Early June 1856
Staffordshire, England
Catherine Haynes set her jaw and returned her cousin’s glare. By very subtly lifting her gaze above his piercing gray eyes and fixing it on the portrait of her mother hanging behind Papa’s desk, she could maintain the illusion of control.
“Well?” Ugly red suffused cousin Roger’s neck. “I am waiting for an answer.”
In the months since he and his family first arrived at Deerford, she had learned one important trait about her cousin. He expected compliance. This time she would not bow. Nor could she find words of refusal.
The mantel clock ticked off the seconds.
Roger braced his hands on the desktop, leaning forward like a snarling lion eager to capture its prey. “Your reply.”
Not a question.
Catherine drew an imperceptible breath and imitated Maman’s calm. “I cannot.”
“You cannot?” The sentence exploded with unspoken threat.
He would force her into this marriage.
Again the ticking of the clock filled the silence.
What would Maman do? Faced with similar prospects upon her return from the grand tour all those years ago, Catherine’s mother had abandoned her chaperones in the dead of night and eloped. Catherine had no such escape available.
Roger’s smile menaced. “If you continue in this stubborn refusal, you will lose what is left of your family.”
Meaning him. She had no one else. Not here. Maman’s family was in faraway Louisiana, and the decision to elope had cost her all contact with them. No letters. No word of any kind. How the separation must have hurt, for Maman often regaled her with stories of plantation life, of balls and soirees and golden days running between the tall rows of sugarcane. Catherine had begged her mother to take her there, but Maman said it was not possible. Then she’d died.
Only the portrait remained. Maman’s rose-colored gown flowed from her waist like that of an empress. At her throat rested the ruby brooch Catherine had often run her finger across when she was very young. H for Haynes, Maman had explained, a gift from Papa on their wedding day. Catherine had not found it with Maman’s jewels. Papa must have buried it with her.
Dear Papa. Catherine tugged at her heavy black sleeves to hide the welling of tears.
“I suggest a different answer,” Roger prodded.
Catherine brushed away the past. It could not solve this dilemma. She chose her words with care. “Mr. Kirby does not suit me.”
“Does not suit? You act as if you would bring an heiress’s fortune to your marriage. May I remind you that the terms of your father’s estate leave you but five hundred pounds?”
“And fifty pounds per year.” Eight months had not changed that fact. The passing of time had only increased her cousin’s urgency to be rid of her.
“Until you wed.”
That was the crux of it. Once she married, the annual payments would cease.
Roger settled into Papa’s chair.
She clenched her jaw against a wave of revulsion. Roger might have gained the estate through settlement, but he did not belong in her father’s place.
“I do not intend to wed. Allow me to manage the estate—”
He snorted derisively. “Is that what you call your playing around in the accounts?” He filled a pipe from Papa’s tobacco jar.
Angry words rose to the tip of her tongue and stopped there. Very few men considered a woman intelligent enough to manage accounts, least of all an estate. Roger was not one of them.
“If you examine my entries—”
“I have.” He slammed shut the open ledger before him. “Some might consider them adequate, considering your gender, but I found them entirely insufficient.”
“Insufficient! Compare my skills to any man—”
He cut her off. “Use those skills to benefit your husband.”
She choked. “I am in mourning and cannot consider marriage.”
“You have worn black long enough. It’s time to move on. I suggest you change into something more cheerful.” His cold gray gaze, fixed above fashionably long sideburns, bored into her. “That would be welcomed by our guests.”
Mrs. Durning, whose husband had just left to provision his ship for the crossing to the West Indies, and Mr. Kirby were expected. Neither cared about her attire, but at least it gave her an excuse to leave this unbearable interview.
“If you will excuse me, then.” She reached for the doorknob.
“Not quite yet.” He drew a breath on the pipe and exhaled a cloud of rich smoke.
If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Papa sitting there, his spectacles resting on the tip of his nose, where they would slide after hours of agonizing over the accounts. Papa had been a kind and generous man, often excusing debts and allowing rents to remain in arrears far too long. Of course, she hadn’t known that until he fell ill and she had to take on the accounts.
Roger cleared his throat. “At three and twenty you will soon slip from a marriageable age.”
“Apparently not, if Mr. Kirby is still calling.”
Roger’s jaw tightened. “His long association with the family places him in a rather fortunate position.”
“Fortunate? That is a matter of perspective, is it not? As you just stated, I bring a pittance into any marriage.”
“Precisely. Few would consider a wife who brings only five hundred to the marriage.”
She could not resist poking at his unstated desire. “You might continue the fifty pounds per year. We are cousins, after all.”
“Let me spell out what you could never have gleaned from your pitiable scribbling in the ledgers. Your father’s estate is in ruins.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he lifted a finger to silence her.
“Even if I manage to collect the arrears, which I fully intend to do, it will not offset the losses.”
Catherine would not be set down so easily. “Then how do you intend to pay the dowry?”
His lips twitched, signaling triumph. “I intend to sell the estate.”
“Sell Deerford?” The words barely escaped her constricted throat. “You can’t!”
“As you well know, I can. In fact, a buyer is at hand.”
“A buyer?” She clawed at hope. “Mr. Kirby?” Perhaps she would agree to marry him if it meant saving Deerford.
He laughed. “Certainly not.”
“Then who? Will he continue the tenants’ leases? Will he keep planting the land as always?”
“This clay soil was never suited to farming, dear Catherine. It will fare much better in the hands of the pottery manufacturer that is buying it.”
“A factory?” Her head spun. “But, the house.”
“It would have been too costly to maintain.”
“What will happen to the tenants? You must take care of them. They have worked Deerford land for generations.”
He leaned back and blew out a plume of smoke. “They can apply for employment at the factory.”
“But they’re farmers.” Each face flashed through her mind, from old widow Evans to the two-year-old Herring twins. “They don’t know anything else.”
“Then they can move elsewhere.”
His cold statement sent shivers down her spine. She must help them, but how? The few guineas in her possession wouldn’t feed them long. They needed lands to tend.
“You must find them new homes,” she pleaded.
“Sometimes progress demands change. For them and for you.” He paused. “Deerford is extinct. You have nowhere to go, dear Catherine. Perhaps a husband—especially one as charitably minded as Mr. Kirby—would find a place for your tenants on his father’s or future patrons’ lands.”
Her throat closed. How carefully he had crafted the snare. If she hoped to help the displaced tenants, she must marry Eustace Kirby.
Roger seized his advantage. “I suggest you give full consideration to Mr. Kirby’s suit.”
She sank into the closest chair. “But he’s a clergyman.”
Roger’s brow quirked. “Do you harbor resentment against that noble profession?”
Cousin Roger would not think so highly of the ministry if he had been forced into it as Mr. Kirby had been.
“I wouldn’t make a good minister’s wife.”
“Let us hope Mr. Kirby doesn’t see that fault before the blessed event. I shall give him my blessing.”
“But I did not agree to marry him.”
“You would destroy your father’s hopes for you and leave your beloved tenants without a future rather than commit to a life of serving the Lord?”
Put that way, it sounded rather selfish, but she could not marry Eustace Kirby. The mere thought of kissing him made her stomach turn. Having children? Settling into a country parish? Impossible.
“There must be another answer.” Yet she could not see it.
Roger leaned back with a contented smirk and puffed the pipe. “Make no mistake, dear cousin, fifty pounds will not go far. Once you have no home . . .” He let her imagine the result.
She clawed at the pit that was swallowing her. Above Roger, Maman’s portrait smiled placidly at the terrible scene unfolding below. She would never have agreed to this manipulation. You have my wits, Maman had often told her, and your papa’s compassion. What to do?
She tried to breathe, but the strictures of both garments and circumstance made it difficult to draw in enough air. Papa’s halting words on his deathbed echoed in her mind. Forgive me for losing what was yours. Now she knew what he meant.
“So you can see,” Roger was saying, “Mr. Kirby has presented a most opportune offer. I suggest you accept.”
He had left her no escape. Her head spun, and spots danced before her eyes.
“Are you unwell?” Roger rose.
She shook her head rather than admit weakness. Several short breaths restored her vision, though her stomach still quaked.
He moved toward her, a glint in his eye, and brought to mind a shadowy memory from childhood. A stranger, dark as tea, had cast her the same look when he passed her in the hallway en route to Papa’s study. Papa had closed the door behind them, but she’d crouched outside to listen. Murmuring voices grew heated, and then the door burst open. The dark stranger’s victorious smile, like that of a king, claimed her imagination. He swept past, carrying a strongbox, and rode off on a black steed like an avenging knight.
She peppered her father with questions, but he would tell her nothing, only that it did not concern her.
But perhaps it did. What if this dark stranger had come from Maman’s glorious plantation? What if contact had not been cut off forever? His glance toward her had not borne malice. No, it seemed to say that she belonged with him.
The study door opened.
“Excuse me, Miss Catherine, Mr. Haynes.” The housekeeper dipped into a slight curtsey. “Mrs. Durning has arrived, and she says that Mr. Kirby will be here shortly.”
“Good,” Roger said. “Tell Mr. Kirby to join me in the study. We have business to discuss while Catherine entertains Mrs. Durning.”
Roger drew again on the pipe. The set of his jaw meant the decision had been made. With or without her permission, Roger would give his consent to Eustace Kirby’s suit. He believed he had trapped her.
Well, Roger could give all the blessings he wished. He was not her only family, and Mrs. Durning could very well give her the escape she desperately needed.
She stood, reinvigorated. “I request the annual sum due me.”
He set down the pipe with a thud. “What?”
“The fifty pounds specified in Papa’s will.”
“You will waste it on the tenants?” he sneered.
She could no longer help them. Unless . . . “And an additional ten pounds per tenant family.”
He guffawed. Then paused, surprised that she didn’t waver before him. “You are jesting.”
“I am not.”
“It’s not in the terms of the will.”
“I propose new terms. In exchange for the ten pounds per tenant, I will waive all future annual payments.”
“You will anyway, once you marry.” The smirk was back.
She drew in a deep breath, never more certain. “I do not intend to marry. I am rejoining my mother’s family in America.”
He stared, struck silent for the moment, but soon she saw the gleam of self-interest as he calculated the benefits of her plan. This would spare him not only the continued fifty pounds per year but also the five hundred upon her marriage, for she would have difficulty claiming it from America.
She assumed all the risk, leaving dull security for the unknown. Surely her mother’s family would welcome her. Surely Maman’s sin did not extend to the next generation.