Lady Silence (18 page)

Thayne was babbling, attempting to explain,
making excuses. Damon paid him no heed. He picked Katy up, swung
her into her saddle with not so much as a query about whether she
was fit to ride. He took up her mare’s reins, then turned to look
down at the major, who was now sitting, a trifle lop-sidedly, at
the foot of an elderberry bush.

“
I am aware of my guilt in this,” Damon
told him grimly. “Nevertheless, I will see you both in the library
after breakfast.” Colonel Farr addressing his junior
officers.

The new Earl of Moretaine, leading Katy’s
mare, turned his horse away from the castle, leaving two
ashen-faced officers who had never before doubted that they were
gentlemen.

There was a clearing close by, a treasured
memory of Damon’s childhood. He’d even visited it more than a time
or two while at Eton. A good place for a young man to contemplate
the world—his fellow students, friends and those who were not; the
harshness of his teachers . . . and, later, the delights of wine
and women. Oh, yes, he remembered the spot well. His
great-grandfather had planned with care. There was even a curved
marble bench, stuck incongruously in the middle of the wilderness.
Was it still there? He hoped so.

Damon found the narrow sidepath, and there
was the glen, perhaps even lovelier than he remembered. The last
time he had been here, he had not yet learned how privileged he
was, how so much of the world was ugly and harsh, bathed in sweat
and blood . . .

He swung Katy from her sidesaddle and plopped
her onto the hard marble with the carelessness he might have used
with a sack of grain. The breath whooshed out of her. Clasping her
hands in front of her face, she stared blindly at the stream,
rocking ever-so-faintly back and forth.

Damon tethered the horses, then stood over
her, hands on his hips. “And now,” he declared, “you will tell me
about your long masquerade. Why you are a liar. Why you have
deceived my mother, myself, and my staff for all this time. Why you
have betrayed our trust. Well, speak up, girl! Your audacity
overwhelms me. It is unfortunate you were too young to go as a spy.
You would have been superb. I daresay you could give Mrs. Siddons
lessons.”

Katy’s slight shoulders slumped, her head
drooped forward.

“
Answer me, dammit. I must know! I gave
you shelter, food, allowed you to live a life of gentility. Open
your mouth and speak to me, girl! I know you can, so stop your
games. This instant.”

Her whole body shuddered. She dropped her
hands from in front of her mouth. “Sometimes,” Katy breathed into
the waiting silence, “late at night in my room or when I was out
riding, I would say or word or two out loud. Just a whisper, to see
if I still could.”

Damon stared at the changeling on the
bench.
A lady, by God!
Not a
trace of the streets in a single word.

She was clever, adept. She could have learned
proper speech from his mama.

No, every word was perfect. Katy Snow was a
lady, born and bred.

“
Why?
” The
word burst from him, raw and hoarse-voiced, for here was the
ultimate betrayal. The residents of Farr Park had taken her in,
offered protection, even love. And all along the miserable chit was
playing a part. Hoodwinking them. Bamboozling the lot, numbskulls
that they were. They’d
trusted
her, by God. Treated her like a princess. And this was the
thanks they got.

He should have let Fox have her.

Katy coughed, cleared her throat. “Nearly
every place I tried to find work . . . after no more than three
words, I was suspected as a runaway from a noble house and they
wanted no part of me.” For a moment she seemed surprised by her
spate of words, relapsing into silence. Her bosom heaved as she
took another deep breath and tried again. “The few times I was
taken on as a scullery maid, I was soon shunned for my fine speech
and what they said were my lofty ways.” Katy paused, eyes fixed on
the tall water grasses swaying with the pull of the current. “Each
time I was chased away or turned off. No one wanted me.”

“
I believe I’ve heard tales of your
lack of domestic skills,” Damon commented drily.

“
That, too,” Katy conceded softly. “I
was hungry, exhausted . . . freezing. It had begun to snow. I had
to find shelter or die. I’d lost the main road, you see, and ended
up on the hill above Farr Park. When I looked down and saw the
lights in the windows, the torches along the drive, I knew it was a
miracle. This place was meant to be my new home . . . and I vowed I
would do whatever was necessary to stay there.”

“
And if you didn’t speak, no one would
guess you were a lady.”

Katy, falling back into old habits,
nodded.

“
Except my staff soon found you out . .
. and then my mother, so that you were once again a lady by the
time I returned.”

Cream rises
,
Katy thought, beginning to recapture a bit of her
spirit.

“
But no one could be certain,” Damon
continued, “because, for some quite incredible reason, you
maintained your masquerade long after becoming the family darling,
making fools of us all. Betraying my mama’s trust, the devotion of
my staff—”

“
Never!” Katy cried. “I love them. They
are wonderful. But I could not—I simply could not—risk being sent
back where I came from.”

“
And where was that?” Damon inquired
silkily.

“
I was nearly . . .
ravished
just now,” Katy declared after only the
slightest pause for thought. “Though I appreciate your gallant
rescue, my lord, surely you cannot expect the entire story of my
life at this moment.”

“
Why, you arrogant, devious,
self-serving little baggage, I ought to take you over my
knee!”

“
It is surprising what six and a half
years of silence will do, my lord. Such ample opportunity for
contemplation and self-reflection. I believe most people could
benefit from being forced to keep their mouths shut and their minds
open. You may do what you will with me, but I am not yet ready to
tell you who I am or where I came from.”

He had to give the chit credit for courage.
And swiftness of mind and remarkable agility with words. “If I do
not know where you came from, I am not obliged to return you, is
that it?”

“
Exactly.”

“
And if I should ask the Baron
Hardcastle to identify you?”

Katy jumped up, took two steps toward him,
her hands held out in supplication. She faltered, knees buckling.
Damon caught her before she hit the ground. They rested there, on
their knees, Katy quivering in his arms, her face buried against
his shoulder.

“
Do not think I am not still angry,”
Damon said at last, “but only a beast would press you now, and I am
determined not to fall to Foxbourne’s level. Come, we’ll go home.”
He stood, drawing Katy up with him. “And, once there, I must tell
my two best friends to leave the castle.”
Though the fault is mine
. “And you must tell my
mother how shockingly you have betrayed her trust.”

He felt a quiver pass through her.
Grim-faced, he tossed her into the saddle. After loosening the
mare’s reins from a tree branch, Damon looked up at her, examining
Farr Park’s lovely, but deceitful, foundling as if he had never
seen her before. “Tell me, Snow,” he asked, “did you enjoy making
mock of us all?”

~ * ~

Katy sat, hands resting in her lap, regarding
the remains of her breakfast. If she had any sensibility at all,
she would not have eaten every last bite. The meal, delivered to
her bedchamber by Rankin himself, had been more than ample, and
she’d downed it all. Seeking strength to face the earl and his
mama? Courage to run away?

Again.

Obviously, she had the constitution of
her more vulgar ancestors, the good merchant stock on her mother’s
side of the family. Any proper young lady of the
ton
would be prostrated by the
double disasters of unrequited love and discovered deceit, unable
to eat or drink. Lost in an attack of the vapors, falling into a
decline . . . fading away, doctors hovering, family gathered about,
telling her they were so very sorry not to have given her a second
chance.

Katy replaced the silver cover atop her empty
plate with a decided thump, then stalked to the fireplace where she
plunked herself down on a footstool and stared into the fire, chin
propped in one hand. She was in trouble. Severe trouble. Damon had
told her to stay in her room until he sent for her. A summons could
come at any moment.

She had put on the least becoming of the four
new gowns created solely for the journey to Castle Moretaine, a
dark apology in gray kerseymere, relieved only by a quarter-inch
strip of white piping on the high neck and edge of the cuffs. She
had confined her blond curls into a tight bun at her nape and
fashioned a makeshift headcovering from a lace-edged handkerchief.
She could only hope she gave the appearance of a chastened, humble
servant. Self-preservation—was that not her credo? Physically, she
was prepared, but her mind whirled in chaos, like a child’s
round-about caught in an evil spell of circles without end. They
would cast her out . . . or, worse yet, question the Hardcastles .
. . and send her back to the hell she had escaped.

No!
Before
that terrible fate, she would run away.

To what? To the life the major and the
captain had touted as they recounted what they considered the grand
enticements of a career as a demimondaine?

Or . . . was it possible the Hardcastles
would deny her? Yes, of course! They had their Lucinda Challenor.
What did they need with Katy Snow?

But
why
did they have a Lucinda Challenor? In the grief following the
earl’s death Katy had had little time to contemplate the puzzle.
Her dear grandpapa, the bishop, had not been a wealthy man; at
least, she did not think so. He must have left her something,
however, for she seemed to be his sole heir. Was it enough to tempt
the baron to—

Her skittering thoughts were brought to an
end by a scratching at the door.

“
The earl will see you now, miss,”
Rankin announced. “In Lady Serena Moretaine’s chambers.”

Next door!
They were both there. Waiting. What had Damon told his
mother? Enough to make her beloved countess hate her
forever?

Whatever he had said, he was right. Katy Snow
was a horrid, conniving liar—there was no way around it. She had
deceived them. It could even be said she had played on their
sympathies to make a home for herself . . .

She had given good service, truly she
had..

Head high, stomach-churning, Katy followed
Rankin the few feet down the hall to Lady Moretaine’s suite.

They stood there like a portrait, mother and
son, the elder Dowager Countess of Moretaine seated on the chaise,
the new earl standing behind her. Katy managed a curtsy, though her
stomach seemed to have fallen to her toes while her heart was
stuffed into her throat.

“
I believe you have something to say to
my mother,” Damon intoned. “Please do so.”

Did the countess know? An anguished glance
revealed little. Her dear countess did not look shocked or angry.
Perhaps he had not told her.

“
Now
, Snow,”
said the earl. “
Tell
her!
”

“
My dear,” said Lady Moretaine, “Damon
has told me of your accident while out riding this morning. Though
why he should be so cryptic about it I cannot imagine. Nor why he
has insisted on bringing you to me when you should be laid upon
your bed. Dear child, do sit down before you fall. You look quite
dreadful. Damon, help her to a chair!”

The earl remained fixed behind his mother,
even as Katy swayed.

It was cruel not to have told his mama. The
countess deserved to have the news broken gently. And cruel to
herself as well. Could he not have spared her this bare-faced
revelation to the only mother she had ever known?

But it seemed military men were rigid,
even more inflexible about rules and ways of conduct than the
starched-up, unforgiving
ton
. . .

Katy clasped her hands under her chin,
planted her feet more widely apart, willing her legs to support
her. She longed to throw herself at the countess’s feet, as she had
done with Mrs. Tyner so long ago . . . but she was grown now and
full of pride. The colonel would call it arrogance, when she’d
never felt less arrogant in her life. She was, in fact, shriveling
inside, even as anger flared against Damon for putting her in this
position. All Katy had to do was open her mouth, say one word, and
the enormity of her betrayal would be evident.

“
Snow!” This time, a sharper bite to
Damon’s bark.

A shiver shook her from toes to head, but
Katy faced the dowager squarely. “I am so very, very sorry,” she
whispered. “I was alone and terrified. If I had not found a way to
stay here, I feared I would die.”

“
Oh, my dear child!” the countess
gasped. Tears rushed to her eyes. Katy was close enough to see them
quite clearly. And the deep, abiding anger that followed.
“
How could you?
” Serena
Moretaine breathed. “All those years . . . the love we gave you . .
. the advantages . . .”