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She was perfection. His foolish heart stuttered, and his drunken head reeled, wondering how he had ever had the luck and the nerve to touch her. She was as far above him as the spinning stars, the marbled moon, and yet for a little while she had been his.
Until he let her down and fucked it up, like he fucked up everything.
It was Kate that kept him here, even though she’d made it clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him. He didn’t blame her. It was his fault that she’d been at the gamekeeper’s cottage alone, and that Henderson had been able to—
His mind shut like a steel trap on what Henderson might have been able to do.
The reason she wanted nothing more to do with him was the very reason he couldn’t leave. At least while he was at Coldwell there was someone to look out for her, to keep an eye on that bastard. He couldn’t change what had happened, but he could do his best to make sure it didn’t happen again.
In his pocket his fingers closed around the dragonfly brooch he’d spotted in the window of the pawnbrokers in Hatherford all those weeks ago. This afternoon, he had gone in and emptied the coins from his pocket onto the counter. The shopkeeper, a crabbed old man with thistledown hair and small, moist eyes, had been in his trade long enough to know that when young men bought jewellery it was usually a transaction of the heart rather than the head. He had counted the coins with yellowed fingers like crows’ claws and pronounced them insufficient for such a pretty piece.
Jem left the shop with the dragonfly brooch in his pocket. He watched from outside as the man’s crab-like arm extended into the window space to drop his St Christopher in its place, amongst his hoard of mouldering treasures.
Afterwards, slumped in a corner of the Red Lion, Jem turned the dragonfly between his fingers, and realised what a stupid impulse it had been. A pitiful gesture—utterly inadequate. She had been married to a man who bought her diamonds.
She was still married to him.
Jem could offer her nothing. He had a shameful past and an unpromising future: no money, no prospects, no power. He couldn’t marry her. He couldn’t support her. He couldn’t even protect her. In fact, it was he who had put her in danger.
The night air had sobered him up a bit, but his self-disgust cut deeper than the cold.
He was late, he was drunk, he was trouble.
She’d be better off without him. Better still if she’d never met him at all.
‘Ah—Mrs Furniss. There you are. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.’
Kate put the Derby coffee service, brought down from the drawing room only half an hour ago, back into the china cupboard in the housekeeper’s parlour.
‘Not at all, Mr Henderson,’ she said coolly. Without turning to look at him she locked the cupboard again, keeping hold of her chatelaine and closing her fingers around the scissors. ‘Just busy, as I’m sure you are too.’
‘Not particularly.’
Henderson yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. He was sprawled in the velvet armchair by the fire, one ankle resting on the other knee and the newspaper spread out across his lap. ‘Sir Randolph is in the library, and I imagine it’ll be a while before he goes up to bed. Poor sod. You’d think after being away for a week a man would be hurrying up to join his new wife, wouldn’t you?’ His eyes went to the door in the corner. ‘Are you turning in yourself? Please—don’t let me stop you…’
‘I won’t.’ Her voice was flint and ice. ‘My bedroom is upstairs now, in the maid’s attic.’
Nothing had been said about what had happened. How could she call him to account for what he had done in the empty cottage in the woods when that would raise the question of why she had been there in the first place? However, the following day she had moved her things from the room adjoining the housekeeper’s parlour, up the stairs to a slant-ceilinged room across the landing from where Abigail, Eliza, and Susan slept.
She went to the door, holding herself rigid against a shudder of loathing. As she touched the handle Henderson spoke again.
‘I’ve been hearing about her ladyship’s plans for Christmas. It’s quite the extravagant programme of festivity you two have come up with. Carol singers and charades and musical entertainments—a full week of enforced merriment. Apparently she even wants to revive the tradition of the servants’ ball on Boxing Day.’
His voice was a sneering drawl. Kate wanted to turn on him and snap that Lady Hyde’s plans were of her own making—did he really think that she would have been instrumental in the creation of all that extra work when they still hadn’t managed to secure more help? Did he honestly imagine that she felt any enthusiasm for the ordeal of a servants’ ball? Instead, she kept her tone neutral. ‘Christmas is traditionally a time for entertaining. It’s hardly unusual to spend the season with family.’
‘It is for Sir Randolph. He loathes all that sentimental nonsense, as his wife should have known.’ He got to his feet and stretched expansively, then slid the gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket. ‘Looks like it’s time to lock up. Is that footman back yet?’
He always referred to Jem like that. As if Jem wasn’t significant enough to remember his name.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Kate said tightly. ‘The male staff are Mr Goddard’s responsibility. As is locking the back door.’
Panic squeezed her lungs as Henderson came towards her. His hands were in his pockets and he stopped a foot away, moustache twitching upwards in a small smile of amusement as she shrank back.
‘Not anymore.’ He produced a bunch of keys and dangled them in front of her. ‘Not while Sir Randolph is in residence, anyway. Getting on a bit, is Mr Goddard. It’s nice to give the old boy a break, ease the burden a bit.’ He flipped the keys around his finger and captured them in his fist. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll deal with the footman when he comes in. If he comes in. Who knows where he is, or what state he’ll be in?’
The skin between her shoulder blades crawled as she walked ahead of him along the corridor. She went through the door to the back stairs and let it swing shut behind her before allowing her shoulders to slump and her breath to escape in a rush. For a moment, she leaned against the wall, her heartbeat reverberating through her body as visceral panic subsided and a colder fear crystallised.
Who knows what state he’ll be in?