Lady Silence (9 page)

“
That is exactly what I was going to
propose in my paper, colonel,” declared the doctor. “There are a
number of cases in which a perfectly normal child has been
frightened into silence by some disastrous event.”

Damon inclined his head. “Perhaps. But I fear
that was not my meaning.” He watched Rowley intently as the young
man finally comprehended the colonel’s remark.

“
Impossible! She was twelve when she
came to Farr Park. She’s past eighteen now. No one could manage
such a masquerade for that length of time. Nor would she. Miss Snow
is a sweet, charming young lady. How frequently have I heard Lady
Moretaine call her a treasure. Which she undoubtedly is,” the
doctor added, regaining his customary confidence in the superiority
of his judgment.

The colonel proffered a tight smile that was
more chilling than his frown. “I believe we must agree to
disagree,” he murmured. “Did you wish to see the girl today,
Rowley?”

“
Indeed,” replied the doctor cooly. “I
am attempting to stimulate her voice by applying pressure to the
muscles in her neck—”

“
I beg your pardon.”

“
I apply pressure here . . . and here,”
said Mr. Rowley, raising his fingers to his own throat and
demonstrating his technique.

“
You massage Katy’s neck?” said Colonel
Farr, most ominously.

“
Ah, yes . . . I believe you might call
it that.”

“
Katy!” Damon bawled. His recent
condescension to addressing her as Miss Snow had completely slipped
his mind.

She appeared from behind him and stood to his
right, keeping the width of the desk between herself and William
Rowley. Damon did not think it was by accident.

“
Katy, Mr. Rowley wishes you to go with
him for one of his treatments.”

She planted her feet hard against the
carpet, as if a tree of ancient root. She crossed her arms over her
chest; her head shook a tiny but decisive
No
.

“
Miss Snow,” Damon said, carefully
correcting his form of address, “now acts as my secretary. “I am
certain that as a fellow author you can appreciate how much work is
involved in that chore. I believe—no, I am sure—I cannot spare her.
Your efforts on her behalf are much appreciated, Rowley, but I
think such treatments must cease. If you will send a reckoning to
my steward, you will receive your fee promptly.

Masterful!
Katy chortled. She could kiss every last line in the
colonel’s face, particularly that small jagged scar at the corner
of his mouth. When the door shut firmly behind Mr. William Rowley,
Katy fell to her knees beside the colonel’s chair. She grabbed his
hand and kissed it.

“
I take it,” said the colonel in
strangled tones, “that the good doctor’s hands did not always stay
on your throat? Oh, blast it, child, don’t cry all over
me!”

How had he known? How had he guessed that of
all the men in her new life, she feared Rowley the most? But Lady
Moretaine, Mapes, and Mrs. Tyner thought the world of the doctor.
Who evidently strayed over the line only with herself. And
unwilling to be a talebearer and upset the household, Katy had not
complained. But Colonel Farr had instantly taken the doctor’s
measure. He was her savior—again. Well and truly her hero.

With his free hand, the colonel touched the
mound of curls piled high on top of her head. Katy gulped, tried to
gather her wandering wits. And failed.

“
I’m not a magician, child,” he said,
as if reading her thoughts. “Palmer gave me a hint. He has a
fondness for you, I believe. Not a bad match for a girl of no
background. I doubt you could do better.”

He was twining his fingers through her
hair and suggesting she wed his steward!
Beast!
Didn’t he realize he was supposed to be a
hero? The romantic do-no-evil fantasy of her girlish heart?
Ruthlessly, Katy kept her head down, eyes tight shut, hiding her
fierce rush of anger.

He’d been too long without, Damon thought,
his face twisting in disgust as he took in what his fingers were
doing. He’d clung too fervently to his fierce desire to be left
alone. No wonder he lusted after the first pretty face . . .

His employee.

His mama’s companion.

A
virgin
, by God . . . or maybe not.

Hair so soft, like waves of golden grain.
Struggling against frustration, Damon groped for a defensive
strategy, some means of cutting through the thrall that was
threatening to bind him.

She was an encroaching baggage, Katy Snow. A
child of mysterious, and surely lowly, origin. He was quite right
when he had called her an adventuress. He had to fight the
insidious power of her beauty, the fascination of the mystery from
which she’d sprung, the strange allure of a female who did not
talk. Surely any man who had survived the Peninsular campaign and
Waterloo could manage one small girl.

“
Tell me, Katy Snow,” he drawled, “are
you an hysterical mute, as the esteemed Mr. Rowley argues, or are
you the conniving little minx I think you are?”

Katy shot to her feet, fists clenched, green
eyes smoldering.

Did she have the slightest idea how close to
the brink she teetered? How much he wanted to scoop her up and . .
.

Ostentatiously, she lifted the pendant watch
dangling about her neck, perusing it with all the fascination of
one who has never seen a timepiece before. A small secret smile
tugged at her lips.

In the few weeks they had been together
Damon had learned to read her quite well: The answer to his first
question was:
That’s for me to know and
never tell
. The answers to the questions he had asked
himself were less visible. Did she recognize her power to attract?
Did she sense how little control he had left? He greatly feared she
did.

The dastardly little chit dropped an
exaggerated curtsy and stalked from the room. Time for Lady
Moretaine’s portion of Katy Snow’s day.

Hell and damnation, and the devil fly away
with all women.

~ * ~

“
Mama,” said the colonel a few days
later as they dipped their spoons into a light clear soup liberally
sprinkled with fresh dill, “I have had a brief note from Drucilla,
informing me that Moretaine has gone shooting in Scotland. She has
sent on my post but does not know when it may reach
him.”

“
Clearly, she did not accompany him.”
The dowager’s tone was a condemnation.

“
A shooting party is scarcely the place
for a female.”

“
Activities are arranged for the
wives,” his mother responded repressively. “
I
always accompanied your father when he decided
to reduce the population of partridge, pheasants, grouse and
woodcock. And possibly ptarmigan and a hare or two,” she added to
demonstrate her acquaintance with Scotland’s fine variety of
wildlife.

“
I should have remembered,” Lady
Moretaine continued. “Ashby goes to Wishart each year at this time.
I doubt he will return before All Saints Day.” She sighed. “I
believe you must simply tell that woman we will visit as soon as he
is in residence at Castle Moretaine.”

“
I
must?”
Damon said, a spark that might have been humor kindling in his
usually solemn dark eyes.

“
Indeed,” his mama retorted. “I do not
correspond with that . . . with the other Lady
Moretaine.”

Whatever had occurred between the two
countesses of Moretaine, Damon thought, it must have been
momentous. Or was it all a tempest in a teapot, female bickerings
over little or nothing? Women were such strange creatures.

Shame struck him. He was echoing nearly
forgotten mutterings of men over brandy at their clubs. The
mutterings of soldiers had been more charitable—a wistful, even
worshipful, longing for the women they left behind—sometimes even
as they fondled the dark-eyed doxies at their side. Not that
Wellington had ever complained of the absence of his wife, of
course. But he’d always had the pick of the Peninsular crop, had he
not? And little sentiment for his poor Kitty, left cooling her
heels at home.

Damon supposed that to women men were strange
creatures. In truth, how dull the world would be if the Good Lord
had not made the thoughts and actions of one sex incomprehensible
to the other. Even his mama was frequently a mystery. And the women
who followed the drum had to have been as mad as they were gallant.
And Katy Snow? Katy was a most strange creature, he could not deny
it. Yet her singularity added to her appeal.

As he did so often at table, Damon glanced at
her out of the corner of his eye. There she sat in a gown the color
of light jade. The gauzy fabric she wore tucked into her bosom was
woven with silver thread. Candlelight reflected off her porcelain
skin, her rosy lips, the wispy blond curls escaping her upswept
coiffure. The green eyes were hidden, however, demurely lowered to
her soup.

The dowager interrupted the colonel’s
vicarious enjoyment of his table companion. “We must have some new
gowns made for you, Katy, before we visit Moretaine.”

Katy choked on her soup, coughing and
vehemently shaking her head at the same time.

“
Indeed, yes,” declared the dowager,
after Colonel Farr rose to the occasion by springing up to pat his
secretary on the back.

Katy’s coughs eased, but she sat there, with
tears still dripping down her face, shaking her head as hard as her
breathlessness would allow.

The colonel produced a handkerchief and
gently dried her tears. Ignoring him, Katy thrust out her hand,
index finger jabbing downward with considerable force. The emerald
eyes, as belligerent as he had ever seen them, shot fire.

“
You will
not
eat in the kitchen,” Lady Moretaine stated
firmly. “Nor do you need to look at me so, Damon. I am not
proposing to adorn the child in silks and satin. In fact, I concede
the necessity of clothing her as a proper companion while at Castle
Moretaine. The new gowns I speak of will be plain—though not wholly
without appeal,” she added as Katy stared at her in dismay.
“Believe me, child, I am far too fond of you to expose you to my
daughter-in-law’s wrath. We shall make every effort to have you
disappear into the woodwork.”

Colonel Farr’s snort of derision was enough
to set the candles in the center of the table to fluttering. But
all he said was, “She needs a new riding habit as well. And no need
to dip into your purse, mama. I shall stand the nonsense. Without
an owner roistering his way through society these seven years, the
estate has done very well. Palmer’s a good man. Have the reckonings
sent to me.”

“
That is generous, my dear. Thank you.”
Lady Moretaine and her son avoided Katy Snow’s indignant gaze by
turning their attention to the trout sprinkled with chives just
placed before them.

Castle Moretaine was in Gloucestershire, not
far north of Bath. Castle Moretaine was not at all where Katy Snow
wished to go.

Castle Moretaine was close by Oxley Hall, an
ugly four-square manor house without a hint of architectural style,
except for its construction in what was commonly known as Bath
stone. Its walls might be lighter than the soot-drenched houses in
Bath itself, but the heart of Oxley Hall was black as a moonless
night. Dark as the people inside it.

She would never go back.
Never!

Farr Park was her sanctuary, yet there was no
way she could beg to stay at home while Lady Moretaine braved her
daughter-in-law’s uncertain temper . For most of the years Katy had
attended the dowager countess, she had been young enough to easily
avoid the dreaded Drucilla’s notice. The younger Lady Moretaine
paid only a single duty call on her mother-in-law each Season in
London. The remainder of their enforced meetings were at routs,
balls, and other ton events that Katy Snow did not attend. This
past Season, however, had been more difficult, for the earl’s wife
had finally noticed the delicate beauty of the elder countess’s
companion. She had asked questions, demanded answers. Drucilla had
not been pleased by the encroaching little chit’s origins, her
all-too-charming person, nor by her mama-in-law’s obvious
preference for what the younger countess referred to as the Upstart
Tart.

Worse yet, it was likely Lady Oxley was on
calling terms with the younger Countess of Moretaine. The thought
was nearly paralyzing. A variety of disguises flitted through
Katy’s mind. A wig? Penciled lines of aging? Hunched shoulders? But
disguise was impossible without an explanation to the countess. And
the colonel. And that, of course, was wholly impossible.

Yet the alternative—discovery—was too
terrible to contemplate. For, legally, she was underage and had no
rights. She was chattel. She could be disposed of, like a
sacrificial pawn on a chessboard, at the whim of her guardian. She
could be screamed at, shouted at, beaten. Used as a “convenient.”
She had no rights. No one to whom she could complain. Not even the
vicar had been willing to interfere between a recalcitrant child
and her guardian.

So she had run away.

And now she would be going back.

“
Katy, Katy, my dear, what is wrong?
You look quite pale.”

Katy Snow looked down at the uneaten trout on
her plate and, of course, said nothing at all.