Chapter 9
The cry had come from Katherine. Siaspar had heard enough of her cries in the last two months to be in no doubt on the matter. During their various encounters, she had given cries of surprise, of shock, of pain, of desire, of pleasure.
This one was one of frustration—and it made him go to her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, walking into the storeroom where she had taken refuge. Did she need help?
When she saw him appear in the door frame, Katherine gave a start and the letter she’d been reading disappeared behind her back.
“Forgive me, my lord. I did not hear you come in. I should go. I’m sorry… I only wanted a moment to myself. This won’t happen again, I swear, it’s—”
“You don’t need to apologize to me, Katherine. You have every right to be here anyway, you work here.” He winced at his ill-chosen comment. Why had he said that? It made the distance between them, already vast, all the more glaring. “What is the issue?”
“It is nothing to worry yourself about,” she replied hurriedly, making to walk past him.
Siaspar stopped her with a raised hand.
“It most definitely is, if it made you cry out so. Something is bothering you. What is it?” he asked, gesturing at the letter she had hidden at his entrance. Did she really think he would not have noticed or wouldn’t ask? “Did you receive bad news?”
Suddenly he was desperate to know. After what had happened to him the other day, he knew how devastating receiving bad news in that cold, impersonal way could feel.
“I…I don’t know,” she whispered, bringing the letter in front of her again. “I am trying to read this letter from home but I cannot.”
Something within Siaspar melted. He could tell that it cost her to admit to this failing. He also understood why she had not wanted to be seen in the storeroom. Many people would agree that she should not have hidden to read personal missives when she was supposed to be working in the kitchen.
But he didn’t care. He of all people knew that servants were real people with real lives that mattered to them as much as his own life mattered to him. And if this letter was filled with news from a family she hadn’t seen in months, understandably, she would want to find out what it said.
Except that she could not, because she could not decipher the script.
Katherine was in despair.
The long-awaited letter from her family had finally arrived and she could not make sense of the fanciful script.
Unable to write more than his own name, his father would have asked the scribe at the local fair to pen the letter for him but, as a result, she could not read more than the odd word.
The few names she recognized only added to her frustration.
The letter held news of her loved ones and she could not tell if it was good or bad.
Had they received the money? What had happened to the new baby? And why did her father feel the need to mention Harry? Was he unwell?
Tears of frustration welled into her eyes. Was it bad news?
“I cannot read this. It is too difficult for me,” she said, mortified to have to admit as much to a man who was far more educated than anyone she had ever met.
But instead of mocking her, Siaspar nodded and glanced toward the letter. “May I? Perhaps it is not too difficult for me.”
After a brief hesitation, she handed him the letter.
She would trust that her father would not have dared dictate anything too damning to a stranger, knowing that she might have to resort to someone else reading the letter to her.
But even if he had been very blunt, she would have taken the risk.
She was too desperate to know that everything was all right.
“Thank you.”
Siaspar’s eyes darted over the document, then he smiled at her reassuringly, as if to indicate it was not bad news.
“Your mother was delivered of a healthy boy two weeks ago. A little James. They thank you for the money you sent them as it provided for the midwife they called to assist in the delivery which proved more difficult than anyone had anticipated.”
His voice was soft, his tone neutral. Katherine could see that he was trying to deliver the news in a comforting way. Nevertheless, it was a blow. Because she understood that, had she not agreed to Lady Malpas’ outrageous bargain, her little brother and possibly her mother too, might have died.
The money she had earned by surrendering her maidenhead had saved them both.
“Oh God. Oh, dear God.” Her legs turned to water and before she could ask for permission to sit down, she fell on the bench behind her. Then, as relief and shame washed over her, she burst into sobs.
It took her a while to calm the tempest agitating her. When she finally dared to look at Siaspar, his eyes were burning.
“This is why you obeyed Lady Malpas’ orders on our wedding night.” It wasn’t a question. He was merely stating a fact, sure of himself. “She threatened you. If you did not take her place in her bed, she would withhold the money she owed you.”
Katherine nodded slowly. The relief of hearing that the money had arrived, that it had saved her mother and brother, the compassion she heard in Siaspar’s voice, everything put paid to her resolve to keep the full extent of her ordeal from him. He would never believe her if she denied it anyway.
“She told me during the banquet what she expected of me,” she said, making sure to look at her feet.
If she saw the expression on his face she would falter.
“I refused but she told me she had arranged for my father to be detained before we left. The only way he would be released and given the money I was owed was for me to agree to her scheme. I did. There was no choice.”
There was a frightful Welsh curse somewhere above her head. The fierceness of it sent chills all the way down her spine.
“Carry on,” he ordered in a tightly controlled voice.
“I understood then that the resemblance between us was the sole reason Lady Malpas had agreed to take me to Wales with the retinue. She had planned it all along. Very few people had agreed to go to her new home, you see, having heard—”
Katherine stopped and looked at Siaspar nervously, unsure whether she should carry on. He reassured her with a smile.
“Yes, I know what the English think of my country and my countrymen. Even before you told me, I was aware we were not considered as desirable. Please carry on.”
“My father thought that if I agreed to go to Wales, I would be hired as chamberer, even though I had no experience to speak of. I did not want to leave them, but I had little choice. The money I would earn would keep starvation at bay for all the family. It’s been a bad winter and we were all struggling.
My mother was nearing her term.” The words were coming more easily now that she was talking about people she loved.
“My father is a blacksmith. He had been incapacitated for weeks and without him working, we could hardly feed everyone. Still, I might not have been hired if Lady Malpas had not seen me and thought that our physical similarities would allow her to execute her plan.”
Siaspar eyed her. “You do look remarkably similar,” he murmured to himself. “But only in the dark.”
This raised a smile from Katherine. “Yes, though, of course, it could be argued that any woman would look like her in the dark.” She thought he was jesting, alluding to the fact that he had only ever made love to her under the cover of darkness and had never really seen her.
But his answer made it clear he was not speaking in jest.
“No. What I mean is that whilst your proportions and your coloring are eerily similar, no one looking at you in daylight could mistake you for the mighty Lady Malpas.”
“No. I think not.” She lifted her skirt of brown wool and gave a sigh.
“Once again you are misunderstanding me. I mean that the light in your eyes is all kindness, where hers is all calculation and arrogance. You smile where she scowls, you blush where she glowers, and thus appear as different to her as night from day. To me, at least.”
Siaspar blinked as his heartfelt—and possibly inappropriate—declaration rang in the air for a long time.
Katherine was staring at him, as if she could not find a single thing to say in response to his words, which was hardly surprising. This was not the way a master should speak to a scullion employed in his kitchen.
They both stayed silent for a moment. Then she stood back up, looking caught out.
“Thank you, my lord, for reading the letter and setting my mind at rest. And please forgive me for sitting in your presence. I didn’t mean—”
“There is no need for me to forgive anything. You were understandably upset.”
He was upset too, and with reason.
Siaspar could not stomach what he had just found out.
Katherine had been coerced into bedding a stranger; she had gone to him to save her family from starvation.
She had sacrificed her maidenhead, accepted to be bedded by a man she didn’t know and who could have hurt her to save her father from the gaol he had been thrown into by a vile tormentor.
Dear God.
Now that he knew her better and was aware of the situation, he understood the lack of guile Katherine had demonstrated when she had come to inform him that she was not with child.
It was as she had said; she had never set out to trick him and had at no point thought to gain anything from this adventure.
She had only worried about him, and meant to set his mind at ease, something few people in her situation would have done.
And instead of thanking her, for he had indeed been relieved, he had mocked her, all but called her an opportunistic whore.
“I am sorry for everything. For what you had to endure that night,” he murmured, feeling more ashamed than he had ever been. “As you know, I took you for a woman I have little love for. I fear I behaved accordingly. I was rather brusque with you.”