The Highwayman (23 page)

“Some of them will say anything for a meal. Lying comes as naturally as sleeping in the dark.” She paused for a moment. “He had most peculiar speech, though, for a vagabond, talked like a gentleman.”

“Was he Irish?”

“Irish! Saint George, I’ve never met one of them and hope to die in ignorance of the experience.”

“What did he look like?” Mary asked, already hurrying toward the stairs.

“Big, as I said. Dirty and scrawny, with long tangled hair and a fearsome beard.” Mrs. Curry stared at her in amazement. “Where are you going?”

“Is he still in the kitchens?” Mary called over her shoulder.

“I imagine so,” the housekeeper replied, bewildered.

“Stay there,” Mary said as she rounded the corner. “And say nothing to Lady Alex until you hear from me.”

Mrs. Curry looked after Alex’s departing houseguest in undisguised shock.

Mary flew past the servants, who looked around in consternation as she passed. She charged into the kitchen, startling the cook, who dropped her wooden spoon into the broth she was stirring.

“Where is the man who was here?” Mary demanded.

“What man?” the cook said defensively.

“The man who came to the door off the road.” Mary guessed the reason for the cook’s attitude and said, “I’m not going to chide you for feeding him, just tell me where he is.”

The woman sighed. “He said he wouldn’t take charity, insisted on working off his meal. He wanted to feed his horse, too, so I set him to chopping wood in the stables.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Mrs. Curry about it, or I’ll come in for another lecture.”

“Clear your mind on that account. If Mrs. Curry finds out about it, I’ll tell her you acted on my orders.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Now that she was off the hook, the cook grew chatty. “Any Christian soul would have done the same. You could see he was proud, how it pained him to ask for anything. Half-dead from hunger and cold, too, and the horse not much better, from what I could see through the window.” She picked up the spoon again and scattered parsley into the crock with a practiced hand. “Most peculiar the way he asked for Lady Alex. Mrs. Curry would have none of it, of course, but I had the idea he wanted to work to prolong his time here, find a way in to see the mistress.” She grinned wickedly, wiping her hands on her apron. “For a moment I thought he would grab my knife and hold it to Mrs. Curry’s throat, force her to take him to my lady, but then he seemed to think better of it.”

Mary reached for the cook’s cloak, hanging on a peg by the wall. “I need to borrow this,” she said, pulling it around her shoulders and dropping the hood over her head. “I’ll return it shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m in a hurry,” Mary explained, seeing the woman’s surprised expression. She opened the door to the cobbled courtyard, letting in a fine mist of blowing snow. The cold hit her like a blow, and she hurried across the yard to the stables, almost slipping once on the icy paving stones. The snow had been cleared by the staff but it was mounded at the edges of the walk and the wind sifted it into her face as she walked. By the time she reached the stables her cheeks were wet and stinging. She yanked the door open, and then slammed it closed against the wind, pushing the hood back off her hair.

The stableboy, Tim, looked up at her in surprise. He was polishing a bridle next to a small fire in a corner grate. From the back of the barn, Mary could hear the rhythmic sound of an ax falling at intervals.

“Lady Mary,” the boy said.

“Carry on with what you’re doing. I want a word with the man who’s chopping wood.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tim said, going back to his work.

Mary walked past the horse stalls, ignoring the whinnying and stomping her presence aroused. She slowed as she caught sight of the vagabond Mrs. Curry had described.

He was very tall, indeed, and had once been heavier, judging from the way his clothes hung on him. It was obvious that he had recently washed, from the bucket and stained rag sitting on the bench, but he was still much the worse for wear—his apparel bedraggled as well as too large, his hair smoothed with water but not fully combed. He was working his way through a pile of logs, splitting them and piling them neatly at his side. A few feet away a skinny nag, recently groomed, was munching a bucket of oats contentedly, with two woolen blankets strapped to its meager flanks.

The man stopped in the act of swinging the ax when he caught sight of her. He planted its blade in the earth and leaned on the handle as he watched her, waiting for her to speak.

“Who are you?” Mary asked.

He said nothing, his blue eyes like twin candle flames in his bearded face.

“Where did you come from?”

Still no response.

“What are you doing here?” Mary demanded more testily, annoyed at his silence.

“Working, as you see,” he replied shortly, moving to loosen the ax from the dirt.

“I mean, why have you come to this house?”

“If that shrew of a housekeeper has sent you to turn me out, you can take your ease. I’ll not leave until I’ve seen Alexandra,” he said.

Just the way he said her friend’s name nearly convinced her. “You’re not English,” she said.

He snorted. “I am not.”

“Have you traveled a great distance?”

“Look at me and answer that for yourself.”

“Are you Burke?” she whispered.

The man dropped the ax and came forward to seize her hands. He towered over her, and his grip was so strong that Mary flinched.

“How do you know that name?” he said hoarsely.

“Alexandra told me about you. Are you truly the man she left behind in Ireland?”

“I am.”

Mary hesitated.

“Am I not as she described?” he demanded. “I’ve looked better in my life, it’s true, but surely you can judge from her own words if I deserve to see her.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Mary said. “I don’t want to upset her, she is far gone with child and a shock could cause her serious harm.”

“I’ll not do that. Jesu, woman, I’ve crossed the ocean to find her. Do you think I would be capable of harming her?”

“She thinks she has lost you forever.”

“Then let her see me and know she’s wrong.”

Mary’s dark eyes were locked with his bright ones.

“Take me to her,” he said softly. “Don’t make me gain entrance by force.”

Mary closed her eyes, then opened them again and removed her hands from his grasp.

“Follow me.”

She led the way across the courtyard and back into the house. When the pair entered the kitchen the cook whirled to face them, her eyes going from Mary to Burke and then back again.

Mary held her finger to her lips. “I’ll explain later,” she said. “Where is Mrs. Curry?”

“Going over the household bills with the fishmonger’s man in Lord Selby’s study.”

Mary returned the cloak she had worn to its peg and said, “Good. She won’t see us if we go up the back stairs.” She proceeded through the kitchen and Burke hurried in her wake, almost treading on her heels in his anxiety.

“You must let me go in first,” Mary said quietly to him as they went up the steps.

He nodded.

“You know she is married?”

He nodded again, his eyes distant. “But the babe is mine.”

Mary stopped outside Alex’s door, which was ajar. She tapped and then pushed it open to find Alex dozing on her chair, her book closed on her lap.

“Alex?” Mary called softly.

Alex’s eyes opened and focused on Mary. She smiled.

“There is someone here to see you.”

Alex sat up, arranging her skirts. “Yes?”

Mary stepped aside, and Burke entered the room. When Alex caught sight of him she held both hands to her mouth, gasping, as her book slid to the floor.

He went to her side and fell to his knees, putting his arms around her middle and his head in her lap.

Alex bent to embrace him, her cheek against his hair.

Mary watched for a few seconds, her eyes wet, and then went out quietly and closed the door behind her.

Chapter 10

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,

Ease after war... does greatly please...

—Edmund Spenser,
The Faerie Queen

“How?” Alex said
when she had regained the power of speech. “How did you get here?”

“No matter,” Burke replied. “I found you.” He put his hands on her mounded belly and looked up into her face.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“Maura told me.”

“Would you have come after me anyway?”

He took her hand and held it to his mouth. “How can you ask?” he said, and closed his eyes as her fingers curled against his cheek.

“You have a beard now,” she said, smiling.

“More than that, probably, crawling in my clothes. I’ve been on the road for several days and before that on a ship.”

“I thought never to see you again,” she whispered.

“I’m a hard man to be rid of,” he said, and grinned, his teeth white against his brown beard.

“You’re so thin,” Alex said.

“I’ve not eaten much since I left the navy.”

“The navy!”

“I’ll tell you about it later. Now we must go.” He stood up and offered her his hand.

“Go where?”

“Why, out of this house. You’re coming with me.”

“I can’t just run off with you, Kevin!”

“Why not? You did once before.”

“For one thing, I’m having your baby in a matter of weeks. Do you want me to drop it by the side of the road?”

“Well, all right. We’ll wait until you have the baby.”

Alex stood also, still trying to absorb his presence. “For another thing,” she said slowly, “I’m married.”

“You don’t love him, whoever he is. You love me.”

She moved closer to him and took his hands. “Kevin, try to understand. I took vows, I made promises. I am married according to the rite of the Church of England.”

“You have suddenly become religious?”

“That’s a poor jest. You take my meaning very well. I can’t just walk out the door with you, without a care, pretending that it never happened.”

Burke snatched his hands from hers. “What you mean is you prefer this”—he gestured at the room—“and this”—he grabbed a handful of her velvet dress—“and this”—he took a silver goblet from a tray and threw it on the floor—“to what you could have with me!”

Alex merely stared at him until he lowered his eyes.

“Kevin, I was alone,” she said finally. “You had gone back to your men and I thought you would be killed if you ever returned to Inverary. I was with child and had to give the babe a name.”

“So you married Selby.”

“My uncle had the match in mind for some time. When I knew I was pregnant I saw no other way for me.”

“Selby is rich, of course.”

“He is a kind man and has been very good to me.”

“He is old?”

“Yes.”

“How old?”

Alex sighed. “Fifty-eight.”

“Has he bedded you?” Burke said tightly.

“No.”

“Has he tried?”

Mrs. Curry tapped on the door and then pushed it open and entered the room. When she saw Burke she stopped dead in her tracks.

“What are you doing in here?” she said with a gasp.

“Visiting,” Burke said, enjoying her shock.

“Oh, my lady, I’m so sorry. To think that you should be disturbed in this way by such road rabble. I’ll call Mr. Evans and have this man ejected immediately.”

Mr. Evans served as footman, houseman, and horsemaster, the only person on the estate large enough to have even a chance of removing Burke by force.

“Mrs. Curry, this is Mr. Kevin Burke, an old friend of mine,” Alex said. “Why should you think I would want him removed?”

Mrs. Curry stared at her, silenced for perhaps the first time in her life.

“I asked you a question,” Alex said.

“He came to the door this morning and I thought he was a beggar asking for food,” Mrs. Curry said.

“I asked to see Alexandra,” Burke said.

Mrs. Curry reddened. “I’m sorry, Your Ladyship, if I erred in handling the situation.”

“You did,” Burke said.

Alex gave him an exasperated look.

“From his appearance I took Mr. Burke to be a roamer on the roads,” Mrs. Curry said.

“I told you otherwise,” Burke said.

“I made the judgment not to disturb you. These people come all the time, especially at Christmas, and—”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Curry,” Alex said. “No harm has been done. I would like you to order a hot bath prepared for Mr. Burke, with soap and a razor, some shears as well, and look for some fresh clothes for him.”