To Catch a Bride (44 page)

When he returned to the table, George said, “So, you are serious about marrying this girl you found in Egypt?”

Rafe looked up, ready to defend Ayisha, but his brother looked earnest and sincere.

“Ayisha, yes, very serious.”

George gave him a searching look. “You care for her,” he said on a note of discovery.

“I do,” Rafe admitted. He swallowed and added, “Very much.” For some reason their confessions and the realization that his brother loved his wife had dissolved some of the distance between them.

George nodded. “Then we shall be delighted to welcome her into the family, won’t we, Lucy?”

“Yes, of course,” Lucy said. “Would you like to have the wedding here at Axebridge, Rafe?”

Rafe nodded. He was shaken by the simplicity of it all. He’d anticipated a fight, recriminations, acrimony, and bitterness. And in a way, that’s what had happened. But he hadn’t anticipated acceptance. And forgiveness.

“Lovely,” Lucy exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to organize a wedding. And where is Miss Machabeli at the moment?” Both George and Lucy looked at him in gentle inquiry.

The silence stretched.

“I have no idea,” Rafe said eventually. “I seem—I seem to have lost her.” His throat was suddenly too full to speak, and all he could do was to pull out Ayisha’s letter to him, push it toward his sister-in-law, and go and stare into the fire while they read it.

 

 

 

 

S
o what do you intend to do?” said George later that evening over a brandy.

“Find her. Get her back. Marry her,” Rafe said and sipped the mellow liquid. He could not quite get over the fact that here he was, talking to his brother like . . . a friend.

“I only came here to tell you I was marrying her and to tell the vicar to call the banns, even though I’ve written to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a special license, just in case.”

Lucy squeezed his hand. “You’ll find her.”

Rafe hoped to hell she was right. The thought of life without Ayisha was . . . too unutterably bleak to contemplate. “I’ve also written to Bow Street and they’ll make inquiries in London and Portsmouth. And I’ll open up my London house and get it ready for Ayisha and me to live in.”

“You won’t live at Foxcotte?” Lucy asked.

He shook his head. “No, Ayisha’s always lived in a city. I think she’d find the country too dull.”

George nodded. “So what are you going to do with Foxcotte?”

“Do with it?” Rafe frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not good for a property to remain unoccupied for such a long time. It’s your decision of course,” his brother said, being careful not to step on toes, “but if it were mine, I’d be getting tenants in or selling it.”

Ayisha had said much the same, Rafe recalled.

“I’m not selling it.” Rafe was surprised by the vehemence with which that came out. He moderated his tone, “I might not have been there since I was fourteen, but I don’t want to sell it.”

“So you’ll get tenants in?”

“I’ll consider it,” Rafe said. “I’m going back to Lady Cleeve’s—she’s Ayisha’s grandmother, lives near Penton Mewsey, not far from Foxcotte—and I might drop in on Barry, my agent, on the way and see how things stand.”

“You think Ayisha might still be in the area?” Lucy asked.

Rafe shrugged. “I have no idea. But I can’t help thinking she’d go back there or write if she was in trouble. Lady Cleeve is her grandmother, after all.”

“Do I have your permission to put a notice in the newspapers?” George asked.

“Notice? You mean like a missing notice?”

George smiled. “No, I meant a betrothal announcement from me, as the head of the family. If the girl—”

“Ayisha.”

“Yes, if she sees it, it might help your case to make it obvious your family supports the match. I think a large notice with the family crest should do the trick.”

“It would, George. Thank you,” Rafe managed to say. He knew full well that the large notice and family crest was not for Ayisha to read—even if she read newspapers, she wouldn’t recognize the family crest. It was a message for the
ton
.

His brother was making it clear to the world that this marriage had the full support of the Earl of Axebridge. And that the Earl of Axebridge expected the
ton
to fall into line and support it, too.

It was more family support than Rafe had experienced in a lifetime.

 

 

 

 

A
t midafternoon Rafe passed through Andover. Ten days since he’d last seen Ayisha. Desperation gnawed at him increasingly, the fear that she might indeed be gone forever goading him on in his relentless search. He refused to give in to despair. He would find her. He had to. His entire future happiness depended on it.

He rode past the turnoff to Foxcotte when an idea struck him. What if she’d gone there? She knew it was his, knew it was close—she’d noticed the sign that first time.

What if Ayisha had gone to earth at Foxcotte?

He urged his horse faster, rode through the village at a smart clip, and stopped at the big, old wrought-iron gates, with the fox emblem so familiar and beloved from his boyhood.

Then the gates were black and gleaming and always stood open, waiting for his return. Now they were dull and closed, chained shut with a thick chain and an old padlock.

Beyond them the gravel drive was weedy and unkempt. No carriage had driven up there in a long time.

Rafe tied his horse to the gate and climbed the wall. Some of the stones had fallen away, he saw. Repairs were needed.

As he walked up the path, memories flooded him. The place was a mess, but oddly, his spirits lifted. He’d always loved this place, had been happy here.

But because he’d never really come to terms with his grandmother’s death he felt somehow . . . guilty. She’d died alone, with nobody to hold her hand, comfort her. He should have been there. She’d taken him in when nobody had wanted him. He’d let her down.

Logic argued that it wasn’t his fault, that nobody had told him, but he knew in his heart he hadn’t written as often as he should have, and if he had, someone—one of the servants—would have told him. The guilt remained, so he’d never been back. He would not profit by her death.

It was a mistake, he realized. This place would have helped his guilt, not exacerbated it. He reached the front of the house. Of course it was locked. He peered in at the windows and all was stillness, dust, and holland coverings over the furniture.

Nobody had been here in a very long while.

He walked around the side, glancing in at each window he came to. It was the same: shadows, dust, undisturbed for years, and holland covers. The stables were silent and empty, also chained and padlocked shut. The high-walled kitchen garden was largely gone to weeds; only a corner patch next to the gardener’s cottage was cleared and neat. A wisp of smoke twined from the chimney of the old gardener’s cottage.

Rafe smiled, remembering. Old Nat’s cottage, built into the wall. Nothing had changed. There was the sagging clothes-line strung between the cottage and the old apple tree, and on it were pegged an apron, some dishcloths, and two of Mrs. Nat’s enormous bright pink flowered flannel nightgowns, flapping like giant sails in the wind. He smiled at the familiar sight.

The old gardener would be ancient by now. Or maybe there was just Mrs. Nat still living there. Mrs. Nat who’d always produced a thick slice of cake or a handful of biscuits for a growing boy.

He didn’t go over and knock on her door. If he did, she’d make a pot of tea and he wouldn’t get away for an hour or more. He needed to keep searching.

He needed to get back to Cleeveden, see if there was any news there.

Nobody had been inside Foxcotte for years. Ayisha wasn’t here, after all.

He trudged down the drive, climbed the fence, and rode back to the village. He’d get tenants in, he decided. He’d laid his ghosts. The place was starting to crumble, and he didn’t want that to happen.

The agent, Mr. Barry, was very pleased to see him. “I’m just about to have my tea, Mr. Ramsey, and I’d be honored if you’d join me,” the man said.

A hearty tea of bread, butter, honey, jam, cream, cheese, pickles, and several kinds of pastries was laid out on the table, along with a jug of cool local beer. Rafe had no interest in the spread, but he accepted. Best to get the property sorted as quickly as possible. He wanted everything in order once he found Ayisha.

They discussed the property—or rather Mr. Barry discussed, while Rafe listened and nodded while the man ate his tea. Rafe ate nothing. These days he had no appetite for food. He sipped a little of the sour local beer.

“I’ve had several offers to rent Foxcotte, sir. Try one of these.” Barry passed him a plate and Rafe absently took one of the pies.

Barry continued, “I did write to you, if you recall. Please eat something, sir. You’re looking a mite peaky if you don’t mind me saying so. Have a bite of that little little pie there, why don’t you?”

Rafe, sighing inwardly at the man’s kindly concern, forced himself to take a bite, just to shut him up. “I did get your letters,” he said “but now I’m thinking—” He broke off and looked at what he was eating. A flattish, triangular pie that looked and tasted very familiar. And not from his boyhood. His heart started thumping.

“Where did this pie come from?” he asked Barry in a voice that was strangely calm.

“The village bakery, sir. They’re a bit different but very tasty—sir? Sir?”

But Rafe had shoved the rest of the pie in his pocket and was gone. In three steps he’d slammed out of the cottage, hurled himself onto his horse, and was galloping toward the village.

Oh God, he prayed. Let it be her. He didn’t dare hope, but the pie . . . it was exactly like—

Please, God.

What if she was there, in the bakery itself? It had to be her, it had to.

He burst into the bakery and looked wildly around. No sign of Ayisha. Hollow desperation gripped him.

He pulled out the remains of the pie and brandished it fiercely. “Who made this pie?”

“Summat wrong with it?” The baker came forward, a big meaty-looking fellow, his chin jutted belligerently.

“No. But
who made it
?” Good God, he was shaking.

“A young lass brings ’em in.”

Oh God, oh God. “Where does she live?” Rafe said, amazed to hear how calm his voice sounded.

The man gave him a long, suspicious look. “I don’t rightly hold with telling toffs where a pretty young girl might live—she’s a good lass, an’ all—”

Rafe wanted to punch the man in his fat, smug face, and at the same time shake his hand for protecting Ayisha, for it must—it had to be her. Instead he fixed him with a cold look and said, “I must insist—”

“Oh, Thomas, don’t you know who this is?” A plump, middle-aged woman came bustling forward. “It’s young master Rafe from the old house, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes.” Rafe stared at her and through the fog of desperation, his memory stirred. “Jenny—no, Janey Bray, isn’t it?”

The woman beamed. “That’s right, but I’m Mrs. Thomas Rowe now. Fancy you rememberin’ me. I haven’t seen you since you were a lad, but I remember you, sir. Always liked my curd cakes, you did.”

“I remember. Now, the young woman who made these pies,” Rafe reminded her.

“Old Nat’s granddaughter? She bakes them pastries herself and brings ’em in every day. Something a bit different, aren’t they, sir? Very tasty.”

“Old Nat’s granddaughter?” he echoed hollowly. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure?” Damn, damn, damn. If she was known to these people, she couldn’t be Ayisha. The bitterness of deflated hopes swamped him.

“That’s right. Turned up, she did, nearly two weeks ago, gave Nat’s place a good clean out—well, it needed it—been so long since Mrs. Nat passed on, and old Nat before her. I disremember who told us she was Nat’s granddaughter—do you recall, Thomas? No, me neither, but that’s who she is, right enough.”

Hope stirred cautiously. Rafe said carefully. “She’s at the old gardener’s cottage?”

“That’s right, sir, you remember—” But Rafe was gone.

The gardener’s cottage was built into the high garden wall, and one of its charms that Rafe recalled from his boyhood was that you could walk into the cottage from the kitchen garden and go right through it and be outside the estate.

Rafe rode around the back way, his heart racing. To think he’d avoided going there earlier because he thought old Nat’s wife would keep him talking.

With shaking hands he tied his horse to a tree, wiped his damp palms, and knocked at the door of the old gardener’s cottage.

The door opened and she stood there dressed, village style, in some faded old dress of Mrs. Nat’s and an apron. There was a smut of flour on her cheek, her hair was carelessly tied up with a bit of green cloth, her nose was red, her lips were chapped from the cold, and she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

His hungry gaze devoured her. She stared at him, shocked, unmoving, silent, her eyes as wary as they had been when he first knew her.

He didn’t care. He’d tamed her then and he’d do it again. Or die trying.

The kitten emerged and rubbed against his ankles, meowing plaintively to be picked up.

Rafe only had eyes for Ayisha.

“You’re all thin again,” he choked out. What a stupid thing to say. All the speeches he’d rehearsed in his mind, all the words he’d saved to bring her back to him and when it counted, that was all he could say. But it was true. She was pitifully thin. She must have starved all this time. He ached for her.

He stared at her, willing the words to come, but he could only stare. And stare. Devouring her with his eyes.

“You’re thinner, too,” she said softly.