Chapter Twenty-Nine

The wood of the finely carved chess piece was smooth against her hand. Kit rolled it between her fingers, remembering the first time she’d made the deal. The first time she and Daphne had concocted the scheme of selling chess pieces to the parents of the children they were helping.

It had started simply as a way to handle the transaction and protect everyone involved.

When had it become something else?

She couldn’t deny the moment of power she felt when confronting a man who realized his unscrupulous behavior wasn’t going unnoticed this time. Their emotions varied as they signed the papers. Often angry, sometimes panicked over where they would get the funds or how they would explain the expenditure. The memorable time one man had cried. He hadn’t offered to marry the girl, though, or do anything else to rectify the situation, so Kit’s pity had been short-lived.

Somewhere along the way, for Kit, it had become more about the men than about the children or even the women they were helping. And she hadn’t even realized it. When? When had she become driven more by making them pay? Was it the first time she’d had to push to get someone to sign the contract? When she’d been able to punish one of the men who’d done business with her father? She’d known him. Danced with him on occasion.

She’d come home from that particular encounter to Daphne and little Benedict, who’d just started to walk. The first woman they’d given refuge to was about to give birth any day, and Kit had felt flush with the power of knowing she knew how to care for all of them.

She was too late to save Daphne, but she could earn her redemption by helping others, by saving the women who’d stumbled into a bad decision from having it ruin their lives forever.

“That’s not the way grace works.”

Maybe not, but the men she visited didn’t see her as an avenging angel, as a caretaker of problems. They saw her as a threat. So she became what they feared and threatened them.

They signed.

They paid.

And the children’s futures were secured.

Kit ran a finger over the smooth edge of the chess piece. What did the men do with the pieces when they were delivered? Throw them in the fire? Hide them in a desk somewhere? Sarah’s father had to be nearing a complete set by now.

With a sigh, Kit set the carefully crafted bishop back in his spot on their own chess set.

“That’s not the way grace works.”

Her hands trembled in her lap.

Graham was right.

God wouldn’t be happy with the way Kit was doing things. A light knock drew Kit’s gaze away from the pieces to see Daphne and Jess standing side by side in the library doorway.

“All the children have gone up to bed,” Daphne said quietly.

Kit sat forward and picked up the queen, twirling it in her fingers. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“Of course!” Daphne surged across the room and dropped to her knees at Kit’s side. “All the women we’ve helped. Do you know what would have become of them? Of the children? Kit, what would I have done if you hadn’t run away with me? Assuming I could have even survived on my own after my father disowned me, I’d have had to leave Benedict somewhere and never see him again. I’d have had to find work as a maid or some other sort of menial labor, assuming they would even hire me with my reputation. I could have ended up down at the docks just to survive.”

Daphne gripped Kit’s hand hard enough that the round prongs of the queen’s crown pressed painfully into her palm.

“We are providing a way out. Not everyone has a Kit to come to their rescue.”

“I don’t think she’s talking about the children,” Jess said softly, still leaning against the doorjamb.

Kit glanced up at Jess and nodded. “I’m not.”

“Oh.” Daphne sat back on her heels and let her hands drift away from Kit. “What are we talking about, then?”

“The chess sets,” Kit said quietly.

Daphne blinked down at the piece in Kit’s hand and licked her lips. “They’re a business transaction.”

“They’re blackmail.” It was the first time Kit had ever said it out loud. She’d called it by so many other names but never what it truly was. “I have been finding out horrible details about the men and threatening to expose them if they don’t sign.”

It was several minutes before Kit was able to look up. She didn’t look at Daphne, knowing that Daphne’s heart was too forgiving, too loving. Instead, Kit looked to Jess. Jess had seen the darker side of the world. She knew what life was really like, how people took advantage of those who were weaker. If anyone in this room was going to soothe Kit’s ruffled conscience, it would be the former spy.

Jess’s eyes met Kit’s and didn’t drop. Her expression was blank, giving Kit no indication what the other woman was thinking.

“Jess?” Kit finally asked.

“When you think about the men,” Jess said, “you get angry. Why?”

“They’re dishonorable and unscrupulous. Unwilling to do what’s right even if it means they might have to take a knock or two from life.”

“And how are we different?”

Kit fell back into her chair. It had been nice of Jess to try to lump herself and Daphne in with Kit’s decision, but the truth couldn’t be denied any longer. Dear God, she pled in a prayer more genuine than any she’d said in a long time, please have mercy on me.

She’d become the very thing she hated.

To call Yatesbury a village was generous.

Oliver rubbed a hand down his face. He’d been doing that an awful lot since Graham had broken the news of Priscilla’s condition on the ride from Marlborough to Yatesbury. “Prissy was here?”

Graham had to agree it was hard to imagine. He’d known the girl most of her life, and while she’d certainly been more at home in the country than the city, it had more to do with the enormous library and experimental greenhouse she kept there and the fact that she could conduct as many experiments as she wanted and no one cared.

The staff had spent years stepping around her as she examined the way sound traveled through the different areas of the house. It wasn’t unheard of to find Priscilla sprawled on her stomach on the marble floor, ear pressed to it, trying to see if she could determine where people were in the house by the sound of their feet on the floor.

And now he was supposed to believe that she’d spent nearly two months in this small community where there were certainly no marble floors hiding in any of the modest dwellings he could see from his position.

“This would be a lot easier if we had more to go on than a name and a village,” Aaron pointed out. “We should have asked the solicitor.”

Graham had wanted to. But he was afraid if he’d gone in that office he’d have yelled at the man, berated him for his part in Kit’s dangerous scheme. What needed to happen was for Graham to get himself and everyone he cared about away from this mess.

Everyone he cared about.

He wasn’t going to be able to get everyone he cared about out of this mess because Kit stood at the very center, and now that he’d had time to cool off, the boiling anger that had taken him by such surprise had fallen victim to his normally calm nature. He still cared about her. He still believed everything he’d said, still knew he couldn’t be a part of her life anymore, but he still cared.

And it hurt.

He liked who he’d been with her. He liked the man she’d inspired him to be, and now that all of that had crashed down around his ears, he felt a little bit lost. Did he go back to the way he was? Try to move forward with this new idea of who he should be without her? It would take a while to separate what he wanted from what he thought he wanted, but maybe it was worth it.

“Look around,” Graham said. “It can’t be that hard to find where the Corbets live. There’s only six or seven options.”

The village wasn’t quite that small, but it was small enough that anyone would be able to point them in the right direction.

In the end, it took them an hour to find accurate directions to the cottage, and that was mostly because the man they’d asked insisted on telling them the family history of everyone they passed on their way to the Corbet home.

Eventually, the carriage pulled up in front of a little farm. The house was small and tidy, with ivy growing up the brick two-story front and cheerful flowers carpeting the ground in front of one of the windows. It was an odd look, but not an unpleasant one.

Graham’s cravat suddenly felt tight. Were the other men as nervous as he was? Even knowing Priscilla wasn’t here, this was where she had been. It was closer than they’d been in over a month.

A glance at Oliver proved he was thinking similarly.

The men climbed out of the carriage and knocked.

The woman who opened the door was tall, with medium brown hair pulled into a low bun and intelligent light brown eyes. Her dress rounded out in the front, indicating that she was clearly expecting a child soon. Was she one of Kit’s women, too?

Graham cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Lord Wharton, this is Lord Farnsworth, and this is Mr. Whitworth. We’re looking—”

“You’re here to see Priscilla.” The lady smiled. “She’s mentioned you.”

Her smile fell as she wrapped her hands in her apron. “I’m afraid she’s not here. I was hoping she’d gone to you after receiving that letter, but I’m guessing she didn’t. Please, come in.”

The door opened into a drawing room that took up the entire front of the ground floor. Through an open doorway he could see a kitchen and the bottom of a set of stairs. In the middle of the drawing room sat a young girl, about the age of Sophie, if he were guessing.

A variety of items were scattered on the floor around her, and she was carefully selecting two of them, banging them together several times, and then selecting two more.

“You’ll have to ignore Gillian. When Priscilla was here, she taught Gillian that different materials make different sounds when knocked together, and she’s been fascinated by it ever since.” The woman lowered herself into a wooden chair with a sigh. “Mr. Porter has already been here, of course, and I told him everything I’d already told Mr. Banfield, which wasn’t much. One day she was here, the next she wasn’t.”

Graham wasn’t sure who Mr. Porter was, but he was guessing it was the man hired by the solicitor to find Priscilla.

At least they really were doing something to try to find her.

“Where could she have gone?” Aaron asked, turning toward Graham and Oliver.

“We don’t have property near here,” Graham said.

“Neither do we.” Oliver rubbed a hand over his face. “She didn’t mention any friends who would be in this area either.”

“You said she mentioned us?” Graham asked.

The woman nodded. “Oh yes, she spoke of you often. Told stories about your travels.” Suddenly the woman’s eyes widened. “Oh my, I’m so sorry! I forgot to introduce myself to you. Mrs. Francis Corbet.”

She laughed and patted her rounded front. “I’m afraid I can’t quite keep my wits about me with this one. I’d forget my feet if they weren’t attached. At least, I think they’re still attached. I can’t really see them anymore.”

Graham grinned in spite of himself. He could see why Kit had chosen this woman. She was spirited while still being easygoing. Probably the perfect woman to help with a girl in Priscilla’s situation.

“Did she mention anyone else? Anywhere she might have gone?”

Mrs. Corbet shook her head. “No. Well, of course she mentioned other people, but none with the same esteem as she mentioned her brothers.” The woman grinned. “She called you that, you know. Her other brothers.”

As an only child, Graham had never thought to be anyone’s brother and it was nice to know Priscilla thought of him that way, even if she hadn’t felt close enough to him to tell him her problem.

Of course, a few months ago, Graham couldn’t say for sure how he would have reacted. If nothing else, his conversations with Kit, his interactions with the children, and Aaron’s story had forever changed the way he looked at people suffering the consequences of their actions.

“I’ll tell you what I told Mr. Porter, though. The first place I would check is Calne. Of course, that’s not the first place she’d have gone. More than likely she went to Hilmarton because the only person who left the village that day was Mr. Charters, and he went to visit his sister in Hilmarton. But Hilmarton isn’t very large. She’d not be able to catch the proper stage to anywhere from there. And I do hope she took the stage because she gets a pain in her hip and can’t walk very far.”

Graham’s mind was swimming with the abundance of information, but he was suddenly thankful for small villages.

They discussed Priscilla’s stay a bit more, though the discussion was interrupted by the racket Gillian was making. Mr. Corbet came through and commented on how interesting it had been having Priscilla stay with them and that she was welcome to return if she wanted.

Finally, the men went back to the carriage.

Calne was less than ten miles away. They’d be able to make it before nightfall.

Oliver was pressed up against the carriage window as if he could will it to go faster, will it to get to Calne before Prissy went anywhere else.

Aaron was unusually quiet, though, staring out the other window, looking thoughtful. “She called me her brother.”

“What?” Oliver asked, turning briefly from the window.

“I’m not missing much in my life,” Aaron said softly. “I have friends, a source of income, a home. But that’s the one thing I always wished for when I was young but never got.”

“What?” Graham asked softly.

“Family.” Aaron turned his light, piercing gaze to the other two men in the coach. “We’re going to Calne. We’re going to find Priscilla. And we’re going to bring her home. Because she’s family. She called me a brother. She’s stuck with me now.”

No one said anything as the carriage rolled on. What more could they say? Aaron had said it all. But Graham hadn’t a clue what they were going to do when they reached Calne. He could hardly stop people on the street and ask if they’d seen a young lady walking around by herself in a delicate condition. He didn’t even know if Priscilla’s condition was obvious yet.

Still, they were doing something.

He leaned his head back on the carriage seat and began to pray. God knew where Priscilla was, knew what she was doing and where she was going. He also knew how desperate the men in this carriage were to find her and bring her home.

Graham closed his eyes, doing his best to trust God with Priscilla, her child, everything.

It wasn’t easy, but with every mile he felt a little better. He was turning Priscilla over to God’s care and that was better than anything he, Aaron, or Oliver would ever be able to do.