Page 24 of Unmasking the Silver Heiress
"Nate!" Kit snapped, glaring at him.
"I am protecting her from them," Nathaniel decided, feeling the truth of it down to his bones, "lest her innocent heart sends her headlong into unsalvageable danger."Or unfathomable corruption.
"Ah, yes," Kit said, sarcasm dripping from his words. "Nathaniel William Atlas, defender of fair maidens. What on earth has gotten into you? This is madness! You have a good life in London. A promising future! The past is well behind us by now. What could have possibly possessed you to go digging into things that could get you hurt, much less some innocent girl standing obliviously in the crosshairs?"
"She was standing there before I found her, Kit." Nathaniel pushed himself off the wall and paced the length of the floor, nervous energy rattling him too deeply to remain still. "I need to see her safely attended to, provided for once I've shone a light on the dark dealings within which she has found herself entangled. You must not say any of this to her, however. We are here on a simple mission for the Silver Leaf, and we will execute it faithfully, as we must."
Kit waited for Nathaniel to turn back and face him, his lips pressed tight together in disapproval. "What mission is this?"
"We must be invited to a winter masquerade ball put on by a family called the Dempierres. From what your mother told me, they sound difficult to simply encounter in social circles of the area, so I must needs research them and plan for our course of action."
"What are you going to do to them?" Kit pressed. "At this masquerade ball?"
"Nothing," Nate replied with a shrug. "We are simply to attend and observe, at least so far as we know now. I would not play at mischief that could get anyone hurt."
"No?"
"No," Nate snapped. "Knowing how the Silver Leaf dealt with defectors some twenty years ago, I found myself testing the waters in my first mission, to determine if they were still willing to use lethal means to punish those who might turn their backs on the Crown."
"And?"
"If they are, only the woman who runs things knows of it. All of the agents I have worked with reacted with bald-faced horror at the very concept of violent retribution, even under significant pressure. Which is just as well, for I might have had to risk losing my progress to warn some poor idiot who was in their way, had they been amenable to lethal solutions."
Kit just blinked at him, his face slack with disbelief. It was, Nate supposed, quite a lot to throw at a person all at once, but Kit and his damned persistence had brought it upon himself.
"Nate," Kit muttered, flopping back onto the mattress to stare at the ceiling. "You are a bloody fool."
Nate looked at him a moment and then gave a begrudging nod. "Yes," he agreed, “I suppose I am.”
Chapter 13
Shambling through the roads into Kent County was almost surreal. This trip had been days shorter than the one she'd taken south with Nathaniel not a week past, and yet, somehow, throughout this one, she'd almost come to believe she would never arrive at her destination.
There was no mistaking it. Signposts began to display familiar city names, many of which sent Sarah into a flurry of trivia recently learned from the history book she'd borrowed.
They stopped for a late breakfast at a way station in a thicket of rapidly balding trees, where the ground was a patchwork of gold and rust from the blanket of leaves. Nell had a cozy mug of steaming hot chocolate with a modest breakfast of porridge and honey, and watched from the window as more leaves floated down to carpet the earth on every gust of wind.
When the driver asked for directions to Meridian House, the reaction was as though he'd asked for the location of the underworld. It took some coaxing and convincing before the locals would proffer directions, and even then they warned that no one had lived in that house for nearly twenty years, and their trip was in vain.
Nell asked Sarah to arrange her hair again in the carriage, her pulse coming quicker at the realization that she would be with Nathaniel again very soon. She wished she could step from the carriage in stunning silk skirts and the sway of a woman who knows how to enchant a man, like the courtesans inTales from the East. What she wouldn't give for that kind of prowess.
As it stood, she simply hoped she was presentable enough, for today felt like the first day she would truly live as a woman grown and wed, arriving at her homestead for the long winter. Whether she was feeling anticipation or fear seemed irrelevant, for the quickened breathing and racing heart were the same either way.
"You must be missing Mr. Atlas something fierce," Sarah said with a knowing smile as she twisted and pinned Nell's wayward curls into order. "If I had a husband like that, I'd be desperate to get back to him too."
Nell bit her lip, her cheeks warming at the thought of it. "Sarah, have you a beau back in London? Or perhaps elsewhere?"
"Me? No, not anymore," Sarah said cheerily. "I was wooed for a bit by a baker's boy, but it wasn't meant to be. My mother scolded me red for cutting him loose. Said I was spoiled for choice and would regret it, but I don't."
"You didn't love him?" Nell asked, curious.
"Not the way a wife loves a husband, no." Sarah sighed, securing another pin and picking up a new coil of hair. "My mum always scolded me for liking the beautiful ones. 'Don't pine for the pretty ones, Sarah. You can't trust pretty men,' she always said, but I'd like to learn that lesson on my own, given the opportunity, thank you very much. Besides, plenty of ugly blokes are untrustworthy too, aren't they?"
"I suppose that's true," Nell agreed, frowning. "Would you say Nathaniel is a pretty man?"
"Oh, by God, would I," Sarah snorted, raising a hand to stifle the unladylike sound. "Apologies, ma'am. I forget myself."
Nell turned to look at her maid, whose cheeks were still pink with amusement, her hand covering the smile on her lips. "You may always speak freely with me, Sarah," she assured her with a conspiratorial smile. "And rest easy, if you'd answered any other way, I'd know you surely for a liar."
