Patricia Rice (38 page)

Not until the train was moving, with the children
fed and sleepily listening to a story, could Mac jerk his head and
command James away from curious ears. He counted on hauling the man out
of his seat by the coat collar if he didn’t follow, but, not
unintelligent, Bea’s tall “cousin” dragged himself up.

Locating an opening in the gentlemen’s smoking car,
Mac waited for James to catch up with him. Without the wig, the footman
appeared younger than Bea.

With his wife’s face firmly in mind, Mac studied the
handsome boy glaring back at him. Brown eyes, long jaw, high forehead,
and that accursed red hair. On Bea, it was lovely. On this man...

“I suppose Squire Cavendish had red hair?” Mac asked coldly.

Leaning against the rattling wall, James shrugged. “Lots of people do.”

All the vile emotions of the day crashed down upon
Mac at once, and he didn’t think twice about grabbing the younger man’s
coat, dragging his tall frame from the floor, and shaking him until his
pretty teeth rattled. “I just left my wife defending her home from
vicious rats, and I’m in no mood for games. The truth.
Now
.”

Unresisting, James lolled his head back and forth,
and became a deadweight in Mac’s grip. Disgusted, Mac flung him back
against the wall.

Brushing off his lapels with abused dignity, James
took his time replying. “It’s none of your business.” When Mac reached
for him again, he hastily backed away. “It really isn’t. I wouldn’t hurt
Bea if a thousand Mongols drove knives under my skin.”

“That could be arranged,” Mac replied grimly. He ground his teeth and clenched his jaw. “How much does my wife know?”

“Nothing,” James said hastily. “I’ve been very
careful. I told you, I wouldn’t hurt her. She’s earned every inch of
that estate by enduring that addlepated old man all those years.
Admittedly”—he held up his hands to fend Mac off—”the old man had a kind
heart, but he also had a simple head. He seldom thought things through,
didn’t want to be distracted from his hounds. He paid my mother for my
support, so he didn’t owe us a farthing, but I told him I wanted to meet
my half sister and see if the country would suit me, and he obliged. He
had an appalling sense of humor to let me wear my disguise, and too
much pride to let me work for anyone else.”

Mac crossed his arms. “And what the hell did you
think you’d accomplish by taking the position of servant in your
father’s household?” he asked. “Unless you inherited his disposition not
to think things through,” he finished maliciously.

James shrugged again. “Maybe I did. My mother is an
actress, and I’ve supported myself the same way, but I was bored. I was
curious to see what would have been mine if he’d bothered marrying her.
If nothing else, I figured it would be good practice for the stage.” His
shoulders rose in a deprecating gesture. “He died so soon after my
arrival, and Bea was so devastated, what else could I do but stay to
help her?”

He didn’t want to hear this, Mac thought. He really
didn’t. The six-foot baby had played the part of footman to visit the
country and got stuck there.
Idiot
!

But then, what did that make him? Bea was devilishly easy to care about.

Mac stared out the window at the passing landscape,
wishing he could see all the way back to Broadbury and Bea. How would
she take the realization that her father had had an illicit affair and
that her footman was actually her half brother?

He couldn’t look backward. “Do you have a name?” he asked while groping for some sense in James’s revelation.

The footman shrugged. “Matthew. I use my mother’s name of Carstairs.”

Matthew. Mac had as hard a time adjusting to the new
name as to the new image of fop as relative. A Carstairs? The mind
boggled. “Who’s your mother?” he asked, figuring Bea would also demand
an explanation one of these days.

“The black-sheep cousin of the Carstairses, cast out
for her promiscuity. She is my mother and I love her, but I will be the
first to admit that she is a shallow, vain woman who threw away her
position to have as many men love her as she could find. I can
understand what happened, I suppose. I’m four years younger than Bea.
Her mother died when she was two. The squire was a grieving widower,
susceptible to a pretty face. My mother was young and no doubt bored
with the rural home where she’d been banished. I don’t know what she was
thinking, except of herself.”

“And the squire had enough sense to realize she’d be
no good mother to his daughter and sent her off to London with a nice
nest egg, which is probably all she wanted in the first place,” Mac
finished for him.

“Something like that, I imagine.” James looked defiant. “What do you intend to do about it?”

“Hell, there isn’t anything I
can
do about it. I’ll be on a ship come morning, and you can do anything you damned well like. But so help me, if you hurt Bea...”

James rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you listening? I’m her
brother
.
I’m all the family she has besides Lady Taubee, and our aunt’s the one
who encouraged me to stay. If I wanted to hurt anyone, I’d go after the
Carstairses. I was just curious to see how the other half lives.”

“And your reason for leaving her now?” Mac asked caustically.

“To tell her when you’ve sailed safely,” James-Matthew answered blandly.

***

Bea clung to her bonnet as Digby raced the pony cart
up to the train station, just as the train steamed away. She couldn’t
believe they’d come all this distance, only to watch the train carrying
Mac and the children pull away. She was too stunned to weep.

If only she’d had the courage to go with him in the first place...”

“It’s all right, dear. I’m sure there’ll be another.” Mrs. Digby patted her arm.

Bea could only watch as the rackety cars clattered
past and out of sight. She searched every window in hopes of seeing Mac,
Buddy, anyone, but there was too much smoke and steam, and the whole
scene was a blur before her eyes. She couldn’t even raise an interest in
the view of her very first train. It was all noise and smell and
rumble—taking her family away.

The tears rolled then. Wiping inelegantly at the
moisture, she sat stiffly, waiting for Digby to tie up the horse and
make inquiries. She had only herself to blame for letting them go
without her.

She’d tried to make a marriage out of a business
arrangement, and had failed miserably. She’d tried to make a family out
of servants, and lost the only family who mattered. She couldn’t do
anything right.

That wouldn’t stop her from trying. It would have
been wonderful if she could have reached Mac before he sailed, but she
still had to find the earl.

She had been wrong not to go with him. Mac had said
courage came from experience, but she had none. Only now, she thought
maybe courage came out of love.

She wouldn’t fail him now.

She accepted the inevitable when Digby returned to
report that the train might or might not return tomorrow evening,
depending on track conditions.

“I’ll hire a driver to take me into London,” she said bravely. “You’ve done all you can, and I shall be forever grateful.”

“The viscount’s likely to have ridden straight to
his father,” Digby said sternly. “Horses travel faster than carriages,
and he has a head start on you. Write a letter.”

Write a letter.
Once,
letters had been enough. She had lived vicariously through words full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing. Shakespeare had it right. Action
was far better than words.

“No, I must see the earl myself. He has neglected
Broadbury for far too long. He has neglected his grandchildren. No doubt
he has neglected his son.” She glanced around at the station and its
environs. “Where would I go about hiring a driver?”

Digby sighed. “I could not live with myself if I let
you go alone. It’s late. We’ll find an inn, and be off to London in the
morning.”

Bea listened to the blare of a mail-coach horn, and
smiled. “No, I cannot impose on you. Take me to the coaching inn. I can
find my way from there.” She patted his freckled hand reassuringly,
although there was nothing certain in her soul.

Digby looked horrified. “Impossible! Mr. MacTavish would have my head, and rightly so, should I let you do such a thing.”

“But a mail coach will be in London by morning, and far more safely than we could travel,” she pointed out.

“I’m not certain they travel at night, dear,” Mrs.
Digby said prosaically, forestalling further argument. “But it wouldn’t
hurt to ask. We need an inn anyway.”

Bea didn’t even know when coaches traveled, but she
would learn. She would learn whatever it took to reach the earl. And
then she would try to find Mac. That was probably another impossible
dream, but she clung to it for all she was worth.

They took the cart to the nearby coaching inn, and
while Mr. Digby went inside to make inquiries, Bea and Mrs. Digby
availed themselves of the facility. Bea had never seen a public
convenience before, and she truly didn’t wish to see another again. She
couldn’t imagine how her aunt traveled if that was the state to which
her comfort was reduced.

Wiping her hands daintily on a handkerchief as she
stretched her legs in the rose garden beside the inn, she waited for
Mrs. Digby to return. Everything was such a hustle and bustle here, she
didn’t know which way to look first. Her shyness prevented her from
speaking to strangers, even if politeness hadn’t required reticence.

“Mrs. MacTavish,” an aristocratic male voice called from just behind her.

Where had she heard that voice before? Nerves
shattered by all she’d been through this day, she whirled to search the
hedge. No one ought to know her here.

The Viscount Simmons and his hired man stepped from behind the nearest bush. “I believe your transportation is ready.”

He did not smile when he said that. This was the man
who had allowed his children to be abused, who’d drunk himself into
signing them away, who wanted to heave Mac in prison so he could claim
the allowance meant to keep his children. This was not a civilized
gentleman with her best interests in mind.

Panicking, Bea started to run, but the burly guard
blocked her way. She was taller. He was heavier. She turned to run in
the opposite direction, but the ruffian grabbed her arms from behind so
she could not scratch his eyes out.

Mac was right: men were stronger than women, even large women.

She screamed, and the viscount shoved his perfumed handkerchief into her mouth.

She didn’t suppose they were taking her to see Mac.

With weary pride, Mac watched as his gleaming new
ship bobbed on the Thames. He’d had it built in England at a
considerable expense to keep it secret from his father and to give him
an edge over the other clipper designers in the States. Sails furled,
fresh white paint shimmering in the sunshine, it merely waited for his
command. He’d ordered
The Beatrice
painted in gold letters on its side just last week.

He could be sailing away on the morning tide. He
should be brimming with excitement, so why did he feel as if this was
the last place he wanted to be?

Despite their exhausting journey, Buddy was shouting
in joy at the sight of the boats and the river. Mary looked nervous,
and James-Matthew, disapproving. Once upon a time there had been only
himself and his profits to think of. Now he had an entire army waiting
for his command, and he wished he had Bea here to translate his
irritation into polite words.

Oddly out of sorts, Mac ordered a rowboat to take
them to the ship. He’d almost be happier if Simmons would show up so he
could punch him and fling him into the Thames.

The nagging despondency didn’t go away as he
installed the children and Mary in his well-appointed cabin, and his new
captain chattered about all the features Mac had personally designed.
Beside them, James-Matthew sniffed his disapproval, but it wasn’t the
footman’s opinion affecting Mac. It was his own.

He was deserting Bea. He’d left her in Overton’s
competent hands and would go ashore later to speak with his father’s
agent and the bank, but none of that was enough. Overton wouldn’t teach
her to set up new ledgers. The bank wouldn’t help her to make decisions
about the mill. And if she carried his child... he wouldn’t know of it
for months.

He couldn’t leave her.

Mac stared at the bunk he’d hoped to share with his
wife, and knew it was no place for Bea. She’d been right to stay behind.
The tiny cabin wasn’t suitable for the children either, but in that he
had no choice.

Mac propped his shoulder on the door frame and
ignored the footman’s pacing, the captain’s chatter, and the noise of
the children as they discovered the trunk of toys. He conjured up the
image of Bea’s worried expression as he’d told her farewell. At the
time, he’d been methodically working his way down the prepared list of
things he must do before sailing, but nowhere on that list had there
been the right words for good-bye.

He’d
thanked
her.

God, he was the biggest lummox this side of the North Star. He should have hugged her, begged her, ordered her to come with him.

He should have told her he loved her.

The thought couldn’t have hit him harder had they lowered the boom on his head.

He loved his beautiful, timid, courageous, marvelous
wife. He wanted her in his bed every night, wanted her smile in the
mornings, her eager questions in his days. He actually wanted to spend
his time in the company of a woman, a lady, who smelled of lilacs and
wore silks and kissed him until his head spun.

He didn’t need ships and railroads for excitement. He had Bea.

She’d asked him for one good reason why she should
leave the safety of the world she knew for the unknown of his, and he’d
offered her nothing. How could he have been so blind? He’d left her
thinking he’d married her for convenience.
Hell and damnation!