“Don’t be difficult, boy,” Lawson said. “It’s your money at stake, too. She knows something. I swear it’s so.”
“I don’t truck with hitting ladies,” John responded.
“She’s no lady.”
John’s eyes flicked to Mary, touching her without really seeing her. But he didn’t contradict the older man. He simply shrugged. “I don’t truck with hitting women, either,” he said in a low growl, then spat on the ground.
Don’t spit on Papa’s carpet, some stupid part of her wanted to say. As if the Turkey carpet mattered. Just one more possession to be sold to make up for his wrongdoings. One more thing for her to leave behind. Still, that disrespect hurt more than John’s casual acceptance of her new status.
“Come now,” Lawson said. “Given what her father owes us, she’s practically a servant. It’s not wrong to slap—”
John shoved the other man into the wall of the office. “I mean it, Lawson. That’s enough.”
She forced herself to concentrate on the hard lines of John’s face, so different from the confident smile that he usually gave her when their paths crossed. He made her think of a rocky cliff: impossibly hard, with an unforgiving drop to the crags below.
“Very well,” Lawson finally muttered in a sullen sneer. “But one day, you’ll regret letting her go. Useless bitch.” That last was directed at her.
Mary wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her affected by that epithet. She simply nodded to the two men, as if this were the last round of an exchange of pleasantries, and turned to go.
John set his hand in the curve of her spine and guided her away, down the dark hallway, to the back of the house. He wrenched the servants’ door open, and then glanced outside, verifying that nobody was about. Then, and only then, did he turn to her.
“Mary…” He ran one hand through the dark brown of his hair. She’d never heard his voice like this—dark and rumbling like thunder on the horizon. She’d never seen his eyes like this, either. There was a tension in them, worry-lines gathering at the corners. He wasn’t quiet because he intended to be gentle with her. It was the quiet of a pot on the verge of boiling over.
“John.” She shut her eyes.
“Swear to me that you don’t know where he is.”
Like everyone else, he was thinking only of her father. But unlike the others, at least he believed her. For now. Mary’s thoughts went to her trunk, to the ache in her arms.
“If I had to guess,” she told him gravely, “I would say that he went straight to hell. He left me—” All that angry fury raged within her for a moment, startling in its heat. No place to put it now; she had too much to do.
“Did he tell you where the money was?”
“Not a word.”
“What are your plans? Is that your trunk over there?” His tone was curiously flat as he spoke to her—not devoid of emotion, but withdrawn, as if he’d turned away from his own feelings.
She hadn’t dared to look at the massive steamer trunk where it lay. It had followed her from Southampton to Vienna, and then back for more holidays than she could count. It was large enough to fit all the many components of a lady’s wardrobe, and that made it very large indeed. The rope she’d used to lower it was still fastened to one handle; the brass fittings dented where it had banged against the ground when it had gotten away from her. She glanced over, bit her lip, and nodded.
He didn’t rush over and open it. Thank God.
“Do you have anywhere to go?”
“My father’s second cousin lives in Basingstoke. He’ll take me in.” The lies came easier now.
“And you have a plan.” He nodded. “I wish…” His voice was still flat, but his lips pressed together.
She turned away. “Don’t wish. You’ll only say something that we’ll both regret. After last night, anything more is impossible.”
And yet the possibility of that more kept intruding on her. Was it so little, then, that they’d had between them? She had liked the look of him, the way that he laughed. He’d liked the look of her. That was all. A few months’ acquaintance.
A few kisses, a few conversations—not much, but enough to spark a lifetime of hope. Enough that she’d chosen the possibility of him and family over…
No. She couldn’t let herself think that way any longer. Those memories belonged to another woman entirely—Miss Mary Chartley, the daughter of a respected member of the community. She wasn’t sure who she was in this skin any longer, but she’d ceased to be that person. No matter what she and John might once have been to one another, it wasn’t enough to survive the cataclysm of discovering that her father had taken thousands of pounds from their partnership.
She took off one glove, removed the ring from her finger, and held it out to him.
His flat façade finally cracked. His hand slapped against his trousers, and he turned his head from her. “God damn it.”
“Set it against my father’s debt.”
His jaw worked. It took him a few breaths to regain his composure, but when he turned back, he didn’t take the ring from her. “You’ll need help getting to the station.” Before she knew what was happening, he was reaching for the handle of her trunk.
She couldn’t let him touch that. If he tried to lift it, he might wonder what made her luggage so heavy.
“Really, John,” she said sharply, stepping in front of him. “I should think you’ve done enough.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Doesn’t it? Say you love me, that you would marry me without any fortune, with my father in disgrace. Say your sister would welcome me into the family, knowing that my father stole her son’s future.”
He met her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she saw reflected there. Regret? Anger? “You’re right,” he finally said. “I can’t say anything of the sort. But—”
“I don’t love you, either. If I did…” She slipped the ring into his hand. “If I did, surely I could not give you this with my head held high.”
If he’d put her in mind of thunder before, that flashing look in his eyes was the lightning, spearing her through in one instant. For one second, she thought he was actually going to grab hold of her. But he didn’t move. He didn’t even frown. He simply took a deep breath and shoved the ring into his pocket.
“Well, then.” Another breath, and he looked away. “Good riddance.” His voice dropped low on that last.
It was a good thing her heart had turned to stone, or it might be breaking now. She hadn’t loved him. She couldn’t have. If she’d loved him, she would be weeping now, and she refused to weep. But they would have had a home all of their own. Children. Happiness. Warmth. She would have had John himself, so sweet, so strong, and yet so utterly implacable when betrayed…
She nodded.
He leaned down to her. He didn’t put his hands on her and draw her close, as he might once have done. Still, she felt the echo of those prior intimacies on her skin. On her lips, tingling with his nearness.
He was going to kiss her one last time. She’d yearned for his kisses before, but she didn’t want one now. She wanted her memories of him to remain unsullied by the last twenty-four hours.
But close as he came, his lips didn’t touch hers.
“Mary,” he said softly. “My nephew’s future depends on the income from this partnership. If I find out that you have lied to me, that you know where your father is and where he hid what he stole…” He raised his eyes to hers. “I will escort you to the gates of hell myself.”
Chapter Two
Eighteen months later, Somerset, on the edge of the hills of Exmoor
THE AUGUST SUN BEAT DOWN like the breath of hell itself. Fitting, John Mason decided, for the task that lay ahead.
Not, of course, the work that he was supervising now—that was dead easy, watching the digging in four fields so that he might lay drains that had long since ceased to function. No, it was his other, private task that had left him feeling like one of th
e damned.
Another man would have been happy to see Beauregard approach on horseback. He would have welcomed the respite from the mid-morning sun and the labor.
His host—John supposed that was the proper appellation for the man—had a mare saddled, following behind him.
“Mason,” Beauregard said, raising a hand in greeting. “I can’t believe you’ve started work already, and on the first morning, too.”
John glanced at the sun—already a good measure above the horizon—and shook his head. “No point in dawdling. I’ve been in your fields these last five hours. By the time the clock strikes ten, I scarcely consider it morning any longer.”
“That’s why I have an estate manager.” Beauregard grinned. “And friends.” He smacked John on the shoulder.
Friends was stretching the truth. Acquaintances, perhaps—and unlikely ones at that. John had dashed off a piece about his experiences with drainage techniques for a farmer’s gazette. Beauregard had read it and written to him, asking for help and clarification. Two months of correspondence later, and John had been ready to write the man off as hopeless. That was when a chance mention in a letter had caught his attention.
“I did promise to introduce you to the neighbors,” Beauregard said. “I don’t expect you to work all day. You’re my guest, not a laborer.”
John didn’t bother correcting the man. Yes, John owned land in Southampton. But he had no illusions about what that meant. There was a lot less gentleman in him than there was farmer. He wore a thousand hats—veterinarian to his cattle, chemist when it came to soil treatment, mechanic to the plows. Right now, he was posing as Beauregard’s personal drainage engineer. He’d inherited a rather soggy piece of land himself, and had developed something of a talent for walking a piece of ground and understanding the underground streams, the seep of water just below the surface, the strange accidents of soil and slope that explained why one field was a swamp and the other a lush meadow.
But all of that was nothing to the role that he’d taken up now—that of investigator on behalf of his seven-year-old nephew, and, if his suspicions proved correct, judge, jury, and executioner, all in one.
“Where are we off to?”
“Doyle’s Grange first. That is what you requested, yes? It’s not even a mile away. You’ll like Sir Walter. He’s a capital fellow.”
“I’m sure he is,” John said. He gave further directions to the men who were working under him, straightened his coat, and then mounted his horse. But as the mare beneath him ambled down the lane to Doyle’s Grange, it wasn’t Sir Walter—whoever that was—who occupied his thoughts.
He’d looked for Mary Chartley for months after she left, but his efforts had ended in Basingstoke. She’d arrived there via rail; after that, he had only conjecture. She must have met her father, because two days after she’d fled her home, a doctor had issued a death certificate for Mr. Chartley. The parish church records showed that he’d been buried the day after.
Very convenient, that certificate of death. Almost as convenient as the book that Mary had put in the post to Mr. Lawson that same day—her father’s secret account book, the one they’d torn the house apart trying to find. The one she’d sworn she knew nothing about. It hadn’t shown the details of Mr. Chartley’s thefts, but it had contained all the information about the account he’d maintained with a separate London bank. The book itself had noted a few withdrawals, but the balance should still have been intact, at least as of a few months before his embezzlement was discovered.
But the record of those last months had gone missing. Someone—Mary herself, or perhaps her father—had sliced the last four pages from the accounting. When Lawson had his solicitors make a written demand on the bank, the account had yielded a few paltry hundreds of pounds. Not enough to give John’s nephew the start he deserved in life. But the accounting had told him one thing: The money was out there. He’d lost it once, when he’d let Mary go. This time, he was going to find it.
John had been looking for Mary Chartley ever since. But he’d found no sign of her—nor of those four missing pages, nor even the eight thousand pounds that should have been waiting in the bank. He’d had no leads at all until Beauregard had mentioned her in passing in one of his letters.
Even Miss Mary Chartley, Lady Patsworth’s companion, noticed that the south field has become a swamp this spring.
It could have been some other Mary Chartley. The name wasn’t uncommon. But the letter had come two days after the investigator he’d hired had officially declared the search hopeless. It had seemed providential. And so instead of washing his hands of Beauregard and his swampy fields, John had written back.
If it’s not too forward, might I suggest that I come and see to their drainage myself? It will be much easier than trying to explain the principles via correspondence.
“There it is,” Beauregard said, as they rounded a bend in the road and the trees of the wood gave way to open meadow. “Doyle’s Grange.”
It was, he was sure, a charming cottage. But John didn’t care about the ornamental hedges out front. The gate—if you could call it that—was a mess of grape leaves and such, decoration so overblown that it rendered the fence useless as a barrier. It had no doubt been commissioned by a lazy fellow who preferred tipple to work. Someone had taken care with the flowers; they sprung up in a glorious summer profusion of pinks and reds.
But this was undoubtedly a rich man’s country hideaway. There was no kitchen garden to speak of. Still, it was not the plantings that he cared about; it was the scene on the back terrace. The terrace itself was a golden limestone, ringed by a guard rail in the same pattern as the gate. A table was set up in the shade cast by a rowan tree. It was forty yards away—he could make out a white cloth hanging listlessly over the edges of the table and a folding screen set up as a shield against the hot morning sun as best as possible.
Sitting at table were a large man with a graying handlebar mustache and a small, dark-haired woman. No doubt Sir Walter and his wife. Down from them, and farther away, sat a younger woman. Her hair was a burnished gold. She sat, her head held in book-balancing precision. He couldn’t make out her features. He didn’t need to. God, he even remembered the curve of her spine. A little spark traveled through him.
He’d found her.
The only question, now, was what to do with her. It was a bittersweet triumph. On the one hand, he’d tracked down an unrepentant thief. But seeing the woman he’d planned to spend the rest of his days with struck a peculiar ache in his gut. Matters might have been so different between them. He couldn’t think of her without feeling the quiet what-if that lay between them still.
Lady Patsworth turned to the younger woman; a few seconds later, Mary stood. Without turning to look at the horsemen coming up the lane, she slipped into the house.
John tamped down his frustration. She’d not get far, not on foot, and it was unlikely that she was expecting him. Still, he felt a bit dazed at the reality. She was here—close enough for him to run her down and ask all the questions that had gnawed at him over these long months.
Why did you lie to me? If you intended to steal the money outright, why did you send back the account book? Is your father dead, or is that another lie?
Was it all just lies between us, or did you ever feel anything?
No, not that last question. No point in even thinking about that.
They arrived at the house and handed their horses off to a groom. A silent, surly maid led them around the side to the back terrace. Mary was still not present. Beauregard made the introductions; John managed to get through them, as silently as possible. Soon, the other two men were discussing the technicalities of drainage—badly and wrongly.
“And so the upper fields drain now,” Beauregard was saying, “but as Mason here explains it, the water flows from them into the lower field, leaving me with a fine quantity of mud in the spring. We must reroute—”
The door to the house opened, and Mary stepped out, bu
rdened with a paper fan and a parasol. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of John.
He couldn’t move, either. It was electrifying to see her this close. It had been that way ever since he first laid eyes on her. She had all the features of classic English beauty—a creamy complexion, rose-pink lips perfectly formed in an expression of surprise, and clear blue eyes. But calling her beauty classic didn’t capture the essence of her.
She was like a cream-cake with an added hint of lemon. Familiar and comforting in aroma…and yet when one got close enough, one realized that all that sweetness was balanced by something deliciously tart. She had even used to smell of sugared lemon—a clean, fresh scent that made him think of unsullied purity.
It had also made him want to lick her. Everywhere.
She’d seemed so innocent on the surface, but when he peered into her eyes, he’d seen a spark there, a hint of mischief that drew him in. She’d looked on the verge of laughter, and her merriment had spilled out of her all too easily. She’d had an air to her—one that had made him think that she didn’t know anything about passion…but that she wanted to learn.
Mary was disarmingly attractive, and he’d wanted her. Badly.
If only he’d known that there was more mischief and less innocence in her. Still, even now, even knowing that everything about her was a sham—that she was a thief and a liar—it made no difference. He still wanted her.
“Dear Lady Patsworth,” Mary said into the awkward silence. “I’ve brought your fan.”
“Thank you.” Lady Patsworth did not move to take Mary’s burdens.
“Miss Chartley. You know Mr. Beauregard from church,” Sir Walter said. “This is his friend, Mr. John Mason. But…it looks as if you might already be acquainted.”
Mary’s face was schooled to careful blankness. She glanced warily at John, and dropped a polite curtsey in his general direction.