Through the Smoke (15 page)

Truman stood in the empty drawing room, staring down at the tray.

“Here is the painting you requested, my lord,” Linley said, coming in behind him. “I had it covered, but—” He fell silent when he realized that, besides them, the room was empty. “She’s gone?”

Truman didn’t answer. He went to gaze out the front window, but he could see no sign of Rachel.

“Shall I take the painting to her house?”

“No, don’t bother.”

“What is it?” Linley pressed.

“She took the food,” Truman replied.

“Sorry, my lord?”

“Rachel. She’s hungry.” Truman felt his gut twist when he remembered how many times her eyes had cut to the tray. She had wanted it, needed it, but she had been too proud to eat it. She hated letting him see her weakness, and he hated the fact that her pride made it almost impossible for him to help her.

“I don’t understand, my lord. Are you talking about Miss McTavish?”

“Yes.” He turned his attention to his butler. Over the years he’d spent more time with Linley than his own parents and because of that the boundaries between them sometimes blurred. Their relationship felt more like father and son these days.

“She said she was doing fine, never better,” he explained. “Yet there were dark circles beneath her eyes. And suddenly, out of nowhere, she tells me her father lit the fire that burned the hall and killed Katherine. Only she showed very little emotion when she said it. She seemed more frightened or agitated than anything else.”

Linley’s tufted eyebrows raised above his round spectacles. “So you asked her about the missing painting.”

“No. I hadn’t gotten that far yet. She had never even heard of Bruegel, so it seemed pointless. That was why I asked you to get
Peasant Wedding Feast
,
to see if she would perhaps recognize Bruegel’s style.” He had just purchased the painting, which hadn’t been part of his father’s original collection. So far, they hadn’t been able to locate any that were. But the more time passed, the more certain Truman became that his father’s favorite,
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
, was missing before the fire so much as scorched the walls.

“An excellent plan.”

Truman shrugged. “It was worth a try, even though I doubt Jack set the fire or stole the paintings, at least on his own. If it were that simple, I would have figured it out months ago. But… why would Rachel lie?”

At first, he’d thought she’d been grasping for a way her conscience would allow her to accept money from him. She was obviously going without, which meant her brother couldn’t be faring much better. But when she flatly refused everything he offered, again, he had to reconsider that assumption.

“Do you want me to do some more checking, my lord? Perhaps have her watched?”

Truman rubbed his face. “She is not to be bothered in any way. Just keep an eye on her cottage and make sure whomever you use has no obvious connection to me. Something about her whole confession didn’t feel right.” He had to reach the truth and, more and more, he believed Rachel was the key. But it was the food that troubled him at this moment. She was going hungry, and because she wouldn’t accept anything from him, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Or was there?

He whirled to face his butler. “Linley, please have Mrs. Poulson send a ham, a turkey, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, nuts, wine and some fresh fruits and vegetables to the McTavish cottage. See that the food gets there as soon as possible. And tell whoever accompanies it that it’s to be left to rot by the front door if Rachel won’t accept it.”

“Aye, my lord.”

To hell with Rachel’s bloody pride, Truman decided. He wasn’t going to sit back and watch her starve.

Geordie was home alone when Rachel returned. She looked around the sparsely furnished cottage in surprise, then put the tarts and sandwiches she’d taken from Blackmoor Hall on the table. “Where is Mrs. Tate? She said she would keep an eye on you while I was gone.”

“She’ll be right back.” He was turned away from her, his voice muffled as he worked to clean out the fireplace.

Rachel poured some water into a basin to wash her sticky hands. “Come clean off the soot,” she said. “I brought you something to eat.”

His eyes rounded when he saw the food. “How did you come by such fancy fare?”

Not wanting to think of her recent visit to Blackmoor Hall, or any of the ones before, Rachel made a show of drying her hands. “Don’t worry about that. Just enjoy yourself.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. Geordie washed his hands and face, then bellied up to the table and polished off two of the larger pastries before looking questioningly her way. “Have you eaten?” he asked politely. “Because I could stop now. I’m not that hungry.”

Rachel smiled and took a seat opposite him. “I will halve the last one with you.” If she didn’t eat something, she’d faint. And she couldn’t faint. She had to contact Mr. Cutberth and let him know she’d done what he’d asked her to do. Then maybe the rumors about her would die and everyone would go back to treating her like they always had.

“Where did Mrs. Tate go?” she asked.

“Don’t know. We… we had a disagreement. She scolded me and cried and scolded me some more. Then she grabbed her cloak and hurried out just before you got back.”

Rachel studied her young brother. “She rarely scolds you. What did you do?”

He shrugged, his face reddening.

“Geordie?”

Setting his portion of that third pastry down uneaten, he shoved away from the table and went back to cleaning the fireplace. The shovel clanged as he hung it on a hook. Then the bristles of the horsehair broom swished as he
swept out the rest of the cinders. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “You’ll get angry too.”

Foreboding flickered somewhere in the back of Rachel’s mind. “I won’t get angry.”

At first she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. But he finally set his tools aside and turned to face her. “I am going to apply at the mine.”

His voice sounded older, more like their brother Tommy’s had the year before he died. Already Geordie was beginning to grow up, and because of their mother’s death, he was being forced to do it far too soon.

Rachel swallowed hard to alleviate the sudden dryness of her throat. “Surely you don’t mean that, Geordie. You are only eight—”

“I will be nine soon. Mr. Clifton says I am plenty old enough. He said his own son started trapping at five.”

“Mr. Clifton? What has he got to do with this?”

“I saw him outside the apothecary today. He told me I am the man of the house now and wanted to know when I would be starting at the pit.”

Rachel’s temper began to simmer. Clifton had no right putting the responsibility of their situation on Geordie’s young shoulders. “He doesn’t know what’s best for us, Geordie. Next time you see him you can tell him you won’t be starting at the mine
ever
.”

Her brother’s chin jutted out. “He used to be one of the best coal hewers at Stanhope & Co. He knows plenty—”

“He had to give up being a hewer because he couldn’t see anymore. That is what working down in the pit does for a man, Geordie. It clogs his nose and lungs with dust and ruins his eyes.”

“Well, he can see now. He’s a fireman at the mine, isn’t he? If not for him, who would check the safety of the workings before each shift begins?”

“I don’t care who or what he is. That’s not the point. The point is…” she struggled to keep her emotions in check “… the point is the pit is dark, dusty, filthy, stuffy and wet. You will work for more than twelve hours a day with sweating, stinking horses and perspiring men, and never see the sun. Surely you do not want to consign yourself to a life like that—”

“I have to do
something
to help you,” he said, his eyes imploring. “You haven’t been able to open the shop. The villagers are treating you like a leper.”
He blushed, and Rachel feared he already understood far too much about what the villagers were saying, even at his tender age.

She glanced at the food left over from the meal they had just shared at the earl’s expense and guiltily feared Geordie had guessed where it had come from. “I know the villagers are talking about me, but I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of, Geordie.” That was true, wasn’t it? She hadn’t been in her right mind. Surely she wasn’t responsible for what had occurred in the earl’s bed. But she had let him finish.… “You don’t have to worry about that,” she went on. “I am much older than you, and I can take care of us. You have to trust me.”

But the cold nights, when she had tried to conserve the last of their wood and coal, and the small or nonexistent meals they had shared over the last few days had, no doubt, left an indelible impression on him, undermining his confidence in her.

“Mr. Clifton said I can earn enough to buy us the basics,” he said. “And I won’t be down in the mine, not at first. I will be at the pithead, working on the belts, sorting the rocks from the coal. Anyone can do that.”

“I don’t want you there!” Rachel nearly screamed the words, then regretted her burst of temper when Geordie looked like she’d struck him. Infusing some calm into her voice, she said, “I’m sorry, Geordie. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that, if you go to work in the mine, you will have no time to get an education. And if you don’t get an education, you will always be a miner.”

“Dad was a miner,” he said defiantly. “So was Tommy.”

Curling her hands into fists, Rachel closed her eyes. How could he possibly understand how easily he could get roped into a life of endless, back-breaking labor? A life rife with strikes and lockouts and short time? From week to week he’d never know what stoppages would be kept from his earnings. Depending upon the whim of Whythe Stanhope, who was steward over the mine, he could be overcharged for the tools, candles and powder he used underground. Fines could be imposed on him for unsatisfactory work. And if he ever chose to live in colliery housing, he could be fined for offences as trivial as keeping dogs, cows, pigs, donkeys—even pigeons!

Rachel saw more for him in life than that, more for herself than worrying whether there would be another cave-in.…

“When you get older, we will talk about it,” she said, hoping the idea of future compromise might mollify him.

“That’s what Mrs. Tate said,” he sulked.

“And she has the right of it. For now, letting you work at the mine is out of the question; do you understand? If anyone applies there, it will be me.”

“But if we both—”

Mrs. Tate rushed in, interrupting their argument. With her was the blacksmith’s apprentice. He took off his hat and wrung it in his hands, hovering just outside the door and going beet red when Rachel looked at him.

“Mr. Wilson, I am sorry. I wasn’t expecting you.” Rachel stood and brushed the crumbs from her dress. “Please come in.”

“Mr. Wilson ’as somethin’ ’e’d like to say to ye.” Mrs. Tate held the door and waved the blacksmith’s apprentice on through, then motioned for Geordie to join her on her way back out. “Come, lad. Let’s go see what comfort we can give poor Gilly on this cold day an’ let Mr. Wilson an’ yer sister ’ave some privacy, aye?”

Geordie frowned but Rachel encouraged him with a nod. “We will only be a moment, Geordie. Then I will come find the two of you.”

As they left, Rachel felt her palms grow moist. She had never been alone with James Wilson before and wasn’t sure she wanted to be now. After what had been circulating in the village, he had to be wondering if she was really the whore and traitor the miners made her out to be.

His pained expression told her he was feeling as uncomfortable and embarrassed as she was. Taking courage from that, she broke the awkward silence. “I am afraid Mrs. Tate came to you without my knowledge. I apologize. Her heart is in the right place, but—”

“I’ve heard what they are sayin’ about ye,” he blurted, suddenly tightening his grip on his hat. “I don’t believe it, of course.”

“Thank you.” Rachel’s conscience stirred as, in her mind’s eye, she saw the earl naked above her, limed in firelight. But she shoved the vision away.

“Mrs. Tate was wise to seek me out,” he said. “I’ve ’ad my eye on ye for a long time, ever since ye were just a girl. Ye already know that, I imagine.” He looked down at the tips of his boots, the walls of the cottage, anywhere but
at her face. “I still care for ye an’, if ye would accept me, I’d be willin’ to marry ye, even now.”

Rachel had to catch her jaw to keep it from hitting the floor. She had considered petitioning Mr. Wilson to stand by her as a friend, so someone would break ranks with the rest and possibly pave the way for her life to return to normal. But she had never dreamed he would offer to take her on as his wife, not after she rejected him once before.

“I cannot offer ye much, but it’s more than ye got,” he went on, evidently reading her stunned silence as reluctance. “I’ll always take care of ye, and I’ll take care of young Geordie, too, just like ’e was my own son.” He blushed more furiously at the mention of a son, but blundered on, “I’ll treat ye tenderly, Rachel. An’ though I might not be so smart with letters, like ye are, I will do my best to learn. An’ I will work ’ard an’ not spend all my money on drink. Ye got my word on that.”