An Unlikely Countess Read online

“Invite you in?” She looked around frantically, seeking listeners. “Go away.”

  “I’m not planning a rape. You need help, but we can’t discuss your situation here.”

  “We can’t discuss it anywhere. Go away or I’ll scream.”

  “Truly?”

  She hissed in a breath. “You wretched, drunken—”

  A door opened nearby. “Whosur? Woyeruptuh?”

  The old man’s accent was so thick Cate could hardly understand the words, and he was Yorkshire born and bred. The meaning was clear enough, however.

  He pressed down the latch and pushed her inside. He followed, having to duck to save his head, and shut the door. They both froze in place, listening, and Cate was aware of her bony angles conflicting with a sweet smell. She took the trouble to store her clothes with herbs.

  A dog whined.

  Cate turned to face new danger, but the small dog looked to be a spaniel, a gentle breed. Hard to tell its mood when it stood in front of the candlelit back room, but dogs didn’t whine a threat.

  The woman pushed past Cate and hurried to the dog. “It’s all right, Toby.” She fondled its floppy ears and the tail wagged.

  Woman and dog went into the kitchen and so Cate followed, instinctively hunching, even though the beams cleared his head—just. The floor was beaten earth, the air damp, and the front room held only one dip-seated chair.

  Had all the rest been sold off so she could survive?

  What was the story here?

  He ducked into the kitchen—to face a knife, held firmly in a bony hand. It was only a short kitchen knife, but probably sharp enough to do some damage.

  The dog only whined again, the cowardly cur, but she, with her weapon and her fierce, determined eyes, pale hair glowing in the candlelight—she was magnificent.

  Cate raised both hands. “I intend no harm, ma’am. My word on it.”

  “And why should I trust your word? Leave. Now.”

  “Why?” he asked, taking evidence from the room.

  The tallow candle gave too little light and too much odor, but it illuminated poverty well enough. The tiny kitchen, like the whole house, was cold. If there’d been a cooking fire in the hearth it had long since burned to ashes. He saw no sign of food.

  The only furniture here was a deal table with two chairs at it, and a rough sort of sideboard holding cheap pottery. Alongside pots, however, sat a few pieces of pretty china and glass. Remnants of the better life that showed in her well-bred accent and proud demeanor?

  Why was this goddess alone and in such desperate straits? Why was she bedraggled and dressed so poorly? Her encompassing gown was a particularly dismal shade of black, her knitted shawl an ugly brown.

  Had she truly been out on the streets attempting to earn some pennies in the only way available?

  Her thinness told of hunger, but it etched strength into a face worthy of a Roman empress—high brow, long straight nose, perfectly curved lips, and a square chin. Not a face to conquer the fashionable world, but, by God, it was in danger of conquering him.

  “Go!” she commanded again, but without confidence. The cowardly cur whined again, somewhere amid her skirts.

  He realized his height was frightening her and sat, placing his hands on the table. Holding her eyes, he said, “I admire your courage, ma’am, but you won’t scare me away, and if it comes to a fight you’ll give me no more than a scratch. Simpler by far to sit down and tell me your story.”

  She tried to hold on to her strength, but her lips quivered.

  Oh, ’struth.

  Cate quickly took the leather flask from his pocket and put it on the table. “Have some of this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Dutch courage.”

  “What?”

  “Geneva. Gin.”

  “Gin!”

  “Have you never indulged? It can sweeten bile.”

  She changed her grip on the knife. Startled, he half rose to defend himself, but then she drove it, two-handed, deep into the rickety table.

  “My, my,” he said after an appreciative moment. “Do please sit, drink, and tell.”

  “You’ve already had too much to drink, sirrah.”

  “It’s never too much unless I’m unconscious. You have glasses, I see. We could even be elegant.”

  Suddenly she laughed. It was ugly, but a release of sorts. She pushed straggling hair off her face, then took two glass tumblers and slammed them on the table. She went back to open a low cupboard and returned with a bottle.

  “Brandy,” she said, putting it beside the glasses. “My mother’s medicinal supply. I’ll get some water.”

  “Seems a shame to dilute it.” Cate picked up the bottle and unstoppered it. “Your mother is abed upstairs?”

  “My mother is dead.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Four months ago.”

  Cate cursed his drink-blurred mind. He was being tossed pieces of a picture but couldn’t quite put them together.

  She sat down opposite him, straight and proud. “Pour me some, then.”

  The knife stood upright between them. Some vague reference to the sword of Damocles struggled to form, and failed.

  He sniffed at the brandy. Not good stuff, but perhaps not atrocious. He poured half an inch into one glass and pushed it over to her. He poured the same into the other. He’d normally take more, but even half an inch might be enough to send her under the table. He didn’t want her sozzled, only loose tongued.

  And in his arms?

  No, he had no place in his life for folly like that, but he’d help her if he could.

  The spaniel appeared at his knee, whining again, but this time begging for attention.

  “Away with you, coward.”

  “Don’t be cruel,” she said. “Toby, come here.”

  The dog slid away and only then did Cate notice that it was missing a hind leg. Devil take it, a lame dog to add to a lame duck—though falcon seemed more worthy for the goddess. He picked up his glass and drank, knowing he should leave before he was entangled.

  She sipped and grimaced. But then she sipped again, thoughtfully. A woman willing to explore new experiences. Another hook in his heart.

  “Will you give me your name, ma’am?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve given you mine.”

  “Then I’ve forgotten it.”

  He hesitated, for the Burgoyne family home, Keynings, was less than twenty miles away, but he preferred honesty.

  “Castesby Burgoyne, at your service.”

  She cradled the glass as if it might warm her. “An odd name, Catesby.”

  “My mother’s family name. Yes, the line of Robert Catesby who led the papist Gunpowder Plot to blow up King James the First and take his Parliament with him.”

  “The Guy Fawkes affair? A strange heritage to pass on to a son.”

  “I’ve often thought so, but she sees the name as representing one who stands firm to his principles.”

  “Are you papist, then?”

  “No, and nor is she, or her parents or grandparents.”

  Her lips twitched, and humor sparked in her heavy-lidded eyes. Another hook. Or rather, two. A ready sense of humor and striking eyes. Would she laugh during the passion her eyes promised? That too was what he liked.

  He toasted her. “I didn’t claim my mother was a rational woman. Does your name have such grisly connotations? Judith, perhaps, who cut off the head of invading Holofernes? Boadicea who led her armies against the Romans?”

  She merely smiled.

  “You hold your silence? Then I christen you Hera.”

  “Wife of Zeus?”

  “Queen of the gods.”

  “By virtue of marriage, however. I would rather be Judith, who acted on her own.”

  “There’s a man you wish to behead?”

  She merely sipped more brandy, but all humor had left her as she contemplated the knife.

  “Your brother, perhaps? A lawyer—and a gamester?”

  She looked at him, startled. “What made you think that?”

  “Poverty.”

  “Aaron’s not poor.”

  “Then he’s unkind.”

  She took another sip of her brandy. She’d be swigging it soon, but it hadn’t loosened her tongue. He poured a little more into her glass and topped up his own.

  “I have a brother,” he said to encourage her, “but he’s a prince among men. A tender son, a devoted husband, a loving but firm father.”

  “You’re fortunate, then.”

  “I’m sure I am.”

  She cocked her head. “He’s not all that he appears?”

  “He is.”

  “But you resent it. Because you are none of those things?”

  As sharp as her knife, damn her, but it added to his admiration.

  “Your brother?” he insisted. “How can he see you in this state? You were clearly born to better things.”

  “He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t visit. Not since Mother died, and we lived elsewhere then.” She drank more brandy and then cradled her glass, staring at the play of candle flame on spirit. “I thought him a tender son. A good brother.”

  The brandy was doing its work at last. Cate could dimly remember when such a small amount had made him babble. Long, long ago.

  “Until?” he prompted.

  “Yesterday. Yesterday, I still clung to hope. Today I received his letter.” She looked at an unfolded sheet of paper lying on the floor. “He sent it by a traveler. Thoughtful, perhaps, to spare me the pennies of the usual post, but it came late. Everything always seems worse at night.”

  “What does it say?”

  “That the responsibilities consequent to his upcoming marriage make it impossible for him to increase the amou
nt he sends me for my support.”

  “That doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable.”

  “Does it not?” Her eyes met his over the knife. “He sends three guineas a month.”

  “That is very little,” he agreed.

  “While writing of the fine house he will soon have, and the carriage and pair for his future wife.”

  “Ah.”

  She slammed her glass down on the table so hard that brandy splashed. “He owes me a decent life. He owes it to me. And to my mother if she were still alive. Everything he is, everything he has, is because of our unstinting labor and sacrifice over ten long years. We’ve gone without every elegance and indulgence, and often without necessities as well.”

  Cate was almost breathless at her warlike intensity.

  She swept her hand around. “I live here. Once we had a lovely home, but . . . we’ve moved to poorer and poorer places in order to support him. My sweet mother died in poverty. All so my brother could be educated and establish himself in his profession. So that he could return Mother to a decent, comfortable life. So he could help me make a good marriage.”

  “And now?”

  “Now he throws money away and says I must wait.”

  “You went out tonight to visit him?”

  “He lives in Darlington.” She took another drink, seeming to savor it now. “When I read that letter I couldn’t believe what he was saying—wait, wait, wait. This place was supposed to be only for a little while. For my first mourning, and while Aaron completed his training. He’s practicing law. He’s soon to make a good marriage to a woman who brings money. What need is there to wait? I was shocked. Then angry. So very, very angry. It felt . . . it felt like this brandy makes me feel.” She stared at the knife as if envisioning a deadly purpose for it.

  Plague take it. Shock he could believe, tears he would expect, but her anger was of another order, especially when it drove a blade deep into wood. She might be headed for a madhouse, or even the gallows.

  “But why go out? What did you intend?”

  She blinked at him. “Intend? I simply couldn’t stay inside. I was suffocating in here, surrounded by darkness, dampness, and evidence of all our privations. Remembering the tender promises he made to my mother, his tears at her graveside because his prosperity had come too late. It was partly Mother’s fault. She always resolutely made the best of things, even when . . .”

  Cate poured a little more brandy into her glass, wishing she’d complete that sentence. This wasn’t a new tragedy. What were the roots?

  “He was always so grateful for the extra coins we’d scrimped,” she said, “but he never realized their cost. Mother would have us dress in our best and serve him tea from the few pieces of china. There was decent furniture then, but I had to sell it to pay for the funeral. Mother made me promise. Aaron mustn’t pay, not when he needed every penny to set up in business.”

  “Then perhaps he can’t bear all the blame.”

  “If he had an ounce of sense, if he ever looked beyond his own comforts . . . But I never imagined. I read that letter, and it was all too much. I was choking. I needed air. I simply walked the streets. . . .”

  “Until you were attacked.”

  “Until then.”

  Fire quenched, she put a thin finger into the spilled brandy to trace a pattern on the table. A work-worn finger with a broken nail. Three guineas a month. It would pay her rent, and buy fuel and food, but little more.

  “What do you think to do about your brother?”

  “Do?” She straightened. “I shall write to him again. I’m at fault for following my mother’s pattern and not making the situation clear.”

  “And if he doesn’t respond as you wish?”

  “He must.”

  She couldn’t be as certain as she tried to sound. She had no weapons in this fight and must know it. Out of sight, out of mind was a powerful force, and if her brother chose selfishness, she would live here like this forever.

  Something about her caught him so powerfully that he wanted to sweep her away to a better life, but what did he have to offer? He had no profession. He’d been forcefully advised to sell his commission in the army and told he wouldn’t be welcome back there. His history in other enterprises was dismal.

  His brother might have given him an allowance if they hadn’t almost come to blows a few hours ago. He could never return to Keynings now.

  His only course seemed to be to find a rich wife. He didn’t have much to recommend him to a family of his own class, but perhaps being the second son of an earl would count with a rich merchant or such.

  No, he had nothing to offer Hera.

  “Wouldn’t you be better off as a governess or companion?” he suggested.

  “Become a servant? Never. I will have my right. I will be a wife with a home of my own.”

  “Boadicea,” he said with a grimace. “She led her armies against the Romans—and was slaughtered along with nearly all her people.”

  “I hardly think I’m in such danger, Mr. Burgoyne.”

  “I hope not. But you must know that our world isn’t kind to demanding women, no matter how just their cause.” Cate downed his brandy and rose. “I regret your situation, ma’am, but there’s nothing I can do to assist you.”

  She rose too, needing to steady herself on the back of her chair. “I never expected it, Mr. Burgoyne. I thank you for driving off those ruffians and wish you well.”

  Her hand was so thin and she was so alone. There was one small way to help. He took two shillings out of his pocket.

  “I have only enough money to get me to London on the stage with the simplest food and lodging along the way, but I can spare this if you’ll let me sleep here. I’ll have privacy and less fear of fleas, and you’ll double your day’s allowance.”

  She eyed the shillings, licking her lips. The coins held value to him at the moment, but he had money in London and could earn shillings, and even guineas, in any number of ways. She, being a woman, could not.

  “What if anyone found out? I’d be ruined.”

  Those licked lips could lead to her ruin if he were a different kind of man. Dammit, she shouldn’t be alone and unprotected. Perhaps he could seek out her brother. . ..

  Insanity. He didn’t know the man’s surname or location, and had no means of forcing him to do the right thing. And he wanted an uncomplicated life from now on.

  “I promise to leave early and carefully,” he said.

  She bit her lip, clearly fighting with herself, but brandy was a great loosener of standards.

  “Very well.” She picked up the candle. “I’ll show you to my mother’s room. I regret that the bed is unaired.”

  “I’ve slept rougher.”

  Before leaving, Cate grasped the hilt of the knife and began to work it out. She stepped away from him, eyes fearful, but he simply freed it and put it down.

  “A lesson for you, Hera. You’d have found that hard to do. Be sure you can deal with any results of your angry actions.”

  She turned and led the way up steep, narrow stairs, resentment in every line of her back.

  The road was never smooth for a brave, rebellious woman.

  They arrived in a tiny hallway between two doors, dangerously confined in the small space. She opened the door on the right and went in, allowing him to breathe again. Damnation, he hadn’t felt such instant, powerful attraction to a woman in years.

  She lit the stub of a candle to reveal another almost bare room. The narrow bed would be too short, but it would do.

  “Thank you. If I’m gone before you rise, I wish you well, Hera.”

  “As I do you . . . Catesby.”

  The flickering light of two candles played strange games with her features and with his mind.

  “My friends,” he said, “call me Cate.”

  That ready humor showed. “Does that not cause you embarrassment?”

  “I have a sword, remember, and know how to use it.”

  Again, humor died. “Lucky man.”

  He wanted to lead her onto primrose paths. Back onto them. She’d been light and merry once; he knew it. Back before whatever disaster had brought her family low. He wanted easy days for her, and frivolity, and ready laughter.

  In that, however, he was impotent.

  She hadn’t left. Cate became breathless again, half hoping, half fearing her intent. Desire stirred, and in that he wasn’t impotent at all, but she promised nothing but trouble, and a liaison with a stranger would be disastrous for her.

  When she raised her chin and looked him in the eyes, he was still frantically fighting his baser nature.