Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

Nothing came to mind as she walked the perimeter of the paddock. He followed behind her, his steps uneven. They came to the shore of the small lake, and rocks crunched underfoot.

“I confess. I still don’t understand.”

Ned had been wearing a satchel the entire journey. He slipped it from his shoulders and fumbled the buckle open. “Here. Take this out.”

Kate glanced inside. Sitting on top of a pile of sandwiches wrapped in paper was a pistol—the same pistol she’d stolen from Ned and given to Louisa. She glanced up at him again, but he only motioned once more.

She reached in and took it. The metal was hard against her gloves.

“Over the years,” he told her, “you’ve done a great deal of good. You’ve helped people. And you’ve done it so silently, so quietly that half the ton has never even glanced beyond your face to see who you truly are inside. You’ve hidden yourself away.”

“I— But if people knew…”

“Not everyone needs to know,” he said quietly. “But more than me and Gareth and Jenny. Some of your friends. Your parents.”

She sucked in a breath. “But my father— He’ll—”

She’d had a thousand reasons to keep silent about what she’d done, and they all bombarded her now. He’d take work from her. He’d dismiss what she’d done.

But, no. He couldn’t do that any longer. If Ned approved, her father couldn’t change a thing. And so Kate examined the worst possibility of all—if he knew that she wasn’t the fragile daughter he believed her to be, he might not care for her any longer.

“Whatever it is you fear,” he said gently, “take it and toss it away.”

She drew in a shaky breath.

“I mean that literally,” he said. “Because you’re holding my fears, too—that pistol and I have been through a great deal together. Throw it as far as you can.”

The gun felt heavier in her hands. She looked up at Ned once more, and then slowly hefted the weapon. It seemed too weighty to just toss away, and yet too light to contain all her fears. Still, she heaved it.

It flew in a sailing arc over the water. For one brief second, it caught the morning sun. It glinted. And then the waters closed around it with a splash.

She felt immensely lighter.

“Now,” Ned said, “you have someplace to bring the women who need your help, which is rather better than a shepherd’s cottage. I thought you might show your parents the house, when they come down to London next Season.”

Kate swallowed. She turned around in a slow circle, looking at the house with new eyes. It was no manor house, but it was large enough for the purpose. It was not just a house; it was a statement of hope. It was a promise that he would not turn away in disgust if she proved strong. It was an invitation for her to let the people she cared about see how brilliantly she could shine.

“You know,” Ned said, “once they get over their surprise, they’ll be proud. I promise.”

“How did you know?” she asked, her voice shaky. “How did you know what I wanted, before I even wanted it?”

“That’s easy,” he said, sliding his arms about her. “It’s because I love you.”

EPILOGUE

Six months later

AFTER A LONG WINTER, the trees were finally sporting apple-green leaves. The dark mulch of the fields was broken up by new growth snaking up through the soil. After an arduous fight in Chancery, one that had been as short as it was only by dint of the pressure applied by the Marquess of Blakely, Louisa had finally won. As if to make up for those months of worry, spring had burst upon the scene.

As painful as those months had been, they had been bearable for Kate because Ned had been with her. Kate was walking outside, arm-in-arm with her husband, and smiling. Twenty yards distant—just outside the paddock where Champion had once resided—Jenny and Louisa sat on a rug. Beside them, their children played. With the coming of spring, Jeremy had suddenly decided it was time to scoot in earnest. Jenny’s daughter, the older, larger, much more vocal Rosa, was delighted to have a new playmate, one who would undoubtedly do her bidding.

“Did I ever tell you,” Ned mused, “how Champion saved me on the night I broke my leg?”

“No. How?”

“I was clinging to the fence rail, sure I couldn’t take another step forward without falling on my face. I had convinced myself it was impossible for me to move. Then, Champion being Champion, he charged.”

“What? Is that why you had him sent away?”

Ned smiled. “Yes, although not for the reason you imagine. You see, I thought I couldn’t have walked any farther, but as I wanted to live, I discovered I could move. It was a good thing to know.”

He paused and plucked a dandelion from the grass. “I wanted him to improve because I wanted to believe anything could happen—that if Champion could redeem himself, so could I. But what I really needed to do was realize that I was already saved. And what Champion truly needed was not the weight of my expectations, but someone who would give him no chores, have no expectations of him except that he eat hay.” Ned smiled at Kate. “From what I’ve heard from the vicar we pensioned off a few years ago, being around a pair of old nanny goats—no other horses, no threatening humans—has been good for Champion.”

Only her husband would worry about the comfort of a horse that had threatened him. Kate smiled. “Aren’t you a little disappointed, to have tamed all your dragons? Whatever will you do with your afternoons?”

He smiled, and his arm came around Kate’s waist, pulling her close. “A confession,” he whispered in her ear. “With you beside me, all dragons are tame.”

“You don’t feel that you need a struggle, that you need something to prove yourself?”

He shrugged. Kate knew there were still moments when he’d resorted to sheer physical exercise to regulate some of his emotions. There had been a month in the middle of winter when she’d come to understand precisely what he’d meant when he’d described his bouts with darkness. But they had both known that it was a finite thing, that it would leave. And it hadn’t been as bad as Kate had feared.

“I think,” Ned said quietly, “I’ve come to the point where I trust myself enough not to need the proof. I see no need to seek out another challenge.”

“Oh.” Kate suppressed a small, secret smile, and let only a note of timorous wistfulness creep into her voice. The ground was soft under her feet, and she waited until they were out from under the limbs of the trees before continuing. “That’s too bad.”

“Are you trying to rid yourself of me?” He was joking, by that tone. “Send me off to China again? Or India?”

“Oh, no. That would be very inconvenient. You see, I was thinking that in another…oh, seven months, I’ll be presenting you with a very lovely challenge indeed. I was rather hoping you would want this one.”

Ned stopped dead and turned to her. A low smile lit his face. “Ah,” he said, a hint of a quaver in his voice. For a moment, he didn’t say anything more. But their arms were linked, and Kate could feel a tremor run through him. She’d felt the same way once she’d realized she was

expecting. Fear. Exultation. And one silent scream, halfway between “I’m not ready!” and “It’s about time.”

Ned looked off into the distance and coughed before turning back to her. “We ought to name her Iphigenia.”

“Isn’t that overly formal?”

“Iphigenia,” he repeated, as if the name were the most reasonable one in the world. “We could call her ‘Figgy’ for short.”

Kate choked on her laughter, relieved that he wasn’t serious. “She would hate us forever.”

“Yes, well. You’re the one who insisted we needed to add difficulty to our life. How better to accomplish that than to guarantee from the start that our daughter can’t even pronounce her own name?”

“Ned, if you name our daughter Iphigenia, I will…I will…”

“You,” Ned said with an assured sparkle in his eye, “will love me just as much as ever. But maybe you are right. How’s Hatshepsut?”

“Hatshepwhat?”

“Egyptian is all the rage right now. No?”

“Decidedly not.” Kate smiled at him. “Try again.”

“Vertiline? Permelia?”

“Where are you getting these names? Why is it that they all seem to have eighteen syllables?”

“I know the one. Obraya.”

“That is not a name.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Can you be sure?”

“Goose.”

He frowned. “Well, at least that one’s short, but I think she won’t appreciate the connotations. Isn’t that a little pejorative?”

Kate burst into laughter. “Stop. You have to stop.” When she finally was able to breathe again, she shook her head at him. “What’s wrong with your mother’s name? Have you some objection to Lily?”

“I suppose not,” Ned said. “This is why I love you. Always practical.” He reached out and took her waist and drew her closer.

No. Not always. Not when he held her this close, not when his lips brushed her cheek once, her jaw a second time.