The Wicked Lady (Blackhaven Brides Book 2) Read online

  “I don’t believe you have,” he murmured. “Yet.”

  Yet. She laughed, a short, brittle sound she didn’t much care for, though it was the best she could do.

  “Vernon is here,” she said abruptly. “He turned up without a word, let alone invitation. He says he wants to marry me.”

  “It would be the best way to silence the scandal,” he allowed.

  “To be admitted back into the fashionable world of hedonism and polite deceit? Where no one is ever truly your friend? Why does that not sound as tempting as it used to?”

  “Because you’re bored with it?” he suggested.

  She glanced at him at last. “As you were?”

  “I was only ever pretending.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” she said with difficulty. “I hurt myself more than I hurt you.”

  “I know. And if we’d married, I’d never have met Gillie.”

  “Yes, you would. You’d just have loved her from afar. One way or another, we’d have made each other miserable in the end.”

  “We would.” He turned the corner in silence. “But I don’t believe you’d make Tris miserable. If you loved him.”

  The tears surged back into her throat, but she spoke through the ache. “I am not capable of love.”

  Wickenden only smiled. She could hear it in his voice. “You mean you haven’t encountered many people worthy of it. It’s not the same thing.”

  Chapter Ten

  Kate rose somewhat later than normal the following day. Having instructed Little to arrange a late breakfast for her return, she paused by the door.

  “How was your evening?” she asked.

  The question was unusual enough to drop Little’s jaw, though she recovered quickly. “Very pleasant, my lady. Drake is a good man and makes me laugh. Though he’s younger than me.”

  “Does that matter?” Kate asked lightly. “Especially if he makes you laugh.”

  “Lord Vernon don’t make you laugh anymore,” Little blurted.

  Kate wasn’t sure he ever had. She couldn’t remember any more why she’d picked him above the others clamoring for her attention. Perhaps she’d seen something of his brother in him.

  “He came again last night,” Little added. “I told him you were out and sent him away.”

  “He talked one of the staff into letting him back in when we were both out,” Kate said grimly. “But I don’t believe he’ll repeat the offence. You might make it known that I’ll see to the dismissal of anyone who misuses a key to these rooms again.”

  “I know just who to speak to,” Little said with relish.

  Kate left her to it, and set off for her planned morning ride.

  As soon as she stepped out of the hotel, she saw one of the men who’d attacked her. He lurked in the doorway across the road, watching her between the people and carts and horses who passed along the road. A quick glance showed another burly man emerging from the coffee house. She’d seen him before, imagined he was following her, though he didn’t look like one of the original four attackers.

  She was glad she’d instructed Peter to bring Snow to the hotel. The groom rode Gladiator. Between him and her pistol, she imagined she was safe. In any case, it wasn’t in her nature to give in. Peter boosted her into the saddle and she gathered in the reins, turning the horse, and setting off up the street so that she walked right by her attacker. She made sure she caught his eye, which fell almost immediately, although he didn’t move away. With luck, it would frighten him off, knowing she could report him to the authorities. Perhaps she should, and to the devil with everyone gossiping here, too.

  Although she kept her eyes peeled, and might have seen one of the other attackers in a side street, she refused to look behind her.

  “Peter, is anyone following us?” she asked the groom instead.

  “Couple of leery looking coves. But we’ll lose ’em soon enough. They’re only on foot.”

  Breaking into open country and giving the horses their heads felt like a massive relief. She rode up beyond Braithwaite Castle to admire the fine view over the rolling hills and the sea. She wondered if Lady Braithwaite would have received her now, were she in residence. Probably not, since she’d crossed the invisible line from discrete misbehavior to getting caught.

  Refusing to feel sorry for herself, Kate thought she might like to paint the scene before her. She’d bring her easel up here one day.

  She rode on just a little farther, before turning Snow’s head back toward Blackhaven. She was just wondering whether she could return along the beach from the castle, when a familiar figure rode into view.

  Lord Vernon, who’d clearly spotted her from the road, cantered to intercept her.

  “Well met, Kate!” he called cheerfully.

  Kate nodded distantly.

  “Is this Braithwaite’s pile, then?”

  Again, she nodded. Vernon turned his horse beside her and spoke over his shoulder to Peter. “Off you go.”

  “Peter is staying,” Kate snapped irritably. “And you will oblige me by not giving orders to my servants.”

  “Have it your way,” Vernon said, clearly miffed. “I just thought you might prefer to have our discussion in private.”

  “I don’t prefer to discuss anything with you. I prefer, in fact, to ride alone. Good morning.”

  He reached out, hastily catching Snow’s bridle when she would have urged the horse into a gallop. “Kate. We need to talk about babies.”

  Kate, who’d raised her whip in fury and was about to whack it down on his arm, paused in something like shock.

  She lowered her arm. “Get off, Vernon. You’re upsetting Snow. I find that a very odd topic for you. Or me. I know nothing of infants.”

  “And what if you’re having one? What if you are enceinte?”

  She stared at him. “Then a few months after the birth I will be in a better position to discuss babies.”

  “You’re being obtuse.”

  “One of us is. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “If you’re carrying a child, you must marry me.”

  “Must I?” she said dangerously.

  “Of course, you must. No one will believe it’s Crowmore’s, so it will need the protection of my name. Besides, a child needs a father.”

  Kate sighed. “And you stand rather in need of my money. Controlling the Crowmore fortune would no doubt be a useful bonus, though it’s not as much as you might think.”

  Vernon flushed, and she laughed, knowing she’d hit the nail on the head.

  “I won’t deny I’m in a pickle,” he managed with some dignity. “But that has no bearing on my offer. My father will bail me out eventually—when he dies if not before. You know I adore you, Kate. We belonged to each other long before your husband died.”

  “No, we didn’t, Vernon,” she said tiredly. “We used each other, for amusement and fashion, and now it’s over. You must marry one day for your family, and I will never remarry. Let us part as friends, or have nothing more to do with each other.”

  “Kate, please,” he said urgently. “Let me give you this protection.”

  His expression was a trifle desperate as he grasped her seriousness, but more than that, there was a hint of genuine anxiety in his gaze. He was Grant’s brother, a pale echo; but surely there was something of him there—whatever it was that had attracted her to him in the first place.

  “Protection?” she repeated. Where was everyone when she truly needed protection from her husband?

  Vernon swiped off his hat and dragged his hand through his hair. “I don’t trust Dickie Crowmore.” He clapped the hat back on his head. “He’s a nasty piece of work. And he truly needs the money. Frankly, he makes me look like a miser—or at least like a responsible gentleman. Dickie needs the Crowmore fortune and he really ain’t going to be pleased if you produce an heir. Marry me and he can always insist the child is mine. After all, old Crowmore gave you no children in eight years of marriage.”

  Kate sen
sed her father’s influence here, for Vernon knew only too well that she wouldn’t be producing his child. The world knew she rarely entered the same house as her husband, and yet she’d done so a week before he died. To see if he really was ill. Gossip had spoken of a reconciliation, though in fact, she’d barely stayed half an hour and most of that had been seeing to the servants.

  She regarded Vernon dispassionately. “It’s all muddled up in you, isn’t it? Self-interest and doing the right thing. You’re not really a bad man. But I don’t love you. And I won’t marry you for any reason.”

  She urged Snow to a gallop, leaving Vernon to follow or not as he pleased.

  *

  Later in the day, after stopping at the pump room to take the waters and listen to the town gossip, Kate allowed herself to call in Cliff Crescent.

  The door was opened by a large, ferocious looking individual who, on hearing her name, grunted and said, “They’re in the cellar, m’lady. This way.”

  A quick glance showed Kate that no other more respectable servants lurked in the hallway. Nor did any of the family, although she could hear the baby crying somewhere in the bowels of the house. In any other establishment, being invited into the cellar by such a man would have sent her backing out of the front door again, especially given her circumstances. And yet here, in Gillie’s house, she blithely followed the villainous old soldier down the stairs and preceded him through the door he unlocked for her.

  At once voices and laughter greeted her. She made her way through the barrels of no doubt smuggled wine and brandy toward the “bedchamber”, listening to the voices of Gillie, Grant, and Cornelius. It all seemed to be lighthearted and amusing and yet Kate felt a tightening in her chest that amounted to pain. Or fear. That Gillie would win Grant, too.

  She brushed the stupid thought away. In her heart, she welcomed the happiness Wickenden had found with Gillie. As for Grant, she had no reason and less business to be jealous. Whatever his past, he would not now indulge in affaires. It would be marriage or nothing. And Kate would never marry. They had no future together.

  Still, knowing all that, her heart beat like a rabbit’s as she advanced and turned the corner.

  Cornelius was sitting up in his makeshift bed, looking little the worse for wear. Grant, fully dressed, sat on his own bed, smiling at Gillie’s last words. His gaze lifted and found her, and his smile broadened, dazzling her as he rose and bowed.

  “Lady Crowmore.”

  What was the matter with her, that one smile could reduce her to this? A mere jelly of longing and gladness. Fortunately, Gillie and Cornelius’s greetings distracted her and she sat beside Gillie on Grant’s bed, while Grant sprawled across Cornelius’s.

  “The town is outraged on your behalf,” Kate told Grant, stripping off her gloves. “At least, most of it is. There are a few doubters who insist the soldiers must have got their information from somewhere and that there is no smoke without fire. But the majority believe you innocent and want the soldiers who tried to arrest you court martialed and shot. Rumor says Major Doverton is furious with the officer who arrested you in Captain Muir’s home, but that may not be true.”

  “Sounds like you’ve made an impression on the good people of Blackhaven,” Cornelius said, apparently amused. “How gullible!”

  “Well, they still want you captured, drowned, or shot,” Kate reported. “I’m not sure whether that makes them gullible or not.”

  “Neither am I,” Cornelius confessed.

  “Would you like some tea?” Gillie asked civilly.

  “Oh, no thank you—I feel I’m already drowning in Blackhaven water! I just dropped in to exchange news. I see that our patient is doing better.”

  “He is, I think,” Gillie agreed. “But Mr. Grant is restless. I’ve suggested a walk on the beach, if he’s careful.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” Kate agreed.

  “Perhaps you have time, now?” Grant said to her at once.

  “Perhaps I do.” She hid the quickening of her heart in a drawl. “Gillie?”

  “Oh no,” Gillie said at once. “I have promised Aunt Margaret to visit friends with her today.”

  Grant lit the lantern from the lamp via a taper, and Kate walked beside him into the tunnel. She felt self-conscious, even though Gillie had shut the heavy door behind them.

  “Is everything well with you?” he asked almost at once.

  “I have not been attacked, if that’s what you mean,” she assured him. “Although there seem to be men all over the town following me, which is a trifle disconcerting.”

  “Ah.” For once, his expression betrayed discomfort. “I’m afraid some of that is my fault. After the attack, I asked a few friends to look out for you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “From the coffee shop? Large, soldierly types?”

  “For the most part.”

  She didn’t know if she was more touched or annoyed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. But I couldn’t let you be hurt, either.”

  She scowled. “Everyone in the world isn’t your responsibility, you know.”

  In the lantern’s pale light, his eyes seemed to glow, warm and exciting, scattering her spurt of anger. Then his eyelids fell, like curtains. “Perhaps it comes with the vocation.”

  It deprived her of breath, like a sword through the heart.

  “Just another lame duck,” she mocked, when she could speak. “How lowering to be just like everyone else in the end. Do you kiss me just to make me feel better?”

  A sound like a groan spilled from him. He swung on her, pinning her to the cold, damp wall of the tunnel. “I kiss you to make you love me,” he ground out. “But I can’t, can I?”

  His head swooped, blocking out the swinging lantern light as he crushed her lips beneath his. Her mouth opened wide under the force of it. His body flattened her to the wall and lust surged so quickly she moaned into his mouth. Pinioned by his hips and the fast-growing hardness between, she knew an instant of triumph and joy. And then it was over.

  He stepped back so quickly she nearly sagged to the tunnel floor. Her knees trembled.

  “Forgive me,” he said raggedly. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Do you take me for a piece of porcelain?” she managed. “Or a sheltered girl just out of the schoolroom?”

  “Don’t,” he begged. She thought his eyes were closed as he swung away from her. “Don’t make me like everyone else.”

  She laughed, because it was just what she’d said moments before. She walked away from him down the passage, making sure her hips swayed, just in case he could still see her in the lantern light.

  *

  Grant wasn’t quite sure what had just happened. He knew he’d angered her by arranging her protection without her knowledge or permission, and he knew he’d hurt her somehow though he couldn’t quite remember what he’d said. Her idea that he kissed her from some selfless motivation had angered him, that he’d lost control of the situation and of himself. Utterly churned up and ashamed, he was terrified of losing more ground than he’d ever gained with her.

  As her back vanished into the darkness, panic swamped him, that whatever between them was over, that he’d killed it.

  The trouble was, she dazzled him. He didn’t really know her or properly understand her. Or she, him. He was different enough from her fashionable town flirts to intrigue her a little, but he had to face the fact that here at last was a situation, a person, that he couldn’t win by his usual combination of skill, perception, and perseverance.

  Love was new to him and seemed to have addled his wits. His few fleeting forays into something higher than simple lust had not prepared him for this overwhelming emotion, or the mindboggling stupidity that seemed to go with it. But the truth was, he would die to save her one moment of pain.

  And he knew pain was all his brother Vernon would bring her.

  None of that meant she would love him, Tristram Grant, curate and cox
comb of Blackhaven. Probably ex-curate by now.

  From instinct, he started down the passage after her. He would not sulk like a child, or stop looking after her. He needed to learn the humility he preached, and he acknowledged ruefully that she was just the woman to teach him.

  By the time he reached the filtered sunshine of the cave, she was gone. Carefully, he peered out at the beach, which appeared to be empty until he emerged, and saw her walking along the edge of the waves, her shoes and stockings in her hands. She strode out with enthusiasm, perhaps assuaging her anger at him, perhaps just enjoying the sand between her toes.

  He’d never felt so helpless in his life. And yet his heart warmed and ached, just at the sight of her.

  He moved toward her, his heart full of things he wanted, needed to tell her. And then a burst of laughter interrupted his delusion, causing him to spin around. A couple of lads were running down the cliff path toward the beach. And he couldn’t be seen. He couldn’t rely on anyone else’s good will to hide himself and Cornelius. It was intolerable. He couldn’t run across the beach to her, let alone escort her home, protect her.

  He backed away to the rocks, melted into the cave and began to think seriously about the best way forward for everyone.

  *

  Kate, having come to the conclusion that she had given the charming curate far too great a role in her life, decided to bend her mind to other matters. Particularly after he emerged from the cave and didn’t come to her. Admittedly, she’d stalked away back toward the town, but he didn’t follow or make any effort to stop her. Damn him. She was behaving like a petulant debutante with her first crush.

  As she reached the road, the sight of a familiar, if panting, figure—one of the men who’d attacked her—brought her up short. She still had the pistol in her reticule, which she opened to be ready. But the man’s eyes darted in fury, and sure enough there was another watcher, one of Grant’s burly soldiers this time.

  She hurried on into the busier part of town and back to the hotel. Here, she sent notes to the Smallwoods and to Gillie, inviting them to tea that afternoon. Then she spent a comfortable hour or two planning her dress for Mrs. Winslow’s ball. Admittedly, her mind tended to dwell on the dazzling affect her appearance would have upon the curate, and how she would toe him aside when he prostrated himself at her feet. But at least that made her feel better.