Chapter 15
“Ibeg your pardon for the intrusion, Your Grace,” McKay opened the door to Gideon’s study after a pre-emptive knock.
“I am busy, McKay,” Gideon drawled, not looking up from the plan of the coal mine he was hoping to reopen in Lancashire.
With investment from Obadiah Threnthorpe. His knowledge and my financial clout, and we could rival the North-East for coal production.
It was an exciting prospect that always set his blood alight and his heart racing. The idea that he would step out of his father’s shadow, at least, achieve something which even that devilish old man could not have criticized or belittled.
Not to mention Aaron, wherever he is in this world or the next. This will be the final victory, the proof that I was worthy of the Dukedom—not he.
“It’s… Her Grace, the Duchess,” McKay said, sounding uncertain, which was unusual.
Gideon peeked up, frowning. Once, the planning of his great industrial triumph was all that was needed to set his blood afire.
Now, the mention of Catherine made the drum of his heart pound with the relentless force of the rhythms that had sent men into battle for countless generations.
Mention of her name made Gideon ready to fight a battle, either for or against her.
“What of her?” Gideon said, suddenly remembering the lurid dream he’d had of her the night before.
“She is not in her rooms. As far as I can tell, she is not to be found within these walls. Not at all, Your Grace.”
Gideon stared at him for a long moment as though he were mad.
“I have had the staff look on all floors and in all rooms. I was concerned about her being out of the house without access to... medicine,” McKay added, “and there is no sign of her.”
Gideon got to his feet, striding for the door.
“Did you not have a maid sitting with her last night?” Gideon demanded.
“Sally Oldcastle, Your Grace. She informed me that when she fell asleep, the Duchess was still there, sleeping in her bed. When Sally woke up this morning, the Duchess was gone.”
“She is gone, too, then,” Gideon snapped.
“Your Grace!” McKay protested.
Gideon rounded on him. “She was sitting with Catherine to watch over her. Not to fall asleep! I take it the Duchess told her nothing of her plans? No, of course not, why would she confide in a maid.”
“Sally is a very approachable young woman and a very good listener. As was the Duchess,” McKay intoned in his customary clipped voice.
Gideon spun. It was the closest he had ever heard the butler come to criticism.
“Meaning that I am not?”
McKay lifted his chin, straightened his spine, every inch the soldier on the parade ground.
“You are the Duke. The Duchess was... different.”
“She was. She is! Damnation, but we are supposed to be dining with the Threnthorpes tonight. Did she leave no note of any kind?”
“Nothing, Your Grace.”
Gideon stormed up the stairs to Catherine’s rooms. He opened her bureau, expecting to find something that might tell him where she had gone.
A diary. A letter… something. But it was empty.
Gideon slammed the lid closed and heard a woman squeak.
He whirled to see a maid entering the room behind McKay.
“This is Sally Oldcastle, Your Grace,” McKay said with patience that sounded thinner than it usually was.
Gideon bristled. “I told you, she is expelled from here. Either she conspired with the Duchess or was too incompetent to do her role.”
Gideon knew his voice was cold and hard, but he couldn’t help it.
All his plans were teetering on the verge of disaster.
If Catherine was not present, he could not secure the support of the Threnthorpes, and.
.. he realized that the true root of his anger was that Catherine had fled from him. That she was absent.
“How ridiculous!” Aaron crowed from somewhere at his right shoulder, “to be so exposed and vulnerable to a mere woman. She has seen through your lies and yet you still yearn for her? How sweet!”
Gideon growled in his throat, suppressing the mocking voice.
How many years had he endured that mockery, endured the constant competition?
The need to be constantly vigilant, for at any time of the day or night, he and Aaron might be pitched against each other.
Letting down his guard for a moment might be enough for him to lose. And then?
He knew what then.
It had happened.
“Your Grace, I must protest. Sally is one of my finest members of staff,” McKay declared.
Gideon raked his hands through his hair. Even his staff were rebelling. Subduing his ire, he faced the young woman. “Sally, did you speak to Her Grace at all last night?”
Sally shook her head. “She was asleep, and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone.”
Gideon glared at her, and she ducked her head, staring with wide eyes at the floor.
“Tell the truth, lass,” McKay said gently, “your loyalty to your mistress is commendable, but the Duke is master here.”
“She is lying?” Gideon demanded.
“Only out of loyalty to your wife, who has shown her kindness and compassion. As she has to all of us,” McKay defended.
“All the more reason for her to be out of this house,” Gideon muttered, striding from the room, “I am going to look for my wife at the home of the Earl of Blackmere. They are our closest neighbors. It is conceivable that Catherine passed by there—”
“No, Your Grace!” McKay snapped.
Gideon froze in shock, turning slowly. McKay stood with arms rigidly by his sides, but fists clenched. His face had the same resolve as it probably had when he was a soldier, standing in the thin red line against the French, determined not to take a backward step.
“Sally will tell the truth, I am sure. If she is given a guarantee that her employment here will not be at risk. This is not her fault, Your Grace!”
“Then pray tell, whose fault is it? Mine?” Gideon hissed in a dangerous tone.
“Yes,” McKay finished stoutly, “and if you wish to sack me too, Sally and I will pack our things forthwith and leave this house at once. Is that what you desire, Your Grace?”
Gideon had never seen such insolence. Such rebellion. The butler faced him with firm eyes.
Such loyalty inspired by my wife? She has engendered such feelings in the staff in a little over a fortnight? What manner of witch is she to cast such a spell?
But he knew that it was not witchcraft. She had enchanted him along with everyone else.
Not through nefarious magic but with compassion and empathy.
And now he faced mutiny from his own household.
Their loyalty was shifting to her, slipping through his fingers.
He tried to imagine the house without McKay.
Or how many other staff he might lose if McKay followed through on his threat.
But that information was secondary. Once, not too long ago, every soul was replaceable. Now, however, he could not bear the thought of losing McKay or anyone else from his household.
I am changed. This woman has broken into my life and brought warmth and light.
A few weeks ago, the butler’s words would have been taken as insolence, and his response would have been anger and outrage. Now, he sought to find a peaceful solution. Sought understanding.
“Tell me,” Gideon said, softening his tone.
“Sally, tell His Grace what you told me,” McKay said, not looking away from Gideon.
“I told her about my cousin at Blackthorn Farm, Edith Bagshot,” Sally answered quietly, “and how she would be welcome to stay there if she had nowhere else to go.”
“As if a Duchess would stay on a farm!” Gideon raged.
Then a thought occurred to him. In less than a week, Catherine had so impressed Sally with her kindness that the maid had been ready to offer her sanctuary with her family.
Did I ever see any servant do more than their duty for my father? Or for me?
“But then again, she is an uncommon Duchess,” Gideon said, softening his tone, “thank you, Sally, for this valuable information. Where might I find Blackthorn Farm?”
The look of relieved gratitude on Sally’s face contrasted with the speculative frown on McKay’s visage. He wasn’t convinced by his master’s sudden change of mood. Sally gave a simple set of directions that Gideon thought he could follow.
“And Sally’s position, Your Grace?” McKay asked in a pitched tone, “As well as my own?”
“Both… secure,” Gideon sighed, rubbing his nape, “I apologize for my hasty words.”
McKay gave a sharp nod. “Right, Sally, you have duties to attend to. Get out from under the Duke’s feet.”
He ushered her from the room, leaving Gideon marveling at the effect a little kindness could have.
Have I been behaving like my father this entire time? Ruling out of fear when I could have earned my staff’s trust?
Saddling a horse, Gideon rode out of Caerleon in pursuit of his wife. It was not difficult to find Blackthorn Farm, but when he arrived, neither Edith Bagshot nor her husband had seen Catherine.
Or, at least claimed they had not.
Dark clouds were gathering over the farm, which nestled in a hillside, the dark smudge of London just visible on the horizon.
Gideon rode out of the farmyard, feeling that he had been lied to but unable to do anything about it.
These people were not on his land, were not his tenants.
He had no authority to make them do or say anything.
Instead, he made a conspicuous show of riding toward London—but stopped once out of sight of the farm. He led his horse into a copse of elm and birch trees whose low-lying branches gave adequate cover to conceal him. Then he found a vantage point where he could observe the farm without being seen.
The day wore on, and the clouds bunched and glowered. Wind gusted from the east, sharp enough to make Gideon turn up his collar.
The Threnthorpes expect us at seven. Time is short. Damnation, Catherine, but if you are in there, show yourself!
Finally, as he was about to storm back to the farm and demand his wife be produced, he spotted a distant lone figure strolling out of the farmyard. She wore a cloak with the hood raised and carried a bundle on her shoulder. Gideon’s heart surged with hope.
He urged his horse back deeper into the copse, dismounting once he was hidden among the trees. She reached a stile built into the ancient stone wall and climbed over, dropping down on the woodland side.
She was heading into the trees now, following what must be a secret route the farmer had suggested. Gideon drifted parallel to her path, staying concealed behind the trunks, watching as she picked her way between roots and bracken.
When she was less than twenty feet away, he stepped out from behind an oak.
“Catherine.”
She froze mid-step, her head snapping up. The hood fell back from her face—pale, frightened, eyes went wide with recognition.
Then she bolted.
Gideon stood for a moment, perplexed, before chasing after her.
“Wait!” he called, “why are you running? Catherine! Come back!”
But she only ran harder, hiking up her skirts, cloak streaming behind in the wind.
Gideon was above her, atop a slope. He sprinted parallel to her dashing figure, but the path sloped downward, and he realized with cold dread where it led—a steep gorge with a ramshackle wooden bridge spanning the rushing water below.
She was heading straight for it.
“Stay away from me!” Catherine called back as she reached the bridge, “I can't trust you! I won't live with a liar! Just let me go!”
“No!” The word tore from his chest.
He had not intended to sound so vehement. The emotion surged from within him, an erupting volcano, denying what she had claimed to want.
I will not let her go! I cannot!
Reason fled him. The urge to keep her in his life was suddenly the driving imperative. The only imperative. Catherine backed away, stepping onto wet, mossy planks which creaked under her weight.
“You took away my writing implements and my letter!” she cried, “You are trying to trap me!”
“I am not! I did no such thing!” he retorted, frowning.
She continued to backpedal away. Below, the stream gushed and roared as it dashed itself down the steep slope. Beneath her boots, the bridge protested.
He slowed near to a halt and softened his voice, “What letter? What are you talking about?”
She turned away, face twisted in anguish.
“I am so tired of not knowing who I can trust. I am so tired of this constant, gnawing anxiety… I just want to look you in the eye and know that I am not being lied to for once!”
He began to descend the slope, sending a bow wave of leaf mulch and loose soil before him. Catherine stood in the middle of the bridge now, tense as a bird. Gideon spread his hands.
“I swear to you that I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have removed nothing and have not ordered that anything be removed. Is that what this is about?” His voice was raw with frustration. “Is that why you ran? Because of some missing letter?”
“I have to be able to trust you, Aaron…” she breathed brittlely, “as once I did.”
Something beneath her cracked.
Catherine looked down as a plank she had just stood on gave way. She danced to the side, but as her weight came down on another rotted board, it, too, splintered.
Gideon dove forward.
His legs ate up the distance in two strides. He caught her around the waist, lifting her bodily as timbers collapsed behind them. The bridge was disintegrating, plank by plank, chasing them toward solid ground.
Just as he reached the other side, he felt the substance beneath his feet vanish, the wood falling away. He hurled Catherine ahead of him. She landed hard on the bank, safe.
His next step found only air.
He fell.