Scandal in the Night (9 page)

“Are you all right, miss?” Annie was wide-eyed with a sort of terrified wonder that calm, collected Miss Cates should exhibit such human frailty. “It must have given you an awful fright, out there on the lawn. We could hear the shots from all the way back in the kitchens.”

“Yes. I’m fine,” Catriona lied again, and then amended her statement in the face of her patent tremors. “Rather, I will be fine in a moment. If you’ll just tell her ladyship to give me a few minutes?”

“Yes, miss.” Annie bobbed another curtsy, and with a kind, pitying smile, took herself back down the stairs.

Disdain she might endure, but never pity. Catriona crossed the sitting room, past the deep-cushioned window seats which were so perfect for reading, and past the cheerful, thoughtfully low furniture suitable for children, to enter her own bright, comfortable bedchamber. As with the other rooms in the nursery wing, Lady Jeffrey had seen to the fitting out of the room herself, insisting that Miss Cates should have everything she needed to be comfortable—a wide, soft bed thick with eiderdowns, an elegant writing desk in front of the tall dormer window, and bookcases filled with as many books as she could read. Generous to a fault was Lady Jeffrey.

And Catriona had answered that generosity with gratitude and determined hard work. And her earnestness had been rewarded by her ladyship’s trust, and the enthusiastic devotion of her charges. But now she had stayed too long. She had put these generous, giving people and their children into danger by getting herself found.

Regret and apprehension needled at her more painfully than the broken stay digging into her side. And forced her to move. Catriona shook off the hat, and addressed her reflection in the small looking glass. She looked as if she had been dragged through a hedge backward. Which she had been.

But both vanity and sentimentality would have to wait. She was far better off thinking only of practical realities. Of how she was going to elude Thomas Jellicoe, and whoever else had found her, and get out of the house without being shot like a summer goose.

Catriona pushed the rising cloud of fear from her mind and crossed to her wardrobe. She canvassed the small collection of clothing stored within—three dresses, a cloak, one pair of well-mended half-boots. Not much for twenty-two years on earth. Not much to show for her life.

But it was enough.

She was only feeling alone and vulnerable. And quite literally bowled over by her encounter with the Honorable Thomas Jellicoe.

It would not do. Only decisive action would. Catriona pulled out the small traveling case tucked away at the bottom of the wardrobe—the cheap traveling case she had also purchased in Paris with the dowager duchess’s funds, along with the trunk that sat at the end of her bed like an anchor, tying her to the past. But she could take only the small traveling case—the trunk would have to be left behind. She would take only the clothes she could carry, the money she had laboriously saved for just such an emergency, and her father’s gun.

It had come a long way with her, that gun, her only possession to have survived both Scotland and India. She hadn’t touched the piece lying at the bottom of the trunk since she had arrived at Wimbourne, and only then to move it when she had unpacked.

She took it up now, and set herself to loading it, but as she tried to make herself remember the once familiar task—she had checked the firing mechanism every day on the long journey from Saharanpur, and every day for the first year she had been back in England—her hands shook so much, she spilled some of the combustible black powder on the lid of the trunk.

And not only her hands were shaking. Her whole body had begun to tremble. Shock was lurching its clumsy way through her body, like an obnoxious drunk, knocking her knees out from under her and crashing into her middle, until she dropped the gun to the lid of the chest, and curled into herself, hugging herself tight.

She couldn’t fall apart now. Not now. She would do so later, when everyone was safe. When
she
was safe. When she was aboard some ship, and battened down behind a sturdy door, and no one could see. When it didn’t matter.

Catriona took a deep breath, and willed the chaotic tension to subside—an ache to nurse later, when the stakes were not as mortally high.

She chose her sturdiest clothes—even in summer, the rain could be drenching. Not that she had anything else but sturdy clothing—a sturdy, tightly woven wool cloak, sturdy, thick-soled boots, and sturdy, practical, unremarkable gowns in the dullest and plainest colors possible. Colors suitable for blending in with the walls or the ground or the rain. No wide, elegant gigot sleeves or lace for her. Nothing that would make her stand out, nothing to cause anyone to remark upon her in any way.

Anyone except the Honorable Thomas Jellicoe. “That horrid gray,” he had said. “Always gray.” She had not known wearing the dull hue had become such a habit. She had thought herself careful and vigilant and immune to foolish consistencies.

But never mind. She would be neither foolish nor consistent from now on. She would be inventive and clever. But above all, she would be fast. Fast enough to get away from both Thomas Jellicoe and her shooter.

“Miss Cates?”

Not fast enough. The knock at the door startled her into a hot, guilty flush of heat. It was the quiet voice of Lady Jeffrey, who had grown tired of waiting for her employee to obey her summons.

Catriona hastily shoved the traveling case back into the depths of the wardrobe, and went to the door. “My lady.” She stepped out of the room to find her elegant employer pacing anxiously in the little sitting room of the nursery suite, though Lady Jeffrey looked as beautiful and flawlessly dressed as ever in a fresh walking dress of rich blue silk that deepened the lavender of her eyes. In the face of such solicitous perfection, Catriona’s flimsy vanity reasserted itself. She curtsied politely to her mistress, but her hands had gone instinctively to her hair, pushing the wispy, flyaway bits that had come loose behind her ear in an attempt to reestablish Miss Anne Cates’s unruffled, calm demeanor. “My apologies, Lady Jeffrey. I thought to collect myself and wash before—”

“No matter, my dear Miss Cates.” Lady Jeffrey’s words came out in a quiet rush as she reached out to clasp Catriona’s hands. “I only wanted to assure myself you were unharmed. I have been so worried.”

“As have I, my lady. The children—they are all unharmed as well? All to rights?”

“As well as can be expected. I stayed with them until we were all calmer, but they were worried about you. I assured them as best I could, and sent them all up for warm baths”—she gestured to the rising background noise of water and the murmurs of the nursery maids as tubs were being filled in the bathing chamber at the far end of the passageway—“to distract them so I could see you for myself, and assure myself
you
were quite all right.”

“I am, my lady, I thank you. But you must not concern yourself with me.”

A shaky sigh eased out over Lady Jeffrey’s smile. “Of course I must. I am so very relieved. I must tell you, I feared the worst. Please, let us be more comfortable.” She gestured to the chairs in the nursery sitting room. “I have asked for some tea to be sent up for you—and here is Moore with it now. Thank you, Moore—and ordered the fire lit. A shock can take people cold, so I’m told by my sister, and sweet, hot tea, so I’m also told by her, is the best remedy. A great one for always knowing just what to do in a crisis, my sister, Antigone.” Lady Jeffrey linked her arm with Catriona’s to draw her across the nursery sitting room toward the warmth of the fire and the comfort of the softly upholstered chairs.

Catriona could not but be grateful for such solicitous care. For the lady to concern herself so deeply with a mere employee was touching. “You are too kind, my lady. Truly.”

And such kindness could not be repaid by excuses or evasion. Whatever her affinity and fondness for lies, Catriona could not evade such openness and generosity. Now was the time to speak, while they were alone, and her disgrace could be kept private.

Catriona swallowed over the pulse thumping in her throat. “My lady, in light of today’s events, I feel it only right that I should offer you my resignation, and leave you.”

Lady Jeffrey’s answer was as immediate as it was sure. “I won’t hear of it. What would we do without you? What will Mariah—” The lady’s voice became hot and high, heated by the rising swell of her own emotions, and Lady Jeffrey reached over to clasp Catriona’s hand tight. “I beg you would reconsider, Miss Cates, please. If it is Lord Jeffrey’s brother that concerns you, put him from your mind. I will not let his unruly behavior discommode you. I will
not.
The children are too important.”

“But he is your husband’s family, my lady,” Catriona reminded her gently. “He is your brother.”

Lady Jeffrey shook her head vehemently, her normally serene face tight with disagreement. “And as such, he is an esteemed visitor here. But a visitor still. This is
your
home, not his. I hope you do feel it is your home, that you are welcome here always?”

It was as hard to swallow over the hot tightness in her own throat as it was to persist in the face of such sweet determination. “You are very kind, my lady. And I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Please don’t think that I
want
to leave you. This
has
been my home. But the danger—”

“Put it from your mind. We will keep you safe. I have every confidence Lord Jeffrey will keep us
all
safe. You need not have any fear, my dear Miss Cates, that we would not protect you. You must know you are too valuable to Wimbourne. You have restored our daughter to us.”

She meant little Mariah, of course. “Restore” was a generous, though perhaps incorrect, word when applied to dear Mariah. There was no avoiding the fact that the poor child had some great debility of mind. She would never be as the other children were, but she was perhaps less locked into the tower of her own mind than she had been when Catriona had arrived. She no longer pulled her hair out, or howled inconsolably, or smeared herself with her food, but she still walked only on her tiptoes, her gaze often unfocused and vague, and her body swaying rhythmically from side to side, as if she danced to some enchanted music only she could hear.

But then again, Catriona had seen to it that the poor mite was no longer forced to endure the punishing regime of cold baths some benighted idiot of a doctor had prescribed, and she was no longer shut off from her brothers and sisters, or tied to her cot like an animal on a leash. There was nothing extraordinary, nor particularly insightful, about Catriona’s work with the little girl, but under compassionate, sensible care, it was no wonder the sweet child had made improvements. And it was no wonder Lady Jeffrey was deeply, deeply grateful.

It wrenched Catriona’s heart to think of leaving Mariah, of leaving them all—Jack, and the twins, Pippa and Gemma, young Christopher, stalwart Amelia, all the way to darling baby Annabel—but staying at Wimbourne would put Mariah and all of them in danger. Especially Mariah. She was more vulnerable than the others, more sensitive to anything amiss or upsetting in her world.

God knew, gunshots in one’s garden were more than upsetting to even the most normal of persons—if ever there was an excuse for all-out hysteria, getting shot at during a garden party was one of them.

“As much as it pains me to leave, my lady, I cannot allow any of the children to be put into danger. I will leave detailed instruction for Mariah’s care and tuition—as I will for all the children. I’ve made a very thorough plan of education for each child, as well as notes on each child’s progress and ability. You need have no fear that any future governess will not be readily able to follow my instruct—”

“Miss Cates, did my brother-in-law importune you?”

The bald question surprised her. Catriona took a long moment to consider how best to answer—there was no sense in lying, not when Thomas Jellicoe was downstairs this very moment, ready to contradict her—when Lady Jeffrey answered for her.

“Of course he did. Speaking to you like that, mistaking you for another. And then the whole distressing scene on the lawn.” Her ladyship closed her eyes as if she could blot out the memory. “I fear his presence here is very upsetting to you. I will admit it is to me. Here is a man whom I have not seen since my wedding some fifteen years ago—fifteen years. How can it be so long? But now Thomas comes home and immediately bullets start flying. It is most unsettling and importuning.”

Thomas Jellicoe had done more than merely unsettle or importune her. He had kissed her so thoroughly she had all but forgotten her own name. And she had kissed him back. She had closed her eyes and fallen headfirst into the bittersweet pain of her infatuation for him. It was as if she had learned nothing at all. As if she were still the same hopeful girl she had been that night in the garden at Colonel Balfour’s walled palace.

She could not think about that time without pain. Her memories of the place were so caught up with her tangled emotions that she often felt that she must have dreamt it all. Dreamt the color and the perfume, the heat and dust. Dreamt the love and joyful affection. Dreamt of being so happy.

It had even felt like a dream that night in Saharanpur, when she had been invited to her first grown-up party.

Oh, she had been so terribly excited. Catriona had never been invited to a party of any kind before—there had been no thought, no time or money for such things in Scotland. But Lord and Lady Summers socialized regularly—nearly every night there was some kind of function or another, often in the cool, high-ceilinged rooms of the residency itself. But until that night, Catriona had been content to remain an observer only to the parties and soirees, peeking over the railing at the top of the great house where the nursery was located, down the two floors to the spacious, candlelit hall below. She and her cousins had watched the elegant men and refined women, the lords and ladies in their beautiful gowns and sparkling jewels as they gathered and mingled and chatted. From so high above, their voices had risen up as one excited murmur, a cushion of sound that filled up the echoing space with its energy and glamour.