Several long minutes passed before the door flew open and Alicia appeared. She stared at Katherine in disbelief and opened her arms. Katherine stepped into her warm embrace, dissolving into tears. The pain of Nicholas’s treachery overwhelmed her, and her heart felt it would burst. She sobbed her agony until her head seemed full of wool, and she could barely breathe.
“Oh my!” Alicia exclaimed. “Where is your coach? Have you come by yourself? You must tell me all, but I am afraid it will have to wait until we have supped, and the children are abed. Then I want to hear it.” She stepped back. Three-year-old Anne peeked out from behind Alicia’s skirt and smiled with her thumb in her mouth.
Dogs barked as Katherine was ushered inside. The other children clambered about. Pandemonium and cheerful good feelings engulfed her, and Katherine’s heart eased, just a bit.
She was shown to Alicia’s room, where she washed her hands and face at the washstand, combed and put her hair into a knot, and felt marginally better. She breathed deep. She would be safe from Nicholas’s deceit here. Safe from Finch and her father. At least she hoped so.
Dinner was a chaotic affair. Although the food was tasty, Katherine could not eat. She watched four-and-a-half-year-old Robbie, and six-year-old Hal both feed bits of their dinner to dogs lurking under the table, wishing she could do the same.
Serious Alice, the eldest at eight, sat next to Katherine. She spoke little, regarding the proceedings with a tolerant yet resigned indifference.
Alicia somehow managed to keep order, supervise the courses, and feed Ollie, the youngest at eighteen months, all at the same time. The children’s abigail attacked her meal with gusto, ignoring the commotion around her.
James Pemberton arrived part way into the meal and nodded to her, as if it were no surprise at all to see her at the table.
Soon the children were in bed, and Katherine had to decide how much to tell Alicia. She was afraid of the pain that would come with putting words to what had happened. Ensconced in the warm and loving Pemberton household, she wanted to pretend she had never known Nicholas, never loved him.
They sat in a small sitting room. A fire burned in the hearth. Alicia took out her needlework and, without looking at Katherine or addressing her on the subject, waited for her story.
Katherine fished in Alicia’s mending bag for something to occupy her hands. As she plied her needle, she started to talk. Soon her hands were flying along with her tongue. It all came out, every bit of it. At the end of the recital, a blanket of calm came over her. She glanced at Alicia to see her cousin had put down her mending.
“Do you love him?” Alicia asked.
Katherine bit back tears. “I thought I did. Now I do not know how I feel. I have been so stupid.”
“Not stupid, I think. Blinded by your heart.” Alicia replied, her needle back to work again. “What do you want to do?”
Katherine made a knot in the thread, and broke it. She held up the little dress, Anne’s she supposed, to see if her handiwork showed. “I do not know what I want, except to ease my heart, and I do not know how to do that.” She put down the garment and fished for another. Alicia stayed her hand.
“Then let us off to bed,” she smiled. “A good sleep works wonders for a tattered heart.”
In a borrowed nightgown and cap, Katherine found herself bedding with the sour-faced abigail. The woman snored, but not loud enough to block out the riot of thoughts and images Katherine could not hide from in the dark—Nicholas’s face with his tender, lying lips; his deceitful, laughing eyes.
She would begin her new life on the morrow. A simple life with a loving family. The life she had always wanted. But it seemed so empty compared to the brief time she’d shared with Nicholas. Would that she had never found him, never asked him the favor of taking her to London, never been faced with his betrayal. Or the betrayal of her own heart.
She should never have let her heart rule her good reason.
And she would never let that happen again. From now on, she would close her heart away. Her good sense would be her guide.
Katherine gritted her teeth and clenched her eyelids against a fresh onslaught of tears. She buried her face in the bedclothes to still her sobs, but they kept coming. Pain wracked her body, settling in her chest, and Katherine knew her heart was truly breaking.
* * *
“You are sure she is aright?” Jeremy asked.
Nicholas gulped down a swig of brandy and nodded. The potent brew burned a trail down his throat, settling warm in his stomach, yet he remained chilled outside.
He had not started out to follow Katherine across London. He had meant to join her on the outside steps—to talk to her, reason with her, beg her forgiveness. He had been alarmed when she’d walked off down the street, so he had followed to make sure she did not come to harm. She had not looked back. Not even once. Had she done so, she would have seen him.
The lass had courage, more courage than he had ever suspected. And, it seemed, more courage than he had.
Nicholas scowled and looked down at the rough table. Cradling his head in his hand, he acknowledged he should not have let it come to this. He should have told her his name when she first asked him.
Nicholas took another gulp of brandy.
As the afternoon had grown late, he thought she might turn back and seek the safety of the
Hawk and Pheasant
.
Instead, she had approached a doorway and spoke to someone inside. After some waiting, a woman, presumably her cousin, had appeared and embraced her soundly. Even from a distance, he could see his lass sobbing. It seized his heart and made him feel the worst sort of scoundrel.
She went inside, and the door shut behind her.
He could not leave. Some force kept him there, just down the street, at a good vantage point where he could see but not be seen. He had stayed for some time. He’d told himself it was because he wondered if she would come out again. He told himself it was because he was too angry with Henry to return. He told himself it was because he liked the feeling of the night as it settled like a blanket over London.
Nicholas drained his cup.
But, in his heart, he knew it was because he needed to be near her. Lord help him, he was in a mess. He had married her and then lost her.
Some hours later, he had taken a hackney back to the inn and found Henry passed out in the common room. Jeremy, too weak to carry him out, sat beside him like a guard.
Now, Nicholas wished for nothing else but to drown himself in strong drink, but it did little to soothe the ache in his heart.
He banged his cup on the table and bellowed for more.
Jeremy flinched.
Henry startled, then settled back to sleep again.
Nicholas glowered. It was too bad he could not beat an already insensate man. He would have to wait until the morrow for the reckoning.
* * *
Nicholas awoke on a bench in the common room the next morning. Pulling himself to sitting, he reflected morosely on the need of a man for a place where he could sleep without his neck or his back getting a kink in it. Then he cursed himself for the drink that made his head ache and his mouth feel as dry as the Algerian desert.
Jeremy lay stretched out on the table, snoring.
Henry had made his way onto the floor during the night and slept beside a brown mongrel.
Nicholas nudged him with his booted foot.
“Get up, man,” he said none too kindly. “’Tis time to make coffee.”
Henry groaned.
Nicholas felt a moment of remorse, but it passed. He reached down and shook Henry by the shoulder.
Henry lurched up, grabbed his head and shut his eyes hard. “Ye may as well kill me, as make me gi’up and get t’work. Me head’s poundin’ as hard as me heart and me stomach…” He paused before he spoke. “Ye do not want to know about me stomach.”
Nicholas banged a heavy fist on the table.
Jeremy awoke with a start. He looked at Nicholas and flinched.
“You may find me a cup of coffee,” Nicholas informed him.
Jeremy looked doubtful.
“You will take this mug,” Nicholas picked one up from the table and poured its remaining contents onto the floor, “to a coffee house nearby and ask them to fill it.”
Nicholas threw a few coins on the table.
Jeremy picked them up and rose to do his bidding.
“Ye do not have to take it out on the boy,” Henry said after he had left. “The murder I see in yer eyes is meant for me.” He rose, first onto one knee and then the other, finally drawing himself up to standing. Clasping his shaking hands before him, he looked at Nicholas. “’Tis yer pardon I beg most humbly,
m’lord Earl
.”
“But…?”
“Yes, but,” Henry continued, “ye had no business lyin’ to her. Ye should have told her the truth before ye married her, so she would know who she did wed.”
Nicholas scowled. He did not need this tongue lashing from his old friend. His conscience already pained him, as did his head.
“I had no business tellin’ her, ye be thinkin’, and ye be right. But I will not be responsible fer keeping yer lies straight agin.” Henry sank down onto the bench across from Nicholas. “Me head pounds no less than me tooth now, if that gives ye any satisfaction.”
“Little enough.”
It was some time before Jeremy returned with coffee that had cooled in transit. Nicholas took a big gulp and sat the mug down on the table. He let the flavor roll around in his mouth. The bitter drink complemented his feelings. As usual, the brew served to clear some of the cobwebs from his mind.
Henry was right. He should have told her, but he had not, and now he must do what he could to fix this mess he had made.
Nicholas took a last swallow of coffee. “We will go to her,” he announced.
* * *
The short squat man had been standing outside the house with the blue door for two days now: day and night, and now day again. He had seen the young woman arrive and go inside, and noted the man who followed her, who’d stayed in the shadows and then left several hours later. Because of the man, he’d had to wait before he could hire a messenger boy. But finally when the man left, Jakes had sent word.
Katherine Welles has arrived.
What a canny one, his master was. He’d knowed she would come, and so she had. And now his master waited down the street, with two strong men. When the woman left the house they would take her into the waiting coach and bring her back home where she belonged.
Jakes made a satisfied sigh and waited for the moment when he could make the signal.
* * *
Inside the Pemberton household, pandemonium ensued. Ollie teethed on a wooden spoon while Robbie and Hal fought over who would get to sit next to Katherine at breakfast. Anne sucked her thumb. Katherine spooned bowls of porridge at the sideboard. Alice sat primly, watching her mother separate the two boys and place them in chairs on opposite sides of the table.
When everyone else was seated, Alicia took her place. The children stilled as their mother said a quick prayer of thanks. Except for baby Ollie, they said “amen” in unison. Then all was bedlam again.
Moments later the butler, wig askew as usual, came to speak to Alicia. She nodded to Katherine.
“A gentleman is here to see you,” she said over the din. “Perhaps you should see what he would say.”
Katherine felt a hot flush run over her and the porridge stuck in her throat. It had to be Nicholas, but she would not see him. “I would prefer to stay here,” she said, taking a sip of small ale.
“Mum, mum,” a maid came running in. “Theys a’fightin’ in the street, they is. The three men that came and the three that came after.”
Katherine’s spoon hit the table with a clatter, and she jumped up. Before she knew how she got there, she was at the window at the front of the house. Pulling back a drape, she stared in horror at the street. Her pulse quickened and her breath jumped all the way to her throat when she saw Nicholas in a sword fight, while Jeremy—not yet recovered from his last beating—and Henry fought hand-to-hand with two thugs in a full melee.
Hal and Robbie came up and pushed their way to the window, shoving each other to get a better view through the thick glass.
Katherine heard the sickening sound of flesh connecting with flesh and the harsh ring of metal upon metal. She gasped when she realized it was Richard Finch who fought Nicholas.
Jeremy took a swing at one thug but missed, getting slammed on the head in return. He dropped to the ground.
Katherine clapped her hand over her mouth. Would no one come to his aid? She ran to the door.
Alicia grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. “You cannot go out. You could be hurt, or distract your husband and his friends. You are not the help they need. I have sent for the constable.”
“What of James?”
“You know he is not here.”
“The butler?”
“He is who I sent for the constable.” Alicia took Katherine’s shoulders and shook her to get her full attention. Her usually amiable countenance was pulled tight. “’Tis but us, the maids, the abigail, and the children. We are of no help to them. You must understand this, cousin.”
Katherine pulled her gaze from Alicia. Her eyes darted around the room. “Do you have a gun?”
Alicia tightened her grip on Katherine. “No.” She shook her head. “Do not think of that.”
The only weapon Katherine could see was the fire fork. She looked back at her cousin and spoke quietly but firmly. “Let go of me Alicia. I must do what I can to stop this. ’Tis because of me that they fight. I will not allow it to continue.”
“When men fight you cannot stop them.”
“I must try.”
Alicia released her grip. Katherine went to the hearth and grabbed up the heavy implement. Hurrying to the door, she swung it open just in time to see a ruffian grab Henry’s head and yank it down, slamming it into an up thrust knee. Henry took a mighty whack to the jaw and crumbled to the ground.
Katherine thought she might be sick. She clutched her belly, almost dropping the large fork.
Two men now fought. Swords clashing, Nicholas and Finch seemed evenly matched. Katherine could not see their faces, but the intensity of their concentration was evident in their stance and the careful control of their thrusts and parries. There were no wild movements, no cries of triumph or dismay.