Vermillion glanced away. She looked paler than she should have, less vibrant, and he wondered if he were the cause. "You have nothing to apologize for. The fault was mine. I shouldn't have let you kiss me."
He eased a little closer, caught a whiff of her soft perfume, and his groin subtly tightened. "You didn't really let me. Things just got a little out of hand. I work for you. I shouldn't have forgotten that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you and I know that I did."
She swallowed. She didn't look much like Vermillion today, in her pale green muslin gown sprigged with little pink roses. She looked softer, more vulnerable. More like Lee. He found himself saying things he hadn't intended.
"I just… you just looked so pretty that day and I… I wanted to kiss you. If you hadn't mentioned Mondale—"
Her head came up. "What does Andrew have to do with it?"
He cleared his throat, embarrassed that he had reacted as strongly as he had. "You said you preferred the way Mondale kissed and—"
"I never said that." She looked down at her slippers, studied the leaves on the path beside her toes. She lifted her gaze to his face. "I liked your kisses, Caleb. No one's ever kissed me quite that way. I liked it very much."
Whatever he was feeling, the pressure in his chest began to ease. "As I said, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
She nodded, but instead of looking pleased she looked regretful and thoughts of seduction slithered like a serpent back into his head. His body clenched and his loins began to fill. Caleb silently cursed.
"Thank you for the apology," Vermillion said, pulling his thoughts in a safer direction. "You didn't really have to. I wouldn't have fired you. Not for that."
Caleb gazed off toward the stable, wondering if he really had come just to keep his job. "I could use your help with the foal. His mother will be weaning him soon. It would be easier if there were someone he was attached to, someone who could take his mother's place for a while until he gets adjusted to being on his own."
Her features seemed to brighten. The sparkle returned to her eyes, but perhaps he had only imagined it had been gone. "I suppose I could come out early in the morning."
He nodded, tried not to feel quite so pleased. "I would really appreciate it if you would. I know it will be good for the foal."
"All right, then, yes. I'll come on the morrow." She was smiling when he left the garden. For the first time in the last two days, Caleb found himself smiling, too.
He told himself it was relief that his job was secure, that he could continue working to discover what was going on at Parklands, trying to ferret out a traitor. But he wasn't convinced it was entirely the truth. He reminded himself that the traitor might be the very female who had begun to haunt his thoughts, but convincing himself of that, he found, was even harder to do.
7
« ^ »
From the doorway of the small room she occupied on the bottom floor of the house in Buford Street, Mary Goodhouse waited in the darkness as Annie kissed baby Jillian good night. She smoothed back the infant's fine, light brown hair, then tucked the child into the cradle Miss Durant had provided each of the newborns at birth.
"Sleep tight, sweet luv," Annie whispered.
As soon as Annie disappeared upstairs to the bedchamber she shared with Rose, Mary drew her shawl around her shoulders and slipped quietly out of her room. The floors creaked in the hall and so did the hinges on the door at the back of the house, but none of the lamps came on inside as she slipped out into the darkness.
It was cold this late in the evening, the stars like crystal specks in the black expanse of sky above her head. Mary shivered as she walked the deserted streets, unnerved by the echo of her worn soles on the cobbles. An occasional hackney rumbled past. She spotted a ladybird talking to a group of sailors and kept on walking.
There was something important she had to do, a matter that would secure a future for herself and her babe and provide the money she needed to make the long sea voyage to the Colonies.
Freddie would be waiting. He had sailed for a town named Charleston in a place called South Carolina and she intended to find him. But she had to leave soon, before it was too near her time to make the journey.
Mary pulled her shawl a little tighter and kept on walking. She had sent a message with one of the local chimney sweeps, a note she had hired a scribe to write that simply read I know everything. Meet me at the Cock and Thistle Tuesday at midnight.
Mary was certain he would come. He had too much to lose not to answer her summons.
It was a bit of a walk to the tavern, but she didn't have much money, not enough for a hackney, at any rate. She had picked the Cock and Thistle because it was far enough away that she wouldn't be recognized but not so far that she couldn't make it afoot.
She glanced at her surroundings. In the daytime, she hadn't really noticed the dilapidated buildings with their boarded-up windows or the scraps of paper and trash lying in the gutters. She hadn't smelled the odor of sewage or seen the darkened alleys where drunken men slept off their stupor against the rough brick walls.
Mary ignored a trickle of fear and told herself not to worry; she was almost to the tavern. In the distance, she could see the glow of lamplight shining through the letters on the glass in the wide front window, hear the muted laughter of the patrons inside.
Still, as she passed the entrance to a deserted alley and a man stepped out of the shadows, a chill swept through her. His clothes were worn and a battered brown slouch hat covered most of his greasy hair. She would simply cross the street, she told herself, put herself a safe distance away from him. She turned and started walking in that direction when a second man appeared, this one wearing a woolen hat, tattered greatcoat, and old knit gloves with his fingers poking out through the ends.
The men were on her before she had time to run. Mary tried to scream but a dirty hand clamped over her mouth and an arm tightened viciously around her belly. She thought of the babe and kicked backward, connecting with the man's shin as he dragged her off the street and into the darkness of the alley. Mary struggled but his arms were like steel, his hold so tight she could barely breathe. Her heels bumped over the cobbles, then slid into the mud and dirt of the alley, and fear unlike anything she had known welled up inside her.
" 'Urry up, Shamus," the first man said. "We 'aven't got all night."
"Od's teeth! The bawd is heavier than she looks," the second man grumbled. "Got a bun in the oven, can't ye see?"
The first man moved closer, and in a thin ray of moonlight she could see the blackened stumps of his teeth, the perspiration glistening in the deep grooves and lines in his forehead.
"Ye shouldna' tried ta bargain with the devil, luv. 'Tis only gonna buy ye a ticket straight ta hell."
Fresh fear shot through her. Mary looked into the man's grizzled face and knew in that instant the message she had sent was a warrant for her death. She would never see her Freddie again, never live to birth her babe. Trying to get money from the man she had overheard that night at Parklands was the maddest, most dangerous thing she had ever done.
As Mary stared into the brooding dark eyes of her attacker, felt his fingers wrap around her neck and begin to squeeze, they were the last thoughts she ever had.
Dressed in breeches and boots, standing next to Arlie in the middle of the barn, Lee watched Caleb Tanner shoveling manure from one of the open stalls. His week was over. When he finished today, the wager he had lost would be paid.
Arlie chuckled softly. " 'E won, ye know."
She dragged her attention from Caleb back to her ancient groom. "What are you talking about? I won the race. That is why he is paying the forfeit."
His thin lips curved, showing a couple of missing teeth. "Pulled up, 'e did. Just at the last. Seen it plain. Standin' right outside when 'e did it."