Mr Prevett hurried away down the rise and soon the grinding of wheels over dirt joined the fading plod of the horse as it drew the gig out of sight.
Katie didn’t watch Mr Prevett leave, but remained focused on Conrad, sliding her opal ring on and off her finger, the movement jerky and fumbling.
‘Did you really forget me so soon?’ Conrad accused, suspicion hard in his voice.
‘So soon?’ Katie shoved the ring back on her finger. ‘You promised me you’d only be gone for six months, for as long as the Arctic summer lasted, but it’s been over a year since you were supposed to return. I thought you were dead, everyone did. How dare you come back now and accuse me of anything?’
Conrad trimmed his suspicions like a sail in a storm. A calm head would win the day, just as it had seen him and his men through the winter. ‘I only want to know what was happening between the two of you.’
‘What you saw was the result of your having been gone, of you chasing your ambitions and leaving the rest of us to deal with the consequences.’
* * *
Katie rushed past Conrad and down the hill, as livid as the day his uncle, the Marquis of Helton, had turned from ruining Katie’s reputation to destroying her father’s. For the better part of the last year, she’d borne the malicious whispers of London and the snubs of the Naturalist Society alone. Now Conrad was here, tossing suspicions on the heap his uncle had worked so hard to build.
‘Katie, wait,’ Conrad called after her, his quick footsteps muffled by the soft earth.
She stopped to face him, further accusations silenced by the sight of him moving through the grass. He isn’t dead.
Her heart leapt in her chest, but the pain of everything she’d suffered since he’d left trampled her joy. If only he’d come back before all the troubles had begun. ‘I waited for you for over a year, I won’t wait any longer.’
She turned her back on him and made for the road, the dust kicked up by Mr Prevett’s gig choking her along with the biting injustice of Conrad’s return. She’d prayed so many nights for him to come home. For her prayers to be answered after it was too late stung as much as the day she’d finally accepted he’d perished.
Though he wasn’t dead.
She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to take it all in, but it was too much, especially on the heels of the other shocks she’d suffered today. Her spirits dropped lower at the sight of her canvas satchel lying beside the road, set aside by Mr Prevett before he’d driven off. Inside was a selection of her papers and sketchbooks, the ones she’d been so eager to show to Dr Mantell. She curled her fingers in against her palms, her fingernails as sharp as Mr Prevett’s betrayal. It was the second time she’d been deceived by a man she thought her ally in her fight to regain the Naturalist Society’s recognition. She didn’t know Mr Prevett had been swayed by London gossip enough to believe she would become his mistress. At least he hadn’t tried to force himself on her like the other false friend.
She stopped in front of the sad canvas bag sagging over its leather bottom. Was there any person in England who wouldn’t fail her? The strangling loneliness of her youth, when her father used to lock himself in his study to work for hours, filled her again.
As much as it galled her to admit it, her mother was right; the only person a woman could rely on was herself.
She snatched up the bag, then turned to see Conrad standing by his horse, stroking the length of the animal’s tan nose. The changes which had shocked her as much as his resurrection were highlighted by flecks of grey in his sandy hair. He was still a rock of a man, but noticeably leaner, his jaw tighter and more angular, but it was his dark eyes which stunned her the most. They held none of the optimism and excitement which used to illuminate them before he’d left. It was as if the chill of his experiences still draped him, the way her sorrows hung around her in the quiet house she’d once shared with her father in Whitemans Green.
‘It’s getting late. We should be going.’ The tender tones which had graced his voice on the hill were noticeably absent.
‘There’s an inn not far from here. I can walk there and spend the night, then take the coach home in the morning,’ she feebly protested, knowing she had little choice but to join him. Even if she could reach the inn before midnight, she didn’t have the money to pay for a room, or the coach to Whitemans Green.
‘You know me better than that, Katie.’ He came forward and took the satchel by its scarred wooden handles, his fingers brushing hers as he grasped it.
‘You needn’t be a hero, Conrad.’ The time for him to save her had already passed.
‘Then let me be a gentleman.’ The circles beneath his eyes darkened with the fading daylight. It wasn’t just exhaustion blackening them, but something like the despair of loss, a sadness she was all too familiar with. She slid one finger cautiously over the back of his hand, the desire to comfort him as he’d once comforted her overwhelming. He’d been the rock upon which she’d planned to build her life, then he’d sailed away.
She let go of the bag and a heaviness descended over her as he turned and walked back to the horse. With misgivings she followed, noting the ripple of his muscles beneath his faded uniform as he tied the satchel to the saddle bag, the force with which he pulled the leather straps tight telling.
Once the satchel was secure, he took the reins and settled one foot in the stirrup. Stiffness marred his movements as he mounted, but it didn’t diminish the power of him. His sturdy frame reminded her of the beams used to support the quarry wall and the trees in the fields encircling the mines. They’d spent so many lazy afternoons in the tall grass together beneath such oaks, the fossils she’d collected scattered about the blanket to keep the edges down as his solid legs intertwined with hers. In the words of love and temptation he’d whispered in her ear, she’d forgotten the loneliness which had marred her life. The memory made her cheeks burn with delight and regret. She should have followed her instincts instead of her heart and never fallen in love.
He clicked his horse into a walk, bringing it beside her and extending his hand. Red patches of raw skin marred the palms, like old blisters which had healed. It tore at her to see such blinding evidence of what he’d endured, but she was careful to subdue the urge to comfort him. She, too, bore bruises from the last year and a half, only hers weren’t as obvious as his.
‘Perhaps we should walk.’ In the face of so many startling events, she could hardly climb in the saddle with him and expect to maintain what little remained of her calm.
‘It’ll take too long and we’re already losing the light.’
He was right, but it didn’t lessen her unease as she placed her hand in his and slid her foot over the toe of his boot in the stirrup. She exhaled with surprise at the strength he used to pull her into the saddle, the vigour which had first caught her notice three years ago when he’d sought out her father’s expertise overwhelming her again.
She settled herself across his thighs, his chest against her shoulder as troublesome as the front curve of the saddle digging into her buttocks. She shifted, working to keep her balance, worried as much about being this close to Conrad as toppling over on to the ground. She gasped as he slid one hand around her waist to steady her, then took the reins with the other and set the horse in motion.
‘What happened between you and Mr
