An Unlikely Countess (25 page)

Cate and Mr. Perriam led the horses up to the road. Once there, Cate said, “There’s something I have to tell you, Prudence.”

He was going to confess his mistress. She’d much rather he not, but she asked, “What?”

“The accident wasn’t. The wheel had been tampered with. Draydale’s work, I assume.”

It was so different from what she’d expected that her mind went blank for a moment. “
Draydale?
Why would he do such a thing?”

“In hopes of harming us. A die cast, only, but he had little time to plan a first strike whilst nursing his wounds. He’s the sort of man to have to strike, however, and to try again, which is why we must get you safe in Keynings.”

“I’ve put you in danger.”

“I
put me in danger, and you too, perhaps—”

“No.”

“But don’t worry. You’re well protected. Both Perry and I have pistols on our saddles, and I’ll get my sword.”

He wrenched open the boot again, and dug deep inside. When he straightened he had a scabbarded sword on its belt and he buckled it on.

Prudence hated all this preparation for violence, but the very idea of Henry Draydale plotting to harm her weakened her knees. She could imagine the sort of revenge he’d like to take on her. If her riding would help keep them all safe she’d do it, but when Cate told her to mount up behind Mr. Perriam, she protested.

“It’s a matter of weight. You two are the lightest.” He helped her get a foot into a stirrup and Mr. Perriam hoisted her up to sit sideways behind him.

“Put your arm around me, ma’am,” Perriam said. “You’ll feel more secure.”

She did, but when Cate mounted she saw his mouth tighten with pain, and how carefully he settled into the saddle. She wished there were something she could do to help him, but he was right. The great house, Keynings, had ceased being a threat and become a sanctuary.

It was only after they’d turned a bend in the road that she realized that she lacked gloves and hat.

That wouldn’t add to her dignity, but she no longer cared.

A
t walking place, the countryside seemed endless. Prudence saw nothing more threatening than a bull in a field and there was no hint that it would rain, but the threat of Henry Draydale hung over her. Cate was right: Draydale was the sort of man who’d have to take his revenge for such blows to his pride.

She told herself that his attempts would be concealed or indirect, as with the carriage accident. If she and Cate were openly attacked, he’d be the first suspect. But if their party were set upon by vicious footpads? Who could draw the line from that directly back to Henry Draydale, who was doubtless still nursing his wounds in Darlington?

Cate had pistols and a sword, she reminded herself. The effete Mr. Perriam had a gun in a holster on his saddle, but it was Cate she put her faith in, even wounded. She’d seen him in action.

When they finally rode into a modest town called Storborough, however, it was as if she breathed properly for the first time. Here were tidy houses and bounteous gardens, and streets busy with normal people going about their normal days. They soon realized why it was busy—it was market day, with the extra life, noise, and bustle that brought.

“Civilization!” Perriam declared. “I was beginning to think it had ceased to be.”

“You must be in a dire state,” Cate said with a grin, “if you’re comparing this place to London.”

“Don’t, please. I could fall into a decline on the spot. I demand a pause here. I must wash and recover.”

“We could all do with that. Which inn takes your fancy?”

“The Bull. It has a modern air to it.”

They stopped outside the porticoed door to the modern stuccoed building and ostlers ran forward. Cate eased off his horse and limped over to Prudence. Before she could protest, he grasped her at the waist and lowered her.

“Idiot! Your wounds.”

“Are naught compared to the pain of a cross word from you.” She touched his head again, but he laughed. “I’m not fevered.”

“Then you are, as I always expected, mad.”

“Insane from birth,” said Perriam. “You two can stand out here in a dream if you wish. I’m for food, drink, and hot water.”

He walked away, but neither Prudence nor Cate watched him go.

“Prudence, what did I do to upset you so?”

“Nothing,” she said, terrified that he’d confess his mistress.

If he never spoke of Lady Malzard, if he was so discreet that she never had to hear about the woman, and certainly never had to meet her, she thought she could bury the beautiful shameless hussy deep in her mind.

Perhaps.

“Is it still Keynings?” he asked.

She seized onto that. “Of course it is. Look at me. I have no hat!”

“No hat?” he repeated. “Nor have I. I assume it’s broken and battered in the carriage, along with yours.”

“It’s different for a man. I could perhaps buy a hat here. And gloves. No, I see a better way. We can rest here and send for my trunk. Then I will arrive in decency in due course.”

“No,” he said, then grimaced. “Prudence, I have something I need to tell you. Come into the inn. They’ll have tea.”

Tea. He thought this could be solved by
tea
?

“I would rather buy a hat,” she tried, but in the face of his grim mouth, it was a faint effort. He was determined to confess, and she must try to make the best of it.

When they entered the inn, they found Perriam was already being led upstairs, demanding hot water immediately.

“Do you want hot water?” Cate asked her.

“Oh, yes, please.” Prudence toyed with asking for a bath, but could see that wouldn’t do.

They were soon in a private parlor with bedchamber attached, tea and washing water ordered. There was a mirror on the wall facing the door, and her reflection made her want to cry.

“Why didn’t you tell me I had smudges on my face? And my hair’s a disaster!”

“You look well enough to me.”

Well enough?
She was sure he never told Lady Malzard she looked “well enough.” She shot him an angry glance. “You’re no image of perfection, you know, especially with bloodstained breeches.”

“Letting you down, am I?” He wasn’t smiling.

That terrified her. Perhaps it was worse. Perhaps he needed to tell her that he’d realized he’d made a dreadful mistake. That he was going to abandon her and go off with his one true love.

It had been Peg Stonehouse’s clothes. And probably Prudence’s manner there. Peg had reminded her a little of Hetty, but she was a gentleman’s wife now. More than that. An aristocrat’s wife. He’d probably decided he couldn’t bear to take her to meet his grand relations, including his mother. How could she bear it?

With the briefest knock, a maidservant came in with a jug of steaming water.

“I’ll let you wash first,” he said, and went into the parlor.

Prudence looked at the closed door, biting her lip on tears. Truly, she didn’t feel she demanded too much from life, but comfort kept being snatched away from her. She should always have known, however, that Cate Burgoyne was beyond her reach. She almost lacked the heart to try, but she made herself wash and tidy her hair, feeling as if she prepared for the gallows.

Then she realized that she was waiting for him to return, when he must be waiting for her to join him. She gathered all her strength, straightened her spine, and went into the parlor.

He was looking out at the street, but turned to her. “Just people going about their business.”

He’d been on the watch for Draydale’s agents?

Hesitantly, she joined him by the window. “It does feel odd to find everything so ordinary after our dramas.”

“Life goes on as a river flows, smoothly around obstructions. I remember once riding from a bloody skirmish into a place where people were haggling over the price of vegetables.” He turned to look at her then. “Prudence—”

“I think I see a stall selling handkerchiefs,” she said desperately. “I don’t even have a handkerchief.”

“Prudence, I need to make a confession.”

“Is it that you’re poor?” she asked, still trying to deflect the awful truth. “That there’s no home after all? I don’t—”

“There’s a home, and I’m not poor.”

“You’re an impostor. Your name isn’t Catesby Burgoyne.”

“What? No.”

She lost all will to fight. “You have a mistress,” she said.

He stared at her. “Devil take it. What put
that
idea into your head?”

She suddenly felt dizzy. Such astonishment had to be real. But what could be worse?

“You . . . you’re already married? We’ve committed bigamy?”

“Of course not. Prudence—”

“You’re a criminal, on the run from the law!”

“With Perry as my low associate?” He rolled his eyes and leaned against the window frame. “Pray continue. What else can you devise?”

Not poor, not homeless, no mistress or other wife. “You’re . . . dying?”

“For heaven’s sake. I’m in the peak of health.”

He took a moment to speak—a long moment that said his confession was terrible, so terrible she’d been unable to imagine it.

Finally, he said, “I’m an earl.”

“What?” Prudence stared, trying to make sense of nonsense words.

“I’m the fifth Earl of Malzard, and Keynings, to which we travel, is my home. This means,” he said, watching her carefully, “that you are now the Countess of Malzard.”

It was as if he spoke Greek.

Except that she knew some Greek.

“Countess of Malzard?” she repeated. “Oh, God! Oh, God!
I’m
Lady Malzard!”

“Yes.” But he was looking at her with concern, as if she were running mad.

Perhaps because she’d giggled. There was no wicked Lady Malzard to steal Cate from her.
She
was Lady Malzard!

“I should have told you before you married me,” he said, still watching her with concern. “I went to Tallbridge’s house that night intending to tell you. But in the end, I couldn’t risk your refusing to marry me.”

Prudence stared at him. “Refusing to marry you?”

“You’d have had every reason, and you’re strong enough, resolute enough, to have done it, but the consequences for you . . . All the same, I should have given you that freedom.”

She pressed fingers to her temples.
“Refusing to marry you
.
”

“Hit me if you want.”

She did, a strong slap across the head. “You thought I’d rather be left to Draydale’s mercies than marry an earl?”

“I could have offered you some alternative. Money . . .”

“You think I’d rather be a kept woman?”

“I don’t mean that. I’d have set you up in respectable comfort somewhere.”

“After Draydale’s accusation? How could that possibly be? But . . .”

She considered his shabby clothes, which were the same ones he’d worn at their first meeting, when he’d assuredly been short of money.

“Are you
sure
you’re an earl?”

“All too sure.”

“But you have no money.”

“I merely never seem to have enough in my pockets when I encounter you.”

“The money Mr. Perriam brought. It’s yours, not his?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you still wearing those clothes?”

He shook his head. “I became the earl recently. I’ve been replenishing my wardrobe, but I didn’t think my riding clothes had priority. Once we’re at Keynings, I can impress you with my elegance, Prudence. I am the Earl of Malzard; I give you my word. See, here’s my signet ring.”

She only glanced at the heavy gold ring. “My clothes! No wonder you were bothered by them. Even my finest aren’t fine enough. And your family! How could you have married without telling them?”

“You know how.”

Prudence covered her hand with her mouth. “My fault, my fault. Your mother . . . Is she Lady Malzard, too?”

“Yes. So is my brother’s widow.”

“Your brother,” she said, suddenly understanding. It blanked out all else. “The perfect one. Oh, Cate, I’m so sorry.”

Without thought, she went to him and took his hands, but then she pulled him closer to hug him as he had once hugged her.

“I’m so very sorry,” she repeated. “When did all this happen?”

“Time’s become meaningless. But nearly a month ago. I was in London and it took time to travel north. I missed the funeral.”

She held him tighter, and they stayed like that, drawing strength each from the other. That was what it felt like to her, at least, as her mind calmed and she settled into astonished acceptance.

Cate was an earl, and she was his countess.

He never wanted to be the earl, and she’d never have chosen to be a countess. But she would always have chosen to be Cate Burgoyne’s wife, no matter what the cost.

“I’m learning,” he said, “but I wasn’t trained for this. Second son, you know. Firmly directed to make my own way in the world.” He separated to smile ruefully at her. “The other day, I ran away from my responsibilities like a truant schoolboy. You were my excuse.”

Only an excuse.
That hurt.

“You shouldn’t have married me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She backed out of his arms entirely. “For
your
sake. You say you weren’t trained to be earl. I certainly wasn’t trained to be a countess. I’ll be a burden, not a helpmeet.”

“It’s done, Prudence. There’s no escape.”

She didn’t want to say it, but forced out the word. “Divorce?”

“Slow, messy, and scandalous, and would leave you ruined and me unable to marry again and get an heir. You see why I apologized. I’ve committed you to this without hope of escape short of death.”

Prudence wanted to speak her heart, to tell him that she’d have married him rich, poor, or even criminal. That she loved him. Those words would only add to his burdens, however, so instead she said, “Marriage to you is a great improvement on the alternatives.”