Chapter 6

Maddy ran her fingers over the spines of the books stacked on her bedside table. Normally, choosing a book to read was a pleasurable sort of agony. In the most private parts of her imagination, she imagined them as suitors, eager that she might bestow her favour upon them. Even alone, her cheeks warmed with embarrassment at the idea. She devoured fairy tales, yellow-backs, and romantic poetry because they allowed her the fantasy that, at least within the pages of the books, she might be worthy of a man’s desire. It was a secret she would take to her grave rather than reveal.

She pulled out a slim volume of John Donne’s poems and a copy of Sense and Sensibility from the pile, sliding them in her case alongside a few other titles. If she was going to be miserable for an undetermined length of time watching Beau da Silva, torn from her roses and the safe familiar space of Everwell, she reasoned, she could allow herself some modicum of comfort.

She’d just closed the trunk when a knock at her door snagged her attention. Recognizing the quick taps as Rimple’s, she called out for her to come in.

“How is the packing?” her friend asked, poking her head around the threshold.

Maddy looked down at the modest chest sitting on her bed. Once upon a time her mother would have insisted on her packing an entire wardrobe for a trip like this. This time she’d packed far more books and equipment than changes of clothes.

“Done.”

“The train departs in an hour,” she said. “Phillipa’s got her watch out.”

Maddy wanted to roll her eyes. “Is he ready?”

Rimple nodded, walked into the room, sat on the bed, and took Maddy’s hand.

“Thank you for doing this,” Rimple said, her lips into a tight smile, a shadow of concern crossing her normally sunny disposition. “I know you don’t want to.”

It was a reminder to Maddy that whatever dislike she had for Beau da Silva or Veronica Turnbull, it did not matter. She knew the power of rumour to tear apart a life.

She swallowed an unwanted lump of emotion that threatened to shake her voice. “I’m doing this to keep those NWL busybodies off our backs.”

“I’m sure Mr. da Silva will be so happy, he’ll do more than cover the expenses for the job,” Rimple said, her normal levity returning. “You will have the best little greenhouse in the city, I promise. Maybe good enough to grow a lemon tree in. I’ll work on the designs while you’re gone.”

Before Maddy had the time to consider what kind of miracle of physics Rimple would pull off to create such a thing, there was a second knock at the door, and it opened to reveal Gemma Webber.

“Nearly ready?” she asked.

Maddy swore under her breath. Clearly Phillipa was marshalling the troops.

She paused long enough to check that her short blade was in her boot, and the second was strapped to her back, under her jacket. Her throwing knives were already packed amongst her books.

“I have never been late for an assignment and I’m not about to start,” Maddy grumbled, hoisting the chest off the bed. “Let’s go.”

Rimple and Gemma exchanged a look.

“Next time I’m just going to make Phillipa come up here herself,” Gemma said. “Are you trying to make me not miss you? Because that is impossible.”

“I miss you already,” Maddy said, not bothering to protest when Gemma put her hands on the other side of the trunk to bear the weight. She bent down and planted a kiss on Gemma’s head.

They were not halfway down the stairs when Jeremy Webber, Gemma’s husband and a wall of a man by nearly any measure, took Maddy’s trunk and carried it the rest of the way where his daughter Ivy was waiting, along with Phillipa and Lady Em. The door was open, and just beyond it, Maddy saw a carriage waiting to take her away.

“I’ll get this on the carriage.” The deep, crisp tones of Jeremy Webber’s voice broke through low murmur of activity coming from just outside the front doors of Everwell. Maddy caught the flush of anticipation in Gemma’s cheeks as she gave her husband a warm smile. “The train leaves within the hour. Phillipa is waiting.”

“I’m starting to wonder if Phillipa is worried I’ll change my mind.”

“I’m sure she worries about you,” he said, giving her a knowing smile. “But not about that.”

Maddy almost smiled in spite of herself. She liked the retired British Colonel, despite the fact that he’d married one of her dear friends. He seemed to understand her role as protector, and perhaps of anyone here, might empathize with the war going on inside her. To protect Everwell, she had to leave it.

She pulled on her gloves and fastened her wide-brimmed straw hat to her hair with a pearl-tipped hat pin, taking a quick glance in the mirror to ensure it was on straight, then headed outside. A small crowd waited for them, and she felt the weight of Beau da Silva’s whisky-eyed stare. He stood by the carriage, deep in conversation with Dominic, Jeremy, and Reg.

Phillipa stood with the other Everwell women, Lady Em and Tilda among them, along with a few of the students. As if sensing her unease, Lady Em took Maddy’s hands, her eyes sparkling with what could only be mischief.

“I’m excited for you, my dear,” she said. “You deserve a pleasant sort of adventure.”

“Lady Em,” Maddy said, her eyes straying toward Mr. da Silva, “I’m not sure how pleasant it will be to mind a peacock.”

“I suspect you will manage quite well,” she said in that no-nonsense way of hers. “I’ve heard rumours about the old Redden property. You might find yourself far more at home there than you might think.”

“I can’t ever imagine any place being more at home than this,” Maddy replied, trying to keep the wistfulness out of her voice as she took one more look back at the home that had been her salvation in more ways than one.

“Everwell will always be here for you, my dear,” Lady Em said. “But do not deprive yourself of a chance to see something new.”

Lady Em’s expression softened to something like sympathy, and Maddy found herself swallowing back unwanted emotion. What was happening? She’d been on more jobs than she had fingers and toes for, and she had gone to several on her own, watching in the shadows to ensure the others were safe.

“Maddy,” Phillipa said, inspecting her in that sisterly way of hers. “As always, the most important thing is that you return home safely. While I don’t expect too much trouble?—”

“—which I will deal with if it comes,” Maddy responded.

“The Redden property is adjacent to a small farm, and the owners—the Chandlers, are known to Mrs. Turnbull. They have acted as caretakers to the property for many years,” Phillipa said. “Mrs. Turnbull has already seen to it that they are aware of your arrival.”

“And you trust them?” Maddy asked. “What if they are interested in the reward?”

“Maddy, if I hadn’t learned to trust people, I wouldn’t be at Everwell,” Phillipa said. “Sometimes you have to risk it.”

Maddy didn’t know if she could risk it. Trust had come with a perilous price that she’d paid for with her self-respect and nearly her life. What could she make of a man like Beau da Silva? His smooth charm threatened to lower her defences even though the very first thing he’d done was misrepresent his intent with her. He’d batted his eyes at her one moment, and then when her back was turned, told his aunt the only reason for his attention was pity. Trusting him was the very last thing she would do.

She walked toward the carriage, a small crowd of Scandalous Spinsters and Wayward Women in her wake. Squaring her shoulders, she strode past Beau da Silva, who stood at the carriage door clad in a brown traveling suit that was no doubt tailored to emphasize his best features, which, Maddy had to concede, were all of them. Only a faint shadow of unease darkened what seemed to be a carefully constructed display of nonchalance about the very real threat he was under.

He held out his hand to assist her into the carriage, which she ignored. Instead, she had her foot firmly planted on the running panel when Ivy Webber, Jeremy and Gemma’s daughter, marched up to her with the same aristocratic bearing as her father. She stood alongside Mr. da Silva, giving him an appraising once over that made him chuckle. The low, warm sound slid down Maddy’s back and settled in her belly like a generous swallow of brandy.

“Miss Murray, do not fret about your gardens,” Ivy said with such earnestness Maddy couldn’t help but smile. “Sylvie has volunteered to help Miss Jones with the blackspot. And I have decided to do a watercolour study of your plants so that you will not miss any of their beautiful blooms.”

Ivy was a talented artist, like her father. Between Jeremy and Phillipa, who was an artist in her own right, Ivy’s natural talents were sharpening a little more each day.

“That is very kind of you,” Maddy said, nodding in appreciation. “I look forward to seeing them.”

“And we will save your birthday party for when you return,” Ivy called.

Maddy stifled a groan and schooled her features, which was no easy feat given the undisguised amusement that lit up Mr. da Silva’s face as he watched this exchange with far too much interest.

“How did you discover that?” she asked the girl.

“Lady Em told me,” Ivy said. “She knows everyone’s birthdays.”

Maddy didn’t like celebrating her birthday. It had never been a particular cause for celebration, according to her mother. But Lady Em made a particular point out of fussing over everyone’s birthday.

“She does,” Gemma said, approaching them and taking her stepdaughter by the shoulders. “And everyone’s favourite cake. Though Maddy doesn’t have a favourite. At least none she’s ever told us.”

“We shall have to guess,” Ivy said, then turned to Mr. da Silva. “Or perhaps you can solve the mystery while you are gone.”

“I will do my very best,” he replied with a conviction that felt entirely too real, even though it was no doubt that same look he gave everyone he wanted to ingratiate himself to before insulting them the moment they were out of earshot.

“Right then,” Phillipa called out, glancing down at her watch with that look that told Maddy the time for dawdling was over. “There is a train to catch.”

At Phillipa’s signal, Maddy scrambled into the carriage before Mr. da Silva could resume his offer of assistance. The carriage ride would be the most uncomfortable part of this awkward situation, she reasoned. As he took his seat opposite her, the carriage, which would comfortably hold four and a little less comfortably, six, felt suddenly claustrophobic.

Maddy waved to the small band of spinsters as they pulled away. All the while, she felt the weight of Beau da Silva’s attention resting on her. Something in her hardened, and she pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and clasped her hands in front of her.

“You have a someone who misses you,” he said as the carriage rumbled toward the road. “A bunch of someones. It must be nice to be so well thought of. After all, you were the one nearly making us late by having a throng of people seeing you off, promising to look after your gardens and books and whatever else. And promise to make you cake.”

“Well, we miserable old spinsters have to take our pleasures where we can.”

His eyes widened ever so slightly, betraying his surprise, before he schooled his features and flashed her a smile.

“I apologize for that,” he said, with an earnestness that took her off guard. “I didn’t wish to draw my aunt’s attention to you. She is lovely but can be quite the overbearing sort when she thinks a woman is trying to take advantage of me. It was rude in the extreme to speak of you in such a way.”

Maddy swallowed her surprise at what seemed to be a heartfelt apology.

“You don’t strike me as the type of man who is particularly lonely,” she said. “I’ve read about you.”

One of his eyebrows shot up in a look of utter amusement. “You have?”

Maddy bristled at the unspoken response that was so plain in the sly smile on his perfect face, or the perfect arch of his brow. That she would read the papers, his life a glamorous mirror into a life she was never be granted. That she could only dream about.

Except she didn’t.

“I wanted to be prepared. I need to know who amongst your friends and associates seemed most willing to want to see you hang, or at least sell you out for a rather modest reward.”

If her answer meant to sting, but Mr. da Silva seemed impervious.

“I don’t have friends,” he said so casually that it might have struck Maddy as sad if she wasn’t so prepared to dislike him. “And as for my associates, I would say at this juncture, it might be all of them.”

The idyllic aura of Everwell faded into the distance, swallowed up the lush canopy of maple, oak and elm trees, as the carriage made its way to the train station, located near the harbour. Halifax reminded Beau very much of Saint John in essentials, clinging to its British connections, a busy port city that came with all the trappings, both good and ill: shining waters, working wharves, and a veritable forest of masts edging the shore from small schooners that would transport goods and people along the shore to areas that were still in winter largely impassible by road or rail. Alongside those vessels were the newcomers, their signature smokestacks belching out black effluent from the coal-fired furnaces deep within their iron hulls. The difference came in the scale and the source. Halifax, hanging between London and New York, with its deep harbour, ice free even on the bitterest winter day, made it the natural stopping place. It started its life as a military town and remained one, the British still occupying it even after Nova Scotia became part of the fledgling nation of Canada.

But Saint John had a mighty river and behind it, the dense New Brunswick forests that supplied lumber to not one, but two powers—the British empire and the emergent American markets. Frank da Silva had built his fortune cutting into the great swaths of those forests, sending lumber to London, New York, and beyond. And even though those iron-hulled steamships now took that lumber across the Atlantic much faster than the wooden ships, his father had still viewed them as a threat.

Then again, Frank had viewed nearly everyone and everything as a threat. The only people he seemed to have a modicum of time for was his sister, Jessica and her husband, Neil. Neil was in some ways the son Beau could not be—compliant, eager to please, and an excellent head for numbers. Had he instigated the manhunt for Beau? Neil had a healthy respect for Frank, and maybe even loved the man. If Neil believed there was a rivalry between them, he was mistaken. In the race to win Frank’s respect and maybe even affection, his brother-in-law had been the clear victor. Beau had spent a lifetime trying to secure his father’s approval. It was the only pursuit he’d failed at.

Getting from the train station to their compartment was blessedly unproblematic—at least until the compartment door was shut and they’d taken their seats. His body was acutely aware of hers. He seemed to feel her every movement, even though there was more room between them here than in the relative snug quarters of the carriage.

Almost immediately, she pulled a pair of reading spectacles out of her reticule and fastened them behind her ears. Her head tilted down, and her attention was apparently fixated on the same volume she’d used to ignore him all the way to the train station. The effect, which should have made her appear even more matronly and impervious, managed to intrigue him—an effect which no doubt would have mortified his surly chaperone. Miss Murray, on the other hand, seemed completely unaware of this unexplained witchcraft with which she was effortlessly affecting him. Everything about her was a challenge, and that stirred his blood.

“What are you reading?” he asked, desperate to try to engage her in something approaching pleasant conversation.

“A book,” she said, not bothering to look up.

“I would never have guessed,” he said, not bothering to hide his acrimony. He turned his head toward the window, watching the harbour disappear as they headed north. “Can I ask what exactly I have done to deserve your ire?”

She glanced up at him over the brim of her glasses.

“You have taken me away from my garden. I have a new species of hollyhock that was about to bloom, and now I’m going to miss it,” she said, glaring up at him. “And Rimple Jones makes the best chocolate cake you will ever eat in your life, which she normally bakes on the first of August, and knowing my luck, I will be with you instead.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, trying to stifle a grumble. “I would much rather you were doing those things instead of being here with me.”

Her lashes fluttered; Beau saw a flush of pink creep up from under the collar of her stiff, green linen jacket. She stilled, and it occurred to Beau his words might have been misconstrued.

“It will take as long as it takes,” she replied, before turning her attention back to her book. “And there is nothing either of us can do about it.”

They sat in silence which could have been minutes, but felt like hours. More than enough time for every bit of self doubt, and every angry word exchanged with his father to replay in his head.

He rose, driven to his feet by a torrent of unwanted memory. He needed coffee. Or a whisky. Or anything to escape the oppressive silence.

“Where do you think you are going?”

He paused, oddly excited by her question. It was still unpleasant, but there was an urgency to it. Like she actually cared about what he was about to do next.

“To stretch my legs.”

“Are you certain there isn’t someone waiting out there to break them for you? Haul you back to New Brunswick and collect their finder’s fee?”

He paused. He wasn’t entirely certain of anything anymore. Except that he’d spent a lifetime being berated and managed by his father, and he was damned certain he wasn’t going to be managed by Miss Murray, no matter how beautiful she was. It was his neck on the line, not hers.

“Maybe it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

With military-like efficiency, she closed her book and grabbed her valise from the rack above her. He expected her to reach in and grab a set of knitting needles or some other type of needle work that women of a certain age occupied themselves with. Instead, she snapped the clasp shut, grabbed the bag and… left.

Beau stood at the door to their tiny compartment and watched Miss Murray walk away. Part of him was impressed. Knowing when to walk away was an excellent negotiation tactic he’d employed successfully on more than one occasion.

It didn’t explain the strange, unsettled pressure in his gut, though. A sensation that was growing as the time stretched and she had not reappeared. He stood there for a nearly half a minute before it finally dawned on him she wasn’t coming back.

He called after her, but she either didn’t hear him over the din of passengers and steam, or chose not to.

Beau groaned. Should he let her have her fucking tantrum or whatever this was? Didn’t she realize he was the client?

A client she was walking away from. But more importantly, she was walking away from him.

He strode after her, smiling apologetically at the stream of people eager to take their seats before the train left. Ahead, he caught the flash of green from her skirt as she disembarked.

Panic grew. Was she abandoning him? Because it absolutely fucking felt like it.

Urgency fuelled his steps as he jostled through the crowd, “excuse me” falling out of his lips in an endless string of apologies. At last, he reached the platform where Miss Murray was speaking to one of the porters.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a harsh whisper so loud anyone with a set of ears probably heard him.

She turned away from the porter, actually smiling—the first genuine smile she’d given another human being since they boarded. Something broke apart inside him, making him inexplicably envious. Especially when it disappeared the moment she turned to face him.

“What does it look like?” she asked, narrowing her eyes, and even though he didn’t hear her say it, he felt her follow up with you idiot.

“I have no idea.” He actually did have an idea; he just didn’t want to say it out loud.

“You made it clear just a moment ago that you see no problem risking your own skin rather than sit with me in silence for a few hours. To put off your own comfort for even the smallest amount of time for the larger goal of potentially saving your neck. If you aren’t willing to put in the time or energy, why should I give up the things I love, the people I actually care about, to do it for you?”

There was no look of triumph in her eye. No sense of victory. She simply turned away from him, went about her business, and left him to sit in his own discomfort.

And it was damn uncomfortable.

“Don’t you want my aunt’s help with those rumours?” he challenged.

“Of course,” she replied, seemingly unbothered. “But we’ve gone this long without their help. We can manage if we have to.”

Beau knew the art of negotiation meant having the nerve to walk away and leave it all on the table. In order to risk great reward, you had to be prepared to lose.

Too late, he realized, she could walk away—or better—turn him in and get the reward. And she clearly had the nerve to do it.

Why did it have to be this woman, of all people, who was reminding him that the one neck he was risking was his own?

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, quite possibly before he knew what he was doing. “I am grateful for your help. I really am.”

In what was probably only a few seconds, but felt like an eternity, she turned to him, looking him over. For a second he wanted to crack a joke or say something that would deflect from the unsettled feeling he had in his gut. Instead, he just stood there.

Whether she was aware or not of his internal struggle, he wasn’t certain. But the relief that flooded him when she turned toward him and nodded was palpable. He blew out a long exhale.

She turned back to the porter, her smile a little more apologetic this time, as she spoke a few more words to him. A smile he wanted for himself. Why, he had no clue. It was clear she held him in absolute contempt. And he’d given up looking for approval from those closest to him. It had never been worth it in the end.

A whistle blew a second time, announcing the train’s imminent departure. A few last-minute passengers made hurried dashes toward the train. Miss Murray took a few steps and to Beau’s surprise, paused. It occurred to him she was waiting for him. Whether it was out of politeness or simply to ensure he was, in fact, coming, he wasn’t sure. But she was there all the same, with a look of anticipation that wasn’t unpleasant.

It wasn’t everything. But it was a start.