An Unlikely Countess (3 page)

He toasted her. “I didn’t claim my mother was a rational woman. Does your name have such grisly connotations? Judith, perhaps, who cut off the head of invading Holofernes? Boadicea who led her armies against the Romans?”

She merely smiled.

“You hold your silence? Then I christen you Hera.”

“Wife of Zeus?”

“Queen of the gods.”

“By virtue of marriage, however. I would rather be Judith, who acted on her own.”

“There’s a man you wish to behead?”

She merely sipped more brandy, but all humor had left her as she contemplated the knife.

“Your brother, perhaps? A lawyer—and a gamester?”

She looked at him, startled. “What made you think that?”

“Poverty.”

“Aaron’s not poor.”

“Then he’s unkind.”

She took another sip of her brandy. She’d be swigging it soon, but it hadn’t loosened her tongue. He poured a little more into her glass and topped up his own.

“I have a brother,” he said to encourage her, “but he’s a prince among men. A tender son, a devoted husband, a loving but firm father.”

“You’re fortunate, then.”

“I’m sure I am.”

She cocked her head. “He’s not all that he appears?”

“He is.”

“But you resent it. Because you are none of those things?”

As sharp as her knife, damn her, but it added to his admiration.

“Your brother?” he insisted. “How can he see you in this state? You were clearly born to better things.”

“He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t visit. Not since Mother died, and we lived elsewhere then.” She drank more brandy and then cradled her glass, staring at the play of candle flame on spirit. “I thought him a tender son. A good brother.”

The brandy was doing its work at last. Cate could dimly remember when such a small amount had made him babble. Long, long ago.

“Until?” he prompted.

“Yesterday. Yesterday, I still clung to hope. Today I received his letter.” She looked at an unfolded sheet of paper lying on the floor. “He sent it by a traveler. Thoughtful, perhaps, to spare me the pennies of the usual post, but it came late. Everything always seems worse at night.”

“What does it say?”

“That the responsibilities consequent to his upcoming marriage make it impossible for him to increase the amount he sends me for my support.”

“That doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable.”

“Does it not?” Her eyes met his over the knife. “He sends three guineas a month.”

“That is very little,” he agreed.

“While writing of the fine house he will soon have, and the carriage and pair for his future wife.”

“Ah.”

She slammed her glass down on the table so hard that brandy splashed. “He
owes
me a decent life. He owes it to me. And to my mother if she were still alive. Everything he is, everything he has, is because of our unstinting labor and sacrifice over ten long years. We’ve gone without every elegance and indulgence, and often without necessities as well.”

Cate was almost breathless at her warlike intensity.

She swept her hand around. “I live
here
. Once we had a lovely home, but . . . we’ve moved to poorer and poorer places in order to support him. My sweet mother died in poverty. All so my brother could be educated and establish himself in his profession. So that he could return Mother to a decent, comfortable life. So he could help me make a good marriage.”

“And now?”

“Now he throws money away and says I must wait.”

“You went out tonight to visit him?”

“He lives in Darlington.” She took another drink, seeming to savor it now. “When I read that letter I couldn’t believe what he was saying—wait, wait, wait. This place was supposed to be only for a little while. For my first mourning, and while Aaron completed his training. He’s practicing law. He’s soon to make a good marriage to a woman who brings money. What need is there to wait? I was shocked. Then angry. So very, very angry. It felt . . . it felt like this brandy makes me feel.” She stared at the knife as if envisioning a deadly purpose for it.

Plague take it.
Shock he could believe, tears he would expect, but her anger was of another order, especially when it drove a blade deep into wood. She might be headed for a madhouse, or even the gallows.

“But why go out? What did you intend?”

She blinked at him. “Intend? I simply couldn’t stay inside. I was suffocating in here, surrounded by darkness, dampness, and evidence of all our privations. Remembering the tender promises he made to my mother, his tears at her graveside because his prosperity had come too late. It was partly Mother’s fault. She always resolutely made the best of things, even when . . .”

Cate poured a little more brandy into her glass, wishing she’d complete that sentence. This wasn’t a new tragedy. What were the roots?

“He was always so grateful for the extra coins we’d scrimped,” she said, “but he never realized their cost. Mother would have us dress in our best and serve him tea from the few pieces of china. There was decent furniture then, but I had to sell it to pay for the funeral. Mother made me promise. Aaron mustn’t pay, not when he needed every penny to set up in business.”

“Then perhaps he can’t bear all the blame.”

“If he had an ounce of sense, if he ever looked beyond his own comforts . . . But I never imagined. I read that letter, and it was all too much. I was choking. I needed air. I simply walked the streets. . . .”

“Until you were attacked.”

“Until then.”

Fire quenched, she put a thin finger into the spilled brandy to trace a pattern on the table. A work-worn finger with a broken nail. Three guineas a month. It would pay her rent, and buy fuel and food, but little more.

“What do you think to do about your brother?”

“Do?” She straightened. “I shall write to him again. I’m at fault for following my mother’s pattern and not making the situation clear.”

“And if he doesn’t respond as you wish?”

“He must.”

She couldn’t be as certain as she tried to sound. She had no weapons in this fight and must know it. Out of sight, out of mind was a powerful force, and if her brother chose selfishness, she would live here like this forever.

Something about her caught him so powerfully that he wanted to sweep her away to a better life, but what did he have to offer? He had no profession. He’d been forcefully advised to sell his commission in the army and told he wouldn’t be welcome back there. His history in other enterprises was dismal.

His brother might have given him an allowance if they hadn’t almost come to blows a few hours ago. He could never return to Keynings now.

His only course seemed to be to find a rich wife. He didn’t have much to recommend him to a family of his own class, but perhaps being the second son of an earl would count with a rich merchant or such.

No, he had nothing to offer Hera.

“Wouldn’t you be better off as a governess or companion?” he suggested.

“Become a
servant
? Never. I will have my right. I will be a wife with a home of my own.”

“Boadicea,” he said with a grimace. “She led her armies against the Romans—and was slaughtered along with nearly all her people.”

“I hardly think I’m in such danger, Mr. Burgoyne.”

“I hope not. But you must know that our world isn’t kind to demanding women, no matter how just their cause.” Cate downed his brandy and rose. “I regret your situation, ma’am, but there’s nothing I can do to assist you.”

She rose too, needing to steady herself on the back of her chair. “I never expected it, Mr. Burgoyne. I thank you for driving off those ruffians and wish you well.”

Her hand was so thin and she was so alone. There was one small way to help. He took two shillings out of his pocket.

“I have only enough money to get me to London on the stage with the simplest food and lodging along the way, but I can spare this if you’ll let me sleep here. I’ll have privacy and less fear of fleas, and you’ll double your day’s allowance.”

She eyed the shillings, licking her lips. The coins held value to him at the moment, but he had money in London and could earn shillings, and even guineas, in any number of ways. She, being a woman, could not.

“What if anyone found out? I’d be ruined.”

Those licked lips could lead to her ruin if he were a different kind of man. Dammit, she shouldn’t be alone and unprotected. Perhaps he could seek out her brother. . ..

Insanity. He didn’t know the man’s surname or location, and had no means of forcing him to do the right thing. And he wanted an uncomplicated life from now on.

“I promise to leave early and carefully,” he said.

She bit her lip, clearly fighting with herself, but brandy was a great loosener of standards.

“Very well.” She picked up the candle. “I’ll show you to my mother’s room. I regret that the bed is unaired.”

“I’ve slept rougher.”

Before leaving, Cate grasped the hilt of the knife and began to work it out. She stepped away from him, eyes fearful, but he simply freed it and put it down.

“A lesson for you, Hera. You’d have found that hard to do. Be sure you can deal with any results of your angry actions.”

She turned and led the way up steep, narrow stairs, resentment in every line of her back.

The road was never smooth for a brave, rebellious woman.

They arrived in a tiny hallway between two doors, dangerously confined in the small space. She opened the door on the right and went in, allowing him to breathe again. Damnation, he hadn’t felt such instant, powerful attraction to a woman in years.

She lit the stub of a candle to reveal another almost bare room. The narrow bed would be too short, but it would do.

“Thank you. If I’m gone before you rise, I wish you well, Hera.”

“As I do you . . . Catesby.”

The flickering light of two candles played strange games with her features and with his mind.

“My friends,” he said, “call me Cate.”

That ready humor showed. “Does that not cause you embarrassment?”

“I have a sword, remember, and know how to use it.”

Again, humor died. “Lucky man.”

He wanted to lead her onto primrose paths. Back onto them. She’d been light and merry once; he knew it. Back before whatever disaster had brought her family low. He wanted easy days for her, and frivolity, and ready laughter.

In that, however, he was impotent.

She hadn’t left. Cate became breathless again, half hoping, half fearing her intent. Desire stirred, and in that he wasn’t impotent at all, but she promised nothing but trouble, and a liaison with a stranger would be disastrous for her.

When she raised her chin and looked him in the eyes, he was still frantically fighting his baser nature.

“Will you kiss me?”

Devil take it, Cate. Don’t do this
.

“I thought you saw me as a threat.”

“We’re drinking comrades,” she said flippantly, staring at a wall, but then met his eyes again. “I’ve never been kissed, you see, and now it seems I never will be, so I thought . . .”

He couldn’t resist her gallant need.

“The men of Northallerton are fools.”

He took the candle from her hand and placed it with the other, and then cradled her face with his right hand. He’d like to run his fingers into her loose hair, but she was already tense and he was too desirous, so he simply kissed her.

One of her hands gripped his wrist, but she didn’t protest. Too late he realized she might panic and cry rape and he’d have no defense that anyone would believe.

But she didn’t, and he wanted to give her this.

He had no idea how much of a kiss she wanted and doubted she did, either, so he kissed her again, teasing at her lips, hoping she’d open them. She pressed her lips back against his but clearly had no notion what to do.

He could use his thumb to coax her jaw down, to open the way, but instead he simply played his lips against hers. She relaxed, but showed no sign of wanting more. At length, he slid his lips to kiss her cheek, intending to end it there.

Some instinct made him draw her into his arms.

Perhaps he needed that as much as she did.

She was stiff—until she suddenly slumped against his chest, her head tucked down, strength gone. He stroked her back, feeling the thinness of her spine and shoulder blades. It was the gauntness of chronic hunger and it infuriated him.

He gently separated them, making sure she was steady on her feet.

One of her hands rose, perhaps to touch her lips, but instead went to her hair, as if she feared it had run wild. “Thank you,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“We should celebrate your first kiss with a feast. I’ll go and get some food from one of the inns.”

Her eyes shot to him. “You can’t come and go,” she insisted in a whisper. “People on this street notice things.”

“When did you last eat?” he asked.

“A few hours ago.”

“You don’t eat enough.”

“Are you being uncomplimentary about my appearance, Mr. Burgoyne?”

Her high-and-mighty manner made him want to laugh, but none of this was funny.

“I want to help you. Tell me your name and I’ll send you money from London.”

That had her straight-spined again. “You will not. I’m no charity case, especially of yours. It is for my brother to assist me, and I’m sure he will.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I’m managing, and will continue to do so.”

He wanted to shake her.

“Then good night,” he said.

“Yes. Good night.”

Despite her firmness, she hesitated, and Cate wondered what he’d do if she asked for more, perhaps even for everything.