Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

“He’ll stay a few days,” Kate predicted. “He’ll uncover no trail, no clues—just that rumor of an auburn-haired lady who paid a merchant for a ride in his cart, and then disappeared. In a week, he’ll have moved on.” Louisa nodded.

“But while he’s here, he mustn’t suspect me. Not even a little bit. He thinks I’m a frivolous, foolish sort of female, forever shopping and planning parties. I want him to continue to think so. For the next few days I shall devote myself to my guests’ entertainment. I’ll plan meals. I’ll protest when Blakely refuses to participate in my musical evenings.”

“Blakely’s keeping him company? Harcroft must be calling in all his old favors. I gather he trotted Blakely out to frighten you into divulging my secret plans. That is a complication.”

“It’s even more complicated,” Kate confessed. “You see, my husband is back.”

“Carhart? When did he return?”

“Yesterday. Can you believe it? Of course his vessel could not have been blown off course by two weeks. And now he’s here, and instead of having Harcroft ignore me, Ned will be following me around, bothering me. Last night—”

She shut her mouth ruthlessly. It didn’t seem right to disclose what her husband had told her. His promise had seemed so real in the moonlight, as sacred as a wedding vow. It seemed almost a violation to share it.

Be practical, she reminded herself.

But before she could answer, Louisa took her hand. “I know it’s been a great while since…your last time. Did he hurt you?”

If there was one thing worse than spilling marital secrets, it was Louisa offering Kate comfort because Kate’s husband—the man who fed peppermints to ill-tempered horses—might have hurt her.

“There, there,” Louisa soothed. “I promise, if he shows his nose around here, I’ll shoot him for you.”

Kate choked back a laugh. “That won’t be necessary. He was never that bad. In fact, he is…” Different. Dangerous. “Gentle,” she finished awkwardly. “He always has been. You’ve met him. Do you suppose you might…well. Tell him?”

Kate felt a sudden sense of vulnerability at the thought. She had no idea how he would respond, if he knew. Her own father had flared up at the slightest intimation that Kate intended to take on an interesting project—as if it somehow reflected poorly on his capabilities as a father if she did. His had been a prickly, cloying sort of love—the kind that did everything difficult for her, so that she might sit in peace.

And boredom.

She loved her father, but hiding her work had been a necessity.

“No.” Louisa stood and turned away abruptly, patting the swaddling firmly. “He’s friends with Harcroft, for goodness’ sake.”

“We’ll need someone to help obtain a divorce. You might have options, besides fleeing to America. And it would be better than this.” Kate spread her hands to encompass the tiny room and all it implied—a life spent hiding from a man who had the legal right to compel her presence; her son, growing up without the natural advantages that were his birthright. “It’s a radical process, but surely you could obtain a petition on grounds of extreme cruelty.”

Louisa’s hands fluttered uncertainly. “Would he help? Do you know? How much influence do you have over him?”

Not even enough to get him in bed.

If she’d had any influence over her husband, he would never have left. And he’d come back more frightening, more mysterious than ever.

Louisa slumped into her chair again, and Jeremy, in her arms, gave a small, sleepy hiccough. “Even that’s no solution. Even assuming your husband was willing to defy mine, it would end with Harcroft having Jeremy. I won’t abandon him.” A fierce note entered her voice. “Not to him. Not to that. I would rather die.”

An extreme pronouncement, although by the fierce light shining in Louisa’s eyes, the sentiment was heartfelt. A thread of uneasiness curled around Kate’s spine. She’d given Louisa a gun.

But it was rather too late to rip the pistol from her hands, and it would have made no difference in any event.

“The weapon.” Kate licked her lips. “It is to be used only as a threat, understand?”

“Oh,” said Louisa bitterly. “I understand. This is as much my fault as anyone’s. I let this happen to me. I didn’t say anything for years. No complaints. No protests. I accepted it. I dare say I deserved it.”

“Nobody deserves to be hit in the stomach with a fire poker.”

“But I didn’t stop it.” Louisa’s gaze abstracted. “Until he threatened Jeremy, I didn’t stop it.”

Kate had discovered the truth of her friend’s mysterious illnesses a year before. In that time, she’d urged her to leave, to do something. It had taken Louisa thirteen months to act. It was impossible not to feel sorry for her, after what she had survived. She understood that her friend had been damaged in more ways than by just her husband’s physical betrayal. Still, it was impossible not to feel a hint of frustration.

“Don’t speak that way,” Kate said. “You did stop it, eventually. You’re here. You’re safe. Nobody will ever find you.”

Kate looked out the window. Before them, dying grass covered the hill, stretching down into the autumn-brown of the valley below. A spiral of smoke rose from a village miles distant. Kate counted to ten, pulling her own confused emotions in line, until that plume of smoke had disappeared and reformed again, before she answered.

“I think you underestimate your own strength.”

“And you always assumed too much of me,” Louisa said simply. “I’m not strong, not the way you are.”

Kate kept her gaze on the waving field of grass. Through the uneven glass, she could not make out individual blades. Instead, they passed back and forth, rippling like a sea. If Louisa could see into Kate’s heart right now, Louisa would not call her strong. She feared Harcroft. The terror of discovery filled her almost to panic. Her own husband might betray her at any moment, and still she wished he had taken her last night.

She wasn’t strong.

No; Kate was afraid. But she had become an expert at hiding her emotion behind a veneer of practicality. And now her husband was threatening even that.

She waited for practicality to win out before speaking. “There’s nothing to fear.” She raised her chin and caught a glimpse of motion cresting the hill. Her blood ran cold; practicality disappeared in a flap of brown fabric. In the space of time it took Kate to g

ulp breath into her seizing lungs, she saw men on horseback. She knew these horses. It was Harcroft and her husband. While they’d broken their fast this morning, they had talked of visiting a few nearby hamlets, of making a few inquiries. Kate just hadn’t expected them to take this tiny path to the west.

“Get down,” she hissed.

Louisa dropped to a crouch—quickly enough that Jeremy opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. They huddled on the floor.

So long as they were very still…

Jeremy began to cry. He didn’t start with little sobs, either; instead, he screwed up his nose and screamed. Kate hadn’t realized that a bundle of cloth scarcely larger than a large cabbage could generate so much noise. She stared at Louisa in appalled horror. There was nothing to do about it. Louisa patted him ineffectually on the back, and cast a worried glance at Kate.

There was still no reason the men would come up to this cabin. The track they were on passed a quarter mile from here, leading over the ridge to a village eight miles away. Even if they came near, unless they passed close enough to peer in the window, they would see nothing but a shepherd’s cottage, abandoned in the autumn. And loud as Jeremy was, they would still have to come very close to hear his wails.

Wouldn’t they?

Kate’s hands were cold. She wasn’t sure if she trembled, or if it was Louisa; their shoulders were pressed together so that their shivers merged into one. Kate could not let herself be overtaken by fear. If the men came close—if they came by—she would need to act quickly, to forestall their inevitable questions. The pistol, after all, would be of no use.

Jeremy’s wails paused, as he gulped breath. For a brief instant she could hear the wind in the weeds, the entirely inappropriate happy trill of a blackbird outside. He started again, but his startled screams were dying down, trickling into a few minute sobs. Still, she imagined she could feel the vibration of horses’ hooves drawing closer and closer, across the field. She waited, her fingers clenching.