visit each one of England’s port cities, beginning at Southampton and working himself north. Someone must have seen Alice, and he would not rest until he’d found that one person who could put an end to this.

  Running, Archer? Perhaps, he acknowledged to himself. Not to the truth, but away from it? Again, perhaps. Mary Kate held too much magnetism for him, too much attraction for the man he knew himself to be. Not the empire builder, not the impatient, hermited titular head of a grasping family, but the young man who’d aged too quickly and the one who ached for the sound of laughter and feel of smiles. She was his lodestone, was Mary Kate Bennett, as finely crafted for him as if she’d studied him and discerned his every wish and waking thought, and then delved beneath the sleeping man and saw the dreams of his soul.

  Enough of a reason to fly.

  And if he found Alice? What then?

  He mounted the carriage steps and settled himself inside, wondering at the loss he felt even now.

  The relationship that had formed between him and Mary Kate was so short in duration, so strong in nature. Last night they’d shared a curious kind of empathy, as if a bridge existed between their thoughts. He’d been almost frightened by his need for her, the necessity of her for him. Their stations in life were so dissimilar, their pasts so different. Yet their futures seemed oddly similar, as if both were doomed to act out a loveless existence for honor’s sake.

  Such a thought was whimsy, unsettling. He was mad with lust. It was the only explanation.

  He was either a widower or Mary Kate was the worst of opportunists. So he was trapped between wishes, then, a man married to a woman who had left him and tied to a woman whose motives remained as shadowy as they’d always been, for all that he forgave her, too.

  This was a ripe version of hell, then. When had he begun to want to believe her? Alice is dead.

  The rumors had accused him of it, but could it be true? Had he been cursing a dead woman all these many months? Miracles were not, after all, too far from man’s collective consciousness, and he supposed there were things to be considered that no man could understand.

  What if there was no more to her story than what she’d told? What if it truly was something as implausible as fate? Circumstance so bizarre, a complex contradiction, a puzzle so convoluted that it could only be the truth?

  Was it not Socrates who said that by observing objects with his eyes, trying to comprehend them with his other senses, he was afraid he might blind his soul altogether? Had Archer blinded his soul to the truth?

  And what the hell was the truth?

  Cecily Moresham locked the door of the curing shed behind her, dropped the key into her pocket. Not one person of her acquaintance could say that she did not run a proper household.

  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” It was her credo, after all. Some would say that she took on duties others could undertake. But she’d been raised right and proper, with the knowledge that as mistress of Moresham Farms, her duties were to oversee all the details.

  Today she’d lit the fire outside the curing shed again, then banked it quickly so that aromatic smoke seeped in through the widely placed floorboards of the small structure. It was important that the fire be refueled once a week with wet tinder and logs, sometimes leaves that had begun to mold, the better to sweeten the taste of the curing pork.

  Everyone agreed that Cecily Moresham offered the best ham at market.

  She patted the key in her pocket, the only one to the curing shed. That, too, was her duty, to preserve her husband’s money against pilferage and theft or wasteful spending.

  Cecily Moresham disliked untidiness in all her dealings. It was, perhaps, one of the reasons she hated the horses her husband bred with such lustiness. Equines were among the most untidy of God’s creatures. She would never again be present while a foal was being born. The sight, albeit unwillingly witnessed, had disturbed her in some elemental way.

  She had never told Mr. Moresham that she had seen him pull the foal from the mare, nor that she had vomited in the stall near the door. Such things were better never said, and rarely remembered.

  The farm dabbled in things of an entirely earthy nature, so disturbing to her that Cecily took to praying aloud on those mornings when the stallions were led to docile-looking mares. Her prayers, however, never quite masked the whinnies and shrieks and screams.

  It was not right.

  What Samuel was doing for James was not right, either.

  And Cecily Moresham held great store in what was right, or should be. Her Calvinist parents had instilled in her a sense of right and wrong that was as immutable as the grave.

  “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”

  She bowed her head as if to hear the words again in her heart. God spoke to her often lately. It was to be expected. He had recognized her greatness, even though she was only a woman.

  “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”

  Cecily clutched both her hands around the knot of her shawl, not bothering to mask or wipe away the tears that trickled down her plump cheeks. Her tears came to her at odd times of late. But that was to be expected, also, since God had raised her up above mere mortals.

  For her sacrifice.

  She clutched her shawl closer to her chest with one hand, examined the curing-shed fire through the outdoor grate. It was important that the fire be maintained throughout the smoking period, burning not too hot, but kept alive throughout the time needed to properly cure the meat.

  It was one of those chores she watched over herself, not quite trusting in the servants to care about the quality of their work.

  God expected perfection from her.

  Chapter 36

  “So you’re off then, lad?” Samuel Moresham asked of the man who would always remain his son.

  “Tomorrow, sir.”

  “I’ve word, then, that the horses fared well on the trip, James. They’ll be rested for the race, then. And the grooms left this morning, as arranged?”

  “Yes, sir. They should be at Surrey long before you arrive.”

  “Mrs. Moresham will not attend the races after all, James.” He flicked his gloves against his thigh. He had decided not to ride to Surrey, but remain coach-bound. The better to be rested for all the races. Two of his Moresham Farms favorites were featured this week.

  “My stepmother has never cared for them, has she?”

  “There’s a great deal she does not care for, James. I think it a matter of personal preference and not the right and wrong of it.” Should he have been that forceful? The look of surprise, and then the quickly masked smite on the younger man’s face, told Samuel that such bluntness was perhaps overdue.

  “You’ll send word of your safe arrival, James?”

  He was being as anxious as a mother sending her child off to school. It was a damn sight more misery than he’d wanted to feel.

  James would do well. The lad had talent and determination, two things necessary to get on about the world. More than that, perhaps being in Vienna would give him a more hopeful outlook on life. A reason to keep a smile about his face and a tune in his heart.

  Even though Samuel Moresham did not believe James would ever recover from Alice’s defection. He should know; he’d never quite stopped missing his first wife, James’s mother.

  “I’ll send word, sir.” There was a quick smile, a hand outstretched.

  Samuel took it in his own. If his palm was a bit sweaty or if he held James’s hand for too long, neither spoke of it.

  “And you’ll let me know if you need any funds
? I’ve put the letter of credit on the hall table. Just take it to the bank in Austria, and they’ll draft a marque in your name.”

  “I appreciate your generosity, sir. More than that. I owe you so much.”

  “Nothing but money, lad. It doesn’t do anything but make things easier. It doesn’t solve the real issues of life. If money can fix it, James, it’s not a problem. You remember that, lad. And remember, too, that I know I should have made it easier on you.”

  Another look, another thousand things said.

  Samuel mounted the steps and then tapped on the roof. “Grand good luck to you, James,” he said, as the carriage drew away.

  “And you, sir.”

  “I’ll send word to you if I hear anything of Alice.” It seemed that the wind carried the words away, along with James’s response.

  “Please, sir, if you would.”

  A tiny pinprick of hope, then, to be offered as a farewell.

  “You and I have not had this time in a while, Archer. I thought you holed up in Sanderhurst for the season.” Robert Dunley smiled and passed the decanter of brandy over to his friend.

  The soft sway of the stateroom was nothing compared with the pitch and toss of a rolling sea, but Archer was in need of the brandy. It would have been more politic, perhaps, to remember that they were employer and employee, but Robert merely braced his feet apart and grinned at his friend, leaving Archer with no doubt that he was remembering his first visit to the Spice Islands. He had been deplorably seasick.

  Rank, wealth, position, had a way of being equalized on the South China Sea. Robert had not deemed that bit of information public knowledge, for which Archer would forever bless him. After all, the St. John empire was based on the sea trade. How idiotic that a St. John grew seasick the moment a ship left port.

  The bond had grown from that voyage on, so much so that Robert sent his correspondence not to the St. John clerks, but to Archer himself. Perhaps that was why their friendship had flourished, through the writings of a solitary sea captain and a man equally adrift upon his own ocean.