Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (22 page)

No cat was curled at the end of her bed
when Calista awoke to the tolling bell and the patter of raindrops and the gray dawn. No man lay beside her on the mattress. No wooden spoon rested on the dressing table beside the statue.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath.

Then she climbed out of bed and prepared to meet the day.

Alone.

By dressing swiftly and hurrying past the breakfast room, she arrived in the stable so early that Mr. Jackson was still seeing to the horses’ morning needs. The inn’s ostler whistled pleasantly to the beat of the rain on the roof, and the boy shoveled straw from a stall at the speed of Ian’s favorite thoroughbred.

She had never seen the stable boy in the morning before, and she greeted him. He didn’t even glance at her.

“I would like to have a word with you, young man,” she said.

He seemed to start into awareness, and turned to her. He was perhaps eleven and had a sweet face with drooping eyes that made him look like the puppy.

“Good day, mum.”

“Why is it that, when you were charged with delivering a letter to me last night, I must come here and ask for it today?”

His puppy eyes popped wide. “On my gram’s honor, I plumb forgot!” He plunged his fingers into his waistcoat and produced the letter from Mr. Baker. She accepted it and tucked it into her sleeve.

“Thank you.”

The ostler appeared and frowned at the boy.

“What’re you doing here, Tommy? I told you to be off.”

“I’d to finish mucking out this stall, sir.”

“I’ll do it, lad.” He grabbed the shovel. “Now, be off with you.”

The boy tugged his cap and ran out into the rain.

“Milady,” the ostler said, “this is no place for that pretty dress. Least not till I’ve got this cleaned up.”

“I don’t mind.” She thought of Mr. Curtis visiting the school in the adjoining parish. “Is he off to school, then? I thought the flood had blocked the way.”

“No. Tommy doesn’t attend school.” He dug into the dirty straw. “He’s got his orphaned brother and sisters to care for.”

“But he is so young!”

“God doesn’t measure a boy’s years when He takes his parents. Only his heart.”

“If I had known I would see him this morning, I would have brought a coin for him.” She hadn’t on previous days; she had been too irritated with him for forgetting about John and the letter. “Where is he off to now? I could take it to him there.”

“His grandmum’s ailing something fierce. He’s gone home to tend her.”

“Oh,
no
. Where is the house?”

Calista knew the nearby farms of Swinly well by sight, and had no trouble recognizing which place the ostler described. After writing Jackson’s letter, she returned to the inn, collected the coins from her purse and an umbrella, and set out.

More of a shed than a proper house, it had a forlorn aspect, cheered however by quilted curtains. Not wanting to track mud inside, she remained at the door as three tiny children stared up at her. One looked about Harry’s age, although the cheeks of all three were even gaunter than her son’s, and their eyes were round with astonishment. She had the most powerful urge to grab them all into her arms and hug them until she woke up.

“Is your brother in?” she asked.

Tommy came out from behind a curtain drawn across the back of the room. “Mum?”

“Tommy, I neglected to thank you properly for delivering the letter to me.” She took his grubby hand and pressed the coins into it.

He scrubbed his other fist across his brow. “Thank you, mum.” He tucked the coins into his trousers pocket.

“I understand that your grandmother is ill. Has Dr. Appleby paid a call on her?”

“No, mum. We can’t afford the doctor’s fee.”

“I see.” She glanced at the three little ones again. “You poor things. Tommy, may I visit with your grandmother?”

He screwed up his nose. “D’you know how to treat ailments, mum?”

“Some.” Her husband’s gout, principally. But she suspected this woman was not suffering from too much cheese and Port wine. “Let me see if I can help.”

He went to the curtain and opened it to invite her in.

The woman lying on the cot was much older than Calista had imagined a grandmother of these children would be.

“She hasn’t eaten in six days,” Tommy whispered, touching his grandmother’s hand with the tenderness of an adult. “I can’t even make her take broth.”

The woman was little more than skin over bones. There was no odor of sickness, though. Calista put her palm to the woman’s brow. It was cool. Alarmingly cool.

“When did she take to bed, Tommy?”

“Twelve days ago.”

“And there is no one to nurse her, or to care for your sisters and brother now, except you?”

“No, mum. Papa went off to find work in the mines months ago. We’ve not heard from him.”

Calista unclasped her cloak. “I will tend to her now. Show me where you keep tea, and the broth. What is your brother’s name?”

“Fred, mum.”

“You or Fred must run to the village and fetch Dr. Appleby. Tell him Lady Holland from the Jolly Cockerel requests his presence here.”

Three quarters of an hour later, Fred returned without the doctor.

“He’s not at home, mum.”

Untying the apron she had found, she squeezed her patient’s fingers gently and handed the bowl of broth to Tommy.

“I will go the village and fetch him myself, Mrs. Cochran.”

The old woman’s half-closed eyes seemed to flicker.

Calista stood up. “Tommy, I will let your employer know that you won’t be returning to the stable today. There is little to do there, anyway, with no one coming or going.” She spoke quietly to him. “Fred and your sisters are frightened now. You must distract them. Keep them busy straightening and sweeping the house and washing those linens to hang out now that the sun is shining. Tell them she will like to know they’re helping. And promise them a special treat if they do it well. I will return later.”

“Yes, mum.” His face showed profound relief. “Will my gram be all right?”

“I hope so, Tommy.”

She walked from one end of Swinly to the other, directly to the doctor’s house. He did not answer her knock. She supposed he must have other patients, even in this tiny village. He had been available to the marquess, although that had been hours earlier in the day. Holding tight to her impatience, she went into Elena’s shop to beg of her paper and a pencil to write a note, which she then left on the doctor’s stoop.

The herd was milling about the street by the time she started back to the inn.

“Oh, move, you silly creatures,” she muttered to the pair that always blocked the least muddy stretch of verge, and tried to nudge them aside. The sheep remained steadfast while she soaked her skirt in oily water and felt cross and helpless.

“This is not how I wished this day to go,” she said, her throat too tight. “Not in the
least
. Not after yesterday. Not this failure.” She pushed past them and hurried to the inn.

She entered just as Molly exited the private parlor wringing her hands.

“Good day, milady.”

“Good day, Molly.” She removed her soggy cloak and set down the umbrella, remaining close to the doorway where she could not be seen from the taproom. It was well past two o’clock already. He was there now, graciously allowing men with one ten-thousandth of his income to best him at cards, and entirely oblivious to the fact that he had spent hours reading to her in bed the night before. Even speaking with him briefly today would be painful—too painful for her to bear just now, at least.

“Mrs. Smythe is unhappy without milk for her tea, isn’t she?”

Molly’s brows went up. “Yes, milady. How did you know?”

“Oh, you would be astonished at all I know.” She turned to arrange her cloak on the peg so it would dry before she ventured out again in search of the doctor and gifts for the children. But food must come first. She felt wretchedly faint. “I will see to milking the cow shortly. In the meantime, would you like me to go into that parlor and tell Mrs. Smythe to take her endless demands and stuff them up her pointed nose? I can take the opportunity to also firmly recommend to her that it is a terrible, tragic mistake to force her daughter to marry a man she cannot care for, and that it would be a much wiser thing to allow her to marry for love. For that, Molly, I know
quite
a lot about.”

She turned to see Molly’s face blank with shock and the Marquess of Dare paused three steps up from the ground floor on his way down. The knuckles on his hand gripping the stair rail were white.

“So …
not
in the taproom at present, it seems,” she mumbled, snatched up her cloak, and fled outside.

She’d thought she had already lived through the worst this day could bring, many times over. But the more she fell in love with him, the more she realized she had barely scratched the surface of misery.

~o0o~

The serving girl’s eyes were as round as Tacitus’s, and she seemed just as paralyzed. Then she curtsied, offered him a quick, “Milord,” and scurried away.

But he could not move. A jarring sense of déjà vu was seizing him.

Sharp, direct words.

Flashing eyes.

The passionate candor of her voice.

The gleam of her mischievous smile that retreated the moment he met her gaze.

She was the same girl he had known six years ago. Six years during which he had wondered if she had found another man to help her run away to London …

And a year after that, when he discovered she was married and wondered if that man had been the Honorable Richard Holland …

Eighteen years her senior, but not a bad-looking fellow according to reports, the youngest son of a baronet and thick in the pockets, Holland might have taken the fancy of a spirited girl on the town for the first time. He might have made promises that a young lady with laughter in her eyes and adventure in her soul would not have been able to resist.

After years of wondering, Tacitus wanted to know. He wanted to know about the man who had won her when he could not. And he wanted to know which of the marriages she had spoken of to Molly was hers: a forced tragedy or marriage for love. Serendipity had trapped him with her in this inn in this village for an entire day. He would not have another opportunity like this.

He went after her.

She strode swiftly along the edge of the muddy street. As she turned into an alleyway between two shops, he caught up to her.

“Did I hear you say that you intend to milk a cow today?”

“You did,” she replied immediately, as though she had expected him. “She needs to be milked and someone must do it. Why are you following me?” She halted and faced him, her brow tight. “You mustn’t, you know. It won’t do either of us any good.”

“I know.” This was insanity. He hadn’t spoken to her in years, and barely the night before. Yet standing here, facing her, it was as though no time had passed.

“I must do an errand now,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “Excuse me—”

“Wait.” He grasped her arm. The sensation of familiarity pressed at him with such force, as though he had held her like this before, though he knew he hadn’t.

“I must know something. You will think me a madman for asking, but I find I must.”

A spark came into her eyes. “Have you had another dream?”

“Another dream?”

“I thought perhaps— Rather, I must have been mistaken.” She seemed to realize he was holding her and tugged away. “What do you wish to ask me, my lord?”

“Just now,” he plunged in, “when you spoke to Molly, you said you knew the difference between being forced to marry a man you did not care for and marrying for love.”

She blinked rapidly, repeatedly. “You were not supposed to hear that.”

“Which is your marriage?”

“You should not be asking me this.”

“Yet I am. And as peculiar as you may think me for believing it, you owe me an answer.”

Her eyes, now round and rimmed with distress, seemed to seek purchase in the region of his chest.

“I am no longer married. My husband died not long ago. So, you see, the issue is moot. Good day, my lord.” She turned and continued up the alley.

“Which was it?” he called after her. “Tell me.”

She pivoted. “You
are
the most peculiar man I have ever known. What sort of person asks a woman recently widowed, whom he hasn’t seen in years, whether she married happily? What do you hope to accomplish by asking me this?”

“I … I think— I want to know that you were happy.” It was the truth, though he only understood that now. “I want to know that you were loved, and that you loved him in return. It isn’t my business, certainly. I recognize that. But seeing you again, and with your son last night, it has made me— That is to say … I have wondered for years whether you are happy. I wanted you to be happy.”

“Well, you might have done something about it
then
. For it doesn’t help me now, you know.”

Her words hit him like a slap.

“I did do something then,” he said. “I courted you for a month.
Every day
for a month. I own three houses and a castle, yet I lived at an inn because that was the only way to see you. I spent thirty days engineering entertainments for a girl of sixteen and a boy of fifteen in order to be with you. So in fact I think I did do something then to try to make you happy.”

“It wasn’t
enough
.”

“For God’s sake, what more could you have demanded of me?”

“You didn’t ask me to marry you!”

“Of course I didn’t. You disliked me!”

“I was
infatuated
with you.”

Tacitus stared.

The world was abruptly a vastly different place.

“Say that again?” he forced out upon a thin breath.

“I was infatuated with you,” she repeated, spots of red high upon her cheeks. “Beyond telling. Sometimes it was so difficult to be with you without declaring my feelings that I had to leave abruptly. My mother had convinced me that a lady does not express her deepest feelings, that she must at all times remain pacific and modest, that true gentlemen expect this. I knew you disapproved of me, of my teasing and overexuberance. I was terrified that if I allowed you to see even a part of what I felt, you would revile me. Most days I was beside myself with the urge to pour out everything battling with the certainty that I must not.”