Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (15 page)

Now she had used him. Against his morals and her own. For a few minutes of decidedly unsubdued pleasure, and she had been an eager participant.

She should have pushed him away. She should have thanked him for dragging her out of stupidity born of desperation, and fled. She should not have welcomed his kiss.

“Mrs. Tinkerson,” she broke into Harriet’s monologue and set down her teacup. “I’m afraid I must depart. I have business with my coachman.” Beyond the parlor curtains, dusk was beginning to fall.

“You simply
must
stop by before you depart in the morning. I will make up this adorable little hat to match that gown—oh! That is one of Mrs. Cooke’s gowns, isn’t it? How
talented
she is with a needle. And how tremendously fetching it is on you, dear Calista. And this hat suits it so well, don’t you think?”

“It is a very clever hat.” She fingered the stiff satin bow atop the wool cap meant to dip low above one eye. “I haven’t been to London in years, but I daresay this design would catch on splendidly there.”

“
Do
you say so?” Harriet’s eyes popped wide. “Oh, my dear friend, how delighted I would be if you wore
my
hat on your next visit to town.”

She returned the hat to the milliner. “I don’t expect that will be any time soon.” Ever. “But if I do travel there, I’m sure I will keep you in mind.”

Harriet effused a bit more and finally Calista left. Ignoring her protesting belly, she went around to the back of the inn, entered through the rear entrance, slipped into the kitchen, and closed the door behind her.

“Milady!” Mrs. Whittle exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be in here. But I suppose you’re just like his lordship.” She smiled with her apple cheeks.

“Like his lordship?”

“Not so high on your consequence that you can’t poke your nose into a kitchen and see what needs to be done to help in a pinch.” She nodded cheerfully. “A person would never know he’s a grand lord, for all the fetching and carrying he’s done for me today in Mr. Whittle’s absence, and all those other men just sitting in there playing cards and making demands on a body. And here you are, a grand lady, coming right in like anybody.”

“I wonder, do you have a pen, ink, and paper, by chance?”

“Mr. Whittle keeps some at his accounts desk. I’ll have Molly go and fetch it to your chamber—”

“I will be glad to fetch it myself.”

The innkeeper led her through the kitchen to a minuscule room dominated by a desk. Mrs. Whittle pulled a sheet of paper out of the drawer.

“If you’d like to write here, you’re welcome to it.”

“Actually, I need to write elsewhere. But I promise to return the ink and pen before Mr. Whittle comes home tomorrow.”

With the writing tools in hand, she went to the stable. It was a small gesture of defiance to spend as much time talking with her coachman as she wished without her husband ever discovering it. But she knew her guilt propelled her now more than anything. Even if God had already forsaken her, and even if Richard did not deserve it, she needed to do something now to atone for the wrong she had done in lusting after a man who was not her husband.

The inn’s ostler sat in the light of a lantern at the entrance to the stable on a bench with a smartly dressed groom she assumed must belong to the Smythe party. She asked after her coachman.

“With the animals, mum,” the ostler said.

She told him she could find her way and hoped that the ostler’s easy manner suggested that her coachman was not sleeping or foxed.

He was neither. Bent over the hoof of one of the carriage horses, he was picking at it with a tool.

“Mr. Jackson? Have you a moment?”

He set down the hoof and tool and wiped his hands on a cloth.

“How can I help you, milady? After the good turn you did me this morning, listenin’ to my stories about my boys, I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“I enjoyed hearing about them.” She glanced about the stall. In the corner, a bottle of whiskey was tucked behind a pail. It was full to the cork. She looked at his eyes: the whites were clear. “I was hoping to help you. I’ve brought pen and paper. If you like, you could dictate to me that letter to Bartholomew, and I could write for you. I would be glad to post it before we leave Swinly tomorrow morning.”

His face crinkled into a surprised smile.

“That’d be the kindest thing a lady’s ever done for me, ’cept my own departed Bess, bless her soul.”

Relief stole through her. “Shall we get started?”

Some time later, settled on the bench with a length of wood on her lap serving as a desk, she dipped the pen into the inkbottle a final time.

“There now, sign your name if you are able here at the bottom. An X will do as well.”

“I’m grateful for this, milady. Mr. Holland’ll surely think you’ve stooped low to help me.”

“My husband needn’t know. Perhaps we can keep this between us and then no one will get into trouble,” she said with a rueful grin.

A high-pitched gasp sounded from nearby. She looked up into the round eyes of the stable boy.

“Yes?” she said.

“On my gram’s honor, mum, I plumb forgot!”

“Don’t be botherin’ her ladyship, boy. Get on with you,” Jackson said.

“But I’ve got a letter for her.”

“A letter for me?”

He dug inside his filthy waistcoat.

“Aye, mum. A man come racin’ in here late a’ night, said the ford just about took him and his horse comin’ in, and he couldn’t stop to find anybody else to give this to, that he had to turn right ’round or he wouldn’t make it out.” He produced a well-crushed envelope and thrust it toward her. “I said I’d see as you got it.”

She accepted the envelope. On its smudged face her name was written boldly in a hand she did not recognize.

“Seein’ you writin’ here reminded me of it,” the boy grumbled.

“I haven’t a coin at present for you,” she said. “But given that it has taken you a day to remember to give it to me, I might be forgiven for not thanking you with copper.”

“Aye, mum. That’s the truth.” Shoulders slumped, he shuffled away.

“That boy’s been scamperin’ out of here all day at any excuse to be away,” Mr. Jackson said with a scowl.

“The flood has made it a peculiar day for all of us.” She tucked the letter into her sleeve. “As to your letter, I promise to post it to Leeds first thing in the morning.” Except that the page covered with tender words of a father to his beloved son would not be on the dressing table of her bedchamber when she awoke in the morning. It would be lost to today.

Her coachman thanked her and she returned to the inn. The Symthes were at dinner in their parlor, and only a handful of guests were in the taproom. In the kitchen, she returned the pen and ink to Mrs. Whittle, took two pieces of bread and some cold meat wrapped in a cloth, and went to her bedchamber. Tearing off a bit for the cat and opening the door a crack so it could enter as it liked, she sat on the bed and opened the letter.

As she read, she ceased breathing.

Dear Lady Holland,

It is with great distress that I write to you in haste. Late this morning, Mr. Holland received a gentleman caller in his chambers, Mr. Absalom Grange. I waited just without, as I always do when the Master has callers, and I was dismayed to overhear raised voices and a quantity of shouting. When Mr. Grange departed, the Master beckoned me in. His face was red and he was clutching his arm. He said it gave him pain and I could see that he was having trouble breathing. I fetched smelling salts and sent John off swiftly to Dr. Carver. But I am devastated to tell you that the Master’s life fled him before the doctor arrived.

Dr. Carver believes that the Master’s heart ceased functioning due to the Severe Agitation he suffered during his interview with Mr. Grange. Mr. Billicky says that I am to blame. I told him what does an ignorant footman know about anything? I have told Mrs. Pinker that I am devastated by this turn of events, as well as Mr. Preston, who called soon after the doctor’s departure, indeed as I sat down to write this.

Mrs. Pinker is overset and, in lieu of a butler, which we have not had at Herald’s Court in two years, since the Master released Mr. Frost, she begged me to write to you. We will send John with the fastest horse to convey this letter to you in the event that you intend to continue on to Dashbourne rather than return home immediately.

Mr. Preston wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience.

I speak for the entire staff in saying that we eagerly await your return, as well as the return of our dear, now fatherless, Master Harry.

In deep sorrow and greatest sympathy,

James Baker

Calista read the letter twice. And then a third time.

In her lowest, wickedest moments she had imagined Richard’s early death. Each time she had worn long sleeves or a high-necked gown to cover a bruise, or powdered the mark left by a slap on her cheek, she had dreamed of life free of him. And upon each of those occasions she felt evil for imagining and dreaming of any man’s death. She was more fortunate than most women, with a fine house, servants, and a wonderful child. That she must endure the cruel possessiveness and hard hand of a husband she loathed was nothing worse than her mother had endured for twenty-five years. Only when she learned that he had struck their son and knocked him down had the guilt over her dreams turned to fury.

Now the dream was real.

Richard was gone.

She was free.

She was free.

“I am free,” she whispered. And then upon a choking sob: “Harry is
safe
.”

Crushing the letter to her face, she laughed and sobbed at once. The cat wound its way about her ankles, curling its body around her. She bent over, brandished the letter before its whiskers, and whispered, “We are free!”

Only slowly did the hilarity of her relief fade into calm.

Then, even more slowly, she returned to reality,
her
reality that was not in fact reality.

She raised her eyes and looked about the room, at the pale blue draperies, the simple globed posts at the four corners of the plain wooden bed, the small woven rug in the middle of the floor, the statue that greeted her every day, and at her own single gown and undergarments still dripping from her foray into the ford.

She was a widow. She had been a widow for many days already. She simply had not known it.

And every today she subsequently lived, she would still be a widow.

Her mouth split into a smile.

A happy, happy widow.

She laughed aloud. Then she laughed again simply because it felt so good to laugh aloud. It was wickedness to rejoice in Richard’s death so thoroughly. Or perhaps it was not wicked. Perhaps it was simply her fate. Or her destiny. Or a twist in the curse. But at present her widowhood felt like a glorious blessing upon this endless, awful day.

I wish you weren’t married. Now. Today. Tonight.

She was no longer married. She could do as she wished, as she had wished for fifteen days already, unknowing that all the while she had been free.

Climbing the stairs to his bedchamber,
Tacitus heard laughter coming from the open door of her room.

He should ignore it and walk past. Three fingers of whiskey at the pub had done nothing to reconcile him to what had happened, the why, the how, the
wrong
. He had not seen her in six years and yet he was drawn to her now as powerfully as then.

But she was clearly no longer that girl. Years ago he had seen in her eyes determination, deep affection, and bright, reckless joy. He had wanted to touch that, to taste it, to be part of it. He had never imagined Calista Chance could become a quiet, withdrawn woman. Her contained anguish while bidding her son good-bye the night before had gone. This morning in the taproom during breakfast she had been subdued. And earlier at the ford her eyes had held both desperation and sorrow.

The laughter tumbling into the corridor now was open, wild, and full of pleasure.

Perhaps in the six years since he had last seen her, she had gone mad. It would explain her swim in the ford and violently changeable tempers.

He paused at her doorway. Alone in the room, she sat on the bed, laughter shaking her shoulders. Her hands covering her eyes gripped a wrinkled sheet of paper. A sleek gray cat sat at her feet.

He mustn’t interrupt. He should walk away.

Perhaps she had not meant to leave the door open. He should quietly close it and protect her from strangers’ prying eyes. Like his.

Walk away.

The music of her laughter set his entire body on fire.

Walk away.

He knocked. She twisted around. Her eyes flew wide and her lips clamped shut.

“Forgive me,” he said, repeating those words to her for what seemed like the twentieth time since yesterday. “I noticed your door open and I thought— That is …” He had nothing to say.
Nothing honorable
. “Would you like it shut?” he finally blurted out.

“No.” She swiveled off the bed and came to the door. She wore a gown of some mild hue that covered her from chin to wrist, and yet his heart pounded like a fifteen-year-old’s at his first hunt. Her fingers gripped the doorframe. In the other hand she held the paper. “I am sorry about earlier,” she said. “I was distressed. I was not thinking clearly.”

“But now you are?” He could stare at her face forever. Even with smudges of gray beneath her eyes, she was more beautiful now than as a girl, as though womanhood had settled her more gracefully into her features.

“I—” She pinched her lips together, lips that tasted like honey, like the way she smelled. “I have received a letter. The stable boy had it from a messenger last night, but forgot to give it to me until just now, and— and—” Her gaze dipped to his mouth. “My circumstances have changed abruptly. Dramatically.”

Walk away.

He glanced at the paper in her hand.

“Is that the letter?”

She nodded and offered it to him. “Read it.” A rosy flush now sat high upon her cheeks. “Please.”

He took it.

Soon, his heartbeats were not only quick; they were each painful explosions against his ribs. He lifted his eyes to her.

“I am very sorry for your loss. I offer my deepest sympathies.”

She blinked several times.

“I did not love my husband,” she said. “In fact I disliked him. Excessively. I was faithful to him for the sake of my marriage vow. For that reason alone.”

He felt like someone was pressing an anvil down on his chest.

He shook his head. “What do you expect me to do with that information?”

She seemed to draw back from him. “I thought … I—”

“You thought that I was the sort of man who, upon learning that a woman has just discovered that after six years of marriage her husband no longer lives, would seize the opportunity to immediately seduce her?”

“No, I did not think it. I
depended
upon it.”

His teeth would barely part to allow speech. “Thank you, madam, for that flattering assessment of my character. And for your candor.” She had
disliked
the man she had run off to meet after rejecting him? Perhaps she had wed Holland for money. Perhaps for the adventure of it. It didn’t matter. “Good night.” He moved away.

“Does this mean you won’t?” she said to his back. “Despite what I have told you?”

He turned to face her. “I don’t know you. I see a woman before me that any man would desire, a woman so beautiful that I did something today, impulsively, that made me furious with myself. But that beautiful woman is a stranger to me. And as remarkable as it may seem to you, I don’t share my bed with strangers. Good night, Lady Holland.” He made himself walk away.

“Oh, my God. It cannot—” Her voice broke. “I
am
in Hell.”

He paused. But only the quiet click of her door closing sounded behind him.