A Defense of Honor, page 29
“Look around,” Graham said. “It can’t be that hard to find where the Corbets live. There’s only six or seven options.”
The village wasn’t quite that small, but it was small enough that anyone would be able to point them in the right direction.
In the end, it took them an hour to find accurate directions to the cottage, and that was mostly because the man they’d asked insisted on telling them the family history of everyone they passed on their way to the Corbet home.
Eventually, the carriage pulled up in front of a little farm. The house was small and tidy, with ivy growing up the brick two-story front and cheerful flowers carpeting the ground in front of one of the windows. It was an odd look, but not an unpleasant one.
Graham’s cravat suddenly felt tight. Were the other men as nervous as he was? Even knowing Priscilla wasn’t here, this was where she had been. It was closer than they’d been in over a month.
A glance at Oliver proved he was thinking similarly.
The men climbed out of the carriage and knocked.
The woman who opened the door was tall, with medium brown hair pulled into a low bun and intelligent light brown eyes. Her dress rounded out in the front, indicating that she was clearly expecting a child soon. Was she one of Kit’s women, too?
Graham cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Lord Wharton, this is Lord Farnsworth, and this is Mr. Whitworth. We’re looking—”
“You’re here to see Priscilla.” The lady smiled. “She’s mentioned you.”
Her smile fell as she wrapped her hands in her apron. “I’m afraid she’s not here. I was hoping she’d gone to you after receiving that letter, but I’m guessing she didn’t. Please, come in.”
The door opened into a drawing room that took up the entire front of the ground floor. Through an open doorway he could see a kitchen and the bottom of a set of stairs. In the middle of the drawing room sat a young girl, about the age of Sophie, if he were guessing.
A variety of items were scattered on the floor around her, and she was carefully selecting two of them, banging them together several times, and then selecting two more.
“You’ll have to ignore Gillian. When Priscilla was here, she taught Gillian that different materials make different sounds when knocked together, and she’s been fascinated by it ever since.” The woman lowered herself into a wooden chair with a sigh. “Mr. Porter has already been here, of course, and I told him everything I’d already told Mr. Banfield, which wasn’t much. One day she was here, the next she wasn’t.”
Graham wasn’t sure who Mr. Porter was, but he was guessing it was the man hired by the solicitor to find Priscilla.
At least they really were doing something to try to find her.
“Where could she have gone?” Aaron asked, turning toward Graham and Oliver.
“We don’t have property near here,” Graham said.
“Neither do we.” Oliver rubbed a hand over his face. “She didn’t mention any friends who would be in this area either.”
“You said she mentioned us?” Graham asked.
The woman nodded. “Oh yes, she spoke of you often. Told stories about your travels.” Suddenly the woman’s eyes widened. “Oh my, I’m so sorry! I forgot to introduce myself to you. Mrs. Francis Corbet.”
She laughed and patted her rounded front. “I’m afraid I can’t quite keep my wits about me with this one. I’d forget my feet if they weren’t attached. At least, I think they’re still attached. I can’t really see them anymore.”
Graham grinned in spite of himself. He could see why Kit had chosen this woman. She was spirited while still being easygoing. Probably the perfect woman to help with a girl in Priscilla’s situation.
“Did she mention anyone else? Anywhere she might have gone?”
Mrs. Corbet shook her head. “No. Well, of course she mentioned other people, but none with the same esteem as she mentioned her brothers.” The woman grinned. “She called you that, you know. Her other brothers.”
As an only child, Graham had never thought to be anyone’s brother and it was nice to know Priscilla thought of him that way, even if she hadn’t felt close enough to him to tell him her problem.
Of course, a few months ago, Graham couldn’t say for sure how he would have reacted. If nothing else, his conversations with Kit, his interactions with the children, and Aaron’s story had forever changed the way he looked at people suffering the consequences of their actions.
“I’ll tell you what I told Mr. Porter, though. The first place I would check is Calne. Of course, that’s not the first place she’d have gone. More than likely she went to Hilmarton because the only person who left the village that day was Mr. Charters, and he went to visit his sister in Hilmarton. But Hilmarton isn’t very large. She’d not be able to catch the proper stage to anywhere from there. And I do hope she took the stage because she gets a pain in her hip and can’t walk very far.”
Graham’s mind was swimming with the abundance of information, but he was suddenly thankful for small villages.
They discussed Priscilla’s stay a bit more, though the discussion was interrupted by the racket Gillian was making. Mr. Corbet came through and commented on how interesting it had been having Priscilla stay with them and that she was welcome to return if she wanted.
Finally, the men went back to the carriage.
Calne was less than ten miles away. They’d be able to make it before nightfall.
Oliver was pressed up against the carriage window as if he could will it to go faster, will it to get to Calne before Prissy went anywhere else.
Aaron was unusually quiet, though, staring out the other window, looking thoughtful. “She called me her brother.”
“What?” Oliver asked, turning briefly from the window.
“I’m not missing much in my life,” Aaron said softly. “I have friends, a source of income, a home. But that’s the one thing I always wished for when I was young but never got.”
“What?” Graham asked softly.
“Family.” Aaron turned his light, piercing gaze to the other two men in the coach. “We’re going to Calne. We’re going to find Priscilla. And we’re going to bring her home. Because she’s family. She called me a brother. She’s stuck with me now.”
No one said anything as the carriage rolled on. What more could they say? Aaron had said it all. But Graham hadn’t a clue what they were going to do when they reached Calne. He could hardly stop people on the street and ask if they’d seen a young lady walking around by herself in a delicate condition. He didn’t even know if Priscilla’s condition was obvious yet.
Still, they were doing something.
He leaned his head back on the carriage seat and began to pray. God knew where Priscilla was, knew what she was doing and where she was going. He also knew how desperate the men in this carriage were to find her and bring her home.
Graham closed his eyes, doing his best to trust God with Priscilla, her child, everything.
It wasn’t easy, but with every mile he felt a little better. He was turning Priscilla over to God’s care and that was better than anything he, Aaron, or Oliver would ever be able to do.
Chapter Thirty
Daphne brought tea with her to the back porch that night. She sat on the steps next to Kit and offered a mug before sipping her own drink in quiet serenity.
Kit drank the tea. Silent. Tired. Empty. She wasn’t sure what she was anymore. Didn’t know what she felt. Didn’t even know who to be.
After several minutes, Daphne set her drink to the side and clasped her hands around her knees. “I’m happy.”
What? Had Daphne just said she was happy? Kit set her own tea down and turned to her friend. “What?”
“I’m happy,” Daphne repeated. “Here. With the children, the house, the trees. I’m happy. I have a feeling you don’t know that.”
She didn’t. And she still found it hard to believe. “But . . .” Kit swallowed. “If it hadn’t been for me, you could have married a clergyman or a country squire.”
“Hadn’t been for you?” Daphne laughed. “Kit, you’ve never been anything but my friend.”
“No,” Kit said with a shake of her head. “That night—”
“That night you wanted me to be you so that Maxwell Oswald wouldn’t pay attention to Miss Rhinehold. I already knew that, Kit. It’s why I agreed to go. I didn’t really want to be you for a night. Being you terrified me. But I wanted you to have what you wanted. So I went.” Daphne shrugged.
Kit groaned and dropped her forehead to her raised knees. “It’s even more my fault than I realized.”
“No.” Daphne wrapped her hand in Kit’s hair and lifted her head out of her skirts. “No, it isn’t. No more than it’s Jess’s fault if John burns his tongue on his favorite soup or my fault when Eugenia glues her hair to her paper filigree coils. We make our own choices. If we’re going to place blame on anyone, we can put it squarely on Mr. Oswald and myself. Because we were the only two people in the room.” Daphne smoothed a finger along Kit’s frown. “Have you been blaming yourself all these years? Is that why you do it?”
Kit nodded, hating the choking feeling rising up in her throat. She was going to cry again. She was so tired of crying. Why did growing and changing have to require so many tears?
“Well. I have very high hopes for our future, then.”
The urge to cry faded under Kit’s sudden confusion. “What?”
“If you could do all this”—she waved a hand at the grounds and the house—“by being fired up with anger and guilt, imagine what you could do if it was actually about helping God give those women another chance at life. If it wasn’t about your penance or even me, but about them.” She shook her head. “We’d be able to move mountains.”
“But . . .” Kit wasn’t quite ready to let go of all that guilt. It had been a defining part of her for so long. Who would she be without it? “You had all those dreams, those fantasies of the life you wanted, the romance, the love.”
Daphne nodded. “I did. I still do. I think that’s what happened that night, if I’m honest. I forgot I was you and I got caught up in the idea that someone saw me. Wanted me. I imagined us leaving the ball and flying up to Scotland or tracking down my father right then and there. He never promised me those things, but I imagined he had.”
Kit blubbered her way through a watery laugh. “Remember when you imagined yourself running away with that cheese factory owner we saw at the market?”
“Of course. He was a very nice man who gave me a free bite of cheese.” She smiled. “And he was very handsome. But that’s just the thing, Kit, I came home, dunked my hands in the dishwater, and imagined he came to sweep me away to a place where my most difficult decision was what sort of cheese I wanted. The dishes got done, I came back to reality, and no one got hurt. That’s why being here suits me. The perfect blend of fantasy and reality.”
Kit didn’t know about it being perfect, but there was no denying that Daphne believed she wasn’t missing out on life. All of Kit’s guilt had been just that. Kit’s.
“I’m so sorry,” Kit whispered.
“I know.” Daphne wrapped her arm around Kit. “I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago, because in my mind you’d done nothing wrong. So I think, right now, it’s about forgiving yourself.”
“Maybe.”
They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wind and the animals.
The door behind them squeaked open and light footsteps crossed the porch. “We’ll need to oil that tomorrow.”
Kit laughed. Trust Jess to be practical in the middle of an emotional crisis.
Jess leaned against the column and looked down at Kit and Daphne, huddled together in a salty, snivelly mess. “Have you set her straight yet?”
“I think so,” Daphne said, giving Kit’s shoulders a squeeze. “It may take her a while to believe it, but she’s getting there.”
“Good.” Jess dropped down on the steps beside Daphne. “Because we need to decide what to do.”
“About what?” Kit asked, dropping her head onto Daphne’s lap. She simply couldn’t take another surprise, another change, another decision.
“The contracts.” Jess clasped her hands together. “The chess sets.”
“We end them,” Daphne said immediately and with conviction.
Kit raised her head. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not? All we have to do is send them chessboards, right? So we do that, including a note that says the remainder of the set may be purchased if wished but the obligation to buy has ended.”
“But what if no one pays?” Kit asked even as she heard the answer in her head.
Trust God.
She looked from Daphne to Jess, feeling a renewed strength. “No, you’re right.” With these two women and God, she could take on the world. “If we’re all in agreement, I’ll take the chessboards to Nash tomorrow and tell him.”
Daphne groaned. “He’s going to be so very angry at us.”
Jess snorted. “He’ll be relieved. We’ve probably aged that man twenty years having to deal with these contracts.”
Kit had to agree. Guilt started to creep in on her, but she quashed it. It was time to start over. That was what Haven Manor was about, wasn’t it? A fresh start? A life where your mistakes didn’t define you? It was time she took that for herself.
The box of chessboards was heavy, but Kit needed to be the one to do this. She needed to feel the pull of the weight on her arms, the pain in her shoulders from lugging the box all the way from Mr. Leighton’s workshop.
He hadn’t liked letting her carry it herself. Neither had Benedict, but she’d been adamant, and both man and boy had finally given in, even though Benedict was trailing five steps behind her in case she changed her mind.
That boy might have gotten his face from his father, but his heart was a complete copy of his mother’s. If only she could tell him so.
But that was a decision to reconsider on another day. Right now, she had to get Nash to help her right this wrong before she lost her nerve.
She was terrified.
What would they do if God didn’t fill the holes created by releasing the men from their contracts? Would any of them continue to support the children simply because they should? Daphne had written the note and Kit had so badly wanted to reword it, using harder language, telling the men it would be in their best interest to continue.
But no. She was going to do what she should have done from the beginning—what she’d claimed she’d been doing all along—and trust that God would provide a way for them to continue to help women who had no way of helping themselves.
She was huffing by the time she reached Nash’s office. Holding the crate and opening the door at the same time was an impossible task.
Kit sighed in resignation. So much for trying to do it all herself.
Of course, that was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place, wasn’t it? Jess might have said we when she asked her incriminating question, but Kit knew the decision to start blackmailing had been hers and hers alone.
Kit grunted and shifted the crate. “Ben, please open the door.”
The wiry young man, whose shoulders were starting to show signs of broadening, jumped in front of her and swung the door open.
“Thank you.” Kit surged through the door, worried that her arms were going to give out on her at any moment.
Thankfully, no one besides Nash was in his office as she nearly ran to one of his chairs and plopped the crate in the seat.
“Kit?” Nash rose but didn’t make it far because Kit began unloading the chessboards onto his desk.
One by one she took the finely crafted boards and set them on top of each other, making herself think of every person she’d pushed to sign a commitment, making herself recall every face. With every board, her heart shattered a bit more.
If there was anything she knew how to do well, it was to feel guilt.
“Benedict, I think there should be more chessboards back at the shop.”
“More, Mama Kit? What do you need this many chessboards for, anyway?” Benedict scratched his head.
“Mr. Leighton gave us some chess sets to sell to support the manor,” Kit said. “I’m completing the transactions.”
Ben nodded, happy with the explanation. “I’ll go get the rest of them for you.”
“Kit?” Nash asked again as Benedict left the office.
Kit watched him go. He was growing up.
And Graham was right.
She hadn’t really thought about the long-term implications of everything she’d set up all those years ago. When there was nothing but little children running around it hadn’t mattered. Now that it did, she could see how many ways they’d gone wrong.
“What’s going on, Kit?” Nash asked. He didn’t seem ruffled, didn’t seem worried. The man wasn’t normal, but that was what made him so perfect for Haven Manor. Even after she ended the contracts, she was going to need him. Possibly even more. Who knew how they were going to manage Haven Manor’s finances without a reliable, steady income?
Kit took a deep breath and laid a hand on the boards, feeling a calm peace run through her that was so foreign she considered running away from it. “We’re canceling the contracts. They’re worded as such that the payments must continue until the chessboard is received. Here they are. I want you to send them back along with the contracts. And these.”
She took a pile of papers from the bottom of the crate and set them on Nash’s desk. File upon file of reputation-destroying information. She didn’t want to keep it. Didn’t want access to it. Didn’t want to be tempted to go back to her old ways when her current resolve wore off. And she knew it would. Tomorrow morning she would probably be sick with fear and panic, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t right.
Nash speared his hands through his hair. “Are you sure, Kit?”
