Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

J ack took charge. It was such a lovely thing, someone else taking charge for once. Leda sat in the cart next to him as he drove Pontus, leading Eustace's horse behind. He would ask around, find where it was hired, and return it, he told her. He would hire boys to dig out the tunnels and recover Eustace, if he was alive.

She nodded. He wouldn't be.

"I will have to send his body back to Cirencester," she said. "Or take it myself. The Toplady crypt is in a cemetery there."

"A proper burial is more than you owe him. He killed your husband because he meant to seize the estate from the child he thought you were carrying?"

She formed words through chattering teeth. This had happened to her before, after she realized Bertram was dead and Mrs. Blake and Betsey had fled who knew where with a just-born babe. She waited in the cold wooden cell that was used to hold those coming before the magistrate, and it was as if she stood on the beach against a rising tide, cold dousing her, freezing her veins, and trembling that would not stop.

Jack snaked an arm about her, and she leaned into him. He was so firm, so present. So calm.

"He wanted the house and estate. He would have been the heir, without a child. He said he had intended to marry me as well. He simply wanted what Bertram had."

"And he put the knife in your hand to pin the murder on you."

"He said he had planned to take me out of the madhouse, eventually. I suppose he could have, as family. He wanted it to look as if I had been punished and was sufficiently penitent, having paid for my crimes. He wanted me to tell him where I had hidden Ives."

"Did he know?"

"He was close." Leda shuddered. "He came to Bath looking for me, as I thought, after he'd heard rumors I was alive. He found Lady Plume, and he found out about the packets I was sending to Kellaways, though I never discussed it with her."

Jack snorted. "She knows everything that goes on beneath her roof, and many others besides, but I find it hard to believe she would betray you."

"He said he asked at the coaching inn. Then he found my sister in Chippenham, so I suppose she mentioned where I was going. I think I had said I was traveling with you to Norfolk. I imagine it took him some time to find exactly where, and that is why we've not seen him before now."

Unless he had found Ives first. Cold shook her.

"You are safe now." Jack squeezed the arm about her, pulling her close. "He cannot hurt you."

She sighed and leaned against him as the cart jolted over the ruts. There were the ruins of Ringstead Parva again, but now they were merely sad instead of frightening, the relics of a bygone age and lives that had long passed into obscurity. It felt so good to trust another person. A warm bead formed, deep in the center of her chest, and the glow began to chase away the cold. She was with Jack, and she wanted never to leave him.

He brought her to Holme Hall as if it were her home, and the great shrug of red stone indeed felt welcoming. A thread of sadness tugged at the sight of the cliffs and the sea beyond. She thought for a moment she saw a shadow, almost the shape of a woman, but then a great flock of terns wheeled and lifted, and the shadow fled.

"Jack." Leda clasped his shoulders as he lifted her down from the cart. He pulled her against his body, and a thrill darted through her from the place where their bodies touched, her insides soaring just like those birds.

"I was running away from you. I was so angry that you hadn't told me about Nanette."

His eyelid tensed, his beautiful lips flattening into a line. He held her cradled against him as if he could not bear to set her down. "I want to explain."

"I do as well. It felt—I told you I thought I was imagining things, and you let me believe it. You let me think I could be going mad again, and if I were—if I hurt someone…"

He pressed her close. "I am sorry. I didn't think of how you might feel. I only knew, with your clever mind, you would figure out everything, and I would be exposed. And I feared you would despise me. The man whose own wife didn't want him."

She found her feet but still leaned against him. This firm, splendid body, the shape of this man whom she utterly loved. Having had him close to her, how could she ever let him go?

She touched her fingertips to his jaw, the silk of his short beard, the warm skin beneath, and the hard, determined slant of bone. There was steel in his core, but such softness in his heart.

"Let us be clear about one thing. What I feel for you is not contempt."

He curved his palm around the back of her hand. Her insides quivered at the intensity of his expression. "No?"

"No," she said firmly.

His head lowered, and she would have kissed him, quite willingly, there in the drive before Holme Hall, with the shore birds wheeling above them and the grasses waving in the ruffle of wind and the insects chirping as madly as if there were a coming storm. Then Henry barreled out the front door, taking Pontus' head.

"Are you right, mum? Thas a great puckaterry in the kitchen or you agorn, but I says thas a great load a squit, tha is, and you warnt ment to lollop off on us."

Leda reined in a shaky laugh. Her feet did not yet feel solid on the ground. Her balance had been thrown off in the dark of the tunnel, and she had not yet found her bearings.

"I am here now, Henry. You may tell them in the kitchen I have returned."

She didn't need to, because May was in her room with hot water for the basin and fresh cloths for her face and hands. She hovered, pretending to straighten and clean the already tidied room, while Grace herded Leda into the dressing room and made her stand on an old rug while she stripped off her filthy gown. Once bundled into a fresh shift and dressing gown, Grace shooed her into the bed, where May slid out the bed warmer with its coals and plumped the counterpane.

All three girls sat huddled on the windowsill, eyes wide as they watched Leda, while Mrs. Leech peeked around the door with a tray of treacle tart and tea.

Leda nestled against the pillows with a happy sigh and a hairbrush. "You might as well come in. All of you."

"What happened, mum? You looked queer-like asmornum, an left in a pelter, an now you come home all a muckwash, like you was dredged from the sea." Mrs. Leech doled out tarts.

"From a hill, actually." Leda made a face as she tugged a tangle out of her hair. "I suppose you'll want the whole of it, though I'm not certain your father would approve."

"I give my permission." Jack entered the room and took the upholstered chair, moving it close by the bed, then sitting and crossing one foot over his knees as if he meant to stay.

Before she had properly begun the girls settled themselves across the bed, perched like birds over the brocade counterpane. Ellinore leaned against the far post, sewing a ribbon. Nanette crept like a little cat to the pillow beside Leda and sat there, intently watching Leda's face. Muriel sat against the other bed post and watched Leda steadily, eyes narrowed, her new doll cradled firmly in her arms. Mrs. Leech served them all treacle tart, her ears wide open, while Grace and May dawdled in the door of the dressing room, pretending to fold frocks.

They were all here, her new little family, and that bright, small window in her chest opened further. How could she ever leave them?

Leda said as much as she thought she could. How she married young to a man who had not been kind to her, who had a malicious nephew who wanted his land. How the day that his heir was born, the man was found murdered in his own library, and the magistrate thought Leda did it. How she was sent for a time to a madhouse, and then she left, and took work with Jack's great aunt in Bath, and ended up here, in search of a governess. But her nephew followed her, and when she left earlier he had trailed her to the chalk pit, and one of the tunnels had caved in around him.

"An heir?" Grace said when Leda was finished. She moved a hand over her lower belly, where a slight bulge was forming beneath her apron. "Your babe? And you left him behind you, mum?"

Leda bit her lip and nodded. "I had to. I hid him away so Eustace wouldn't learn about him. I feared what he might do, and as it happens, my fears were founded."

"But he'll be safe now, won't he. Will you go back to your house? Now that you're not mad?" Grace asked.

"I will have to set things in order after Eustace's death," Leda answered. "The property will go to Ives, I hope, for him to take over when he is of age."

"So ye'll be leaving us."

"I hate to go, particularly when I have not finished my task. I have not found a governess." Leda smiled at Nanette. "His lordship should have told me right away there were two of you. I would have adjusted my search accordingly."

"Twee." The girl pointed to Ellinore. They were unmistakably sisters, down to the shape of their faces, the set of their ears.

"Yes, three of you now. This will require some thought."

The girl, though cautious, showed no fear of a stranger. She held up her dolly for Leda's inspection, the little corn dolly that Muriel had treasured. "Judit," she said in a serious tone.

Leda smiled. "Do you know, I thought the dolly was named Nanette. I suppose that was why it took me so long to figure things out. But I wonder. Why did they hide you from me, my pet?"

Jack shifted in his chair, rubbing tart from his fingertips. "You will think my reasons foolish, I suppose. But I'm hoping no one knows Nanette is here. That no one in the neighborhood knows she was even born." He glanced at Muriel, then at Leda. "I don't know who her father is, you see. I feared if he knew about her, he would take her away, or insist she be put somewhere because—well. They might say she is simple, or worse, because of what her mother did. And I simply couldn't guess who the man was. Rolfe, or Styleman, or even Hogg—Anne-Marie didn't visit, but she wasn't a recluse. And she was very beautiful."

Leda tamped down the pang of jealousy. Anne-Marie had been gifted with three children, three beautiful, graceful daughters, and she hadn't clung to life for any of them. While Leda, who adored children, had been given none.

"Simple?" she questioned. "She's understood me when I spoke to her."

"Sometimes she do, and sometimes she pretend you never spoke a'tall. Here, mite." Ellinore bit off the end of her thread and handed the scarlet ribbon to Nanette. "For Judith."

With evident glee, Nanette crawled across the bed and accepted the gift. At once she began twining it around the corn dolly's neck.

Muriel tapped the younger girl on the shoulder and stared intently into her face. "You're to be kind to her, hear? No thacking her about or rough play."

Nanette nodded, eyes wide, and began tying the ribbon more gently.

Leda, taken with a hunch, crooked a finger at the girl. "That is a pretty ribbon in your hair. May I see it?" She lured the girl close with a piece of tart and, as she took it, ran a hand over her dark curls. Then, quite deliberately, she snapped her fingers behind the girl's left ear. Nanette didn't turn a hair.

Leda smoothed the girl's other braid and snapped behind her right ear. Nanette turned her head a shade, flicking curious eyes up at Leda, then back to her tart.

"She's not simple," Leda said. "She doesn't hear well."

"What do you mean?" Jack sat forward, his voice catching.

"I saw some women like this in the madhouse," Leda said. "Sometimes it is damage, or illness. Sometimes they are simply born that way. What happened?"

"When she was very small…" Jack cleared his throat and blinked his eyes. He looked at Mrs. Leech like a drowning man who had just seen a boat appear on the horizon.

The cook shook her head and wiped her eyes. "You orter tell her, sir. They all should know."

Jack swallowed. "One day, when I was away, and Muriel was staying with Anne-Marie's parents, Anne-Marie gave the servants the day off. Then she took Nanette and went somewhere. I don't know where; we've never learned. But she came back the next morning and said nothing to Mrs. Leech, only went and locked herself in a room.

"Nanette came down with a fever the next day, and a terrible, racking cough. It might have been scarlet fever, or whooping cough—we don't know. Mrs. Leech nursed her through it, and she survived, but the illness damaged her hearing and possibly her vocal cords, we think." He swallowed again. His eyes looked desperate, sad.

"Anne-Marie had nothing to do with the baby, not when she was ill, and not after. She locked herself in her room and sank into despair. I couldn't reach her. She wouldn't see Muriel. Her parents could do nothing—no one could. A week or so later…" He cleared his throat. "She jumped."

"Fell," Muriel said, sitting up, her eyes flaring, fingers clenched around her doll.

"Fell," Jack amended. He met Leda's gaze. "I've always assumed she tried to run away with her lover, and he turned her down. That is why I thought it was someone near here."

"But perhaps not someone you know," Leda murmured. "Nora, my dear, will you hand me that book on the dressing table? Next to the mermaid's purse."

"My mother's diary," Muriel said in hushed, reverent tones.

"I found it in the mattress. It's been under my nose all this time. When was Nanette born?"

"June 1794. She'll be six this year."

She was small for a six year old, but illness or neglect could slow an infant's growth; she'd seen that in the madhouse, too, of the women who came with babes in or outside their belly. Leda skimmed through the dates in the journal with its scant but vivid entries. Her heart clenched as she read through the fall of the year before Nanette's birth, Anne-Marie's wild joy palpable. She was a woman desperately, thoroughly in love. Then the spring, and news of the baby, and the infinite, equally wild despair.

Leda looked up at Jack, her eyes brimming with tears. "May I tell you what I've found? I think Mrs. Leech is right. You all should know."

Jack sat at the edge of the chair like a man ready to start a race. White lines bracketed his eyes. "Tell us."

"Anne-Marie was in love with a man named Bohamos. Desperately, wildly, completely in love. She fell for him when she was a young girl and watched him for years from afar. When his family came through one fall, she approached him. He loved her back."

Jack glanced at the older girl. "Ellinore."

Nora sat on the bed, back straight, knees curved gracefully beside her. She blinked quickly. "Bohamos. He was not from around here?"

"He is one of the Roma, part of the family that travels through this tract of Norfolk in the fall and winter. They have done so for decades, maybe centuries."

"Of course my grandparents would not let her be with a gypsy," Ellinore said.

"That is not what they call themselves," Leda reminded her. "He was betrothed to a Roma woman and meant to marry her. He could not break that oath. When Anne-Marie learned he had married, a year or two later, she—" Leda paused. "She fell into a deep melancholy. Very deep. I think you saved her life when you offered to marry her, Jack."

"I wish I could believe that were the case," Jack said quietly. "But I don't think the melancholy ever left her."

"It wasn't you." Leda leaned forward, wishing she had the right to touch him. But the servants were still watching, pretending to tidy as they listened to the story, and the girls were riveted, Nanette closely watching Leda's face.

"And me?" Muriel asked. She looked sad, lost, and determined to know. Her expression, her very face, was the image of Jack's.

"I think there is no doubt who your father is, Muriel," Leda said gently. "Who else could have given you red hair?"

Muriel gave her father a look full of caution and longing intertwined. A wistful hope nipped at Leda's heart. With this reassurance, perhaps Muriel would feel softer toward Jack. And perhaps he would be able to reach her with his love. The girl needed it so badly.

"But Nanette," Ellinore said quietly, tugging on one of her littlest sister's curls.

"When the travelers came through one fall, Anne-Marie went to Bohamos. She pleaded to join them. Be a second wife. His mistress. Anything to be with him. He still loved her, she believed, but he would not take her with him. It was against his custom. And he had children with his wife. I guess Anne-Marie went to him that day she left, trying to use his child as persuasion, but he broke with her instead. She had to give up the hope that she could ever be with him."

"And if she could not have him, then she felt her life was over." Jack's voice trailed away. "She was that unhappy with me?"

"I don't think she was well, Jack. There are some women…I saw them in the madhouse, too. After they have a baby, something happens to them. It is as if their reason is stolen away. They might try to hurt themselves or—" Leda caught her breath, recalling the worst story she'd heard. "Or the baby. It is truly a type of madness. Not their choice."

"And it happened to Anne-Marie?" Jack asked.

"Worse with every birth, her diary would suggest. After Nanette…I suspect she was simply overcome. She writes about the pain she was in." She closed the journal, silencing its anguished cries.

Jack sat back, dropping his head into his hands.

"She fell ." Muriel's voice wobbled, and she clung to her doll tightly.

Leda glanced at Jack, who didn't look up. He was wrestling with whatever this knowledge meant to him. Leda focused on the girl.

"Of course she fell, darling. She would never have left the three of you. Or your father. It was a terrible accident that robbed you of your mother. I am so sorry, my dear."

Muriel clutched her toy to her, blinking rapidly. Then she said, "But you made this doll for me, didn't you?"

"Yes, I bought the carved wood for her head from the peddler in Snettisham, and then I made the body. I used old rags of yours for her frock. I hope that is all right. I can make her a different dress if you wish."

Muriel hugged the doll. "I like her just as she is." She pursed her lips. "Are you going to leave us?"

Jack didn't lift his head, but he tensed. Leda said carefully, "I will need to take my nephew's body back to be buried in the family crypt, I think. There is not much left of the Toplady family, but they will wish that for him. And I have to ensure that Ives—that is my son—" The lie came uneasy to her lips— "I must see that he inherits the estate that is meant for him." The estate that she had lied and cheated to ensure he would have. She had stayed in the madhouse for two years, pretending to pay for the crime of killing her child, until she had been certain Ives was hidden and safe.

"My heart alive, the time," Mrs. Leech said mildly. "The girls will be wanting their denner, and then the master and missus, I shink." She shooed the maids, then the girls, into a little flock before her.

"May I—?" Ellinore hesitated, fingertips hovering over the diary with the twined roses stamped on the cover.

"I think his lordship should read it first, don't you? And then share it with you when he believes the time is right."

"Very well."

"You could stay." Muriel looked astonished at herself for blurting her words, her eyes wide, her cheeks flaming with two spots of color on her pale skin. "You don't need to leave. You could stay here."

"Thank you, Muriel. It means a great deal to hear you say that. But I think I shall have to discuss that with your father."

Nanette regarded her soberly. Then, puckering her lips, she clambered onto the bed, planted a kiss on Leda's cheek, then clambered back down, satisfied with herself, and let the others bustle her out the door. Leda placed a hand over her cheek, waiting until they were all gone to let the tears well.

Jack lifted his head, then the rest of him, and came to the side of the bed, reaching out a hand to her. Leda gave him hers willingly.

"Don't you dare put your chalky boots on my covers," she murmured.

He smiled, and that smile, sad as it was at the corners, tugged at her heart. In a moment he shed his coat and boots. She lifted the counterpane and he slid into the bed beside her, his arms curving around her, and she melted against him like warm butter. In an instant desire lit her like a fuse. He needed only to touch her. To be near.

He kissed her temple, smoothing back her hair. "You could stay. I need someone to advise me what to do with these girls."

She turned her face into his neck, inhaling his scent. She didn't understand how she could feel so completely content, warm and safe, and yet impatient with desire at the same time.

"Ellinore could go to a school in Bath I know. Miss Gregoire's. It would be just the place for her. And Muriel, when she is ready." She thought a moment. "Nanette, too. She is reading our lips, and Muriel has begun to teach her letters. I am certain Miss Gregoire's would be able to work with her. She could have every opportunity deserving of a baron's daughter." She lifted her head to meet his eyes. "You are going to keep them, I hope?"

"I think you know the answer to that." He growled and kissed down the side of her face, toward her ear. "But I can't raise three girls on my own. I'll need a great deal of help. A very clever, sensible, capable sort of woman to be my wife. Someone who knows how to solve most any problem." He nibbled on her ear, and Leda caught her breath on a shiver of delight. "It will help if she is very beautiful, and I want to keep her in my bed all day."

"I thought I had to leave," she murmured as his lips moved down her jaw. The shivers darted everywhere. "I was afraid none of you were safe with me." She paused. "Did I kill Eustace?"

He nipped her chin. "No. He is his own king under the mountain now."

A tear fell. "Then I am free." No more fearing. No more hiding. No more lies. She could live in the light and not always be peering into shadows, waiting for judgment.

"Free to marry?" he muttered against her skin.

"Who?" She gasped as his hand came to cover her breast. Her nipple curled into a delighted bud, begging.

"I said when I met you I could give you a title. I believe I proposed to you upon our first meeting."

He kissed her then, deeply, with complete possession, and she opened her mouth to the seek of his tongue, to the heat and the fire and the sweetness.

"Brash. Some might say mad." All of her opened to him. She was warm syrup in his arms.

"Marry me, Leda. You beautiful, clever, maddening woman. Say you'll never leave me."

She gasped as he moved his mouth to her bosom, lavishing her breasts with the attention they were begging for. "Stay and be the mad baron's bride?"

"You set people on their path, do you not? You save lives. Save mine."

He moved to kiss her lower, pushing the counterpane and the dressing gown and all the many layers separating them aside, and she bloomed for him like a flower. Like a woman who had been a prisoner for years in her own lies and follies, who had shed one identity after another, who could now be fully herself.

"Yes," she breathed, threading her fingers through his thick, unruly hair. This man. This love that bound them. She could not see their future together, not clearly, but she felt the strength of this bond, the ebb and flow that would hold them together, as dependable as the tide.

"Yes," she said. "I believe I will."