A Marriage of Equals
Автор
Elizabeth Rolls
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Chapter One
‘Goodnight, John. Merry Christmas!’
Psyché Winthrop-Abeni stepped from the carriage to the pavement.
‘Merry Christmas, Miss Psyché.’ The old coachman grinned at her. ‘Bert’s got his orders. He’ll see you in safe.’
The footman had already jumped down from his perch behind the coach. Psyché didn’t bother arguing. She knew perfectly well that Uncle Theo had given those orders and she could hardly countermand them. Besides, it wasn’t as if either man would take a blind bit of notice anyway. They’d been told to see her safe home and they would do precisely that.
She raised her lantern and led the way to the front door of the coffee house. Although at eight o’clock it had been full dark for hours, the carriage lamps cast light to see by and a few stragglers were still hurrying home carrying lanterns. Christmas Eve, and the bite in the air promised snow before morning.
She slipped the key into her front door and unlocked it. ‘Thank you, Bert. Don’t wait. I promise I’ll lock up immediately. Merry Christmas.’
He just looked at her.
She let out a laugh. ‘Oh, very well.’ She went inside, closed the door, locked it, shot the bolts and set the bar in place. Then she unbolted the little shutter in the door, flipped it up and looked out. ‘Happy?’
‘Merry Christmas, miss!’
‘Merry Christmas, Bert.’
Psyché watched as he leapt up behind the coach and it rumbled off. Bolting the shutter, she stifled a sigh, then threaded past the tidily stacked tables and chairs of the coffee house, through the kitchen and into the back corridor and storage area. A narrow set of stairs led upwards.
She shouldn’t be sighing. She had been blessed, right from the day the terrified mulatta child had arrived on the London docks over a dozen years ago, to now, when, as an independent woman of twenty-four, she climbed the stairs leading to her private apartments over her own shop. The lantern threw dancing gilded shadows before her. The only sounds were those of the building creaking as it settled for the night.
Blessed. Privileged, even. Because although she worked hard to earn her living from the coffee house she owned and had christened The Phoenix Rising, she had been given the chance to do so. It could all have been very different.
Christmas was one of the times of the year she made herself remember that and count her blessings.
Blessing—the first? Her freedom. That, she knew, some would consider the greatest of those blessings because everything hinged on that.
Second? She was independent and that was important, too. Because while freedom and independence were related, they were not quite the same thing.
And third? Encompassing all the rest? She had family and she was loved unconditionally. Without that love none of the rest could have happened. And even before she was brought to London, there had been Mam. Mam who had loved her with everything she had. Without Mam...
Thank you, Mam. For everything.
So now, climbing the stairs to her apartment, she thought of love and family. And counted her present blessings.
Christmas Day she would spend with her elderly friend and neighbour from the bookshop across the road, Ignatius Selbourne. Ignatius, she knew, hoped to see his own great-niece on Christmas Day, but he didn’t expect it. Catherine’s father was unlikely to permit it. Ignatius had said very little, but she knew he was worried about the girl. Her betrothal had recently ended in scandal. Some said she had broken it, others claimed that Lord Martin Lacy, youngest scion of a ducal house, had finally spurned a mésalliance with the daughter of trade. If the latter was true, she considered Catherine well rid of the connection. A man who considered you beneath him was not a man at all.
She set the lantern on the table. By the fire her ginger cat, Fiddle, yawned and rolled over invitingly. She bent down and stirred up the fire, adding more coals. Fiddle mrowped his approval, stretching to expose his furry belly to the warmth.
‘Pleased to be of service, Your Deityship.’ Psyché rubbed his head, felt the rumble of his deep-throated purr. She suspected that in Fiddle’s view of the world their relationship was not that of cat and mistress, but of beneficent god and humble acolyte.
She swung the kettle over the fire. It was too late to drink coffee, no matter how tempting. She’d never sleep if she did. A chamomile tisane was a much better idea. Her thoughts drifted to Ignatius as she spooned the dried flowers into the pot.
He’d worried about Catherine’s betrothal at first, disgusted by what he’d described as Carshalton’s ‘medieval matchmaking’. But Lord Martin had brought Catherine to visit him... Should have known better than to judge without meeting the fellow. He’s the right sort. She’ll be safe with him. And happy. A week or so later the betrothal ended.
Psyché had delivered a pot of coffee to the bookshop while Catherine and Lord Martin were there and if he’d broken the betrothal then he was a fool. It had been so obvious that Catherine cared for him. She didn’t know Catherine well, but she knew the girl feared her father, and loved her great-uncle, so she was predisposed to like her and think that if she’d broken the betrothal, then she’d had a damn good reason for it.
So instead of spending the day with her own family, Psyché would visit Ignatius. Attend church with him at St Anne’s and dine afterwards. There would be other waifs and strays in the cosy, book-strewn apartment above his shop.
Uncle Theo had understood and not pressed her to stay the night and spend Christmas Day. Today it had been just the two of them in the library of his Mayfair mansion. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow her cousin Hetty and her husband, Lord Harbury, as well as Hetty’s father would be there along with assorted other relatives, some of whom merely tolerated her. And while she and Hetty were as close as ever, it was awkward when Harbury was there.
As children they had spent Christmas at Uncle Theo’s house on Hampstead Heath, with its views back down to London and the dome of St Paul’s reaching into the cold, bright sky. Aunt Grace had turned a blind eye to two little girls shrieking in glee as their sled tore down the hill in a whirl of snow and laughter.
But Highwood House was no longer her home, although she still visited whenever she could. This comfortable apartment was home now. It might not be as luxurious as Highwood or the Mayfair house, or any of Uncle Theo’s other properties, but it was hers. And little touches spoke of home. Aunt Grace’s worktable and her silver brushes—utterly useless with Psyché’s unruly curls—the Turkey carpet from her dressing room at Highwood, part of the pretty tea service from the Mayfair house and other items that Uncle Theo had insisted must be hers after Aunt Grace’s death.
‘She’d like to think of you using them and you’ll remember to visit me from time to time, heh?’
She did not need reminding to visit, but over the past three years this had become her home. Little things like the book she was reading left on the table, her shawl thrown over the back of a chair that had once been in Uncle Theo’s study and Fiddle curled by the fire where Nyx, the spaniel, had left such a gap when she died two years ago.
With the kettle not quite at the boil, she poured the water into the pot to steep. Wandering to the window, she twitched the curtain aside. Snow drifted down to the quiet street and at the familiar rise of delight, she remembered her first Christmas with Aunt Grace and Uncle Theo.
The cold had shocked her; it still did—but the snow... To the little girl from Jamaica it had been something out of a fairy tale. Until it actually began to fall she had not believed that such a thing was possible. Now she knew that slush would follow, but she had never lost her stunned delight at snow tumbling from a leaden sky to lie in soft, tempting drifts, inviting a small girl to make it into a ball and throw it at someone. How many snowball fights had she and Hetty fought with Uncle Theo? There could have never been too many before the snow’s fairy tale turned to slush.
Now she pulled out the letter that Hetty had left for her with Uncle Theo and began to read it again.
Dearest Psyché...
She could enjoy her letter, drink her tisane and think back on a lovely day while she counted the blessing to come of spending a snowy Christmas Day with a lonely old man who loved her as a sort of second-best great-niece. They would eat a good dinner, play piquet and no doubt she would borrow yet another book.
Their sled tore down the slope below Highwood House, with Psyché and Hetty laughing and shrieking as the bells of St Paul’s called across the valley and echoed in the bright, crisp air.
Funny, she’d never noticed them from up here on the Heath before. They must have come closer in the night...
Hetty turned, smiling, and somehow it was the Hetty of now, not the child. ‘It’s for you...’
Psyché rolled over and sat up. Far from hearing the bells of St Paul’s, or indeed any other church, it was the jangling bell at the back door of her own shop that had woken her.
She flung back the bedcovers, smothering Fiddle’s indignant mrowp, shoved her feet into slippers and snatched up her heavy shawl. She used a taper to light the lamp on the table from the glowing coals of the living room fire before hurrying down the stairs to the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Ignatius. Quickly, Psyché!’
She dragged the bolts back and lifted the bar, then turned the key. The door opened before she could do it herself and Ignatius and a smaller, slighter someone were inside with a flurry of snow and the door banged shut behind them.
‘What on—?’
‘I need your help, Psyché. You have to hide her until I can get her out of London.’
The fear in the old man’s voice stopped her heart. ‘Hide who?’
‘Kit—that is, Catherine.’ He spoke fast and low. ‘She’s run from her father. She can’t stay with me. It’s the first place he’ll look. There’s no time. I have to get back before he arrives.’
‘I told you, Uncle, I left that handkerchief and the note. He’ll think I fled with—’
‘He may or may not believe that, child,’ said Ignatius. ‘He’s a scoundrel, no question, but he’s not stupid. We won’t chance underestimating him.’
He gripped Psyché’s wrist with startling strength and his voice shook. ‘Please. I know what I’m asking of you, but there’s no one else I can trust with this.’
Catherine Carshalton was under twenty-one, an heiress. And her father... Psyché knew exactly who and what Carshalton was. Chills that had nothing to do with the icy night skittered along her nerves. Hiding this girl of all the girls in London could see her arrested, gaoled...and none of that mattered in the least.
‘She won’t be safe here indefinitely.’
‘I know.’ Ignatius sounded steadier. ‘I’m going to write to Huntercombe. And I’ll spend the day rushing around London supposedly looking for Kit. Draw Carshalton off.’
‘All right. Go back.’ She nearly shoved him out the door. ‘Get a message to me if you can, but don’t come yourself. It may not be safe.’ She slammed the door shut on his thanks and shot the bolts again. She set the bar back in place, turned the key and then peered in the dark at her unexpected guest.
Her eyes had adjusted to the faint light from upstairs and Catherine Carshalton was a white shadow in the darkness. Psyché could hear her teeth chattering.
‘Here. Take my hand and mind your step.’
A gloved hand slid trembling into hers and she led Catherine to the stairs. ‘First step.’
‘Thank you. I... I can s-see enough.’
Upstairs, she gestured Catherine to the chair by the fire. ‘Sit, Miss Carshalton. I’ll make you a hot drink, then—’
‘Kit. Please, call me Kit. I will never be Miss Carshalton again.’
Psyché, stirring up the fire, sat back on her heels and stared.
Miss—Kit sat there wrapped in an ermine cloak that must have cost several small fortunes, shivering. Her face was blue with cold under the hood, but her mouth was set flat and her grey eyes blazed in utter resolution.
‘You’ve run away.’
The chin lifted. ‘Yes. I’m... I’m s-sorry if I’ve put you in danger. I didn’t think and I h-had nowhere else to go but to Uncle Ignatius.’
Psyché nodded. ‘Do you mind telling me why you left?’ She might loathe and abhor everything Carshalton stood for, but that didn’t mean his daughter felt the same way necessarily.
Kit met her eyes. ‘I planned to leave anyway when I turn twenty-one. But tonight—I overheard them.’
‘Them?’
‘My—that is, Carshalton.’
Psyché blinked at Kit’s clear disavowing of her father.
Kit went on. ‘Carshalton and the man he wants me to marry.’ She swallowed. ‘They had the wedding arranged for later today. But first he...he was going to force me. He...they thought that way I couldn’t refuse.’
‘Force you?’ Psyché realised it was not only cold that made Kit’s voice shake and rage flooded her own throat as understanding sleeted through her. ‘Force his attentions on you? Lord Martin was—’
‘No! Not him!’ Kit’s voice broke. ‘He—Martin would never, never—anyway, that’s over. Done. Martin will never marry me now. He can’t. Carshalton made another choice for me—Lucius Winthrop. He’s—’
‘I know who Lucius Winthrop is.’ Psyché heard her own voice from a distance, each word like an icicle breaking. ‘And your—’ She broke off.
I will never be Miss Carshalton again.
Carshalton had forfeited all right to be called a father. ‘Carshalton agreed to this?’
‘He suggested it.’
Psyché’s gorge rose. ‘No wonder you ran. How did you throw the bastard off your trail?’
For the first time a tear slid down Kit’s cheek. ‘I had a handkerchief Martin lent me. I left that along with a forged note telling me where to meet him tonight.’ Another tear followed the first.
Psyché stared. ‘Does Carshalton really think you’re that stupid?’
Kit nodded. ‘I’m a girl. We’re not supposed to think.’
