Patricia Rice (33 page)

She didn’t know how to do it, and frustration sent
another tear down her cheek. Pamela patted her face in sympathy, which
made everything worse. She didn’t want to be parted from the children.

Nor did she want to be parted from Mac, she realized
unhappily. She just had the common sense to know that no matter where
they lived, Mac would roam, and unless she followed at his heels, she’d
be left behind. If she was to live alone, she would much rather do it
here, where her roots reached deeply into the soil.

“No,” she said with as much firmness as she could
muster. She wished she had pen and paper in hand. She was much more
articulate in writing.

Mac threw her a puzzled look over his shoulder. “No?”

“No, I won’t go with you. I belong here. You are the adventurer, not me.”

He halted the horses at the end of the lane leading
onto the main road. To the left lay the road to London. To the right,
the road wound into the Cotswold hills around Broadbury. He turned in
his seat and regarded her tearstained face in bewilderment. “You’ll be
with me,” he said, as if that were all that mattered. “I’ll take care of
everything.”

“I don’t
want
you to take care of everything,” she cried. “
I
want to take care of me. And I can’t, not in London, not on a ship, not in America. Not if you do it for me. You
promised
,” she reminded him. “You said you would sail off and let me be who I am.”

Mac looked astounded, bemused, hurt, and angry, all at the same time. “You’re my
wife
,
that’s who you are,” he shouted with his usual bluster. “I don’t want
to leave you here alone, possibly carrying my child. We can return in
the fall, and you’ll see that the place hasn’t fallen apart without
you.”

“The village needs me more than the children do. The
children have you and your parents. Give me one good reason why I
should give up all I know and love to follow you to a strange place and
strange people.” She glared at him, praying he would understand, knowing
he wouldn’t. He was being perfectly reasonable. She was not.

Or maybe she was being reasonable, and he was not. Surely she had as much right to her beliefs as he did.
What a stunning idea!
Her thoughts and wishes might be as valid as any man’s.
My heavens.
She ought to write that down and publish it.

“This is stupid, Bea.” He glanced down at Buddy, who
was following their argument with a worried expression. Controlling his
voice, he continued, “I could simply turn toward London and there would
be nothing you could do about it.”

“I would take the first opportunity to catch a coach
home,” she insisted. “I won’t go, Mac. I swear I won’t. And if you have
decided you don’t wish for me to bear a child while you’re gone, there
is an obvious means of preventing that.”

She thought her barely concealed threat of sleeping
apart might be an unfair tactic, but she had no other. This time he
glared at her with fury. He’d understood.

“Fine. Then we won’t make babies.” He picked up the reins and turned the horses toward Broadbury.

“You can sit and rot in your mansion, for all I care. I’ll ask Mary if she’ll be the children’s nursemaid and go with me.”

“You know Mary is the sole support of her family.
She won’t leave them,” Bea answered with more confidence now that he’d
turned in the right direction. Her heart might be breaking at his
cruelty but she had never expected less. This was why she had to stand
on her own. “Why don’t you take the Widow Black and her two children?”
she finished wickedly.

“Why not two more?” he muttered, urging the horses
faster. “Why not the whole damned town? I’ll never load cargo at this
rate, so I may as well take passengers.”

She didn’t say anything. She had
won
the argument. Sitting back, bouncing Pamela, she savored the moment,
even if it meant the end of the pleasant fantasy she’d woven these past
few days. A man like Mac wouldn’t let a little thing like an argument
stand in the way of his pleasures, once he calmed down. He’d still want
her, even if he would never love the contrary woman she was becoming.

The first doubt crept into Bea’s mind when they
arrived home and wearily packed the children off to the nursery under
Mary’s eager guardianship. Bea asked for a cold supper to be sent up to
their suite, soaked away her exhaustion in a warm tub, then dressed in
her best nightdress and waited for Mac. She wanted to make up to him for
her stubbornness, make him understand why she couldn’t go with him. She
didn’t know if she had any better words than before, but in bed she
didn’t need words.

Only he didn’t arrive to eat his supper or to see her new nightdress.

Fear ate at her insides, but she refused to
acknowledge it. She could not go back to the days when she waited on a
man hand and foot, catering to his every need and whim, while ignoring
her own.

She went to bed and shut down the lamp. To...
the devil
with him.

With that daring curse in her mind, she tossed and turned the rest of the night.

At breakfast, Mac hid behind the newspaper, just as
her father had always done. Bea wanted to throw a roll at him, but she
demurely buttered it instead. “Any mention of the viscount’s missing
children?” she asked with feigned innocence, ignoring James hovering at
her elbow with the teapot.

“No, but there’s a letter in that stack from your
aunt. Perhaps she has news,” Mac answered curtly, lifting his coffee cup
behind the paper.

Bea sorted through the mail and retrieved the
scented letter with her aunt’s handwriting. Using a letter opener, she
pried up the seal, trying to pretend her stomach wasn’t fluttering
nervously. If her aunt had found a nursemaid, Mac could leave at once.

She scanned the spider-web scrawl quickly, then read
more thoroughly. Her aunt wrote of balls and soirees and the latest
gossip. She made no mention of nursemaids or missing children, or banks,
or James. If she could, Bea would reach through the paper and strangle
her beloved aunt.

She ought to be delighted that a nursemaid hadn’t
been found, but she was terrified for Mac and the children. Perhaps she
had been hasty in not agreeing to accompany them to America.

No.
Even Mary would be
better for the children under the conditions of shipboard life. Mary
wouldn’t be a quivering lump of terrorized jelly. If Bea had the coins
to do so, she’d bribe the maid to go with Mac and take care of the
children. Except that would be as unfair to Mary and her family as it
would be to herself.

“Nothing pertinent at all, not even decent gossip.”
She slapped the letter down on the table for Mac to peruse at will. He
wouldn’t believe her without seeing it for himself.

“The latest gossip is that the Earl of Coventry has
run off to France with an actress,” James said cheerfully, pouring her a
fresh cup of tea.

“How do you know that?” Bea demanded. Even her aunt hadn’t mentioned it.

James cocked an eyebrow. “I am not without resources.”

“And I don’t suppose you’d care to reveal those
sources,” Mac asked dryly, lowering the newspaper and lifting a
questioning eyebrow.

“One doesn’t.” With a sniff, James carried the tea tray back to the kitchen.

“Remind me to dock his pay for insolence.” Mac lifted his cup and retreated again.

Bea wondered what would happen if she smacked the
paper from his hand, but she wasn’t brave enough or foolish enough to
try. She’d already pushed him as far as she dared. She supposed it was
up to her to make amends.

“You could take the train into London from Evesham,”
she suggested. “Perhaps with the earl gone, the children would be safe
here while you finish your business.”

“And what happens if the viscount’s men return to
the village?” he asked coldly. “What happens when they learn Mrs.
Lachlan MacTavish lives here?”

Bea hadn’t thought of that. Her throat went dry as
she realized for the first time that she could be in as much trouble as
he was.

Mac slammed the paper down and rose to tower above
her. “Think beyond yourself sometime, my dear, and you’ll discover the
world is a fearsome place that makes your troubles look small.” He
stalked out without waiting for a reply.

Bea couldn’t swallow the roll stuck in her throat. She didn’t want him to
hate
her. But they approached life from such opposite directions that he
might as well be across the ocean for all the chance she had of reaching
him.

She picked up her aunt’s letter and read it again,
but it was James’s news that went round and round in her head. The earl
had gone to France, with an actress. Well, she supposed the children
couldn’t hope for much help from him. He might not even know the
children were missing. In the back of her mind, she’d hoped he would
come riding to the rescue, promising that she could take care of his
grandchildren since his son was so obviously unqualified. Then Mac could
stay for as long as he liked.

It seemed as if he didn’t like staying at all.

She frowned as James cleared Mac’s plate and
deliberately took her aunt’s letter with him, leaving the rest of the
post on the table.

James never cleared the table.

Well, he wasn’t the only one who was behaving strangely these days.

Bea watched as the maids took down the last of the
parlor draperies, exposing the newly cleared room to the fresh air and
sunlight of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The porcelain figurines,
ostrich feathers, crocheted arm covers, and the maze of folderol her
father had thought would make her happy had all vanished into the attics
during their absence, as she’d ordered.

The result was a breathtaking space immense with
possibilities. She could move her piano into the bay window and enjoy
the sun while playing, and place chairs beside the fireplace for warmth
and reading in the winter. Her imagination tingled with anticipation.

Pleased with the result, Bea glanced out the newly
naked windows to see Mac striding down the lane in heated discussion
with Mr. Overton, leaving her behind. Again.

She’d known irritation when her father had ordered
still another piece of furniture or bric-a-brac but failed to inform her
of the day’s news or give her the book she’d asked for. She’d learned
to conceal that irritation behind the production of acres of knitted
afghans and crocheted doilies and embroidered tapestries.

What she felt now wasn’t even close to irritation, and she’d hang before she knitted another afghan while men ran her life.

Grabbing up a shawl, she started for the door, only
to discover Buddy darting into the shadows behind the horsehair divan.
She wasn’t small enough and her petticoats didn’t compress enough to go
in after him. She’d noticed he’d been particularly pensive during his
supper last night. Could children worry as adults did?

“I think I shall take a walk,” she said aloud,
drifting slowly toward the door. “I wonder if Buddy would like to go
with me? Perhaps I should go upstairs and ask.”

His hesitation was so apparent, she could almost hear it.

“Well, perhaps he’s enjoying himself too much and
doesn’t want to be disturbed. I should go on without him.” She made a
production of opening the parlor door wide.

“No, Miss Bea! I wanna go wif you.” He shot out from
behind the divan and raced toward the front door, leaving her behind in
his rush to struggle with the huge door handle.

“Well, my, my, it’s a good thing you were near
enough to hear me.” She smiled at the boy’s antics. It must be hard for a
child to understand why he’d been torn from his home and all that was
familiar.

Still angry, she opened the door and strode after
the men as quickly as only a woman of her height could do. Buddy still
outpaced her.

Ahead, Mac halted to gaze upward and shout at his
nephew as Buddy scrambled up an apple tree. Seeing Bea approach, he
nodded in relief. “I’ll get the brat down for you.”

“Not for my sake,” she answered coolly, before
turning to her former steward. “Good day to you, Mr. Overton. Have you
noticed if the bottom fields were plowed in our absence? Mac told me he
had given the tenants permission to go ahead.”

Without waiting for Mac, she continued walking down the lane, all but forcing the confused steward to follow her.

“They have at that, Miss... Mrs. MacTavish.” He
glanced worriedly over his shoulder as Mac beat the branches in search
of his nephew.

“And have the seeds arrived to begin planting? I
believe we ordered the ones you recommended. It is the right time for
planting them, isn’t it?”

“Umm, yes, Miss... ma’am, it is.” He tried to halt at the end of the lane to wait for Mac, but Bea would have none of it.

She took the road toward town, one long stride at a
time, forcing him to follow. “Mac says I must increase the rents this
fall to cover the improvements we need. Do you think the new crop will
be profitable enough that the tenants can afford the increase?”

“Without a doubt, Mrs. MacTavish.” With a sigh of
resignation, Overton kept pace with her. “With new equipment, you could
plow twice the acreage. Your more experienced tenants understand that.”

Buddy’s shouts of triumph drew near. Bea assumed Mac
had captured him and was now hauling him down the lane, but she
wouldn’t turn around. Let
him
see what it was like to be left behind as if he were of no more importance than a nursery maid.

“Are there crops the less experienced tenants could
grow that would enhance their income?” She hadn’t thought about that
much while enjoying the mindless pleasures of the last few days, but she
had noticed that the Carstairses’ caretaker grew an assortment of
vegetables and took milk and eggs into town from their cow and chickens.
She didn’t know how much expensive equipment that might require.