Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LATER
Liam crossed the threshold of the King’s Head and tugged the wide-brimmed laborer’s hat he’d acquired sometime during endless rounds of carousing low on his forehead.
Nothing compared to the singular earthy fug of a taproom at midnight—of spilled, hoppy ales…
of sharp, sickly sweet whiskey…of bodies that hadn’t bathed in days.
Somewhere around the ten-thousandth congratulatory slap on the back, he decided it was to be a rare early night for him.
Still, he understood what all the excitement was about, for it had been the most tightly contested Derby in a generation. The ruling on the turf had been no exaggeration. Morningstar had literally won by the tip of his nose.
What Liam knew and what no one else did, however, was that Morningstar should have taken second.
But out there in the heat of the race, Liam had ridden like he’d never ridden in his life.
He’d ridden like a man possessed—and he knew why.
Instead of focusing on his connection to Morningstar like he usually did on race day, he’d been connected to a single thought—Saskia was in the crowd, watching him, and he would make sure he gave her something worthwhile to see.
Morningstar hadn’t been the superior horse on the turf today, but Liam had been the most determined jockey.
Under no circumstances would he have lost the Derby with Saskia watching.
He stepped past the inn’s front desk where a gent stood complaining to the proprietor about the drunkard presently sprawled across his doorway and snoring loud enough to lift the roof off the inn. “You must do something about the lout.”
“It’s Derby Day.” The proprietor’s tone rang heavy with world-weariness, resigned to the inevitabilities. “You came here expectin’ a nunnery?”
That provoked a few chuckles from those gathered round and taking bets on who would prevail.
Into the taproom Liam strode, his face pointed to the floor as the merrymaking ratcheted into full swing all around him, his feet making a straight line for the staircase that led to the first floor.
By all rights, he should still be deep into a carouse, but his heart wasn’t in it.
He’d wanted to celebrate with one person—and she’d taken herself off to read and write.
He snorted.
Only Saskia would attend the Derby, then excuse herself not only to read a book afterward, but write one, too.
What a beauty she’d been today, with her pinked cheeks and her eyes bright silvery-blue with exhilaration behind her spectacles.
His heart had leapt at the sight of her—leapt.
He was mad for her.
That was all there was to it.
By exploring the boundaries of a kiss upon her, he’d thought to bind her to him in some way. But he rather thought his gambit might’ve accomplished the opposite effect, and it was he who had bound himself to her.
There was no hope in it, though, was there?
He might’ve been famous and at the top of his sport and, plainly, bloody wealthy as a result, but he was a bastard. He needed to stop playing these games with her before they went too far. The woman was the sister of a duke.
A hopeless madness was what he’d gotten himself into.
A first, actually.
His madnesses, in the general sense, had always been the opposite of hopeless—consummated to everyone’s satisfaction, to be specific.
As his foot touched the bottom staircase step, a voice, feminine and reedy, cut through the taproom’s receding roar of merrymaking. “Liam.”
He froze in place. A shiver slowly prickled up his spine.
He knew that voice.
He twisted around to find a petite woman of no particular beauty, hair pulled tightly into a middle-parted chignon and a severity of expression to match, staring up at him with no liking in her small dark eyes.
“Countess.” Out of long-established habit, he offered her a bow.
The Countess of Bolton.
Here, at the King’s Head…on Derby Day.
And the reason for her presence struck him. “Bolton is dead.”
He didn’t ask.
He knew.
And all he felt was…nothing.
She swallowed and gave a curt nod. “Find us a table, Liam.”
If he’d been leaning toward offering his condolences, the inclination evaporated. Here was the Countess of Bolton he knew—steely, imperious, demanding.
Though he was no longer under her command, he found them a table in a tucked-away corner and settled into the chair opposite hers.
“You didn’t have to come all this way to deliver that news.
” He didn’t owe this woman anything but the most minimal civility—and he’d already given her that. “So, if that will be all…”
He made it halfway to his feet before she hissed, “Sit down, Liam.”
His head cocked. A note sounded in her voice that he’d never heard before. The usual coldness frosted each syllable she spoke, yes, but something else, too…a tremble. And within her eyes sparked recognizable emotion—fear.
He lowered into the chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited.
Her eyes searched his. “Did you know?”
“That Bolton was dying?” He nodded. “Aye, he tracked me down last year to deliver the news.”
Barely suppressed emotion glinted in the countess’s dark eyes. Emotion that bore a close resemblance to barely suppressed fury. This woman was fearful and furious, and he couldn’t understand why. As a recently bereaved widow, shouldn’t she have been sad and weepy?
“And that was all he told you?” she pressed—demanded.
A feeling traced through Liam. Bolton had told him he was proud of him, too. A memory that continued to produce a spray of conflicted emotions inside him.
Without waiting for a reply, she said, “You don’t know.” A laugh, bitter and lacking any humor, snuck past ungenerous lips. “Of course, you don’t. You would’ve wasted no time evicting me from my own house.”
Had she come unhinged with grief? He’d heard of such happenings. “I’ll procure a room for you for the night, and we can continue this conversation on the morrow.”
Or never.
With another bitter emission—a deep sigh, this time—she slumped back into her chair and halved in size, like a balloon suddenly deflated, as if her fury had been the only thing keeping her going. “They were married.”
Liam’s brow crinkled. “Who were married?”
The countess released another sigh. She shook her head. She sighed again. “Bolton and Maeve.” Another shake of the head. “Your parents.”
Liam stared at her for a solid three seconds. “Impossible.”
The woman had sailed around the bend.
“Oh, too possible, it seems.” The countess’s eyes narrowed into thin black slits. “And you didn’t know?”
“Know what?” he all but exclaimed. “Whatever Bolton told you, it was a manipulation and a lie intended to deliver nothing but hurt to you.”
Though a truth they both knew, the truth didn’t feel as cathartic to speak as he would’ve reckoned.
Unmoved, the countess dug inside her reticule, her hand eventually emerging with a sheet of parchment, which she slapped onto the stretch of table between them.
“Three days ago, this was found in his safe.” Another bitter snort.
“A safe I knew nothing about.” Her eyes glittered with that suppressed fury. “But his solicitor did.”
Liam made no move to take the paper. “What is it?”
“A certificate of marriage.” She tapped the parchment. “Thirty years ago, Bolton took Maeve Cassidy’s hand in marriage.” Her hand retreated as if stung. “It’s all there.”
Liam remained utterly, utterly still. He hardly dared even breathe. His heart, however, had other ideas—it pounded like a hammer. “Impossible.”
“Oh, possibilities abound in that backwater they call Ireland.” She shook her head as if acceptance had yet to find purchase in her mind. “Like the ability to marry by couple beggar.”
“Couple beggar?” The countess kept speaking words that refused to make sense.
“A defrocked minister who performs church rites for a fee and asks few questions.” The blaze of fury within her dark eyes tempered not a whit. “But he records those rites in his register and even leaves a little piece of paper for the blissful couple certifying the marriage.”
Belief refused to take hold inside Liam. “But he was married to you.”
“They knew each other as youths, apparently, when Bolton visited his mother’s family.
And one of those summers, they married. He must’ve immediately thought better of it, but then he couldn’t dissolve the marriage without appearing the fool, so he locked the marriage certificate away in a safe—and took his chances. ”
And took his chances… “You mean”—though unwilling, Liam’s mind was piecing the puzzle together—“he married you.”
“And he married me, a proper Englishwoman.” Bewilderment traced alongside her fury.
“A proper Englishwoman who couldn’t give him a child.
So—” She lifted empty hands. “He remembered he had another wife and tried his luck with her. And, lo, how Maeve delivered. Not one, but two babes at once. But Bolton only needed the one, didn’t he? You, the boy. The heir.”
Another puzzle piece fell into place… “That’s why he had us living under his roof.”
“There’s something you need to know, Liam. Something about your mam and me—”
No.
He shoved the parchment toward the countess. “Burn it. I don’t want it.”
Her eyes… They almost held pity for him—almost. “It doesn’t matter if you burn it or destroy it in any other manner you please, Bolton’s solicitor witnessed the document and has already set matters in motion.
You’ll be presented to the King as the Fourth Earl of Bolton.
” She scoffed, as if unable to believe it herself.
“You’ve been the heir all this time, Liam. You’re Bolton now.”
Even as his mind refused to accept anything the countess was telling him, his bones knew otherwise. This was the truth. For if this woman could’ve got around this truth, she would have. She herself would’ve burned the document if it would’ve made a lick of difference.
Right.
Animal instinct had Liam shooting to his feet. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he had to get away—to think or to drown, he wasn’t sure. “I take it you can find your way back to…” To hell would’ve been impolite to say. He settled for, “To your quarters.”
Malice glinted in her dark eyes. “Your lordship.”
As Liam staggered through the taproom, the roar in his ears had naught to do with the raucous gaiety surrounding him, every other man offering him a clap of congratulations.
He couldn’t account for what they said to him or what he replied in response.
He needed to move and keep moving. The feeling streaking through him felt exactly like sheer, sweat-inducing panic.
Blessedly, his feet led him to the bar, where he promptly lifted his hand and shouted over the din. “A bottle of your finest.”
The barman gave a brisk nod and returned with a bottle of some brown substance or another. It really didn’t matter. He needed to drink about half of its contents in the next five minutes. He slapped a guinea onto the bartop’s spirits-sticky surface. He was free to leave—except he wasn’t.
A question wanted to be asked.
A question he shouldn’t ask.
So, he went around the question and shouted, “A lady is—”
Expecting me.
He couldn’t speak those words. Not about Saskia in a public place. If the wrong curious ears picked them up, he could expose her to scandal.
As he combed his mind for a proper way to proceed, he went to run his hand through his hair, but couldn’t, for perched atop his head was a… “Hat. I need to return her hat to her.”
The barman cast a skeptical eye over the straw laborer’s hat that had two holes that Liam knew of. “That a new style of ladies’ hat, is it?”
If Liam’s next words weren’t going to be precisely wrong, they weren’t going to be precisely right, either.
He leaned halfway across the bartop and signaled the barman to move closer.
Reluctantly, the man did. He’d seen it all before.
“Her name is Lady Saskia Calthorp,” he said, low, so his voice wouldn’t carry.
The barman cocked an eyebrow. “Wears spectacles?”
Liam nodded. “Aye, that’s the one. You know her room number?”
“Aye, I know it.”
Without another word, Liam plunked another guinea onto the bartop.
The barman gave Liam a thorough up-and-down. “You’re Liam Cassidy, aye?”
“Aye.”
The man nodded. “No shortage of ladies leaving their hats with you every day of the week, I reckon.”
Liam knew his role in this sort of conversation well enough to grin waggishly—which he did. “A man doesn’t like to brag.”
The barman snorted and palmed the coin. “Room Four is the one you’ll be seeking.”
Liam nodded and, not a minute later, found himself upstairs, dodging other guests in various states of celebration and inebriation and passing by his own door. He didn’t stop until he reached the door with a large brass 4 affixed in the center.
It wasn’t as simple as he didn’t want to be alone.
He wanted to be around Saskia.
She had a way of making the world feel right and sane.
The hand not holding the bottle of whiskey lifted and hesitated.
He shouldn’t knock.
He should leave her be.
Leave her to her reading and writing.
Leave her to her life.
Yet, knowing this, his fist tapped out three light knocks—consequences and hopeless madnesses be damned.