Kate locked the shop door behind him. Despite her words, she would not reopen today; her shaky knees could barely hold her.
Oh, this was not good. This was not safe and peaceful. This was dangerous.
She pressed a hand hard to the ache in her stomach and wondered whether she would be sick, but a few long minutes later the nausea passed and she made her way up to her rooms, to her bed, crawling beneath the thick blanket to hide under the covers.
Aidan York. My God.
The last time she’d seen him she’d threatened to marry someone else. He’d told her she damn well should. She’d hated him for weeks afterward. But in the end, she’d still thought he would save her. She’d waited for him for so long, wondering every morning if this would be the day he would come for her. . . . But all that time, he’d thought she was dead.
It shouldn’t have hurt more than his abandonment, but it did. It broke her heart to think of that terrified girl, holding on to her soul so that she could save something, anything, of herself for him. Knowing that if she just hoped hard enough, he would appear in Ceylon and take her away. In truth, there had never been any hope of rescue at all.
A ragged cry escaped her lips as she tried to stifle her sobs. It was no use. A deep well of emotion was uncapped and she could not close it. The tears overflowed her eyes and streamed down her temples as she finally gave in—just for a moment, she promised herself—and allowed her throat to open. The keening that emerged was a shock and a relief. Sobs wracked her body as she thought of the life she’d lived on the other side of the world.
The rage that rushed over her did not dry her tears but turned them vengeful, and she cried into her pillow until sleep fell over her, a sleep disturbed only by vague dreams of heat and black soil and the incessant sounds of insects.
When she woke, greeted by a headache and gritty, swollen eyes, she squinted at her small clock to find that two hours had passed. Six-thirty, and she felt like she’d lain abed for days. Rain pattered the window in a soothing ruckus. Her legs wanted to refuse service, but she forced herself to rise. The shop needed sweeping, the counters wiping. And she should eat.
Life moved on. She’d learned that lesson, at least. Life moved on and she must keep the lie going. It would not go well for her if she dragged around her shop like a grieving widow.
She washed her face and took her hair down to brush it before twisting it up again. Her hair had once been her vanity. In Ceylon it had become a heavy veil that seemed to capture all the moisture from the air and press it to her skin. She’d yearned to shave it off, as many of the men had done. Who would have cared, after all?
But now it was neither vanity nor curse, it was only a chore to be completed.
Turning her mind from the past, she pinned up her hair and hurried down the stairs to set a pot of water on to heat. The present was problem enough. And after that crying fit, she felt almost calm. She’d meant what she’d said to Aidan. What could any explanations matter? She was alive and finally well. And Aidan certainly looked no worse for wear. Older, yes, but strong and healthy. His gloves had looked cut from the finest kid. His hat had been of the latest style.
And nothing, after all, could be changed or taken back. So the present was her only concern. And there were small problems, in addition to the large ones. Her ongoing war with the old stove, which either refused to hold heat or charred anything she tried to cook. The nearly empty bin of beans from Sumatra and the wholesaler’s promise that he would surely have more by Friday. And of course there was Aidan, who meant to return.
She felt sick at the idea, but even his return was a small problem. He would come and he would go, and that would be that. He would have no reason to tell her family. He’d certainly have no reason to try to track down her husband.
She opened the back door and swept the floor, then poured herself a cup of her new coffee blend before putting a sausage on to cook. She couldn’t afford a daily maid, and she was determined to master the simple act of cooking a meal. So far the results had been less than perfect. In fact, she’d given up earlier in the week, but she could not bear another dinner of cheese and bread. She was forced to dare the stove.
Kate sipped her coffee and glared at the pan. The sausage was barely sizzling. She added more coal, then jumped back with a hiss.
“Evil thing,” Kate muttered to the stove, bringing a burnt fingertip to her mouth to soothe the sting. The flames looked too high now, but the sausage was finally cooking. Poking at it with a long fork, she prayed for the best.
What an exhausting day. What an
awful
day. And she still had to prepare her first delivery for the Stag’s Horn, one of the best inns in town and her first big client. She’d almost forgotten, and that was only proof that nothing good could come of Aidan’s return.
She gave the sausage an angry poke, and in revenge, it rolled away to reveal an underside burnt to black. Kate screeched in wordless frustration, reached for the handle of the pan . . . and remembered at the last possible moment that she didn’t have a rag to protect her from the heat.
“Ha.” She reached in triumph for the cloth, absurdly proud that the sausage hadn’t goaded her into burning her entire palm. “I’m far more clever than you,” she insisted with a smug smile—at the sausage, at the stove, at the whole kitchen.
The rumble of a man clearing his throat chased her triumph away and sent her twisting around, rag clutched like a shield against her chest.
“The door was open. . . .” Aidan gestured toward the alley.
Kate closed her mouth with a snap and glared at him. What was he doing here, taking up far too much space in her tiny box of a kitchen? “You’re not supposed to return until tomorrow.”
He looked as tired as she felt. A small frown caught between his brows, his wide mouth tightened with tension. And those strong shoulders looked hard as stone. “I . . .” He shifted, clasping his hands behind him as he glanced toward the door. “I can’t wait until tomorrow, Katie. Can you?”
She tried to ignore the bright pain in his eyes. “I can’t have a man in my shop after hours. It’s unseemly.”
“Perhaps dinner at the inn then?”
“As you can see, I’ve already started my dinner.”
He raised an eyebrow. His nostrils flared. “I think you may be in need of a new plan.”
She opened her mouth to refuse him again, but her nose caught the acrid odor of burning fat and she groaned instead. “Oh, no.”
Spinning back to the stove, Kate jerked the pan from the fire—using the cloth—and banged it down onto the cool side of the stove. The sausage was black and crispy, and tendrils of smoke curled tauntingly up from the pan. Her eyes narrowed, her hands clenched into tight fists.
“The inn?” he murmured.
She would have ordered him out with no hesitation if there’d been any hint of amusement in his voice, but she heard none. Willing herself to calm, she let out a long, slow breath before turning to face him.
“No.” Her tone was rude but she wasn’t screaming and stomping her feet as she wished to do. That was something.
His jaw clenched, but he held tight to his frustration as well. He dropped his head and frowned at the floor instead of her. “All right. But you said there was a strolling park. It won’t be dark for a half hour yet. Perhaps we could walk.”
She found herself staring at the top of his head. His brown hair was shorter now, but it still looked soft as sable to her. Out of the blue, a memory assaulted her. Of her hand sliding into his hair. Of her fingers gripping the soft strands as he lowered himself over her . . .
“Just a walk,” he whispered. “Please.”
“I’ll need my cloak.” She’d meant to snap the words in irritation, but they emerged as more of a rasp. “Excuse me.” She dropped the rag on the small table and covered the fire before she walked serenely up her stairs. But once she closed the door at the top, she had to lean against it to try to draw a breath past her blocked throat.
She’d
forgotten
. She’d forgotten everything, and that had been good. To
not
remember. To not know him. She could not bear much more of this. Aidan was a ghost to her, and she needed him to be unreal.
So she removed her apron and folded it before walking slowly across the room to retrieve her gloves and her cloak. She would walk with him, and then it would be done.
She couldn’t get her dry throat to work, so she descended the stairs and said nothing. He offered his arm, and there was no choice but to take it, though the contact brought a shiver of uneasiness to her belly and made her glad she at least had her gloves. Aidan had not worn his, she saw with a glance at his tanned hands.
She refused to remember his hands.
They strolled in silence, halfway to the park before he cleared his throat to break the tension hovering between them.
“You’ve been living in Ceylon?”
She shook her head and lied. “India.” Ceylon was a small island, after all, and she might be known as a notorious murderess. She couldn’t let him know a thing.
Silence returned, descending with surprising weight. Kate made a conscious effort to relax the fingers that gripped his forearm.
“So . . . that is where you learned the coffee trade?”
“Yes, my hus—” Swallowing the word, Kate cleared her throat again. “I lived on a coffee plantation.”
“Did you return to England recently?”
“A few months ago. As soon as I was able, actually.”
“You did not enjoy India?”
That surprised a laugh from her. The strained sound drew a look from Aidan, but she rushed on before he could probe. “I did not enjoy the heat.”
“And that’s why you returned?”
Here it was. She didn’t hesitate over the story. “My husband wished to start a new venture. Coffee distribution. Due to our own plantation and his contacts in the community, we can guarantee the highest quality of product at the lowest price.”
“But where is your husband?”
“The . . . the heat made me ill, so he sent me ahead to start the shop. He is in India for the moment, arranging new contacts.”
“I see,” he said in a way that made his confusion clear. “Are coffee shops really so profitable?”
“It is only the first step.” Hands clenched tight together, she waited for him to kick at the cracks in her story. Why was she running the shop herself? Why did she have no workers? Why would her husband not travel with her?
Just as he seemed about to speak, the strolling park appeared before them and distracted him from his study of her face. His eyes swept the grassy square before he led her to sit on a small bench sheltered beneath a willow tree. Kate perched there and stared at the dying leaves of the tree, waiting for him to speak again.
She felt him shift toward her. “What happened? How did this . . . happen?”
Her breath swelled in her tight chest. “I don’t know. After we quarreled, I returned home. I was so angry. You told me we couldn’t marry—”
“We
couldn’t
.”
Kate closed her eyes, remembering the awful things they’d said to each other. She’d called him a coward, and he’d called her a naïve, stupid child. “You’re right,” she murmured. “We couldn’t marry. So I married someone else.”
“In Ceylon,” he said flatly.
“India,” she said again, feeling the lie on her tongue. “And that is what happened.” Oh, but that so simplified it that she couldn’t honestly say it was the truth. She didn’t care.
Aidan pushed to his feet, shoving one hand through his hair. Kate felt stupidly jealous of that hand.
“That is
all?
” he bit out. “That is all you have to say? You could not marry me, so you married another?”
She shook her head, knowing he could not see, and said nothing.
“But they told me you’d died.
Why?
”
Why, indeed? Because she’d resisted the marriage? Because she’d refused to agree? Because they’d intercepted letter after letter begging him to come for her? Perhaps he had come for her, and her parents had been forced to fabricate her death. But she said none of this. Instead, she shrugged. “My father meant to make an advantageous match.”
“I remember,” he said dryly.
“My husband . . . he had money. Lots of it, and a desire to see the governor of Ceylon replaced. My father had influence over government appointments but never enough money. It was exactly the match he wanted.”
“Exactly what I could not offer,” Aidan grumbled.
“Yes.”
“And you simply agreed?”
“I had no choice.”
His head snapped up, and he looked at her. Really looked. Grief etched his handsome face, she realized suddenly. Lines of pain and weariness beyond his years. She’d been cruel not to see it before. She could not imagine what she’d have felt if she’d thought him dead. “I’m sorry they told you I was dead. I’m sorry.”