Anne Barbour (15 page)

“No, of course not. That’s merely a symptom. If Will—What is it?” he asked, as Catherine suddenly glanced over her shoulder, frowning.

“It’s that man.” She indicated a burly individual who was moving along the road taken by Will. “I wonder why he’s walking in that direction.”

“Is he your tenant?”

“No, he’s a stranger. I hired him temporarily, with two others. I did not like their looks at the time, but I was in need of workers.”

“Perhaps he lives down that way.”

“I don’t think so.” She continued hesitantly. “Will is carrying a good deal of money with him.”

John’s brows lifted. “Surely, you don’t think—”

“I think perhaps we should follow.”

She began to turn her horse about, but to her uneasy dismay, John merely shrugged.

“It’s not my habit to become involved in other men’s concerns,” he said easily. “I’m sure you are wrong in your suspicions, but in any event, Will is a stalwart young brute and well able to take care of himself.”

“You mean, you would simply turn your back on someone in trouble?” she asked, her voice brittle. Disappointment in his response settled in the pit of her stomach, as though she had swallowed something cold and heavy.

“I’m simply saying,” he said in a tone of great reason, “I see no need to meddle in an affair that is none of my business. I have a strict policy of noninterference, you see and—hmm.”

John halted abruptly, his gaze on two other men, who were now scurrying after the man following Will. By now Will could no longer be seen, concealed by a bend in the road that led through a small spinney, and in a few moments, the three men had also vanished.

With a muttered curse of exasperation, John pulled about, and, to Catherine’s astonishment, he spurred Caliban along the road after Will.

Catherine followed at a gallop.

In a few moments they had rounded the bend to be met with the sight of Will, in the center of a vigorous struggle with the three men. The young man, though giving a good account of himself, was clearly losing the battle. Such was their preoccupation with their task, that the three assailants did not notice the newcomers until John, dismounting in haste, had reached the group. Grasping the shoulder of the largest of the bullies, he wrenched the man away from his prey.

“ ‘Ere—watcher think yer—oh.” He burst into a loud guffaw. “Well, if it ain’t the gentleman farmer.”

At his words, the other two looked up from the task at hand. Their eyes widened when they saw Justin. They dropped their hands from Will as they caught sight of Catherine, but the large man, evidently their leader, seemed unworried.

“Eh, lads, looks like we’ve got company, but no matter. I b’lieve we’d had enough o’ sweatin’ in the Fields, anyway. We ain’t bloody hayseeds, then. Let’s just finish the job ‘ere and be on our way. Nobody knows us hereabouts, so we kin be off clean as soon as we relieves this young fella of his burden. Ere, Caleb, take care o’ ‘is lordship.”

So saying, he pushed Justin into the arms of another of the assailants and began to work again on Will, twisting the young man’s arm behind his back.

Caleb, who was some inches taller and a great deal broader than Justin swaggered forward, apparently foreseeing no difficulty in dispatching “ ‘is lordship.” Catherine cried out in alarm, but Justin merely crouched in a waiting attitude. He flicked a glance toward Will, then sent a low whistle in Caliban’s direction.

To Catherine’s astonishment, the stallion ambled to where Will manfully defended himself against the remaining two attackers. Caliban butted one of the men with his great head, sending him tumbling across the turf, leaving the other to Will’s capable ministrations.

When John’s opponent reached him and pulled back a meaty fist, John sprang from his crouch in a blur of motion. Pivoting on one foot, he spun around, delivering a high kick that landed on the point of Caleb’s chin. Hurtling backward, the thug landed on his backside with an astonished thump. Undeterred, he repeated his attack, only to be felled again by the same method. This time, Justin followed up his attack by grasping the man by the shirt, hauling him to his feet, and planting a fist in the middle of his face. The man sank to the ground, more or less a spent force.

Justin then went to Will’s assistance. In a few moments, the remaining two attackers joined Caleb on the ground, gasping and holding their hands to various portions of their anatomies.

Justin mounted Caliban, and held out a hand for Will to climb aboard as well.

“Perhaps,” he said a little breathlessly, “you could postpone the washing machine purchase for another day, and I think,” he added with a questioning look at Catherine, “that we can leave those lads for the constabulary to scoop in later.”

“Oh. Yes,” agreed Catherine, who stared at him in some bemusement.

Later, after they had deposited Will at his mother’s doorstep, still voluble in his admiration for the part Justin had taken in subduing the three ruffians, Justin and Catherine rode home in the lengthening twilight.

“You handled yourself very well, Mr. Smith,” Catherine remarked with a smile.

“John,” said Justin automatically. “I—I appear to have had some experience in that sort of thing.”

“So it would appear. Tell me, what happened to your policy?”

“My policy?”

“The one about noninterference.”

“Ah. Um, I thought Will capable of handling one bully, but three seemed to shorten the odds in what I could only consider an unacceptable manner.”

“I see.” Catherine’s lips curled in a small smile. “You know,” she continued meditatively, “I have never seen anyone fight in just that manner.”

“I shouldn’t think you have seen many men fight in any manner at all, have you?”

“Well, no, although I have seen some of the local lads go at it from time to time. I don’t think,” said Catherine carefully, “that they ever used their feet. Wherever did you learn to do that?”

Justin smiled, recalling the Oriental gentleman who had served as his batman for several weeks in the Peninsula. Chang had bestowed upon him a great many pieces of inscrutable wisdom, not the least of which were some useful street-fighting tactics. “Just something I picked up somewhere, I daresay.”

“Mm,” returned Catherine noncommically, and Justin shot her a sharp glance.

“It
appears Caliban picked up a little something as well.”

At the sound of his name, the stallion tossed his head with an unmistakably self-satisfied nicker.

“Er, yes, what a good thing he chose that particular moment to blunder into the melee.”

Catherine, who had heard John’s low whistle to his horse, merely nodded, her brows lifted skeptically.

Justin discovered that his own brow was heavily bedewed with perspiration that owed nothing to his recent skirmish. He reflected, not for the first time since his arrival at Winter’s Keep, that Catherine Meade was a shade too perspicacious for his comfort. Shifting in his saddle, he searched for a change of subject.

“Who would have thought to find such adventure so far removed from London? Do you often get these little crime sprees here?”

Catherine laughed. “No, of course not. Oh, we hear of the occasional highwayman out on the Cambridge Road, but we seldom get so much as a farthing stolen from the poor box in church. We all know each other around here, you see.”

“Except for vagrants who come up from London looking for work at Harvest,” finished Justin.

“Precisely.”

“Tell me,” he asked casually. “Do you never regret your decision to leave the city?”

Catherine stiffened. “I told you, Mr. Smith—”

“I know—you don’t care for the hustle and scurry of the metropolis. Still, I find it hard to believe that you never avail yourself of its many undeniable charms. You and your grandmother and Marian keep up with the news. Do you not ever go in to partake of the theater? Or the museums? The art exhibits?”

Catherine remained silent for some moments. “Well, yes,” she replied carefully at length. “Every once in a great while, Marian and I go in to attend the theater. We spend the night at a hotel and return early the next day.”

During this speech, she became increasingly agitated, clenching her reins spasmodically. Lord, she wished she could get over this irrational feeling of panic every time she so much as mentioned leaving Winter’s Keep. Her rare forays into London were always the result of an unremitting bout of nagging on the part of Grandmama and Mariah, and were spent in a constant panic lest she should meet someone she had known previously. She was at a loss to explain to herself why she so feared a repetition of the malicious slurs and cuts she had endured following the abortive elopement. She supposed it was because she had previously thought of her tormentors as her friends.

Now, when she returned from the city, she fairly catapulted herself from the carriage into the house, almost slamming the door behind her in her relief to be home again.

Evidently her distress was apparent, for John slowed his mount and peered into her face.

“What is it, Catherine?” he asked in a low voice. “What happened in London to cause such an upheaval in your life—to cause you to hide away from family and friends?”

“Nothing!” she said sharply. “That is—I really do not wish to discuss my personal life, Mr. Smith—not that I can see what possible interest it would be to you.”

“Can you not?” John’s voice was like warm honey flowing over her in sensuous waves. “For such a perceptive young woman, I should think it would be perfectly obvious by now that there is very little about you that is not of interest to me.”

Catherine gasped, and she could feel her cheeks go hot. “I am not a young woman, Mr. Smith,” she snapped, regretting immediately the inanity of her remark. “This conversation is growing ridiculous,” she concluded pettishly. She raised her reins preparatory to slapping them against her mare’s neck, but John reached to lay his hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a tone more serious than any she had heard him use so far. “But you must know that you’re a damnably attractive woman. It seems a crime against nature that you should immure yourself here in the fastness of the Keep—how aptly named it is, by the by—waiting to wither away into spinster-hood—with nothing to occupy yourself with but your grandmother’s needs and those of a home four sizes too big for you.”

By the time he had finished this speech, a flush of anger had tinged the sharply chiseled plains of his cheeks. A moment later, an expression almost of surprise leaped into his eyes, and he dropped his hand away from hers. He spurred Caliban and moved ahead of her, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Wordless, Catherine stared at her arm, almost expecting to see the outline of his fingers, still warm against the cloth of her habit. She lifted her eyes to gaze at John’s back, feeling as though she might choke from the suddenly frantic beating of her heart.

Chapter Ten

“It is rare, as I understand it, for amnesia induced by a blow to the head to continue for so long.” Adam Beech spoke noncommittally, crumbling a piece of bread onto his plate.

“Is that so?” responded Justin courteously, his voice equally colorless. “I must say, then, that, while making medical history confers a sort of distinction, I think I would rather pass on this one.”

Catherine drew in a sharp breath and glanced around at the other guests at her table. The vicar and his wife smiled sympathetically, while Squire Wadleigh harrumphed in agreement. Lord, John held them all in the palm of his shapely hand. (And when, she wondered in some irritation, had she taken to thinking of him by his first name?—or at least his pseudo-first name.) This was not the first time he had met those gathered in her home on a warm evening in late August. Since he had been a guest in her home, he had gone visiting with her and Grandmama more than once, and had been on hand to help receive callers on several occasions. The whole neighborhood, of course, had made it their business to come see the oddity currently being entertained by Miss Meade and her grandmother.

Only fancy! Report had it that he was ever so handsome and spoke like a gentleman, but he could not even remember his own name! He had snatched the reclusive Miss Meade from a burning building, or was it a collapsing building? Catherine smiled mirthlessly to herself.

She wasn’t sure why she had arranged this dinner party. She was, after all, not in the habit of entertaining, and tonight’s group was small. Most of her guests had known her since her childhood, and they had all been generous with their support when she had come back to the Keep in disgrace.

Perhaps she hoped to lull John Smith into lowering his guard. For, the longer he was a guest in her home, the more certain she was that he was not being completely honest with her. In the week since his nocturnal venturings from the Keep, she had probed relentlessly with seemingly innocent questions and innocuous remarks, all to no avail. If he was lying about his amnesia, he was maintaining his hoax brilliantly.

But why?

The question still nagged at her. If he were pretending, did it have anything to do with his stealthy departure that night a few weeks ago? Where had he gone? She had lain awake, listening, for several hours, but she had not heard his return. In the morning, he appeared at breakfast, a trifle heavy-eyed, but declaring himself ready for another day in the fields.

She had meant to tax him with his disappearance, but she hesitated. His explanation might be perfectly innocent. Perhaps he was restless and had succumbed to the lure of the night. She might easily have done so herself, she thought, recalling the moment of longing she had experienced at the window. She had in the past gone for late-night walks, especially during those first few months after her return to the Keep when she had lain awake night after night, sobbing her heartache into her solitary pillow.

Never, however, had she saddled a horse and gone for a midnight gallop. Of course, she was not a man, and thus, perhaps, not in need of such a physical outlet for her emotions.

Emotions. Is that what had driven John Smith to leave bed and pillow in the middle of the night? She was sure he had made two or three nocturnal excursions since then. Mmp. If he were troubled by emotions, she rather thought he had them well in check. He did not strike her as a man given to frenetic ramblings.