Page 4 of Gambling with the Earl
“Owain is being escorted out of Rossfarne.” Alfred folded his arms across his once muscular chest, shifting from one foot to another with uncharacteristic nerves. “If he goes peacefully, he won’t be harmed.”
Kitty watched dully as the crowd of men gathered behind her father, their lanterns bobbing in the darkness. Slowly but surely, they urged him forwards, away from his house and his daughters and anyone he could harm further. Not a word was spoken, not even by Owain. Maybe even he knew that this time he had gone too far?
“Father’s really going,” Rosalind said. Her voice was faint with disbelief and Kitty reached for her hand, unable to offer any other form of reassurance.
The glow of yellow light from the assembled lanterns grew dim and distant. The carriage had long disappeared out of sight and the events of the night felt unreal, like a bad dream. Like a cool glass of water might clear their heads and make it all go away. But Kitty knew this was a dream they would never wake up from.
Silence enveloped them. Rosalind stood as if frozen and Alfred waited, his head bowed respectfully.
Kitty allowed her knees to buckle. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the hard wooden floor. Coldness settled into her bones as the last of her hope drained away.
“Father’s really gone,” she confirmed, hardly caring of the fact. “And worst of all, so have the jewels.”
Chapter Two
Kitty awoke withthe cock’s crow, weary but resolute. The morning sun peeked between the shutters, shining brightly enough to strengthen her newly formed convictions.
She would not allow their father’s recklessness to define them anymore. The menfolk of Rossfarne had shown Owain from the village. Now it was Kitty’s turn to step up.
Rosalind slept on beside her, her rosebud lips slightly parted and her golden hair streaming across the thin blanket. Kitty moved slowly, anxious to prolong her sister’s repose after such an eventful evening. The wooden floor creaked as she put her weight upon it, so she crossed the room on tiptoe, pausing only to scoop up Rosalind’s shawl and drape it around her own shoulders.
She would not dress as usual, not yet. Her chores beckoned but just for once, thought claimed precedence over action.
Evidence of Owain’s rampage was everywhere. An atmosphere of devastation hung over Shoreston Manor, with doors hanging off their hinges, belongings carelessly scattered and furniture overturned. Kitty was a stickler for tidiness and couldn’t bear to see so much as a chair out of place, but this morning she closed her mind to the chaos and walked with calm determination down the stairs towards the back kitchen door. The stone-flagged floor was cold against her bare feet but her wooden pattens were nowhere to be seen. Sighing, sheslipped back the bolt and stepped out into the fresh morning. Immediately, she felt better. She could breathe more easily and some of the worry weighing on her shoulders abated. She tilted her face up towards the sun and closed her eyes, basking like a cat on a hot day.
Standing like this, she could almost believe that her plans, formed during an anxious night, had some small chance of success. Although the idea still made her stomach churn.
Could she really journey to the castle and converse with an earl?
She had to try, no matter what.
The blackbird had already begun the morning chorus. Kitty breathed deeply and let the lilting melody wash over her. If she concentrated, she could hear the roar of the sea from beyond the fields. A faint tang of salt clung to her lips and a gentle breeze caressed her tired limbs.
Yes, she had to try.
There was nothing to ponder, not really. She couldn’t stand back and do nothing. Not when Rosalind’s only chance of a bright future hung on the Answick jewels. Without them she would have no dowry, and no chance of a good marriage. Kitty didn’t have to swing her gaze to the wattle-and-daub manor behind her to know that the roof was sagging. With their mother’s meagre inheritance all but spent, there was no coin to keep up repairs to the house. The awful truth was that the Alden sisters could not live on at Shoreston for many more years, eking out an existence between a fertile kitchen garden, a clutch of chickens and the charity of the townsfolk.
Charity. Kitty’s lip curled in disgust. How she hated that word.
She had already accepted more charity from the people of Rossfarne than was proper or right. She knew many of the locals had written off Owain’s gambling debts in deference tothe wellbeing of his daughters. It was some time since either Lizzie or Alfred had received the coin they were due, and she recognized pity in the gazes of the fishing families as she browsed their market stalls every Tuesday. Since her mother’s death, she was no longer beheld as the daughter of Isabella of Answick. Instead, she was the daughter of Owain the drunkard; the fisherman who hadn’t stepped on a fishing boat since his wedding day.
Worst of all were their weekly trips to chapel. The first pew was always reserved for the Aldens, even though the most genteel family in the village was now, indisputably, the Erkines—farmers who owned land at the other side of the river. Mrs. Erkine had been a regular caller at Shoreston when Mother was alive. She would sit in the parlour and converse with Isabella, bouncing a chubby toddler on her knee. Now, every Sunday, the same kindly woman sat diagonally behind Kitty casting sympathetic glances at her shabby dress and faded bonnet.
Kitty still tried to keep up appearances, for Rosalind’s sake, but with each passing year it became harder.
She closed her eyes. Enough. She would take the necessary action. Even though the prospect filled her with dread.
She walked further into the garden, ignoring the dew that clung to the hem of her chemise and enjoying the springy feel of the early summer grass. The ground was soft and muddy from recent rain. She would have to wash her feet before setting off for the castle, although that was the least of it. She would also have to put on her best dress and pin her hair and somehow find the right words to further her cause with a man she didn’t know and already feared. But she would willingly do all this and more for Rosalind.
Her heart beat faster as she remembered the man in the carriage, his chiselled jawline and low, authoritative voice. She would have to lay claim to her mother’s name, which meantremembering how to be a lady, how to speak, how to stand and how to address an earl.
She paused at the edge of the pasture where the ground began its downward journey towards the sheer cliffs and the sparkling sea. She shaded her eyes and gazed towards the horizon. On a clear day like today, the dark battlements of Rossfarne Castle sprang out sharply against the endless blue backdrop. Two hundred years earlier, the old Earl of Rossfarne had insisted on building his home on a small island, separated from the mainland by a thin strip of seawater. When the tide was out, two thousand paces would take you from Rossfarne Cove to the castle gatehouse, although few folk from hereabouts would elect to.
People who left for the castle didn’t always come back.
Walking meant there was a chance of being cut off by the tide. It would be safer to go by boat, Kitty mused, but her father’s boat was no longer seaworthy. She would have to walk. Although the destination was as perilous as the journey towards it.
“What are you doing out here, Miss Katherine?”
