Chapter 17
“Where are you off to this afternoon?”
Mya, who had been on her way out the door, startled at the unexpected voice behind her and turned to find Lottie sitting on one of the benches that lined the back wall of the veranda, with a book in her hand.
“I am going to see Kayden,” she answered.
Lottie’s eyebrows lifted. “Things must be going well between the two of you, then. I am glad to hear it.”
“They’re going well,” Mya said with a smile.
Since the day they had ridden up into the hills, things had been going perfectly, in fact.
In the last two weeks, she and Kayden had spent most afternoons walking in the fields together, and he had taken her to the theater in Inverness only three nights before.
Things, she thought, were going to be heading in a rather more official direction soon.
The visit to Kayden’s home was a surprise.
She had not been there before; Kayden had always come to see her, or they had met at the boundaries of the two properties to walk together.
Mya had seen the home once, from some distance.
It was a graceful building, with trees lining the drive, and horses running in paddocks that adjoined the stables.
But this was the first time that she would be setting foot in his home.
“I should be back in time for supper,” she said as she paused to pull on her gloves. “If I am not, though, there’s no need for you to worry.”
Lottie laughed. “Mya, darling, I never expect you back in time for supper when you are with Kayden.”
Mya blushed at the implication in the words, but she didn’t have much of a defense to offer.
They didn’t always have sex, but whenever she and Kayden were together, they couldn’t seem to bring themselves to part.
More than once they had simply sat in the shade of a tree and talked, or remained silently side by side in contented quiet.
It was a rare thing, that ability to simply sit in quiet with someone and yet feel as though the two of you were connected in that silence.
As though you did not even have to speak to be intimate.
Mya could not imagine being happier with anyone else.
She was humming to herself as she walked across the back fields, carrying a wrapped chocolate tart, which she had made just for him to keep in his icebox, where it most definitely wouldn’t melt.
It was a bit of a walk, but she hardly minded.
The weather was lovely, and Mya had always enjoyed walking.
There was something about it that made her feel just a little more alive.
Connected to the wider world around her.
Up ahead, the shape of Kayden’s manor began to reveal itself.
There was, Mya saw, a coach in front of the door, which she hadn’t expected.
It ought to have occurred to her that Kayden might have guests, but she had made the decision to come see him on impulse.
He had been busy with work the last three days, and after becoming accustomed to seeing him so frequently, the absence was disappointing.
As she approached the drive, Mya paused to make certain that the hem of her skirt wasn’t terribly muddy, and readjusted her hat.
Not that Kayden particularly cared whether her hat was on perfectly straight, as he had demonstrated more than once, but she was still making a social call, and Eleanora had taught her the rules of such things well.
When she knocked on the door, it was opened by a uniformed servant, who bowed, and invited her in to wait.
Mya, of course, could not quite bring herself to sit politely in the receiving room while the butler went to search the home.
Feeling a little mischievous, she got up and crept down the hall, still holding the chocolate tart.
She didn’t know whether or not she actually expected to find Kayden.
It was likely that he was in his office working, or that he was even out on business.
The visitor with the coach might have been with him, holed up in a meeting somewhere.
Perhaps, Mya thought, she ought to have waited after all, or sent ahead about calling.
There were rules about cards and letting your intentions be known and all those sorts of things.
It might have saved her some trouble to have followed them.
Kayden was supposed to meet with her again on Sunday anyway; it wasn’t really such a long wait.
What if he was frustrated that she had showed up while he was busy?
The sound of voices quietly talking caught Mya’s attention.
Placing her feet with special care so as not to make any sound, she snuck forward toward the open door ahead to see what was prompting the argument, for argument it was, the whispering voices hissing at each other in obvious anger.
As she drew nearer, Mya realized that one of the voices belonged to Kayden.
He sounded angrier than the other, who was a woman.
There was the sound of a boot on a wood floor, and then as Mya dared to peek around the corner of the doorway, she saw that the sound had been one of them taking a step toward the other.
And they were kissing.
Mya froze in place, her mind trying to sort the details of what lay in front of her.
Kayden was standing in the room, apparently a library, if the decor was anything to go by, and pressed up against him as though she had some right was Miss Blanche Auteberry, one of her skinny hands curled around the back of his neck.
The realization had taken only the barest fraction of an instant.
Kayden’s right hand, Mya saw with a twist in her stomach, was on the other woman’s hip, his left curled around her upper arm.
She might have just turned and left, left Kayden to Miss Auteberry and her bony, clutching hands, but that was the moment that the tart fell from fingers gone suddenly weak. It hit the ground loudly. Both Kayden and Miss Auteberry whipped around to see what the source of the sound was.
Miss Auteberry nearly stumbled back with how quickly she had broken apart from Kayden.
“Mya,” Kayden said. “Fuck. Mya. This isn’t—”
“No.” Mya shook her head. “Absolutely not, Kayden McGregor. I don’t care what your excuse is.
” She blinked back the burn of tears, refusing to let them fall in front of him.
“Am I not good enough for you? Is that it? Maybe I’m not rich enough.
Or maybe I don’t talk the way I’m supposed to? Is that why?”
“No, Mya. None of that is—”
Kayden took a step forward as he spoke, but Blanche Auteberry stopped him, wrapping a hand around his arm and digging her nails in.
Mya turned and walked away, stepping deliberately in the chocolate tart on her way out. It seemed the chocolate would be wasted after all.
She had nearly reached the door when the sound of shoes following made her turn to see who was there. Blanche Auteberry was behind her, looking down her long nose at Mya as though she were regarding something she had scraped off her shoe. Ruined chocolate tart, for instance.
“What do you want?” Mya demanded.
“All of those suggestions you made back there as to why you are not enough? They are completely true,” she said.
“You have no income in your own right, and no inheritance. Your speech marks you very obviously as a member of the lower class, whatever claims you may make to the contrary, and the fact that Miss Alan and Miss MacLaren are wealthy and have chosen to take you in does not mean that you are qualified. Both of them are rich enough to have their eccentricities, but you do not have enough status to protect yourself from the rumors that go with them, nor from the rumors that go with you.” She sniffed.
“You need to move along now, Miss Boyle. This is not the place for one of your kind.”
Mya suddenly wished, very fervently, that she hadn’t wasted her chocolate tart by simply stepping on it. She would have dearly liked to throw it in Blanche Auteberry’s face and watch it drip down her perfect white blouse.
“You’ve no need to worry about me,” she said, tipping her chin up high. “I’m leaving. If you wish to keep Kayden, go right ahead. He’s yours. Slightly used, or broken in. Whichever you prefer.”
With that, she spun on her heel and stalked out the door, hurrying across the lawn and down into the garden that opened on the back fields. Kayden hadn’t even come after her. Alone, she finally let the tears that had been threatening since the moment she saw them together fall.
How could he? After everything? Was it some sort of game to him? To see what he could get away with? He had already convinced her to take him back once. Maybe he wanted to know if he could do it a second time. But he would find that she wasn’t so easy to convince.
The walk home was faster than the walk to Kayden’s, driven by anger. When Mya swept up the garden path to the veranda, Lottie was still sitting on the bench, but she looked up at the sound of Mya’s steps and, at the sight of her face, tossed the book aside without bothering to mark her place.
“Mya?” She crossed the porch and laid a hand on Mya’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“You will never believe,” Mya said, panting to catch her breath and stop the tears. “What I just saw.”
Lottie tugged her gently toward the door and inside, guiding her to sit down at the dining table while she fetched her some water. She whispered something Mya couldn’t hear to one of the maids, who rushed off.
“What happened?” Lottie asked, sinking into a chair and setting the water down in front of Mya.
“I went to Kayden’s, as you know, to bring him some chocolate tart since the last one was somewhat ruined.
” She didn’t even care anymore what Lottie thought of that.
“When I arrived, there was a coach there. I thought perhaps he had a visitor, something work related, and I ought to have waited to see him until I had announced my intention to do so, but since I was already there, I went to deliver the tart.”
The maid returned, just then, with a little plate of fruit and cheese, and Eleanora on her heels.
“And would you believe it,” Mya said, choking back a sob. “His visitor was Miss Auteberry.”
Lottie and Eleanora exchanged looks. She was sure they both knew where the story was going. It was rather obvious. She took a sip of the water Lottie had handed her to soothe the ache in her throat.
“They were kissing, when I saw them. When I left, he didn’t even follow me.
And then she came out and told me that I’m not rich and the two of you letting me stay here doesn’t change that.
And that my accent marks me as lower class, or some such nonsense.
” Mya’s jaw tightened. “She told me that I’m not good enough for Kayden, and that his home wasn’t the place for people of my kind. Whatever that means.”
The words dissolved into tears, and Mya couldn’t go on with the story. There wasn’t much else to tell anyway. What had happened with the tart wasn’t important.
“Oh, Mya.” Lottie was there, then, a pair of warm arms wrapped around her, and Mya leaned into the other woman’s chest, trying not to cry too much on her dress.
“She had no right,” Eleanora said, voice tight.
“Of course she did not,” Lottie said, stroking Mya’s hair while Mya gave up on not ruining her clothing and just cried. “Though I daresay no one has ever taught her that there is a single thing in this world to which she is not entitled.”
“How dare she speak that way to Mya.” The anger that Mya had seen in Eleanora only once before was making its return. “If it would not be more trouble than it was worth, I would trip her into the loch and hope the monster eats her.”
There was a moment of silence, and Mya looked up to find Lottie with a thoughtful expression on her face.
“You would have to drive her to the loch,” she said after a moment.
“And as I doubt Miss Auteberry would ever willingly step into a coach with either of us, I think that is rather unlikely. Not to mention the issue of an investigation.” A smile slipped into the words.
“If you are going to trip her, I suggest you do it somewhere you can deny having done it purposefully. Perhaps after a heavy rain.”
“I did sincerely consider throwing the chocolate tart at her,” Mya said. “But I had dropped it earlier and then stepped in it. I wish I had kept it.”
Lottie’s hand went back to stroking through Mya’s hair, dislodging the pins she had so carefully put in it. “We will find a means of handling her,” she said.
“I don’t see how Kayden could have an explanation,” Mya said then. “I saw them there. I saw them kiss. There’s nothing he can say to me that is going to make me believe that he didn’t do it.”
“Believe me, Mya, we are not advising you to allow him back into your life,” Eleanora said. “We would not do that to you.”
“All the same, I would like to speak with him myself.” Lottie sighed. “I just cannot imagine why he would do such a thing to Mya.”
“If you want to talk to him,” Mya said, “that’s your choice. I won’t stop you. But don’t bring him here. I don’t want to see his face.”
“And if he does have an explanation?”
“If he does have an explanation,” Mya laughed, “I will be utterly shocked. And unless an angel comes to tell me that Kayden was unfairly framed for the actions I saw unfolding directly in front of me, I am not taking him back.”
After what he had done, she didn’t want anything to do with Kayden McGregor ever again.