Twenty-five

At an hour of the morning respectable for being received as a caller, Kate left Whelan House. She was armored as well as a countess could be: bathed and fed, dressed in a riding habit, her head topped with a hat studded with silk flowers that had once seemed so smart.

She also carried a pistol, because even countesses needed the assistance of a shot sometimes. She would not use it to kill, but to put fear into someone? Yes, indeed. And maybe to maim—if necessary.

Awakened early and peppered with questions, Susan had been abashed and fearful until Kate reassured her and fetched tea from the kitchen. “With your own hands!” Susan accepted the cup from Kate, still huddled in her bedclothes, but was so distressed at being served by the countess that Kate again offered to take every helpful act from Susan’s wages.

This unlocked both a laugh and the maid’s tongue. She knew Con’s mistress well, having been a servant at Whelan House for some of the time Mary O’Dowd had.

“Mary, Mary,” Kate murmured.

“You’d know her by sight if you saw her about the village,” Susan said, evidently taking Kate’s low reply as confusion. “She has hair red as a fox pelt, and she’s as pocked as the moon since a few years ago when she took ill with smallpox.”

Kate raised her brows. “She’s prettier than she sounds,” Susan said.

Kate raised her brows still further.

“Not that it matters,” Susan hurried to add.

So it all spilled forth, with a smoothness that cemented together the broken pieces Kate had collected over the years. Con had split from Mary at the time he wed Kate. But he went back to the mistress, time and again, even as he slaked his casual lusts with other women too.

It was an odd sort of fidelity. Maybe it was the only sort of which he was capable.

“And how does she live now?” Kate asked. “The late earl cannot have left her well off.”

“I don’t know about that. I know she gets money and doesn’t ask questions. It’s always better not to ask questions.” Susan clutched at her sheet. “Isn’t it?”

“Was that a question?” Kate arched a brow.

“Are you angry with me?” Susan whispered.

“With you? Heavens, no. You were reluctant to tell tales that were none of your affair, and such discretion is admirable. No, I’m not angry at all.” Kate answered with perfect honesty, almost surprised to realize it. “I’m not angry at all. Just weary, Susan. Weary and ready for answers.”

The first seeds of this bramble knot had been sown before Kate met Con. More had been added when they married, still more when Con overspent their income year after year. When Mary O’Dowd grew ill, drawing Con back to her side; when the winter grew harsh and crops failed. All this, over years, had ended in a slashed saddle cinch and a dead earl.

All this, over years, had continued even since Con’s death. But it would stop now. It would be sorted out. And everyone would get what he or she needed.

Starting with Driscoll. Driscoll, who didn’t know who had come upon the injured Evan, but seemed otherwise certain of the circumstances. Driscoll, who—as Susan said—kept Mary O’Dowd supplied with coin, but was not her protector. Driscoll, the first to blunder into a link between Con and a set of odd little statues with pull-apart forms. Driscoll, who had bought up Con’s debts after his death. Debts he would never have been able to secure were the earl, charismatic and full of promises, still alive.

To Driscoll she would go—after she retrieved a constable. Even countesses in possession of fashionable hats and pistols needed additional protection sometimes. Dressed in her riding habit, she entered the stables and greeted surprised grooms. “I should like Lucy to be saddled, please.”

And for the first time in two years, Kate took to the back of a horse.

When they set out into the morning air, fresh and cool as only autumn can be, Kate felt solid in a way she had not for quite some time. Riding Lucy, rocking with the flowing cadence of the horse’s strides, was like being part of a team she had abandoned. It was like rediscovering part of herself. One that looked higher and moved faster.

One that would have a dreadfully sore backside the following day. But that didn’t matter now. Kate nudged Lucy into a trot, and together they covered the distance between the Whelan lands and the town of Thurles.

Almost as soon as they fell into a walk on the high street, they encountered a commotion. The landlady who kept the lodging house beside Bridge Castle was out in the street, wailing to an interested crowd. “Gone this morning, and without a word!”

Lucy pricked up her ears.

“I agree,” said Kate. “Let’s find out what’s happened.”

A quick word at the edge of the crowd told her what had passed: Mrs. McIlhenny had awoken at her usual hour, gone to collect the weekly rent, and found Miss Ahearn’s room vacated. Ever since, there had been much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

“Did Miss Ahearn steal from her landlady when she left?”

The ear Kate had caught belonged to a housemaid of Mrs. McIlhenny, who answered in the negative. “Only her own things, plus a funny little stone sculpture the missus used to keep on the mantel in the parlor. But that were a gift from Miss Ahearn, so I don’t think it’s stealing, like.”

“Right.” This was getting more and more curious. “Miss Ahearn paid her rent? Or was she behind on it?”

“She wasn’t, at that. Always beforehand, she was, and she left enough to cover the next month.”

“Then what is your mistress wailing about?” As if seconding Kate’s question, Lucy shook her head and snorted.

“The missus, she likes to wail. And who am I to stop her?” The housemaid winked. “It’s as good as a holiday, hearing her go on like this. Think I’ll get a currant bun and enjoy the show.”

Kate nudged Lucy onward, letting the bay pick her own footing through the crowd on the high street. “What does it mean, Luce? She had family in Dublin whom she visited often. They must have had some emergency, and she had to go to them at once.”

Lucy’s ears flicked as Kate spoke. With a little shake of her head, one warm brown eye regarded Kate. You know better than that.

“The sculpture, hmm? I agree. That’s damning evidence. But of what, I don’t know.”

It was time to find Driscoll. At Bridge Castle, Kate found a constable on duty. She persuaded him to come with her after swearing on a Bible, on the soul of her dead husband, and on her dear late mother, that Mr. Driscoll had been involved in injuring Evan Rhys, and she needed an officer of the law to confront…well, an officer of the law.

The constable, a ruddy-faced young man with a shock of hair the same shade as his chestnut horse’s coat, mounted up and followed Kate and Lucy to the Prancing Pony. “Will he be in there?”

“He’s always in there,” Kate replied grimly.

But she was wrong, or was after a few seconds. When the constable swung down from his horse and entered the public house, a great crashing of furniture ensued. Then shouts, then another crash—and then the constable jetted forth, shouting, “He’s gone out the back!”

Before the young man could remount, Kate wheeled Lucy. Tightening her leg around the pommel of the sidesaddle, Kate bent forward, looking through the churn of the crowd still blocking the high street.

There! Driscoll’s rotund figure was unmistakable. He had mounted a white horse and tried to set off at a good clip, but the crowd prevented him from getting away quickly.

“After him, Luce.” Kate spurred the mare along, giving her a quick pat on the neck. “The constable will have to catch up when he can.”

Progress back up the street was frustratingly slow, as Kate reined Lucy in every other step to avoid treading on someone. She kept the white horse in sight, and even caught up a little when a familiar housemaid, currant bun in hand, dodged back and forth before the white horse and the magistrate.

The maid winked and waved at Kate as they went past.

Free of the crowd, Driscoll urged his horse into a gallop. “Not a bad seat for a big man,” Kate murmured. Lucy’s ears pricked again, and she stretched out her head, taking the bit. “Quick as you like, girl. Quick as you like.”

The mare needed no more encouragement than to be given her head, and they were off. Kate held the reins only to guide, laying her heart against the mare’s neck. The horse did best when given her head, allowed to choose her own speed and stride. She hadn’t raced for so long, and she loved it.

Lucy wasn’t the only one. God, Kate had missed this. If they’d been galloping for any other reason, it would have been sheer pleasure. Lucy’s gallop devoured the path, scattering leaves already stirred by the strides of the white horse. Driscoll looked over his shoulder, muttered something, then guided his horse off the path and into the surrounding wood.

Did he think they wouldn’t follow? The thrill of the chase was in her blood now, and in the mare’s too. Kate kept a light hand on the reins, just enough to guide Lucy along. A fallen log blocked them, and Lucy took it with a gather of her haunches, then a leap. They swooped through the air, landing with smooth strides and a whoop from Kate’s throat.

Smaller branches they took in stride, curves around trees no obstacle. A puddle? Lucy ran right through it with scarcely a break in stride.

“You’d be queen of the chase,” Kate gasped, the wind of the gallop taking her breath. “Better than the chase.” It wasn’t a loop around a track; it was real, and winning this race would mean something important. If they could catch him.

Driscoll was guiding his horse back toward the road, where the larger animal’s longer strides would give him an advantage. “Enough of this.” Holding the reins in one hand, Kate worked free her pistol with the other. She had one shot, and she must make it count. Sighting her target between Lucy’s ears, she aimed, accounting for the bobbing of the horse’s stride.

“Sorry, girl. This will be loud.” She squeezed off the shot.

With a panicked whinny, Lucy reared up. Kate dropped the pistol, clutching the reins with both hands and soothing the horse with quiet words.

Only once she had brought her horse under control did she take a survey of what else had occurred. Driscoll lay on the ground, groaning, his white horse already yards down the road and galloping quickly away. Beside him lay his hat—which, if Kate had aimed as well as she thought, was now adorned by a tidy bullet hole.

She rode toward him, halting Lucy at the fallen man’s side. Yes, from here she could see the powder burn and the hole. Driscoll might have been injured by his fall, but Kate’s bullet had wounded nothing but a fine beaver-felt hat.

“You shot me!” groaned the magistrate.

“I shot your hat. You’re on the ground because you can’t keep your seat.” She lifted her chin. “Most people who fall are absolutely fine.”

Most of them. But not all.

She slid from Lucy’s back and was sick in a bush.

When she straightened, she took in her surroundings. The bush was not simply part of the brushy growth alongside the road. It edged a garden, a riotous and bright garden belonging to a whitewashed stone cottage.

From the doorway peeked a woman with red hair and a pocked face. When she met Kate’s eye, she hurried forth, a squirming toddler in her arms. At the sight of Driscoll, groaning on the ground, she gasped. “Good gracious! Lady Whelan, is everything all right?”

Kate blinked. “Mary?” She knew the woman by sight, but they had never spoken.

During Con’s life, they had existed side by side, each doing the other the courtesy of pretending she was not there. Each thinking hers was the greater claim, maybe. Kate had won Con’s hand, but Mary had his heart.

“Yes, my lady. I’m Mary.” The woman dropped a curtsy.

The graceful movement was familiar. “You’re the woman from the churchyard,” Kate said, not quite saying what she meant.

“I am. And this is my son.” The woman paused. “His name is Conall.”

So. They had all met at last.

It was neither difficult nor dramatic, as Kate might once have feared. What had they to compete for now?

“The earl would be very pleased,” Kate replied with perfect truth. “I have been curious about you, Miss O’Dowd. And I am so sorry, but I have just been sick in your garden.”

“Sick!” shouted the little boy.

“Think nothing of it,” said Mary. “Happens all the time.”

“Does it really?”

“Well, no. But here comes a constable, and Mr. Rhys not far behind, and they’re both looking a bit green. My! See if they don’t get sick as well.”