Page 10 of Ladies in Hating (Belvoir’s Library Trilogy #3)
FROM ESSEX: Last night’s heavy gale and acute electrical storm were accompanied, in the churchyard of Saint Botolph’s, by phenomena of a supernatural sort…
The trouble was, not thinking about a person had a way of devolving into an obsession.
Geneva Desrosiers’s books were everywhere : at the bookseller, at Belvoir’s, inside Jean Laventille’s office when Cat went to sign her new contract. When Cat clambered onto the mail coach to High Ongar, she realized belatedly that the woman beside her had the latest Desrosiers book open in her lap.
What was she to do now? She could not exchange her seat. To do so would be to admit defeat, and she would simply rather die.
Instead, Cat spent the entire two-hour journey sneaking tiny peeks at the text. She told herself she was looking for similarities to her own work, an excuse which would have been more plausible had she not been so deeply engrossed in the story.
It was with some relief that she finally arrived at Saint Botolph’s Church and freed herself from the temptation of Lady Georgiana’s exquisite prose.
Yorke had arranged for Cat’s stay at Renwick House to begin a week hence.
In the meantime, she had plunged into research for her next novel, which she planned to set at Renwick House and which would feature a haunting generational curse.
Saint Botolph’s—the subject of numerous hysterical newspaper articles in recent days—had seemed the ideal place to gather information on supernatural visitations as she awaited her trip to Wiltshire.
A cool autumn rain clung mistily to her cloak as she disembarked from the mail coach and plotted her approach to the site.
The ruins of the ancient church were tucked into the edge of Epping Forest. A new canal project had been designed to extend straight through the churchyard—a construction effort that had necessitated the excavation of the yard and the bodies that had once been interred therein.
According to newspapers, the bones had not taken this disturbance lightly. The workmen had reported ghostly lights, terrifying nightmares, and, on one memorable occasion, an animated corpse walking in full medieval dress through their worksite at midnight.
What anyone had been doing on location at midnight, Cat could not say, but she was dreadfully interested in the story anyway.
The problem, she reflected, was that Saint Botolph’s was not currently open to the public.
This small obstacle had not stopped her research in the past, however, and she did not mean to let it pose an impediment this time either.
She circled back into the forest’s shadows and made her meandering way through sweeping oaks and beeches to approach the churchyard from behind.
There were still dozens of workers at the site, though Cat suspected the crowd was somewhat thinner than it had been before the animated corpse incident.
She tucked herself behind a cart filled with chalk and pulled out her pocket notebook to sketch out the scene: piles of bricks and slate, trenches visible to the north and south, and the peculiar serenity of the leaf-blanketed churchyard at the heart of it all.
It was deliciously eerie. She scratched her pencil faster across the pages, jotting down quick snippets of imagined dialogue as they formed in her mind.
This was where the ceremony would take place to imbue the mysterious count with immortality—and this was where the cost would be exacted upon his descendants half a century later…
She was so engrossed in the blossoming plot that she did not hear the approaching strangers until they were nearly atop her.
“What’s this?” demanded a rough voice on the other side of the chalk cart. “What are you doing out here? There’s no trespassing on the grounds!”
Cat’s head came up. Devil take it, had she been discovered?
But no. Another voice replied, a woman’s, sugar-sweet and ingenuous: “I’m so sorry. I was only looking for my uncle, and I’m afraid I must have become turned around.”
The hoarse voice softened slightly. “Aye, is that it, then? Tell me his name, and I’ll help you find him. Thought you were another of those cursed tourists buzzing about like blackflies.”
“Tourists?” The female voice went higher and sillier. “Whyever would there be tourists at a canal excavation?”
“Haven’t you heard, miss?” The man’s voice grew confiding, and, from her hiding place, Cat rolled her eyes. Was it not obvious that the woman was delicately interrogating him? “There are ghosts at the site. The whole place is cursed by Saint Botolph himself.”
“Cursed?” The woman’s voice squeaked impressively. “Oh no! My poor uncle.”
Cat held herself very still and tried not to laugh.
“What have you seen?” the woman went on, in a tone of breathless concern. “Do you think this curse a danger to the populace?”
The man described the past day’s events in graphic and unlikely detail, and, as he did, his voice grew gradually louder.
Hell. They were coming closer.
Cat bit down on her lower lip and looked nervously to the left and right. There was no obvious means of egress. Could she brazen it out? Pretend she was meant to be here, sitting in the grass with a notebook open on her lap?
But before she could sort out her next move, the two figures came into view, and every muscle in Cat’s body froze at once.
That honeyed voice—those deceptively innocent questions—
Had come from Lady Georgiana Cleeve.
Her hair was puffed out in elaborate curls, and she wore a tiny straw bonnet on her head in absolute defiance of the season. Her face tilted winningly up toward the burly workman escorting her, and her freckles bracketed a guileless and utterly unfamiliar smile.
Cat went hot and then cold all over.
No. No. It was not possible. How could this be happening? What was Georgiana doing here?
And what would she do if she saw Cat?
Frantic panic clouded Cat’s mind. Georgiana would think that Cat had orchestrated this, somehow, again! She would think that Cat had followed her, was once again stealing from her. Georgiana might turn her over to the local magistrate for trespassing, might—
Spurred by feverish instinct, Cat flung herself down to the ground and rolled underneath the chalk cart.
Oh God. Oh hell. This was a disaster.
“A sonorous voice?” burbled Georgiana, sounding for all the world like someone who did not know what the word sonorous meant. “What did it say?”
“Death,” intoned the workman. “Death to all comers.”
A luxurious pair of black half boots strolled past Cat’s face. “Oh no,” Georgiana whimpered. “And my uncle is so lively!”
Cat turned away from the boots, which brought her burning cheek into contact with a sodden oak leaf.
What had happened to her life since she had encountered Lady Georgiana in an alley behind Belvoir’s? How had she come to this point?
And how the devil was she going to get free?
She listened for several uncomfortable minutes as Georgiana rambled incoherent and distracting responses to questions about her uncle. She pondered the other side of the chalk cart, the dozens of chattering workers, and the numerous ways that Lady Georgiana had wronged her.
She had just resigned herself to an afternoon spent among the rocks and mud when a second catastrophe occurred, in the form of a pair of horses hitched to the front of the cart.
Cat craned her head and stared, paralyzed by horror, at eight dusty hooves, clopping sturdily into their assigned places.
The cart was going to roll away. In fact, if she did not move her limbs, the cart was going to roll directly over her.
She moaned softly and pulled her arms and legs into her body.
Which would be worse? To confront Lady Georgiana at this juncture? Or to be run over by a cart?
One of the horses whinnied, and Cat hid a stifled sob beneath the sound. With a reluctance more powerful than any emotion she’d ever felt in her life, she rolled herself out from beneath the chalk cart.
Lady Georgiana was not a fate worse than death, she supposed. By a hair.
The conversation between Georgiana and the workman stopped abruptly, and Cat surmised that they had noticed the human sphere appearing suddenly in their midst. She gritted her teeth, unfolded herself from the ground, and met Georgiana’s stupefied gaze.
“Catriona?” Georgiana said blankly.
Georgiana’s accent had lost its soft, syrupy tones, and—oh, Cat loathed how the now-familiar voice made her feel bizarrely comforted. Somehow less at sea.
The workman looked suspiciously between the two of them. “What the devil’s going on? Is this a friend of yours, miss?”
“No,” Georgiana protested, at the exact same moment that Cat said firmly, “Yes.”
The man narrowed his eyes.
Georgiana directed a single furious glance at Cat before turning back to the workman. “Not a friend, precisely,” she clarified sweetly. “She’s my… Why, she’s my…”
“Uncle,” Cat said flatly, and then she caught Georgiana by the arm and dragged her away from the churchyard and into Epping Forest.
“What the devil are you doing here?” hissed Georgiana as Cat towed her deeper among the beeches. The ground was damp and slippery from the misting rain, and Cat held on to Georgiana’s elbow to steady her—foolishly, absurdly—as Georgiana started to slip.
“What are you doing here?”
“I am doing research—”
“Like hell you are!” Frustration pulsed in Cat, heat rising to the surface of her skin.
She halted beneath a canopy of branches and dropped Georgiana’s arm as though her rich woolen sleeve were on fire.
It was infuriating that Georgiana should look so pristine, and that she should be covered in wet black leaf litter from head to toe. She swiped at her face.
Georgiana’s chest rose and fell rapidly with her breath. Her neatly set curls trembled against the ivory column of her neck. “Is this some kind of revenge?”
Cat was momentarily taken aback. “Revenge? What on earth for?”
“For what my father did to you. To your family.” A pink flush crept up Georgiana’s throat, and her mouth twisted down. The cut-glass tone of her voice was back, at odds with her rising color. “I am not unaware of the circumstances of your departure from Woodcote Hall.”
“This is the most ludicrous—I have no feud with you! My God, Georgiana, I was here first!”
“And I published with Laventille first!” Georgiana took a step closer, and she was tall enough that Cat had to tip her head back, just slightly, to meet her sharp blue gaze. “Oh yes. I am aware of your recent machinations to steal my publisher as well as my ideas.”
The accusation was so preposterous that Cat would have laughed if she hadn’t been so outraged. “To steal your publisher! I am fairly certain Laventille has resources enough to publish us both. Unless he’s kicked you off his rolls?”
“Of course not, but—”
“No,” Cat snapped. “Enough. I have no desire to wreak vengeance upon you. I have done nothing to harm you. I would have nothing to do with you ever again if it were my choice!”
Georgiana blinked, a single flutter of her pale, curling lashes. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and a few drops clung to the edge of her cheekbone.
To Cat’s astonishment, Georgiana looked suddenly—wounded. As though Cat’s words had slipped into the tender place between her ribs.
She didn’t say anything.
And Cat, softhearted fool that she was, felt a throb of guilt. “I’m sorry.” She licked her lips and tasted rain. “I didn’t mean—”
“No,” Georgiana said abruptly. “You’re right. We should have nothing more to do with each other. I shan’t write about Saint Botolph’s. It was a mistake for me to come here.”
They were standing very close. Cat’s skin felt hot against the cold rain, and she knew before it happened that Georgiana would break her gaze. That Georgiana’s eyes would fall once again to her mouth.
The inches between them had gone palpable with tension, charged enough to raise the hairs on Cat’s arms. There was no lightning in the sky, but she felt it anyway, crackling in the air.
The raindrops on Georgiana’s cheek ran down to the corner of her lips, and her breath came faster, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat.
Longing unfurled inside Cat. Recognition. She wanted to taste that delicate skin, and she knew—
Somehow, down in her belly, she knew that Georgiana wanted it too.
And then Georgiana’s gaze snapped back up. Her flush deepened, and her mouth went tight.
“It was a mistake for me to come,” she said again. Her voice was brittle, and the exquisite geometry of her face seemed frozen. “All of this has been a mistake.”
And then she spun on her heel and fled.