The Charmer (25 page)

Damned if he was going to let
someone outside the Guild get the better of him. He saw an opening and dug his
fingers into Monk's shirt. He dragged him closer and smashed his forehead
against the bridge of Monk's nose. Monk let his guard down long enough for
Orlando to shove him off.

He was about to get up when
ice-cold water was dumped over his head and Monk's. He stood and shook his
hair, sending droplets spraying across the onlookers—Susanna, Hendricks,
Margaret Cowdrey, and her brother. Farmer Cowdrey held the empty pail, looking
pleased with himself.

Susanna's eyes blazed like blue
fire. "Have you two quite finished?" she asked, hands on hips.

"Madman," Monk
muttered. Blood dripped from his nose and dark circles were already appearing
beneath his eyes.

"What sort of animals have
you employed, Susanna?" Farmer Cowdrey asked, still holding the pail.

Margaret said nothing, but looked
Monk up and down then switched her searching gaze to Orlando. Her eyes
narrowed. She bared her teeth. They were crooked and sharp.

"I'm beginning to wonder
that myself." Susanna's sharply spoken words were aimed at Orlando. They
felt like needles piercing his skin.

"Come inside, m'lady,"
Hendricks said. "You shouldn't be exposed to these scoundrels. Cook'll
give you something nice and warm to calm your nerves."

"My nerves are calm, thank
you. I am calm. It was a simple disagreement that went too far. Isn't that
right, men?"

Monk nodded and dabbed at his
nose with his sleeve. Orlando watched her closely. What was Susanna thinking?
Did she believe Monk's suggestion that her life was not in danger? Had she
begun to doubt Orlando?

Bloody hell. He needed to get her
alone and talk to her, but with all her guard dogs surrounding her, it was
unlikely to happen. It would have to wait until tonight. That's if she let him
near her after this.

"You can't control
them," Cowdrey said. "It's not your fault, no woman could." He
set the pail down. "Susanna, this is why you need to marry again. It's a
sign from God that a woman cannot and should not live alone."

She sighed heavily. "It's
not a sign from God that I should wed, Walter, it's a sign that two men with
inflated self-worth cannot get along."

"Susanna." Cowdrey went
to take her hands, but she pulled away. Margaret stiffened and crossed her
arms. Her glare was lost on her brother who only had eyes for Susanna.
"You have unruly servants, your oranges require too much work, and you
cannot sell enough marmalade to restore Stoneleigh
and
survive. Heed me
on this. I have a head for business."

Margaret made a small sound in
the back of her throat. Small white lines appeared around her mouth as she
pursed it tight.

"My servants are not
unruly," Susanna snapped. "And you are wrong on every score, Walter.
One day I will prove to you that my head for business is as good as yours. I
will send out more letters to more merchants. Better ones. Ones who supply the
nobility or perhaps the queen's household itself!"

Walter frowned and seemed
genuinely confused. "Wouldn't it be easier to let a husband take care of matters?"
He looped his arm through hers, drawing her aside. "Susanna," he
murmured but not low enough to stop Orlando from hearing, "my farm turns a
good profit. I can buy you anything you need, your father too. We can employ your
three servants and have all your orange trees transplanted to your own garden
at Cowdrey Farm. I'll build you the best walled enclosure—"

"Stop, Walter. I cannot
marry you."

"Susanna." His voice
was firm, demanding. "You need a husband. You need me."

"You're a fool, Brother."
Margaret's ice-cold voice ripped through the air like shards of broken glass.
"She is a whore."

"What!" Orlando and
Hendricks spluttered.

"Margaret!" Cowdrey
snapped. "Hold your tongue, woman."

Only Susanna seemed unaffected by
Margaret's accusation. She was like one of her orange trees, straight and
proud, only the stray strands of her hair fluttering in the breeze.

"It's true. I saw her embracing
her gardener earlier in a lewd manner."

Cowdrey made a choking sound and
turned a bright shade of purple.

"Earlier?" Orlando
said. "But you just arrived."

"No, I didn't,"
Margaret said. "I was in the village with my brother. He had business to
conduct with a gentleman farmer from the next parish so I decided to take a
walk as the conversation frustrated me." She gave Cowdrey a rather vicious
glare. "We agreed to meet here." Her top lip curled and she looked at
Susanna like she was something she'd scraped off her shoe. "It's time you
stopped wasting your breath on
her
, Walter. I've let your infatuation go
on long enough, but it needs to end. Perhaps now you can see why."

Another blast of white fire burst
in front of Orlando's eyes, but he didn't move. Didn't breathe. Kept himself
very still lest his anger consume him. If she were a man, however...

"You had better go," Susanna
said to the Cowdreys. "We have nothing more to say to each other."

"Susanna?" Walter
Cowdrey stared slack-jawed at her. "Is it true?"

Susanna said nothing.

"It
is
true,"
Margaret said. "I
knew
there was something about her. For years I suspected
she was a witch the way she dazzled Phillip and then you. A witch and a whore.
Now I have the proof. I saw them with my own eyes, Walter. It was disgusting,
base." She spat onto the ground. "I warned you about her many times,
and now you see I was right. Perhaps you'll put this pathetic infatuation
behind you."

Susanna pressed her hand to her
lips and her eyes filled with tears. Orlando moved to her, but Hendricks got
there first. He touched her shoulder and that seemed to rally her. She tilted
her chin at Margaret.

"I'm not sure what I've done
to you to deserve such a lashing, but whatever it is, it has apparently upset
you and for that, I'm truly sorry."

Margaret's eyes widened. Clearly
it wasn't the response she'd expected. She spun on her heel, smacked her
brother's arm, and stormed out of the garden. Cowdrey stood like a small, lost
boy, looking down at his feet. After a moment, he rallied.

He removed his hat and scrunched
it in his hands. "Susanna, I'm sorry for what Margaret said. I'll have
words with her." He swallowed and his gaze shifted to the archway. Orlando
suspected the last thing he wanted to do was speak to his tempestuous shrew of
a sister. "She's got strange ideas in her head. She doesn't hate you. Not
really."

"It's all right, Walter.
You'd better go, or she'll come back and drag you out." She offered him a
weak smile.

He bowed and left the garden.

"Well," Monk said.
"That's one way to make everyone forget about our little stoush,
Holt."

"Shut it," Orlando
snarled without taking his gaze off Susanna.

"As you wish."

"Susanna—"

"
Lady Lynden
,"
Hendricks cut in, "we should go inside for dinner. It might calm
everyone's nerves." He glared at Orlando. "And give some of us time
to think about the consequences of their actions."

Orlando
had
thought about
those. Sometimes he thought about nothing else. Unfortunately, it didn't change
anything. He continued to do the wrong thing. He simply couldn't help himself.

"Mr. Monk, will you dine
with us in the kitchen?" she asked.

"Thank you," Monk said.
"That's very kind and I accept."

"I'm not sure that's a good
idea, Susa—m'lady," Orlando said.

"I agree with him for
once," Hendricks said. "Having both of 'em in a closed space is
asking for trouble."

"I promise to be on my best
behavior," Monk said. "If Holt agrees to a truce then I think we can
all consider ourselves safe for the time being." He raised both brows at
Orlando.

"Clean yourself up
first," Orlando said. "You're a mess."

"Aye," Hendricks said.
"Cook's very particular about getting blood on the table."

Monk chuckled. He seemed to be
enjoying himself, the cur. Susanna led them back to the house, her back stiff
and her head high. Orlando followed, acutely aware that she'd neither looked at
him nor addressed him since Margaret's outburst.

The worst of it was, he had no
idea how to bring back the smile to her face.

***

Susanna wished everyone would
stop their fussing. Between Cook plying her with warm broth, Bessie insisting
she help to wash Susanna's hair, and Hendricks keeping a hawk-eyed watch over
her, she was stretched tighter than a lute string. Only Orlando seemed to
understand she wanted to be left alone. He'd spent the remainder of the day in
the garden with Monk. He'd not spoken to her since midday's dinner, and they
hadn't found themselves alone. What he thought about Margaret Cowdrey's accusation,
she couldn't determine. Aside from his initial vehement defense, he'd remained
quiet, thoughtful.

Susanna, on the other hand, felt
numb to her core. Margaret Cowdrey had just called her a whore and a witch. She
probably should be concerned that the entire village would know by the end of
the week, but she wasn't. She felt nothing.

The knock on her bedchamber door
stirred her. She rose and answered it. Orlando stood in his work clothes, his
arms crossed, his stance formidable. But his eyes betrayed him. They were
cloudy and troubled.

"Susanna." He reached
for her.

Instinct took over and she
stepped into his embrace. He was so solid, so real in a world where everything
suddenly felt like an illusion, a conjurer's trick. Margaret's words, the
uncertainty surrounding Monk, Walter's proposals...all melted away so that
there was only this man and his strong heart pounding against her cheek.

They stayed like that for a long
time. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice vibrated through her body,
across her skin, and down to her toes.

She closed her eyes, drew in a
deep breath then stepped away. "No. It's not your fault. None of this
is."

"I should have kept away. I
shouldn't have started this—"

"You didn't do it alone.
We
started it. Both of us." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly
cold. He moved to her again but she stepped back, out of his reach. "No,
Orlando. It has to stop." Her eyes prickled with tears but she willed them
not to fall. "It was time we ended it anyway," she added, as much to
convince herself as him.

He bowed his head and his hair
fell forward, covering his eyes. "I know. I came to you tonight to tell
you the same thing." He gave a short, humorless laugh and looked up, a
ghostly smile on his lips. "It's harder than I thought it would be."

She kissed her fingertips and
pressed them to his cheek. He caught her wrist and kissed her palm.

"It's for the best," he
murmured. "Ending it now is for the best."

Was he trying to convince himself
or her?

"Will you..." She
cleared her throat. "Will you be leaving now?"

He suddenly looked up. "No!
Not until we discover who the intruder is for certain, and what Monk and Lynden
are up to. Susanna." He squeezed her hand. "I'm not leaving you alone
while something is afoot. I will sleep outside your bedchamber until I know the
danger is gone. In everything else, I am your servant to command, but not when
it comes to your safety. In that, I'll make decisions I think will keep you safe
whether you like them or not."

Her chest felt tight. Her heart
hammered against her ribs, its beat echoing in her blood. She nodded and he
gave her a small bow.

"Good night." He closed
the door between them, shutting out the light from the candles blazing in the
parlor.

The tears she thought conquered
swelled and spilled, running unchecked down her cheeks. "Good night,"
she murmured.

Where earlier she'd felt numb,
now she felt too much. And it was painful.

CHAPTER 13

It was a cruel twist of fate that
the next day was a Sunday. The entire village was at church of course,
including Margaret and Walter, Jeffrey and Monk, and even the elegant, foppish
stranger was back with his fat servant. Jeffrey spent much of the service
admiring the gentleman's lushly embroidered silver and blue doublet. The
gentleman didn't appear to notice, his gaze never wavering from the pulpit.
Susanna's servants, including Orlando, sat at the back, and she felt exposed
without them at her side. It didn't help that many of the parishioners watched
her. Margaret, however, wasn't among them. She studiously kept her gaze
forward, as did Walter.

Susanna made sure to be among the
first to leave after the service. Unfortunately, she still had to wait to give
her thanks to the curate. It was doubly unfortunate that waiting brought her
near Margaret and her friends. Susanna didn't need to hear them to know they
were discussing her—their pointed glares gave them away—but snatches of
conversation reached her on the breeze.

"...ought to be
married..."

"...shouldn't be allowed
near our menfolk."

"...pretty face and wanton
ways."

It only stopped when Walter
pulled his sister aside.

Margaret's cronies were like her.
They had been Susanna's companions when they were younger, but ever since she
became of marriageable age, they'd ceased to pay calls and only kept up polite
appearances around others. She knew they talked about her, but she could endure
it because she had her true friends. Anne the chandler's wife, Joan, and Widow
Dawson.