Chapter Twenty-Five
The floor was frigid, despite the warm night and the soft glow of the tall candelabra. The rough flagstone scraped her bare feet. She’d walked the cloisters as a girl, as her father had—as the monks had, centuries earlier. Meditation and prayer, estate problems to solve, family quarrels. All those thoughts and more were thick in the air under the domed ceiling.
Cat sent her current concerns winging into the night to join those that had come before.
Beyond the arcing mullioned windows lining the corridor, Jones would be waiting in the night. In the house, behind stone walls carved for the original abbey, Wycomb was seeing to his own business. Aunt Essie would be embroidering or netting, perhaps reading. The servants and Mr. Sparks—as much her family as Wycomb and Essie—would be busy with their evening tasks.
She could only pace past stone columns, past elaborate windows, past columns again, and through dim light. So much swirled inside her. Need, temper, fear, sorrow—all of it building. Pressure pushed against her rib cage, against her lungs.
Her home. Her people. Wycomb. Marriage to Hedgewood.
Jones.
And her father.
Fingers curling around a carved stone column, Cat stopped walking to stare into the night beyond the windows. She could see nothing except her own reflection, and vaguely, the reflection of the intricate walls of the original abbey behind her.
“Why couldn’t you trust I would do what was right?” The whisper rose from her lips. Words and sound torn apart. They would go unheard, because her father was not there to hear them.
He had never told her it would all be held under trust. She had run everything in his last year of life. She and Mr. Sparks. Yet her father had never told her the properties would be withheld for so long. A little while she might have suspected. She was not yet of age when he died. But thirty-five? Now she was contracted to Hedgewood.
It could be worse, but it could be better.
It could be Jones.
Whether he owned nothing more than the clothes on his back or an estate larger than hers was unimportant. She knew his measure.
He’d saved a stranger from abduction, before he knew her.
He accepted the task of spying on another spy when he knew it would be difficult.
He put out fires and saved strangers’ grain, because it was right.
She also wanted him. Everything in her body ached, exquisitely tight and ready for something. That moment. The one she’d heard the maids whisper and giggle about.
She breathed in, held it. Skin hot, belly taut with need, she stood in the faint wash of candlelight and wished for Jones.
“The tenants’ roofs are much improved.” Cold words slid into the night, raising the hair at the nape of her neck.
She whirled, resisting the urge to flee as Wycomb stepped from the shadows into the light from the tall candelabra set at the end of the long alley of cloister.
“Uncle.” The light Kashmir shawl she wore over her gown was not enough protection from his frigid eyes.
“I discovered a group of laborers finishing one of the cottage roofs, and noted that nearly all of them have been replaced.” He moved slowly down the long, narrow hall, boots striking the flagstones with precise measure. “How do you suppose the roofs were paid for, Mary Elizabeth?”
She did not answer. She was not inclined to lie, but she did not care to answer with the truth.
“Did you countermand my direction and approach the trustees?” He stood directly in front of her now. Close, so close, looking down at her. He did not touch her, but he did not need to—fear spiked just the same, sending her stomach twisting and churning.
“No.” She swallowed hard, but raised her chin to meet his gaze. She was standing on the floor thirteen generations of Ashdowns had stood on before her. That floor had survived war, famine, politics, bloodshed. There was strength beneath her feet, if only she was willing to use it. “It was my pin money—mine to use as I see fit, with no one to direct how I spend it.”
“I see.” Soft words, no less icy than before. “Yet it was against my command. You deliberately deceived me, doing what you chose.”
“Doing what was right.” She set her bare feet, straightened her shoulders. “Eventually, Ashdown Abbey and all the rest of my inheritance will be mine to control.”
“No, it will not.” He began to circle her, slowly. She felt his blue eyes on her, never letting up, never leaving her. “You will marry the Marquess of Hedgewood.”
“Yes, and then it will be mine.” She turned on a bare heel so she faced him. “You signed the contract stating that if I marry Hedgewood, Ashdown Abbey will be mine.”
He stopped his circling, eyes narrowing. Then, very softly, “But still under trust.”
A knife was suddenly at her throat, the flat surface sliding across her skin. Smooth. Cool. His eyes glittered in the semi-darkness, never leaving her gaze as he sent the weapon over her skin. Again. Her breath jerked in, held—but when she exhaled that breath was fueled by fury.
“Do you think to control the Chancery Court as you control the trustees now?” She gritted her teeth, waited for the knife to slash across her throat. To feel her life’s blood spilling down the front of her nightgown.
“No.” The knife stopped its path across her throat. “I will control you.”
“You—” Fury coursed through every fiber of her body, rising and biting flesh. “No.”
“I will, because I am willing to take risks.” The tip of the knife pricked her skin. Just there, in the hollow at the base of her throat. It stung, but it was small in comparison to the panic skittering inside her. “Are you?”
She could not speak. Terror was huge inside her chest, blocking every syllable.
He leaned toward her, slowly, eyes fixed on her face. Setting his lips against her ear, he whispered, “How, exactly, did you move the bags of grain to the grass this afternoon, Mary Elizabeth?”
Jerking back, she met Wycomb’s eyes. Not quite blue in this dim light, but the expression was clear. Menace. Death. Easily recognized in the blank stare.
Humanity had left him.
“I dragged the bags.” Swallowing was near impossible. She spoke no more, did not breathe.
“Mm.” The blank eyes flicked over her jaw, her mouth, each eye. Searching for a lie. She knew this, without needing to see beyond expressionless eyes. “Dragged them.”
The knife moved away from the small cut, then changed course to slip across her flesh in the opposite direction. She dared not swallow, dared not move.
“Yes.” There was nothing to hold, nothing to grip to keep herself from crying out. “Dragged them.”
“I saw no drag marks.”
A lie discovered by details, but she would not admit it. Admitting meant sacrificing Jones. “Do you doubt me?”
“I do. You’ve proved you do not follow direction—the tenant roofs, if you recall.” The knife slipped away. He stepped around her and began to circle her once more. “But we are leaving Ashdown Abbey tomorrow, so whomever assisted you—”
“Tomorrow?” She forgot the knife in his hand. Forgot safety. “The damage to the granaries isn’t repaired. We must locate outside sources of grain and rebuild for the fall harvest. There is so much to be done.”
The knife was suddenly at her throat again. Her mouth opened, breath heaved in. And then nothing. No part of her body moved save fingers scrabbling at empty air.
“I know you had assistance at the granaries, which leads me to wonder why you have not told me who it was. It is not a woman, or there would be drag marks. The bags are heavy. It must be a man, one you have not told me about.” He did not press his body against hers, but she felt him just the same. Stronger. Larger. Danger lurked in the small space between his body and hers. “And it is true I cannot make you consent to marriage and say the words in front of a man of the cloth.” The point of the knife did not move as he angled his head. “But I can—and will—make things more difficult for you if you do not. Whoever you are fucking, you will cease.”
She jerked, the course language striking her as if it were the knife. “I am not—”
“I don’t care for your excuses. You were with a man at the granaries, and if it had been an innocent meeting, you would give me his identity.” His face moved close to hers, so that she could see each furrow of anger in his skin. “You will pretend to be a virgin on your wedding night.”
Cat didn’t argue, couldn’t, as the knife moved to that hollow between her collarbones again. Pressed against tender flesh just beginning to bleed.
“Hedgewood wants a virgin wife and many sons. You will give them to him.” He murmured the words.
“Why Hedgewood? Why are you so intent that I marry him?” She still did not act, but her mind whirred, propelled by fear and anger and calculation.
The knife dropped away, though the threat was no less real.
“Good night, Mary Elizabeth.” Wycomb leaned down, pressed thin, firm lips to her forehead. She shuddered at the touch, unable to help herself, but he did not pull back. Instead, he moved toward her ear, set his mouth there once again. “We shall see what tomorrow brings.”
He pulled back, lips twisted in a satisfied smile.
Then he was gone, leaving her alone in the cloisters with the echoes of her ancestors.