Ring of Secrets (26 page)

Some things paper could not disclose.

And he then had to discover their city connection. Without question, there was at least one man operating here. But who? So many Long Islanders had family in the city, and so many city residents had fled after the fire…but he had been making a chart. He had gotten his hands on a List of Associators—those so fervent about the rebel cause that they put their names to it before they even declared their independence. By comparing that to the lists he had obtained of residents of the various towns and what family history he could find, he was crafting a picture of loyalties and connections.

Footfalls in the hall prompted him to shuffle his maps and charts together and shove them into a drawer. He did that a great deal, it seemed, every time he heard Mother or Archie or, from time to time, a servant. And generally the person passed by without disturbing him.

Not tonight. The footsteps stopped outside his door, and the knock was followed immediately by the door opening.

Ben was glad he had hidden his work. All that remained on his desk was his volume of
The Odyssey
, on which he kept his gaze. “Usually one waits for an answer to one's knock before entering, Archie.”

His brother chuckled. “I don't intend to bother you long. Did you, ah…spend the evening with Miss Reeves as planned?”

Ben paused with a page halfway turned. He let it fall and then pivoted on his seat. Her name was enough to make his heart rate increase. After he had left her, it had taken him a full hour to clear his mind of thoughts of her enough to get to work, and he could only hope it wouldn't take him another hour to get back to it. “I did, yes. I departed shortly after supper.” After receiving, at long last, promise. After feeling the surge of rightness that accompanied her kiss. “Why?”

“I…” Archie sighed. Unusual for him. He rarely had difficulty stringing words together.

Discomfort squirmed within Ben. “Is something the matter with Miss Reeves?”

His brother shook himself. “I only wanted to say that I…well, I have revised my opinion of her. You were right. She is more intelligent than she lets on. But, Benny, do you really want that in a female?”

Ben laughed and turned back to his book. “Go to bed, Archie.”

“I only want to be sure you know what you are getting yourself into.”

“I am well aware.” More or less.

Archie tapped his palm against something, likely the doorjamb. “But you could find a simple girl. One who is uncomplicated. Who will not question your every word.”

“Where would the fun be in that?” Ben traced a finger down the edge of the page, eyes unfocused. A grin took over his mouth. “I like complication.”

“You are as bizarre as she. Very well, then. I consign you to your fate.”

Fate…a strange thing to contemplate when one was reading the ancient Greeks. If Winter was his fate, then nothing could keep them apart in the end.

But that wasn't to say there wouldn't be years of challenge and pain in the middle.

The house loomed like a monster with glowing yellow windows for eyes, its door a mouth waiting to devour her. For a long time Winter stood in the middle of the drive, Freeman waiting patiently beside her, as she tried to gather courage enough to face the beast.

Did she really want to go back in? To reenter that life? Perhaps she should sneak into the hidden stable cellar, gather those items most dear, and then slip out again. Go…somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Winter drew in a slow, quivering breath. The long-ago memorized psalm offered up that sentence as a promise kept. That even when surrounded by enemies, the Lord had a feast prepared. A head anointed. A cup overflowing.

She was no David, but the Lord had preserved her, especially tonight. He intended her to follow this path of peril that Robbie had set out.

Must she do it from Hampton Hall? Could she not somehow achieve it from another place?

Let innocence be your mask. Let your beauty hide your heart. Let your enemies count you a friend. Let no one see your true self.

Her fingers tangled into the soiled silk of her skirt. She had thought herself so clever when she devised those rules for herself, rules on how to survive in a world gone mad, rules for a game that meant death if she lost.

Perhaps they kept her alive. But they didn't allow her to live.

Father above, I want to be Yours above all. I want to follow Your will, Your way. You have called me here, but all this time I have played this game according to my own rules. Show me Yours. Please, Lord.

She must find a way to be like Viney. 'Twasn't enough to keep from being found guilty in the eyes of man. She must focus on remaining innocent before the Lord, no matter how others may judge her.

With one last, deep breath she paced up the driveway and nodded to Freeman that she would be fine. Then she opened the door wide enough to slip in and eased it closed behind her.

Raised voices came from Grandfather's study. Winter walked in that direction and took up a position outside the door, able to see in but confident they wouldn't see her.

Grandfather stood beside his favorite chair, gripping its back.
Grandmother paced before the unlit fireplace, waving a hand. “It is insufferable, Hampton.
You
are insufferable!”

“I warned her. I warned you. I have had enough of the whelp. Every day she was under my roof it was a slap across my face, a reminder of what her harlot of a mother did to us. How you could possibly abide her I cannot fathom.”

Winter swallowed down the pain. She had long known how he felt, and he had certainly proven it tonight. Why did the words still slice?

Grandmother muttered something sharp but unintelligible as she strode out of sight. A moment later she appeared again, her finger pointed at Grandfather. “You are an idiot. A loathsome, bitter idiot. She had a proposal. You could have sent a note to Fairchild telling him we had decided to allow the marriage, and she could have been gone in a way that would have brought us good connections instead of more vile gossip.”

His knuckles turned white before he abruptly released the back of his chair. “We will tell everyone she is dead. That we went for a picnic by the water and she fell in.”

Grandmother hissed out a breath. “Which will be believed only until one of our gentlemen friends sees her in Holy Ground. You stupid, blind fool—”

“Enough!” His roar was so loud, reverberating with ferocity, that Winter half expected the windows to shatter. He picked up a vase from the table and sent it to its death against the wall. “This is all your fault, woman! First you parade our daughter around like some light-skirt, inviting the eyes of every male in the state. Then, rather than learn your lesson from your failure with her, you bring her illegitimate chit into our home.”

Grandmother looked as if she might explode into a million pieces. “You are as slanderous as every other tongue in New York. Stupid Amelia may have been, but she was not immoral. They married.”

“Clasping hands like a Quaker does not equal legal marriage when one was raised in the Church of England.” He punctuated his words with a kick to the bookshelf. “You never should have—”

“
I
never should have? Yes, this is all my fault.
I
am the one who tossed our granddaughter to the streets for all my friends to make a harlot, when the richest man in New York has all but declared himself!”

With a growl, Grandfather stomped to the window. “‘All but,' is it? He has no intention of marrying the chit or he would have proposed well before now. Obviously the man has better sense than to burden himself with her.”

Another day, hearing those words may have brought tears to Winter's eyes. But after everything else she had suffered in the last few hours, they could only add another layer of glossed-over sorrow to the shell around her heart.

Grandmother snorted an unamused laugh. “You know so little of what goes on in this house. He kissed her tonight, and I have never seen such a besotted fool as he looked when he left.”

Grandfather turned his back on his wife, his arms folded as he stared out the window.

Grandmother strode to the center of the room and halted. “You listen to me, Bartholomew Hampton. I will not endure another scandal as I did with Amelia. I will not stand there pretending I don't hear all the speculation when it comes out that Winifred is in Holy Ground, when everyone I respect wonders about our family. You will go there and fetch her home, or I swear to you I will leave you.”

He grunted. “You think I will mourn you?”

Winter's breath caught when she saw Grandmother's wicked little smile. “I will leave you…and go to Simon De Wite.”

Winter squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't even know who this De Wite was, but the implications were obvious. She knew her grandfather had been unfaithful, but Grandmother too?

Grandfather spat out a curse. “That is how you avoid scandal?”

“If I am going to be subjected to it, it might as well be for something from which I get some pleasure.”

Winter feared she might be ill. She forced her eyes back open, though, and saw that her grandfather's fingers twitched in measure to the tic in his jaw.

“Even if I fetch her back, 'twill be too late. She will not be a maid. You will not be able to marry her off, not be able to redeem through her the reputation you lost with Amelia.”

Grandmother laughed. “Oh, Hampton. Come now. You think we females have no tricks to cover this sort of thing?”

His eyes narrowed, but he held his silence for a long, interminable
minute. Then his hands clenched. “Have it your way. If I can find her, I will bring her back.”

Well, Winter knew a cue when she heard one. She stepped into the door's opening with all the calm she could muster. “That ought not to be too difficult.”

Both Hamptons spun to face her, both with shock on their faces. Grandmother's colored with relief, Grandfather's with fury.

“Winifred!”

“My name is
Winter
, Grandmother. I will not answer to ‘Winifred' anymore.”

The relief gave way to anger in the matriarch's eyes. “Now see here—”

“You have both said your fill this evening. 'Tis my turn now.” She looked from one to the other. Should she feel some bond to them? Some affection or loyalty that ought to have flowed through her veins because of shared blood? They seemed like nothing but strangers. “I came with you to the city because I was devastated and lost, and I believed you when you said it was the only way to survive. I let you strip me of all I am and became all you insisted because the thought of losing the only connection I had left to my mother was unbearable.”

Winter shook her head, and then she had to clutch it when it throbbed. “I see now that there is nothing of Mother here, not in the two of you. Question their vows all you like, but the truth is that it is
you
who know not the meaning of marriage, nor of family.”

Grandfather stepped forward. Fire smoldered in his eyes, but 'twas banked. “Hold your tongue, chit, or—”

“Or what, Grandfather?” She managed a mocking smile. “Will you toss me back to Holy Ground? Go ahead and try. I have faith, wits, and strength enough to pull myself from whatever ditch into which you would throw me. Perhaps thanks to the blood of generations of farmers.”

His face mottled red. “You hateful—”

“I am not.” Her voice broke and her eyes burned. The truth of her claim settled over her heart like a soothing balm. “You have hurt me and threatened me and tried your best to break me. And I have resented you and fought you and wished I were anywhere but under your roof. Yet…yet I don't want to be at odds with you. I don't want to
carry this burden another day. We will never see eye to eye, and perhaps there will never be warmth between us, but can we not be civil? Can we not live peaceably?”

Grandmother scowled. “Not if you persist in shows of disrespect.”

Much as she wanted to argue, wanted to be done with them, it
was
their house. She needed to respect that. She nodded again, more carefully this time. “I realize that, and I apologize for any such incidents. But respect must be mutual, Grandmother. I will give you what you are due as my matron and my hostess, but I cannot tolerate being treated as a slave and denied my right to think for myself. Let me be who I am. I promise you I will not shame or embarrass you.”