TWELVE
THE DANGERS OF FOLLOWING GARDEN PATHS
My darling Helena,
I beg you share the contents of this letter with Charlotte if and when she finds time in the Weltons’ hectic social schedule to visit you. You must not worry, dear, that I have only now written because my journey was interrupted by an Unfortunate Climatic Episode which has obliged us to take refuge in an unexpected and utterly charming little Scottish…
KATE BIT THE END of her pen and considered her word. Abbey would only confirm Helena’s fears that she had been irresponsible in allowing Kate to travel without her.Tavern was worse.
“…spa,” she wrote. And then, “I hope, dear, that Your Employer does not impose too much on your Good Nature but I fear, knowing both you and her, that such hope is futile.”
She hesitated.
“You will, of course, burn this letter as soon as you have read it.”
“You are lucky you did not develop an inflammation of the lungs, Mrs. Blackburn.”
“Father Abbot!” Kate bolted upright from where she’d been sitting outside the greenhouse and nearly tripped over the end of the brown robe covering her.
The abbot pretended not to notice. “I am interrupting your correspondence. Forgive me.”
“No, no,” Kate hastily assured him. “I was just finishing a short letter to my sister, Helena. I don’t suppose there is anyone to post it?”
“Yes, of course. We are not so far removed from the world as that. A messenger is due this afternoon. I will send it back with him.”
“Thank you.” She looked around, uncertain what protocol demanded, wondering if she could be seated before the abbot.
He removed the question by gracefully taking a seat on the marble bench nearby and indicated that she might return to her stool. “How are you faring, Mrs. Blackburn?”
“Very well, sir.” It had been two days since Kit had left, and she felt entirely herself again. At least, in the physical sense. “I must thank you again for your hospitality. Once I arrive at the marquis of Parnell’s home, I will ask that he compensate you for my care—”
“It is completely unnecessary. We are a Benedictine order, Mrs. Blackburn. Serving travelers and indigents is our mission.”
“Indigents?” Kate echoed numbly.
The abbot smiled. “I did not mean to imply that you were of the latter category, Mrs. Blackburn. Excuse me for being unclear.”
“Not at all,” Kate muttered. “It is just that…since my parents’ deaths, I have been closer to that state than I am comfortable admitting.”
“It has been difficult for you,” he acknowledged mildly, “what with your maid deserting you and your driver absconding with your carriage.”
Kate nodded. Kit must have related her situation to the priest.
“Added to which, you were then forced to rely upon the good offices of a man you must regard as a stranger.”
“He has done everything in his power to protect and serve me,” she answered a little coolly.
“Ah!” The abbot smiled. “I am glad to hear that.”
“Why?” Kate asked suspiciously. “Do you have any reason to suppose he would act otherwise? You do not know him then. He is a most honorable and capable gentleman.”
“Of course. How felicitous that you recognize his value.”
“Hm.” Kate’s back, which had unaccountably stiffened in the past moments, relaxed.
“Is there is anything else I might see you provided?”
She hesitated. She meant only to pass the time. “Yes. Tell me about Christian MacNeill.”
Kit’s pace quickened as he headed toward the rose garden. His trip to the ruined castle and its surroundings had been fruitless. No one had seen any stranger who might have been the man who’d accosted Kate, and Kit had found little sign of his passage other then the tumbled wall where he’d tethered his horse.
He’d returned to St. Bride’s earlier in the day and been met at once by the abbot, who had informed him that Kate was well—“blooming,” he’d said, launching into an uncharacteristic flight of fancy. Then, at the abbot’s insistence, he had taken a bath— and then, and then, well, he hadn’t been able to stay away any longer.
She was his responsibility, he told himself. And therefore it was for him to judge whether she suffered any ill effects from their ride across the moors.
“Ah! I see.” Kate’s voice drifted over the stone-walled garden. Proper little English accent, pretty round vowels and crisp consonants.
“And these are the parts that inform me it is male? Not very spectacular, are they?” Kate sounded a little disappointed.
What the hell was going on?
“They don’t need to be spectacular.” Was that Brother Martin? Irascible, misogynistic Brother Martin? “They only need to do the work of procreation and that they do well enough.”
Kit pushed open the door to the walled garden and moved silently through the tangle of shrubs crowding the entrance until he spied Kate sitting outside the greenhouse on a marble bench alongside the crabbed old monk. She was studying a rose, carefully severed in half, that had been spread on the white marble surface between them.
He could only see her profile, but her brow was puckered in concentration and her hair, plaited simply into one long sable rope, trailed down her back. Someone had found a novitiate’s robe for her to wear over her dress—perhaps as a buttress against her womanly charms. An ineffectual effort. It did nothing but enhance her femininity.
Clearly, the abbot was correct. She was blooming with health. Kit settled his shoulders against the stone, enjoying the sight of her: the carnelian flush on the crest of her cheek, the little bump on the bridge of her nose, the tender nape of her neck, the manner in which the clear morning light shimmered across her dark braid. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the silken feel of it spilling over his palms.
Happily, his two days away had restored him to his sanity. He’d thought about Kate and her appeal for him and had decided it was simply a matter of proximity and the age-old problem of wanting things one couldn’t possibly have. He’d simply been howling at the moon again. Well, no more.
“Mr. MacNeill knows all of this, you say?” she asked artlessly.
His eyes opened and fell upon her guileless visage. What was she up to?
“If he doesn’t, it isn’t for any lack of effort on my part. All those boys were well schooled in horticulture. Give them something to occupy their brains, is what the abbot said.”
“And why did they need to have their minds occupied? I would have thought Latin and history and geography would have been enough.”
Busy, she’d been. What else had she found out?
“Too sharp by half, the lot of them. Smartest lads I ever seen. Taken individual or as a whole, but truth be told, you had to take them as a whole.”
“Oh?”
“They held together tighter than sin does to Satan— God grant us deliverance from his wiles—four smart foundlings.” He snorted. “What does one want smarts for? Where did it get any of them? Smarts only means you know to a degree exactly how miserable you be. Better to be like Brother John, who only suspects, and dimly at that, what a miserable place the world is.”
Kate must have raised one of those delicately arched brows, for when Brother Martin spoke again, he grumbled. “A man is entitled to his opinion.”
“Of course.” There was no censure in her voice. “But if a man, or a woman, doesn’t know the extent of their misery, how can they appreciate the glory of salvation?”
“You, Mrs. Blackburn, would have made a good Jesuit,” Brother Martin said darkly.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she answered. “But we were talking about Mr. MacNeill.”
“You were talking about Mr. MacNeill. Again. I was talking about flowers.”
“Again.”
“Humph.” He could hear Brother Martin’s gruff amusement. So she’d managed to charm the old woman-hater. And in two days. God alone knew what had befallen the other monks. They were probably all at confession relating all sorts of interesting and sinful musings. God knew, he ought to be there himself for some of the thoughts he’d indulged.
“You are most enlightening on any number of complex subjects.”
“You’re thinking of Mr. MacNeill agin.”
“Am I?”
Was she? And why should she be doing that? Kit wondered. But he already knew the answer. She had told him once that she would be whatever the situation demanded. Apparently, she felt this situation demanded she learn something of Kit’s past.
It was time to put an end to her delving. He moved out from the shadows, studying his little berobed temptress. Her head was tilted at a nearly flirtatious angle, and her lashes held the light at their very tips, as though dipped in gold. Brother Martin, even from a distance, had the unhappily bemused expression of an utterly captivated man.
What had she learned from the monks? he wondered. That he was a prostitute’s by-blow? That he’d been in more fights than any of the other lads? And what did that knowledge reap for her? How would she use it? Because a person does not acquire something she has no intention of using—another lesson the world had been eager to teach him after he’d left St. Bride’s.
Yes, it was good that he’d left her for a while. He’d forgotten for a short space what the world could do to you if your life became entangled too much with another’s. Better to be alone.
Brother Martin had picked a little twig from the ground and was using it as a pointing stick, but the palsy that had plagued him years before had only grown worse, and his hand trembled. Without calling any undue attention to it, Kate covered the gnarled, liver-spotted old hand with her own, steadying it.
A spurt of jealousy rippled through Kit, and he smiled at the absurdity of it. But the fact remained that she had never touched him. Not of her own volition. Even when she’d bandaged him, duty alone had inspired her.
He wondered what those long, delicate hands would feel like flowing over his skin, his arms, his chest. Were a lady’s hands more or less adept at love-making? Would soft palms and uncalloused fingertips provide more pleasure than a tavern girl’s rougher counterparts? Or did being a lady or a tavern maid have nothing to do with it, and would Kate Blackburn’s touch be eviscerating no matter what she was or where she came from?
But it was impossible to separate it out like that. Because where she came from had fashioned who she was, and that was a lady. Far above his common touch.
She stopped suddenly, as if sensing his scrutiny, and lifted her head, doelike, looking about. Slowly she turned her head, and her eyes met his. They gladdened with the smile already curving her lips. He resisted, feeling her draw on him like steel tailings to a magnet.
“MacNeill,” she called softly.
“Ma’am.”
“You’ve come back earlier than the abbot said to expect you.” She sounded happy. She sounded pleased. Perversely, it angered him, even though he knew it was unfair. What right did she have to welcome him? What right did she have to make him want that welcome?
Sometimes, to rid oneself of madness, madness needs to be indulged. Or so he told himself as he went to her, an idea forming with lightning rapidity. If he could just taste her, he would discover that she tasted like every other woman, that she felt like every other woman. Then he could release himself from wanting to… experience her. Then he could get on with the business of revenge.
“There was no reason to keep searching for something that wasn’t there, Mrs. Blackburn. ”Like you. You aren’t really here, are you? You’re just marking time.”
“I’m sorry you were disappointed.”
“There are compensations for returning,” he said steadily, his gaze sharp on her face. Look at me. Want me. Just a little.
Her extraordinary eyes widened, as if he’d voiced his thoughts. Good. He didn’t want any unsuspecting victim. Let her be put on notice: he intended to have her. Just a little of her. Just a kiss.
“Back, are you, Christian?” Brother Martin said sourly, unhappy to have his tête-à-tête interrupted.
“Yes.” He didn’t take his eyes off Kate. “I trust you are well, Mrs. Blackburn?”
“Of course she’s well,” Brother Martin harrumphed. “She’s had a tisane of primrose, mallow, and lemon balm three days running. Got rid of her sore throat straight off. Then we fed her. Poor thing was near half starved.” His gaze clearly faulted Kit for her condition.
“I can see she is in the best of health.”
Her gaze fell before his, and a faint color tinted her cheeks.
He turned his attention to ridding himself of the monk. “You have found a new pupil, Brother Martin?”
The old monk sniffed. “Mrs. Blackburn grew restive waiting for you, and in the spirit of hospitality, I thought it only right to provide her with some company while you went off and did whatever it is you did and left her stranded here. Poor lamb.”
Poor lamb, indeed. Kate had lifted her head during Brother Martin’s diatribe, her dutifully wounded expression contradicted by bright, merry eyes.
“You needn’t justify your presence here, Brother Martin,” Kit said. “One has only to look at Mrs. Blackburn, and any further explanation is quite unnecessary.” Her blush deepened charmingly.
Brother Martin had no answer for this. To deny it would hurt his “lamb,” and to affirm it would be to admit to an earthly fancy. So instead he scowled and sought another topic.
“Mrs. Blackburn wondered if you remembered any of the things I taught you.” He angled his head up, watching Kit with the blithe acrimony of a rival. “Do you?”
“Oh, a thing or two. You’re not going to test me?” he asked in mock despair. Failing Brother Martin’s quizzes had been a painful business. The old malcontent might look as frail as a glass straw, but he’d wielded a switch with expertise.
“If we were in my garden, I would,” Brother Martin said. “But this is Brother Fidelis’s. I always said as how he cosseted you boys as much as these prickly pretties here. Never saw the sense of it, wasting all this effort on roses when pennyroyal and feverfew and lady’s mantle and good, medicinal plants struggle outside.”
“Roses thrive only in rarefied sites,” Kit said. His gaze stayed on Kate as he spoke. “Put them out in the real world, and they die.”
“Then why go through all the trouble?” she asked.
“At first,” he said softly, “because we had no choice. Later, well, you wouldn’t want something so bonny to suffer simply for want of a little effort.”
He didn’t like his own answer, she could see it in his quick frown. “I suppose Brother Fidelis has taken you on a tour of the garden?”
“No.”
“An oversight we must rectify. It’s a fascinating place, a rose garden. Troublesome and hard work to maintain.”
“But worth the effort.”
“Sometimes. For the brief season they bloom. And it is a very brief season. The end is always bittersweet.” He lightened his words with a quick smile, charming and ruthless. Trepidation danced a warning along Kate’s flesh.
What was he up to? The man who’d left the abbey was not the one who’d returned. This Kit was hardeyed and sexual, predatory and focused. On her. He held out his hand, waiting until she placed her own in it to draw her to her feet. “Brother Martin?”
The old man struggled to his feet. “What? You expect me to shamble along in your wake while you spout a bunch of Latin names for ridiculously cosseted flowers? I have more important work to do.” He shot a superior, telling look at Kate. “With my herbs.” And with a harrumph of disdain, he plodded off toward the door.
“Shall we?”
She cocked her head. “Thank you, yes. But be forewarned, I expect to be fascinated.”
He secured her hand in the crook of his arm. “I shall endeavor not to disappoint.”
“You know, Mr. MacNeill,” she said after a pause, “you profess to be nothing more than an ill-bred orphan, and yet you sometimes evince manners that would be more suited to a fine drawing room than a garret.”
“Stage dressing,” he assured her. “Nothing more. Over the years I’ve picked up a few manners that I dust off now and again. One of my—my earlier companions had a tongue so subtle and smooth he could seduce a song from a cat.”
“I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”
“As you will, ma’am,” he said, his manner light and accommodating, his gaze frankly admiring. Almost as if—
A sudden suspicion caused her to stop, and she spoke without thinking. “Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. MacNeill?”
He, too, stopped. His lips twitched as if he might laugh, but when he looked down at her, his eyes were utterly sober. “Why, yes, Mrs. Blackburn, I am. Does the prospect alarm you?”
“Yes,” she said at once. “It does.”
“Ah. Regrettable and I should think unnecessary, though from my position, I’d much rather your alarm be warranted.”
“Should I call out for help?” she asked, trying valiantly to sound as sophisticated as he.
He bent a sardonic eye on her. “I believe the word used was seduce, not rape. You are in no danger from me. Well, that’s not precisely true,” he allowed. “But you are only in as much danger as you allow yourself to be.”
“I see,” she said breathlessly.
“Good. We understand each other, then.” He tucked her hand back in the crook of his arm and would have begun to walk again, but she remained firmly planted. He looked down at her.
“Can I convince you not to attempt to seduce me?”
His brows drew together for a few seconds as he considered her request. “No,” he finally said. “No. I do not think you can.”
“Then my options are …?”
“To continue our walk and let me test my skills. Or not.”
Her heart had begun racing the moment he’d stated his intent. Now it galloped in her throat.
His smile grew rueful. “Come, Mrs. Blackburn. My skills, even by my own decidedly prejudiced account, are not so great.”
She didn’t believe him. He looked entirely capable of seduction. Big, masculine, bold, and healthy. He’d washed his hair recently, she realized. It gleamed like molten bronze, and his tanned, lean countenance had been scraped clean of the stubble it had worn since she’d met him at the White Rose. He looked dangerously appealing, alarmingly enticing, and— She gulped. She wanted to continue on with him. For a little while.