Chapter 34 #3
“Forgive me if my presence gave you a fright. It’s only that I found your note, but dear Theodore is not to home, so I thought I’d meet with you to see how you fare.”
Lie. I knew Teddy was home. I’d seen him in the carriage with my own two eyes. “How fortuitous, m’Lord. I’m that glad to meet you, and so very humbled that you thought to save me the trouble of waiting.”
He nodded, pursing his lips. “I was so very saddened to hear of your loss. Our loss, naturally. I grieved my grandchild, I assure you. And Theodore was so overcome with worry for you that he needed time to recoup his peace of mind, so I sent him to France.”
Lie. If Teddy had been so worried about me, he would’ve at least written or visited. Instead, he had been courting Miss Lila Fitzgerald while I had stared out the window of Lady Grace’s townhome, pining for word from him. “Yes, of course, m’Lord.”
He stared at me, brows drawing close as he studied my face.
“I didn’t even realize you were back. Lady Luck must have been on my side when I strolled in here today and stumbled upon your note.”
Several lies. The minute I stepped foot in Kilrush, my presence would have been reported, especially if my presence wasn’t welcome.
To add to that, his lordship never would have strolled into the summerhouse without reason, and there was no feasible way he would’ve simply found my note without a good rummage.
Teddy and I always left correspondence beneath the seedling planter.
His lordship would’ve had to have known and deliberately searched.
“In fact, I thought you’d taken a position with the Gore-Booths of Sligo? My dear wife went to quite some trouble, using family connections to secure it for you.”
I had no idea who the Gore-Booths were, nor how far Sligo was from here, but I realized now that I’d made a fool’s error.
Knowing what I now knew, it was very clear that I was never meant to return.
Stilling rumors of an illegitimate child wasn’t the only reason I’d been sent away.
My presence in Kilrush was no longer desired, and my family’s livelihood was now in danger.
I thought back to Michael’s anger that morning, and to learning he no longer worked at the Big House.
Surely that was a consequence of my union with Teddy.
Thank God, Da still held his position … but then I mulled over what Da had said when he saw me there in the main room last night: You’re not supposed to be here.
“Forgive me, m’Lord. I’m afraid that, in my own grief and confusion, I misunderstood the offer, and thought to come home for my own peace of mind.
Now that I’ve visited my family, I can of course take it, and I can be on my way to Sligo by this time next week. ”
“No need,” his lordship said, lips curling, smile obscenely warping, dancing in shifting shadows cast by the lamp.
No need. There was nothing and everything in those two words. “No need” because the position was now gone, or “no need” because he would go to the trouble of procuring another?
“I thought you were a clever girl.” Bending, his lordship plucked a bottle and two glasses from the floor before placing them on the table. “So clever, my lonely wife, bereft of her social circle, thought she would make a project of you so she might have an educated companion. Time wasted.”
He brought the bottle to his mouth, then clasped the cork between his teeth before pulling. Pop.
“What use is education if one has no sense? Hmm?” He poured two measures of wine, one per glass, before glancing at me, brow raised as if expecting an answer.
“No use whatsoever, Your Lordship,” I murmured, desperately fighting to keep the tremor from my voice. My pulse pounded against temple, wrist, and throat. “I-I apologize, Your Lordship. I was foolish, and couldn’t grasp the situation.”
“But you do now?”
“Y-yes, Your Lordship.” I breathed in, then out, as his lordship swirled the wine in its glass.
“Good. Remember your place,” he said, leaving the glass on the table as he sat back, crossing his trousered legs.
Embarrassment flushed up the column of my neck.
“You are but a trained animal. You may speak like us and look like us to some extent, but that is where the similarity begins and ends. You should have spread your legs without thought when your young master made advances. Marriage, indeed! Theodore told me everything, my dear. How you cajoled him. How you kept that cunny of yours locked up tight, only relinquishing when he made promises.”
A vise gripped my chest so hard I couldn’t breathe. What? What was his lordship talking about?
“Of course, the resulting child was not at fault for your audacity. More’s the pity.
I would have raised it myself. Don’t worry,” he said, words muffled as I fought to hear through the roar of blood pounding betwixt my ears.
“I’ve put him in his place. Stupid boy should have set a firm boundary with you from the very beginning.
I was too lax with him. Should’ve reined him in.
Marriage with the likes of you, forsooth.
Perhaps his own dirty heritage was to blame. ”
My eyes widened. “Dirty … heritage?”
His lordship grinned. “His mother, my dear. One of yours, you know. But, of course, you must have known that. How dare you take such advantage of his empathy? Using his history against him. You selfish idiot! Marriage with you would destroy all chances of Teddy ever setting foot in the House of Commons. I have been working toward that goal since the day he was born!”
“I—” I began, letting out a whoosh of breath as my lungs suddenly sprang back to life.
I balled my fists and pushed to my feet.
There was no use saying what I wanted to say, to stand up for Teddy, to explain that neither of us thought his lordship would much care who he married, given his own choice of wife.
There was no use, because his lordship had been fed lies, lies Teddy had told in defense of his actions.
For when cold, hard reality came crashing down the morning he’d gone to beg permission from this man before me, his lordship must have shown his wrath and threatened all the things Da had warned him of.
That I had warned him of. And so, I didn’t defend Teddy, or myself.
It was clear now that Teddy had cast me off of his own free will and told abominable tales in an attempt to patch things up between him and his father.
Instead, I curtsied. “I understand, Your Lordship, and I thank you for your benevolence. I assure you, I’ll have naught to do with the young master going forward.”
His lordship rose, then plucked both glasses from the table and offered one to me.
“Shall we toast to it?” Though framed as a question, it was an order, so I took the glass and nodded. “Good girl.”
“I’ll make enquiries as soon as possible to find a position far from here, Your Lordship. You needn’t worry. And thanks to you, I can offer some value to an employer.”
He laughed, then glanced at me. “Tell me. What makes the best fertilizer?”
I furrowed my brow. “Slurry, Your Lordship.”
“And what is slurry?” he prompted.
“Cow shit, begging your pardon, Your Lordship.”
He nodded. “Cows are incredible beasts, for they fertilize the land, provide milk and food, and all for the cost of three men’s monthly wage. Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head, and he smiled.
“It means one cow is worth more than three Irishmen, my dear. Now, if we divided the cow’s equity into parts, I would value the food and milk provided at one man, and its ‘shit,’ as you so eloquently put it, at two.
For that shit ensures a bountiful harvest, feeding hundreds where a single cow might feed twenty.
That means two Irishmen are worth a single vat of cow shit, but you, as a filthy calculating whore, are worth far less than that.
You could offer value to an employer? Ha!
” Reaching out, he clinked his glass with mine.
“All that to say, once more, no need. You made your decision when you chose to board a coach bound from Dublin to Kilrush, and any value that remained diminished the moment you arrived home. I have no time, or use, for women without sense, and nor would another be kind or stupid enough to take you on. My only course of action now is to ensure you never cross paths with him again.”
“Your Lordship,” I snapped, instantly biting down on my tongue. Colonel Moore-Vandeleur was not the person to speak back to in any way, shape or form. I had to swallow the words, the retort, that burned the back of my throat. “Thank you for the wine.”
I raised the glass in the air, then slowly drew it toward my mouth, and with each inch closer, his lordship’s smile widened a fraction. It was worrisome, as though he waited for me to take a sip. He hadn’t even raised his arm to drink his own, and a shudder of fear took hold in my gut.
But just as the cool glass made contact with the skin of my lips, the door to the summerhouse opened with a bang, sending a jolt of fear from my head to my toes, and I dropped the wine.
It shattered with a crash, and I glanced down to find hundreds of blood-stained glittering shards reflecting the light from the lamp.
“Maggie?!” Michael. Whatever mettle had held my back straight this entire time snapped upon hearing my brother’s voice. I was frightened, had been since the moment I’d found his lordship there in place of Teddy.
Michael brushed aside the leaves of the bird-of-paradise with all the grace one might muster to bat away a cobweb.
“My, my,” his lordship said with a chuckle. “It seems my old valet is loath to part ways as cleanly as was assured to me. Come, Michael. We were just about to have a glass of wine. Though—” He glanced from the glass in his hand to the one shattered at his feet.
“Don’t drink that,” Michael hissed, lunging for my arm before jerking me back. “What the hell are ye doing here?”
“Having a nice chat,” his lordship said, offering the glass in his hand to me. “Here, Maggie. Let’s finish the toast. Michael, you don’t mind drinking straight from the bottle, do you?”
“We need to get out of here. Now!” Michael hissed the words into my ear, and I grasped in the dark for his hand. If Michael said we needed to go, go we would.
As I laced my fingers with his, he quickly pulled me close and pushed me toward the door, without even a “by your leave” to his lordship.
“I don’t want to know how ye wound up alone with that man,” Michael huffed, dragging me along as we raced toward the entrance gate. “But ye can pay me back later.”
“For what?” I asked, struggling to keep up.
“For saving yer fecking life!”
And something inside, something deep and dark, something I had stuffed down and ignored when it was just his lordship and me, alone, knew—without a shadow of doubt—that when his lordship had said “no need,” he meant I wouldn’t have need.
Because I would be dead.
The cause? Whatever he had put in that wine.