Kent's Orphans: The Prisoner Part 9

Genevieve paled, her anger suddenly chilled by this very real possibility. What had she been thinking? she wondered. That Haydon would simply stay with her forever, and no one would ever learn of their lie?

She sank into a chair, trying to stifle her panic.

Haydon braced one hand against the mantel and stared grimly into the flames of the fire.

He wanted to leave this place and try to clear his name by solving the mystery of who those men were who had attacked him the night this whole ugly mess began. That would mean having his barrister hire someone to investigate the matter for him, and remaining in hiding far from Scotland until the puzzle was solved. He was certain the authorities had frozen his bank accounts, but between his lawyers and his accountants, he was sure they could find some way to access some funds for him under the guise of legal fees. Once his attackers were brought to light and the charges against him were dropped, he could return to his prior life as Lord Redmond.

It could take years, he realized bitterly, a.s.suming the investigation was successful at all. And in the meantime, the beautiful, intelligent, selfless woman before him would be arrested and imprisoned for her role in helping him to escape.

It was unthinkable.

"It seems I am trapped here."

Genevieve looked at him in surprise. "Do you mean you're going to stay?"

"For the time being, yes. I will stay and play the role of your husband. But I will only do it long enough to firmly establish our relations.h.i.+p to the people of Inveraray. Then, perhaps in a month or two, once the search for me has tired somewhat and everyone has come to believe that we are the blissfully happy couple we shall portray ourselves to be, I will be called away to England on business. And there, after a separation of a few weeks, I will unfortunately meet my demise in an accident. You will have a suitable period of mourning, and then you will pick up and go on, now with the added respectability of being a tragic young widow."

Genevieve considered his plan a moment. "And what will happen to you?"

It did not surprise him that she remained worried for his welfare. Concern for others was woven deep into the fabric of her very being. It was part of what made her so desirable to him, as firelight played upon her pale cheek and sweetly furrowed brow.

"I will either eventually succeed in proving my innocence and reclaiming my life, or spend the rest of my days trying to keep one step ahead of the law. Either way, I am determined that neither you nor the children should suffer for trying to help me. And therefore you must promise me something, Genevieve." His expression was deadly serious. "I would have your word that if I am discovered while I am staying with you, you will say whatever you must to establish your own innocence in the matter. You will tell them I forced you to take me in. You will say that I threatened you cruelly and relentlessly, that I even beat you, and that your fear for your own life and the lives of the children was so great that you felt your only option was to succ.u.mb to my demands and say I was your husband."

Genevieve adamantly shook her head. "If I do that, no one will believe in your innocence."

"If I am discovered here, my innocence won't matter," Haydon told her flatly. "I cannot risk investigating the matter myself while I am supposed to be the newly wedded Maxwell Blake. And if Constable Drummond and Governor Thomson realize that your adoring husband is actually their escaped prisoner, their fury at being duped will overshadow any willingness to reconsider my innocence. All they will be interested in is my immediate execution, so that the embarra.s.sment of my escape and my subsequent masquerade can be buried with me."

"I won't pretend that you are some sort of monster when you're not," Genevieve argued. "If you're caught, then I will go to the courthouse and explain to them what happened. I will ask the judge to reexamine your case and-"

"Listen to me, Genevieve," he said, kneeling before her. "I know you are a fighter, and that is why you are unwilling to accept injustice. But I could not bear the thought that you and the children were made to suffer because of me. Do you understand? My death does not concern me nearly so much as the idea that I will have destroyed your life as well."

His expression was harsh as he spoke to her, almost as if he was trying to intimidate her into agreement. But it was his eyes that captured Genevieve's attention. There was anger there, laced with the frustration of a powerful man who was not accustomed to having to demand something more than once. But there was a terrible pain there as well, an overwhelming sadness that swirled through the icy blue depths, suggesting a wound that was still raw deep within him. It was this that she focused on, for it seemed so haunting and familiar, almost as if she were looking into a reflection of herself.

"Very well," she said quietly, knowing full well that she would never honor his request. "I will do as you wish."

Haydon eyed her speculatively. She returned his gaze steadily.

"Good." He rose to his feet and crossed the room, suddenly anxious to have some distance from her. He felt as if he had inadvertently revealed some part of himself to her. It was not his habit to disclose anything about himself to anyone.

"Shall we go into the dining room and join the children for dinner?" Genevieve asked.

"If you'll forgive me, I think I will retire upstairs and lie down for a while. I find myself somewhat tired." Instead of moving toward the door, he gripped the mantel and stared at the fire.

"Would you like me to bring you something?"

"No." Realizing his tone was gruff, he added, "Thank you."

"Perhaps later, then."

"Perhaps."

He had drifted away from her, she realized, surprised by how much she felt the loss. For one brief moment she had looked into his soul, had almost felt as if she could reach out and touch him and know that he would not mind, that he might have even welcomed the feel of her slender arms about his enormous shoulders, offering him comfort and refuge. Her experience with men was limited to her utterly proper courts.h.i.+p with Charles, which had included a few disappointingly pa.s.sionless kisses, and one rather fumbling grope of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Although her blond betrothed had seemed handsome enough to her when she was an inexperienced girl of eighteen, neither his perpetually disapproving face nor his increasingly pulpy physique could begin to compare with the darkly chiseled lines of Lord Redmond's visage, or the powerfully cut ripples and planes of his warrior physique. She had seen him standing before her with nothing but a blaze of sunlight warming his skin, had swabbed almost every inch of his beautiful body with her gentle touch, and she knew that Lord Redmond was strong and hard and sleek, like a wild panther. She found herself wondering what it would be like to have his arms wrapped tightly around her, to feel herself pressed against his chest as he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

Heat flooded through her.

She rose and hurried toward the door, bewildered by the strange sensations coursing through her veins. Her relations.h.i.+p with Lord Redmond was one of unfortunate but necessary circ.u.mstance, and nothing more, she reminded herself.

Even so, the urge to stay with him was strong as she stole a final glance at him standing by the hearth, his powerful form silhouetted against the dying shadows of the fire.

Chapter Five.

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, HAYDON AND JACK were introduced to the duties expected of them as members of their new household. Haydon gained an appreciation for the seemingly endless tasks that had previously been the exclusive domain of his servants.

Jack plotted ways to escape his ch.o.r.es.

When Genevieve had been forced to fend for herself and a newborn infant at the tender age of eighteen, she had been handicapped by her lack of knowledge about even the most basic of household tasks. There had always been a cook, a housemaid, a butler, a valet, and a gardener to tend to every detail of running her father's home, enabling Genevieve to pursue her studies and her interest in painting. But after her father's death and Charles's subsequent rejection of her, she had been left entirely without an income, which meant that she could no longer afford the luxury of employing servants.

It was then that she realized how very limited her education had been.

She could well remember those exhausting early days as she struggled to look after little Jamie by herself. The kitchen was shrouded in a perpetual smoky haze, a combination of her inability to make a decent fire and the charred remains of all the food that she had put on the stove or griddle and subsequently abandoned as she ran to soothe Jamie's cries. Laundry sat in great heaps around the house in various stages of soaking, was.h.i.+ng, drying and folding; silky gray layers of dust acc.u.mulated on the carpets, furniture and artwork; and lamps were burned until their chimneys were black and the oil had run dry. Precious food was improperly preserved and had to be thrown out, and the meals that she did manage to prepare for herself were either boiled to a pulp or burned beyond edibility. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day to tend to Jamie and see to the hundreds of other tasks that needed to be done, and even if there had been more time, Genevieve was simply too weary to get to them. She would fall into bed each night on the verge of tears, not knowing where she was going to find the strength to get up and face another morning.

Then she would turn toward Jamie's cradle and study his beautiful little face as he slept, his tiny, perfect hand fisted beside the chubby softness of his cheek. In those moments nothing seemed to matter except the steady, shallow whisper of his breath and the certainty that despite the dust and disorder around her, Jamie was clean and happy and completely loved. She would trace her fingers down the petal velvet of his skin, resolving to be stronger and more capable the next day.

On the morning Eunice first arrived from the jail, the elderly woman had clucked her tongue sympathetically as her gaze swept over the disarray. She immediately donned an ap.r.o.n and set to work organizing the kitchen, baking bread and fixing a simple but nouris.h.i.+ng stew. At first she had tried to banish Genevieve to the drawing room, saying she needed only to look after "the wee lamb," as Eunice called Jamie, a.s.suring her new mistress that she would take care of everything else herself. While it was extremely tempting to be coddled and waited upon once more, Genevieve had refused. Self-sufficiency, she believed, was going to be key to her survival if she was going to make a happy life for herself and Jamie. And so she had created a little play area for her brother a safe distance from the hearth and the stove, and set about learning from dear old Eunice all she could about cooking, cleaning and otherwise managing a household.

This belief in the absolute necessity of self-sufficiency now extended to her wards, all of whom had come to her with scant knowledge of what it was to live in a household where one was clean and properly nourished. In addition to their lessons in history, reading, writing, science, and arithmetic, her brood was required to spend part of each day performing household ch.o.r.es. Although Oliver, Doreen, and Eunice would have much preferred to have the children out of the way so they could see to the tasks themselves, Genevieve was insistent that the youngsters be their apprentices. It was her firm conviction that children should learn to appreciate the hard work and knowledge that was required for maintaining a pleasant, orderly household. Beyond that, she knew they would need these skills when they eventually left her home. With neither the benefit of a prestigious pedigree nor abundant funds, each child was going to have to rely upon his or her own resources to make their place in the world, and to keep their own homes clean and well-maintained. Even if they were one day fortunate enough to employ servants, Genevieve believed they should still have a thorough understanding of and regard for the mult.i.tude of vital tasks that servants performed.

"There now," said Oliver, watching as Grace and Annabelle fished acrid lengths of wick out of a bowl of strong vinegar. "Now ye leave them to dry well, and ye'll find the lamps will scarcely smoke at all the next time we burn them. In the meantime, let's see ye take those funnels and fill the founts with oil, and mind ye dinna spill any."

"This smells horrid," complained Annabelle, laying a vinegar-drenched wick down upon a sheet of yellowed newspaper.

"It can't be as bad as this awful stuff." Simon wrinkled his nose as he poked at a creamy paste in a pot over the stove.

"What is it?" asked Grace.

"'Tis a mixture for removing scorches from linen," Doreen said, pouring a half pint of vinegar into the pot. "And if ye'd been mindin' yer business instead of blatherin' on to Charlotte while ye was ironing that tablecloth, we'd be havin' no need of it."

Simon sneezed as the acidic fumes tickled his nose. "I think this smell is dissolving my brain."

Jamie looked up from rubbing a blackened flatiron with a gritty polish of bees wax, salt, and powdered bath brick. His face, hands, s.h.i.+rt, and hair were completely covered with greasy soot, making him look like a chimney sweep. "What's in it?"

"The juice of two onions, a half ounce of white soap, two ounces of fuller's earth, and a half pint of vinegar," replied Doreen. "We'll boil it well, then let it cool before we spread it over the scorch mark on the cloth, and it should take it out nicely."

"Either that or it will burn a hole right through the cloth," Haydon predicted dryly. "All right, Charlotte, you hold the teapot steady while I fix this handle on it."

Charlotte obligingly pinned the heavy china piece firmly against the table. "Like this?"

"Perfect." His brow creased with concentration, Haydon carefully placed the final fragment of the broken pot into position. "There now, I think that's done it," he said, feeling enormously satisfied with himself. "You may go back to using this handsome teapot, Eunice, confident in the knowledge that it has been expertly repaired by both Charlotte and myself." He lifted it up to show her.

The handle slipped off and the delicate pot smashed to pieces on the floor, leaving Haydon staring in bewilderment at the scattered remnants of his work.

The children burst into laughter.

"Oh my," said Charlotte, trying to contain her smile in light of Haydon's evident disappointment. "I'm so sorry, Lord Redmond. I don't think it was quite ready to be lifted."

"Well, lad, 'twas a fine job ye did, make no mistake," Oliver a.s.sured him, shaking his head with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Next time, ye might consider lettin' the paste cure a wee bit afore ye start waving things about."

Haydon frowned. "It had to cure?" He gave Eunice a sheepish look. "I'm sorry, Eunice."

"Now, don't be fretting over it," soothed Eunice. "Bad mistakes provide a man wi' quick experience," she declared philosophically, handing him a broom and a dustpan. "If we cried over every wee thing that got broken in this house, we'd be sailin' a s.h.i.+p up the stairs! Since ye're finished with that now, Charlotte, would ye mind creamin' that b.u.t.ter over there?" She pointed a floury finger at a bowl.

"Not at all." Charlotte gave Haydon a gentle smile of encouragement before limping to the other side of the table and seating herself in front of the bowl.

Jack emerged from the cellar bearing a pitcher of milk and a bowl of eggs. He set them on the table, then surrept.i.tiously tried to slink out of the crowded kitchen.

"Ye can take them over to Charlotte, Jack," directed Eunice, not bothering to glance at him as she mixed some marmalade and lemon juice together. "Crack two eggs into the bowl, then after Charlotte has beaten them in, ye can add the flour and some milk-not too much, mind, just enough to make the pudding nice and soft."

Jack scowled. Earlier that morning Oliver had set him to work chopping wood, which was the one task he had performed so far that he actually enjoyed. He liked the solid weight of the ax in his hands, the hard flex of his muscles as he swung it in a silvery arc over his head, and the satisfying crack a log made as it split open, filling the air with the loamy fragrance of woods and earth. The day before he had even helped Oliver clean and grease the carriage, and that had been a decent enough job, except for the fact that Genevieve had sent him to scrub his hands three times afterward before she deemed his fingernails acceptable. But preparing food was woman's work, to his way of thinking, and he certainly was not about to stand around and crack G.o.dd.a.m.n eggs into any b.l.o.o.d.y bowl. His body rigid with defiance and his hands clenched into fists, he opened his mouth to set Eunice straight on that.

"Please, Jack," pleaded Charlotte softly. "If you wouldn't mind, could you help me to cream this b.u.t.ter? I fear it's far too hard for me to have much effect on it, and I know with your strong arms you can do it easily."

He looked at her in surprise.

Of all the children in the household, Charlotte was the only one who rarely spoke to him. Jack intuitively understood that this was not meant as any slight to him, but rather was because Charlotte was the shyest and the least self-a.s.sured. He did not know the nature of the injury that had caused her to limp, but suspected that she had suffered abuse at the hands of some brute-possibly even her own father.

If he had been there when it happened, he would have killed the p.i.s.sing b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The sight of her perched awkwardly upon a chair, her injured leg stretched out before her as she tried with limited success to beat the block of b.u.t.ter Eunice had given her, chipped at the sh.e.l.l of his resistance. Several strands of her thick auburn hair had strayed from the faded green ribbon tying it back, and her milky skin was flushed with effort, as if she found even the simple task of creaming some b.u.t.ter tiring. But it was her eyes that captivated him most. He had never noticed how unusually large and pretty they were, a clear swirl of brown flecked with green, rimmed with a feathery sweep of charcoal lashes. She continued to study him, her gaze slightly wary, as if she was worried that his response might be to snarl at her, or perhaps to simply glare at her with contempt and say nothing. Certainly he had treated everyone else in the household to just such a response at one point or another.

Shame chiseled away another little piece of his armor.

Without a word, he went over to Charlotte, took the bowl and spoon from her hands, and began to pummel the resistant b.u.t.ter.

"Thank you." Charlotte's voice was barely audible above the sound of the spoon thras.h.i.+ng mercilessly against the bowl.

He gave her a brisk nod. When the b.u.t.ter was finally beaten into submission, he went to retrieve the eggs and milk.

"Here," he said, handing her an egg. "You crack them into the bowl, and I'll beat them in for you." He regarded her intently, wanting to make it clear that he was doing it for her, and not because Eunice had told him to.

A hesitant smile crept across her face. She did not wait for him to acknowledge it, but bowed her head and gently tapped the delicate white sh.e.l.l against the rim of the bowl. "I do believe it's going to be a splendid sponge pudding," she predicted softly.

"Good afternoon, everyone." Genevieve smiled at her busy little brood as she entered the kitchen. With so many faces and activities to look at, it was not difficult for her to keep her gaze averted from Haydon.

Although it had been impossible to avoid Lord Redmond completely over the last few days, after that night in which she had experienced such intense and bewildering feelings toward him, Genevieve had made absolutely certain that they were never alone. Haydon had recovered sufficiently to no longer require either her bedchamber or her constant attendance at his bedside. Doreen had generously offered to move onto a cot in Eunice's room, and Haydon had been given Doreen's room. At first Genevieve had worried that being relegated to the relatively cramped third floor servants' quarters would not please Lord Redmond, who was obviously accustomed to opulent and s.p.a.cious surroundings. On the contrary, the arrangements seemed to suit him well, and he a.s.sured Doreen that he was most grateful and hoped he wouldn't be putting her out for too long. Genevieve supposed that after spending several weeks in a dank, frigid cell, Doreen's bright, tidy little room was almost luxurious.

"My goodness, Jamie, you look like you fell into the coal bin!" Genevieve looked at her brother's blackened face and hands in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'm cleaning the black off the iron," Jamie reported proudly.

"So I see. The question is, who is going to clean the black off of you?"

Jamie looked down at his impossibly filthy s.h.i.+rt, arms, and hands. "It's not that bad," he a.s.sured her brightly. "I think it will come off with a bit of Eunice's soap."

"More like we'll be needin' a whole kettle of soap," Doreen predicted. "Dinna fret, Miss Genevieve, I'll be tossin' him in the bath the moment he's finished, and won't let him touch a thing on the way upstairs."

"That's fine, Doreen." Genevieve gently ruffled her hand through the one patch of Jamie's berry-tinged hair that looked relatively clean. If there was one thing she had learned in eight years of raising children, it was that if there was a mess to be either made or found, her boys were sure to get into it. "After you have all finished your ch.o.r.es, I thought it might be nice for us to bundle up in our coats and hats and take a walk. It has started to snow and-"

A loud rap upon the door interrupted her.

"Oliver, would you kindly see who that is?" She struggled to control the shrill thread that snaked through her voice every time someone had come to their door since Haydon's arrival a week earlier. Even the regular delivery of their milk and b.u.t.ter filled her with panic that somehow Lord Redmond had been found out and they were all going to be dragged away to prison.

"Right, ye la.s.sies wipe down the lamps well with these rags, then screw the tops on and place the chimneys back," instructed Oliver, demonstrating his typical lack of urgency about going to the door. "Once they've had a chance to dry we'll put the wicks in, an' I promise ye'll be amazed-"

"The door, Oliver?" Genevieve persisted. The knocking was growing louder.

"I'm gettin' to it, la.s.s," Oliver a.s.sured her. He cast a speculative eye at Haydon. "Were ye wantin' to slip out the back, lad-just in case?"

Haydon shook his head. If the authorities had somehow deduced that Maxwell Blake was in fact their missing prisoner, he would not abandon Genevieve and her family to try to explain why they had protected him. He would stay with her and make sure the police understood that he had forced her to help him.

"Very well. I'll make a lot of noise if I'm thinkin' 'tis someone ye might not be so keen to meet." Oliver stood and carefully straightened his frayed jacket before heading out of the kitchen to the front door.

"All right, then, duckies, let's keep working," said Eunice, trying to alleviate the pall of anxiety that had settled over the kitchen. "Being busy improves yer mind and cheers yer heart."

Everyone in the kitchen continued with their ch.o.r.es in uneasy silence.

"It's that old codger Humphries from the bank," Oliver reported, shuffling in a moment later. "Says he needs to speak with ye urgently, la.s.s-an' yer husband, Mr. Blake, as well. It seems news of yer marriage has traveled through Inveraray. No doubt he's come to offer his congratulations." His tone was scornful.

"Thank you, Oliver." Genevieve regarded Haydon uncertainly. "I imagine Mr. Humphries would think it strange if I were to meet with him now without my husband-but of course if you'd rather not, I understand."

"I would be delighted to meet my wife's bank manager." He regarded her steadily as he offered her his arm.

Genevieve tentatively laid her hand upon his sleeve. She could feel the heat and strength of him s.h.i.+fting beneath her palm, like the muscles of a panther poised to strike. She found herself wanting to grip him tighter, to feel the marble hardness of him flexing against her grasp. She resisted the impulse and lightened her hold on him, until her trembling fingers barely grazed the finely woven fabric of his dark coat.

"Mr. Humphries, how pleasant to see you," she said as they entered the drawing room. "I should like to introduce my husband, Mr. Maxwell Blake. Maxwell, this is Mr. Gerald Humphries, manager of the Royal Bank of Scotland branch here in Inveraray."

Haydon blinked at the bank manager in astonishment.

Mr. Humphries was a shriveled little raisin of a man, with twiglike arms and legs that looked wholly insubstantial for supporting the fragile frame over which his loose-fitting coat and trousers were arranged. His thinning white hair was carefully parted just above his left ear, then painstakingly sc.r.a.ped up and over his s.h.i.+ny pink pate and liberally pomaded into place. Unfortunately, some of the slicked-down strands had separated, making it look as though his bald head were bursting through a fibrous white helmet. He required the a.s.sistance of a polished black cane to rise from the chair in which he had been seated, and upon rising to his feet he began to quiver so alarmingly Haydon was worried that he was going to topple right over.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Humphries," said Haydon, striding forward with his hand outstretched so that he could catch the ancient little gnome if he fell.

Mr. Humphries grabbed Haydon's hand in his clawlike fingers and held on, steadying himself. "And you, sir," he said cheerfully. "A great pleasure indeed." He gazed at Haydon with eyes like blackberries, aged but alert. "When I first heard that you had married dear Miss MacPhail here, I said to myself, that's a fine man who would take on an impossibly heavy burden like that. A man of principle. A man of generosity. And, I daresay, a man of considerable means." He gave him a sly wink. "Of course, Miss MacPhail is exceptionally lovely," he hastened to add, smiling fondly at Genevieve, "but it takes a remarkable man to see the beauty not just in her, but in all those children as well. Six, now, isn't it, counting that new lad? And you're so young." He looked faintly envious as he eyed Haydon up and down. "Lots of years ahead of you. Marriage, children, money." He shook his head, nearly overcome with the pleasure of it all. "You're a lucky la.s.s, Mrs. Blake, to have found this handsome knight, here. I wish you and Mr. Blake here years of happiness."