The Highwayman (24 page)

“He’s too big,” Mrs. Curry said stiffly. “We’ve nothing here to fit him.”

“Then set Mrs. Fagin from the village to sewing some things for him. In the meanwhile take out some of Master John’s clothes, the ones stored in the cellars. He is almost as tall as Mr. Burke, and they will do for now.”

Mrs. Curry didn’t move.

“Mrs. Curry, did you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Surely the task cannot be difficult?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mrs. Curry inclined her head and hurried from the room.

“About as fond of me as your beloved uncle, that one,” Burke said.

“You look like trouble to her.”

“She’s right about that.”

“I think she’s frightened of your beard. And with that hair you appear as fierce as the Medusa.”

“The what?”

“The Me . . . Never mind. Go and have your bath.”

“Don’t order me about as you do that woman.”

Alex eyed him uncertainly, not sure why he was offended.

“I see you’ve taken right easily to giving orders. You always were a great lady with command of servants, I suppose, and I just didn’t notice it while I was lying in the long grass with you.”

“Kevin, what is this?”

“Am I too dirty for you, then?”

“No, I only want you to be comfortable!”

“And I want you back the way you were in Ireland!” he burst out.

Alex took a step, then another, and then ran into his arms. “I am that girl,” she said against his shoulder. “I would be that girl again, but my case is altered now.”

“You have not been with him?” he said fiercely into her ear.

“Never.”

“But he’s your husband!”

“He’s not, the marriage is a paper transaction. My uncle paid him off to marry me, but Selby has been kind and I won’t disgrace him. He doesn’t deserve it.” She paused. “I think I’ve already done enough disgracing for a lifetime. I’ll be a mother soon. I must be responsible and think of what my behavior will mean for the future of the baby.”

“Then what can we do?” he said, holding her off to look at her. “You surely can’t expect me to leave you in this house with my child and another man.”

“He’s never here.”

“What difference does that make? I want you with me!”

There was a cough from the hall, and they sprang apart. Mary waited a respectful moment and then stepped inside.

“Is all well?” she asked Alex.

“Yes, Mary, you did the right thing in bringing him here. Thank you so much.”

Mary relaxed visibly and smiled.

“This is Mr. Kevin Burke, of whom you have heard so much. Kevin, Lady Howard.”

“We’ve met,” Mary said, her smile widening.

Kevin went to Mary’s side and took her hand, kissing it lingeringly and bowing. Alex looked on in amazement; she had never seen him behave so, and his rough look was at such variance with his actions. He seemed a fantasy figure, a creature of the firelight and her nightly, longing dreams.

“Let me add my thanks to Alex’s,” he said. “I’ll never forget your kindness.”

Mary looked up at him, entranced.

“What is it?” Alex asked, breaking the spell. “Why have you come?”

“Oh,” Mary said, stepping back from Burke. “Mrs. Curry has found some suitable clothes, and the cook is heating a vat of water in the kitchen.”

“And Mrs. Curry sent you up here to tell us that?”

Mary nodded. “I think she is embarrassed,” she added in a low tone to Alex.

“I’ll go,” Burke said. “Perhaps I should take Lady Howard along to protect me.”

“I’ll show you the way back to the kitchens,” Mary said, preceding him to the door.

Burke looked back over his shoulder at Alex, standing in the center of the Afghan rug.

“I won’t be long,” he said.

Alex nodded.

Mary shot her a glance that spoke volumes and then ushered Burke from the room.

* * * *

When Mary returned she found Alex standing in front of the fire, staring into the flames.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

Alex turned, pressing her hands to her hot cheeks, and shook her head.

“You can’t just keep him here.”

“I know that.”

“And I doubt he’s going to leave of his own accord.”

“I know that, too.”

“It won’t be long before Mrs. Curry solves the puzzle and guesses the truth.”

Alex grabbed her friend’s arm. “She knows Lord Selby is not the baby’s father?”

“I think she’s too flustered to conclude anything at the moment. But the way Burke looks at you, it ... it doesn’t betoken friendship. And once he’s cleaned up she’ll see what he looks like.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’ll see that he’s a much more likely candidate for your lover than Lord Selby.”

“Jesu help me,” Alex whispered. “What am I to do?”

“Are you sorry that he came here?”

“Oh, God in heaven, no. When I saw him all I wanted to do was take his hand and run out the door, get as far away from the cares of this place as my feet could take me, and be with him forever.”

“But you can’t do that.”

“You know I can’t. Even if I disregarded Lord Selby, which would be most unfeeling and ungrateful of me, I would give my child an adulteress for a mother. I care nothing for my own reputation, but it’s not fair to brand a child for its mother’s misdeeds.”

“So you are caught in a net.”

“Of my own making, I’m afraid.”

“They are usually the tightest traps, are they not?”

“It will be very difficult to persuade Burke to go.”

“Do you really want him to?”

“No.”

“That’s why it will be difficult. He knows you, he can tell what you feel.”

“I must talk to him tonight at dinner,” Alex said, thinking aloud. “The very least I can do is offer him a good hearty meal. He looks half-starved.”

“I fear he must have gone through quite a lot to get to you,” Mary observed quietly.

“I don’t even want to think about it.” Alex caught her friend’s eye. “He said something about the navy.”

“The navy?”

Alex swallowed. “I think he deserted.”

“Deserted!” Mary gasped. “They hang deserters, doesn’t he know that?”

“They hang them if they catch them. I don’t think he’s planning on getting caught.”

“He’s a fugitive, then.”

“Probably.”

“He doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact.”

“He’s accustomed to it. He was a fugitive in Ireland for many years.”

“This gets worse every minute,” Mary said with despair in her voice.

“One thing at a time.” Alex folded her hands, trying to stay calm. “Would you please ask Mrs. Curry to supervise an excellent dinner, perhaps the venison stored in the smokehouse from the last deer Evans got in November.”

“I’m not sure how much of it is left.”

“Ask. And I’ll want the Rhenish wine, and some of those glazed figs Lord Selby had sent from Italy, and the honey cakes the cook gets from the beekeeper’s wife in the village.”

“I’ll attend to it,” Mary said.

“And tell her I do not wish to eat in the dining room.”

“Why?”

“I will have no appetite, surrounded by all the portraits of Lord Selby’s ancestors on the walls,” Alex said.

“I can’t tell Mrs. Curry that.”

“Tell her it’s too chilly in that great room, the heat of the fire never penetrates its corners, and I desire to be served in here.”

Mary nodded.

“And wish me luck.”

“I do so, with all my heart.”

Alex watched her friend’s departing back until the door had closed behind her.

* * * *

That evening the food was everything Alex could have wished, and Burke ate as if he were consuming a condemned man’s last meal. Alex watched him raptly, devouring the sight of him as he devoured the dinner. Shorn of the beard and the excess hair, he looked much like his old self, even though his wrists protruded from John Selby’s sleeves and the prominent bones of his face made him resemble a sprouting teenager. He finally sat back with a goblet of wine in his hand and surveyed Alex across the makeshift dining table.

“What’s all this in aid of?” he said. “Are you fattening me up for the kill?”

“Don’t joke about it,” Alex said. “I have a good idea you’re on the run from the navy, and I know what the penalty for that is.”

“They won’t find me,” he said, taking a sip from his silver cup.

“Oh, how do you know? Why do you take such chances?”

“I had little choice.” He told her about his adventures on the high seas and concluded, “So it was either spend the rest of my life on one of Her Majesty’s ships or come here and find you.”

“Does that happen all the time, vessels just kidnapping people at sea and forcing them into the navy?”

He looked at her as if she were incredibly naive. “Yes, Alexandra, it does. That’s only one of the many reasons my people were so unhappy with your queen’s government.”

“But they may be looking for you,” Alex said.

“I doubt it.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t a very skilled seaman, I did nothing another could not do as well in my place. They’ll replace my body with somebody else’s in short order and forget me.”

“I hope that you are right.”

“So is there anything else we can talk about?” he asked. “The sun, the moon, the latest predictions of the future from Dr. Dee, the deserts of Arabia? You’ve done a fine job of avoiding the topic most heavily on both our minds.”

“I don’t know what to say about it.”

“Yes, you do. You have a speech all prepared, I’ll warrant. You’re waiting for the right moment to tell me that we must make the ultimate sacrifice. You must stay with your old goat of a husband and I must go ... to hell, I suppose.”

“Please,” Alex said, looking away from him.

“Oh, have I put it badly? Perhaps you would like to rephrase it for me.”

“You phrased it well enough.”

He stood abruptly, almost upsetting his chair. “You have turned into such a prig, Alexandra! There was a time, short months ago, when you would have done anything to be with me. Now you sit there with your little whey face, swathed in maternal stateliness like a nun in her habit, and tell me to go scratch. If I had known motherhood would do this to you I never would have touched you.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“I feel terrible. You’re more concerned with getting your husband’s fortune for the babe than you are with me.”

“My husband’s estate is entailed for his existing son,” Alex said.

“Entailed, what is that?”

“All the property goes to him, with support provisions for his sister, Selby’s daughter, and a small legacy for me.”

“Then why not come with me?”

Alex put her palms flat on the table and was silent a long moment. Then she answered him with a question.

“Do you know what it’s like for a woman to bear an illegitimate child in this kingdom?” she asked. “I’m not talking about a peasant woman or a slattern, but a woman of good family, whose conduct at court, and in all of England, is watched and noticed, a woman like myself?”

He was silent, watching her.

“Ostracism is the best that can happen to her, becoming a charge upon a charity is a strong possibility, beggary is the worst. When I thought I could stay in Ireland with you, the propriety of my conduct did not matter, but when I knew I must come back here, well . . .” She trailed off. “Eight years ago,” she went on, “when one of Her Majesty’s waiting maids became pregnant by Walter Raleigh, and it seemed for a time that Raleigh would not marry her, the maid tried to kill herself. Twice. Even after they were married and the child was born, the queen sent them both to the Tower to contemplate their misdeed.”

Burke made as if to speak, but she held up her hand.

“Allow me to finish. When it was discovered that Lady Mary Grey had made a secret marriage without the queen’s permission, Her Majesty had the husband thrown into prison for three years. His wife never saw him again, and when he died, even her request to wear mourning was refused.”

“Are you telling me that your queen is a tyrant? Lady, this much I know!”

“I am describing to you the state you left me in, the state from which James Selby rescued me. I won’t forget that, no matter how skillfully you might play upon my feelings to get me to do so. If I went off with you now, he would be a laughingstock, not to mention the effect upon the child I carry, who would never be able to live in this country without accompanying whispers of scandal. This may not be the fate I would have chosen, but it is the one which was chosen for me by my untimely pregnancy.”

“I never meant to leave you in such a miserable case, Alex,” he said softly.