Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

“You realize,” Ned said in a low voice, “that if this story ever gets out, I will be a laughingstock. I am trusting you ladies with my deepest, most shameful secret. You must never tell another soul. I know I can count on you.”


Louisa nodded, and in that instant, Kate’s breath stopped wildly. Somehow he’d managed to calm her friend’s fears. He’d managed to make her smile. And now he was subtly making her feel that she was important, trustworthy. Somehow he’d known that she’d had so much taken from her that she couldn’t possibly give anything back. Her husband didn’t need to beat his chest or roar. He didn’t need to make arrogant demands. He just needed to smile and make Louisa laugh. Now Kate’s heart stung just a bit.

“So,” Louisa asked, “what did you do?”

“What would you have done? I took a bath.” He grinned. “A long bath. Then I got in a little boat and I tooled around and I thought. There’s something extraordinarily valuable about having someone do their worst. If you survive it, they can’t truly touch you again. There’s nothing they can do to bring you down. And Adams—well, he’d done his worst. He couldn’t kill me. My cousin would investigate my death and make his life miserable if he did. He’d had me thrown in the privy on the assumption that I’d be too humiliated to admit it to anyone once I got home. He believed I would simply make up some rubbish for a report and leave him alone.” Ned leaned back in his chair. “He believed wrong. The next morning I got dressed. I went down to his office one last time. And then…” Ned smiled, stood. He walked over to Louisa and bent down, so that he was level with her.

“Then I looked in his eyes, just like this.” He fixed Louisa with a look. “I smiled, just like this. And I leaned forward and I said, ‘Captain Adams, I believe I’ll be on the next boat to the river.’”

Kate watched him in breathless agony.

Ned straightened. “He looked at me. He looked at that damned bell. And then he looked back at me. It was as if he’d bullied me as far as he could. Once he realized I could outlast him, that was that. From there on out, he actually proved quite helpful.”

At those last words, Louisa looked away. “Oh, Ned. I know what you’re trying to say. But I can’t. I can’t testify in court. I can’t petition for a divorce. I can’t even imagine looking Harcroft in the eyes.”

“You can’t right now. I needed that time on the boat, Louisa. I burned my skin crimson that day, sitting on that boat and thinking. I needed that time, because if I’d seen him right after coming from the privy, I would have flinched from him, and that would have been the end of it all. I needed to know what I wanted.” He flashed Louisa a grin. “You can’t know what to do, until you know what you want. What do you want?”

“I want my baby to be safe.” Louisa’s arms curled about her, and Kate bit her lip. “I want him to take his father’s place as earl one day. I want him to believe that love and affection are typical, and violence a mere aberration.”

Ned tapped his lips. “So, for instance, escaping to America and obscuring your identity might cloud his chances at taking his seat.”

Louisa nodded. “I want to stay here with my family.” She glanced at Kate. “And my friends. And I don’t want my husband to ever, ever threaten me again.”

“There,” Ned said. “Was that so hard, then? To want?”

“But I don’t dare want all of that, Mr. Carhart. It’s impossible.”

Ned glanced at his nails, as if in boredom. “A minor detail,” he announced airily. “My wife has been performing the impossible for years, and this time around, she has me to help her. We’ll find out how to get you much of that. It might take some time, but we’ll manage it.”

Oh, he was impossible himself. Impossibly attractive—and impossibly heartwarming, to say such things of her.

“The first step,” she said, “is to keep you safe. And to that end, we need to distract Harcroft. We’ll need to direct his attention elsewhere.”

Ned nodded. “We should let him think we’re desperate. That we’ll make mistakes. That we’re running off somewhere—perhaps rushing to your side.” He looked over at Kate. “What say you to going to London? I have some unfinished business there in any event.”

“And what am I to do there?” Kate asked.

Ned gave her a slow grin. “We,” he said with emphasis, “are going to drive Harcroft mad.”

AS THEY WALKED BACK to the house, Ned felt Kate’s eyes on him. His little story had undoubtedly piqued her curiosity. Unfortunately. She’d not been distracted by her own worries the way Louisa had, and no doubt she’d noticed that there were holes in his tale.

“That,” she finally said, “was very brave of you. To take your embarrassment and use it to make Louisa feel comfortable.”

“Hmm,” Ned said, looking away. “More like foolhardiness.”

“You told us that story with such a smile on your face, as if it were all some sort of joke. But I get the impression there was more to it than you disclosed. What really happened?”