Lady Silence (12 page)

“
Colonel?” The younger Lady Moretaine,
eyebrows raised, was holding out a cup of tea.

With an inward grimace at his wandering
thoughts, Damon accepted the cup, noted that his mother and
Drucilla already had cups in hand, so took a sip of his own. Ah . .
. an aromatic brew of the finest quality. The next best thing to
hot spiced punch after a day-long journey.

Guilt struck him. “Katy,” he called, “come
get your tea. You must be as parched as the rest of us.”

As he watched her slink across the
great expanse of carpet, guilt struck from the opposite direction.
Had the girl not been told to efface herself, to stay as far away
from the younger countess as possible? And Katy had done just that.
And he, the idiot colonel, was calling her forward, because innate
good manners forbade him to drink tea while the child sat in the
corner, undoubtedly tired and thirsty and—
hell and the devil
, he’d set the cat among the
pigeons. Or, more like, set the baby bird down in front of the
cat.

With a careful precision that broadcast her
disdain, Drucilla poured tea into a fourth cup. “Well, come and get
it, girl,” she snapped. “Don’t just stand there as if you’ve never
seen a teacup before. I am quite certain my dear mama-in-law has
managed to teach you a few essential manners, at the very
least.”

Damon blinked.
How dare she?
He might criticize Katy Snow, but
she was
his
waif. He could
doubt her origins, Drucilla Farr could not. “Take the cup,” he
growled to Katy, even as he glowered at the countess, who remained
supremely oblivious to his displeasure.

Keeping her eyes on her teacup, lest it slosh
onto the elegant carpet, Katy scurried back to her chair by the
wall. She hadn’t even asked for cream or sugar. In fact, the
thought of asking The Dreadful Drucilla for anything was quite
appalling. If only . . .

The constraints of her long masquerade were
beginning to pull down her spirits. Not that she was some princess
in disguise, she told herself bitterly. If she faced the matter
squarely, the girl called Katy Snow was merely the overly indulged
object of a doting grandfather’s affections. In spite of one
brilliant star on her family tree, the Drucillas of this world
would always take precedence. She might have been raised to hold
her head high, been given an education superior to that of most
boys, yet, truthfully, she was the end result of a misalliance
between the younger son of a younger son and the daughter of a wool
merchant.

If only her papa and mama had lived . . .

But she had never known them. Both drowned
when caught by a sudden summer storm while they were sailing,
leaving a six-month-old to be brought up by her grandparents. Katy
had heard the story many times, of how her grandfather the bishop,
third son of the Duke of Carewe, had stormed into her parent’s
modest home and snatched her from the arms of her maternal
grandmother, the wool merchant’s wife. No grandchild of his would
be raised by vulgar cits! And all connection between the families,
tenuous at best, had been severed on the spot. For close on twelve
years she had lived with her paternal grandparents, though she
barely recalled her grandmother, who had passed on when she was
four, leaving her to be raised in comfortable luxury by the
scholarly but indulgent bishop.

And then he was gone, that light of her life,
Cedric Challoner, Bishop of Hulme. And she had been delivered into
the hands of her grandfather’s second cousin, Cornelia Hardcastle,
wife of Baron Oxley, in whom her beloved grandfather had mistakenly
placed his faith.

“
Katy. Katy, my child, come along. We
are going to our rooms.”

Katy? Katy Snow was a
dream, a figment of the imagination of Farr Park’s staff. She was
not Katy, had never been Katy. Could not continue to be Katy. But
what to do, what to do?
Once, she had thought herself
content . . . but no longer. She had only been content to bide her
time, to grow up in peace—

“
Katy!” the colonel echoed his mother,
but more sharply. “Stop dawdling, girl, and come along.”

Mortified, Katy bounced to her feet.
With ingrained good manners, she crossed to the younger Lady
Moretaine, who was still seated, and dropped into a curtsy whose
depth indicated the proper respect and subservience expected from a
lowly companion.
Which is all I
am
, Katy reminded her rebellious inner self. A cypher.
A useful one, but in the eyes of the nobility, a cypher
nonetheless.

The colonel proffered a curt nod of approval.
Once again, Katy trailed the Farrs, mother and son, as Rankin led
them through a maze of passages to the guest wing, where the food
and peaceful repose all three were anticipating encountered a
sudden snag.

The dowager’s pale complexion turned pink,
her bosom swelled. Katy Snow was to be placed in the old
governess’s room? On the nursery floor? Indeed not! She needed the
child close by at all times.

Fortunately, the elderly butler, who had
served at the castle since—according to his frequent assertions to
his staff—he was knee high to a tadpole, seemed to have no
difficulty ignoring his mistress’s instructions. Katy was soon
ensconced in a fine bedchamber next to the dowager countess, with
Colonel Farr just across the hall.

Serena Moretaine savored her peace—laid down
on a chaise longue with scrolled back and upholstered in brocade
the shade of ripe peaches—for scarce five minutes before scratching
was heard at her door. Archer, who had been hanging up the
dowager’s gowns, scurried to answer the summons. It was Katy Snow,
looking anxious.

“
No, no, child. Do not look so glum,”
said the countess, beckoning Katy to her. “Must I ring the bell and
wait half an hour for someone to come up from the depths, then
search for you, and finally see your presence an hour after I
needed you? Absurd, quite absurd. Ah!” The countess frowned. “Yet
still you look so solemn.”

“
As well she might!” declared the
colonel, who had entered his mama’s suite almost on Katy’s heels.
“Did we not agree that Katy must be invisible? That she would do
nothing to raise the fair Drucilla’s ire?”

“
Fair!” exclaimed his mother. “Indeed
she is not. That woman’s heart is as dark as her hair.”

The colonel groaned. “I will not mince
nuances with you, mama. You have likely brought Drucilla’s wrath
down on the child’s head. She has no way to defend herself without
your aid, and I cannot have the two countesses of Moretaine
quarreling like fishwives during this visit. We are here to see
Ashby—”

“
Fishwives!
Fishwives,” the dowager repeated in a strangled tone softer
than her initial shriek. Katy dropped to her knees beside the
chaise longue and seized the countess’s hand.

Colonel Farr shifted to Parade Rest, arms
akimbo, and scowled at both women. “We are here to visit my
brother, who, it seems, is too ill to greet us. Does that not
strike you as ominous, mama? Ashby has never been robust. I cannot
like the sound of it. This is scarcely the time for female fits and
fidgets—”

The countess burst into tears. Katy hugged
her, fussed over her a moment, then bounded to her feet, fists
clenched. Damon could almost see the words hovering on her lips,
threatening to explode the myth that she could not talk. Indeed . .
. a veritable torrent of words seemed poised on the tip of her
tongue. The green eyes flared, the shapely lips quivered, her
delicious bosom heaved. Almost, but not quite, enough distraction
to deflect his worry about Ashby.

“
Yes, I know,” said Damon, holding up
his hand, palm out. “I am a beast and a bully and not fit to claim
the title of gentleman. Nonetheless, you will both obey me in this.
Mama, you will not quarrel with Drucilla. Katy, you will be the
drab mouse who inches back into her hole, as if she had never
ventured out. No, you baggage, do not roll your eyes at me! I am
determined it shall be so.”

“
We are not your troopers,” the dowager
forced out between sobs.

“
Indeed not. My troopers would be far
more obedient.”

On a sudden surge of blue blood—or was it a
vulgar display of tradesman’s temper?—Katy charged across the room.
The colonel, with a certain detached interest, allowed her to pound
his chest with several quite ineffectual blows before he calmly
seized both arms and put her from him. He shook his head. “A pity
no one saw fit to tan your bottom when you were young enough that
it might have done some good,” he observed.

“
Damon!” his mama cried, more shocked
by his mention of such an intimate part of Katy’s anatomy than by
the implied threat.

“
Goodnight, mama.” The colonel bowed,
while Katy seethed, as horrified by her behavior as she was at
being put aside as if she were of no more significance than a gnat.
“Let us hope that the morning brings more sanguine news of
Ashby.”

And then he was gone, leaving the dowager and
Katy Snow to console each other.

~ * ~

“
Sit, child,” Archer declared, raising
her eyes from her mending to follow Katy Snow as she paced the
countess’s sitting room. “You are exhausting me and wearing a path
in the earl’s Turkey carpet while you’re at it.”

Katy tossed her expressive hands in a gesture
of frustration, then clasped them tight in front of her, head bent.
Whether offering a prayer or willing her feet to be still, Archer
could not tell. “’Tis nonsense to expect the worst, Snow. The
colonel was in a temper when he said he feared for Lady Moretaine’s
health. And if you’re worried the earl will send you packing, you
may rest easy. A better-tempered boy I never knew.”

Katy, wide-eyed, shook her head.

“
Well, then,” Archer pronounced, “it
does you credit to worry about the earl’s health and my lady’s
anguish if she should find him poorly, but sit you must. You are
making yourself ill and me along with you.”

When Katy stood, glowering at her, lower lip
suspiciously close to a pout, Archer added more sharply, “You know
quite well what curiosity did to the cat. Our lady will return
shortly, and all will be revealed.”

Katy stamped her foot, flounced to a
comfortable-looking chair upholstered in blue satin brocade, and
plopped herself into it. Archer shook her head. The colonel had it
right when he said someone should have tanned her bottom long
since.

The door crashed open. Serena Moretaine
stumbled into the room. She leaned against the door, the back of
her hand to her mouth, her entire body shaking, as if she would sag
to the floor at any moment.

“
My lady!” Archer jumped to her feet,
but Katy was already there, encircling the dowager with her arms,
hugging her, speaking softly. Together, they steered the countess
across the room, settling her onto the chaise longue. Archer rushed
off to procure water from the pitcher on the nightstand in the
bedchamber, while Katy fitted herself onto the edge of the chaise
near the foot, wanting desperately to offer comfort, yet finding
herself woefully inadequate in the face of such abject misery. Last
night the countess had sobbed dramatically over no more than her
younger son’s harsh words. Today, she was quite horribly silent,
except for an occasional gasp for air. Last night had been a mere
fit of temper. Today was anguish, pure and simple. Katy clasped
both hands around the countess’s own and hung on. Eighteen suddenly
seemed very young, far from the wise adult she had imagined herself
to be.

Lady Moretaine accepted the crystal goblet of
water from Archer, took a small sip. A shudder passed through her.
“He is dying,” she said, looking straight ahead. “A chill from
Scotland’s cold rain, and my son is dying. He should never have
made the journey home. Yet he insisted, he tells us. Foolish,
foolish boy. Everyone knows Scottish doctors are superior to our
own. If he had but stayed . . .” The dowager’s voice trailed off.
She took another sip from the goblet, her fingers shaking so hard
the water sloshed from side to side.

“
He says,” the countess continued, “he
knew he’d been given his notice to quit. That is how he put
it—quite coldly, I thought. My poor Ashby,” she added on a whisper.
“He wished to come home to speak with Damon, for he says his
brother will soon be Moretaine. He wanted time to instruct him.”
The countess’s breath hitched in her throat. “For all his years at
war, Damon took it as badly as I. Turned as white as my dear Ashby.
He’s still there. Ashby asked . . . asked if I would be so kind as
to leave them alone . . .”

As the three women huddled together, offering
and seeking comfort where comfort was impossible, Katy wondered
about the younger countess, who had greeted them as if the earl
were merely indisposed, suffering from nothing worse than a cold.
Did she truly care so little? Or had the truth been kept from her?
Or . . . was she one of those who saw only what she wished to see?
Katy suspected the latter. Drucilla Moretaine was more selfish than
venal. A woman who had married well and enjoyed flaunting her
position at every opportunity. Which was probably the source of her
clash with the elder countess, the perfect Lady of the Castle, whom
Drucilla would never be able to emulate.

But if Drucilla suspected the severity of her
husband’s illness, would she have been so calm, so cool, as she had
been last night? If the earl were truly dying, she was about to
lose her position. Surely a terrifying thought to someone who
seemed to thrive on it.