Degree of Solitude Read online

  “Someone else wound them,” Nevern said. His smile was warm. “Blodwen, most likely. She could well have been there.”

  “Which means, I am afraid, that she most likely was walking in the hills after dark,” Catrin said softly. “It will help calm your people somewhat.”

  “Oh?” Nevern asked.

  “Talk of a rogue wolf will unnerve them. Now we have established it was likely Blodwen was in the hills after dark, it will allay their fears somewhat. They will assume that if they avoid the hills after dark, they will be safe. It will give you time to hunt the…whatever the creature was.”

  “Which we should find out in a few minutes,” Nevern said.

  Kernigan stared at Catrin, a small furrow between his brows, until the carriage stopped once more. He seemed both startled and thought-filled.

  Dr. Jones was a distant cousin of Blodwen Jones, Nevern informed Catrin as they climbed from the carriage. The surgery they approached was nothing more than a slightly larger house in the heart of Newport. The path was swept and the paint on the window frames appeared to be only a few years old.

  “Dr. Jones is a widower,” Nevern added. “He lives upstairs and uses the downstairs rooms as his surgery and consultation rooms, although he spends more time out and about…” He trailed off as they reached the house, for Simon Evans stumbled around the far corner of it. He leaned against the wall as if he was too weak to hold himself up.

  His face was white and he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. His hand trembled. His cap laid on the ground at his feet.

  Simon stared at the three new visitors with a glassy gaze. “I wouldn’t go in there, if I were you.” His voice was just above a whisper.

  Kernigan lifted a brow and tilted his head at Nevern. Nevern didn’t respond in either expression or words.

  Kernigan turned to Catrin. “Thank you, Miss Davies. You’d best be back to the carriage now.”

  Catrin’s breath caught. She looked from Simon to Kernigan. “I’m afraid I do not understand what you are saying, Mayor Kernigan.” The coldness in her voice emerged without effort.

  The door to the cottage opened. An aroma rolled out from the front room which made Catrin gasp and put her fingers to her nose to muffle it. It was a caustic scent. Beneath it was a stronger, foul stench which made her think of the coppery taste which had flooded her mouth when she bit her tongue, one year at the great family gathering. She had been laughing so hard, she dropped to the ground, dizzy with it. Her teeth had clicked together sharply, and her mouth filled with pain and the metallic flavor she had forgotten until this moment.

  That was when she knew what the aroma was.

  Blood.

  Dr. Jones held the door open. “Well, are you going to stand out there all day?” he demanded. His face was as florid as last night, yet there were pasty gray lines about his mouth. He wore a leather apron which gleamed with dark liquid.

  More blood.

  Catrin swallowed and lowered her hand.

  “I’ll escort the lady back to the carriage,” Kernigan said. “You go in, Nevern.”

  Nevern merely lifted his brow and looked at Catrin.

  She pulled her shawl around her shoulders with forceable tugs. “A little blood does not dismay me.”

  “A little?” Dr. Jones laughed. “The girl’s entrails are laying across the table. Her organs are on display. Get back to the carriage with you. This is no place for a lady.”

  Catrin appealed directly to Nevern. “I can help. Mr. Williams wanted me to represent him.”

  “I do not believe Daniel would wish you to step into something like this,” Nevern said. His tone was kindly.

  “Go and wait in the carriage,” Kernigan said, his tone sharper than Nevern’s. “Be sure we’ll call on you if there’s an hysterical woman needs calming.”

  Catrin’s chest seized. Her head pounded, as she tried to control the hot swoosh of fury building in her. She held her teeth together with sheer discipline, for if she loosened her jaw, she would speak words gentlemen were not used to hearing from women.

  Nevern peered at the garden. He refused to meet her gaze.

  Catrin went back to the carriage, fuming. She climbed into the conveyance, hauling herself up with a hand on either side of the door, which was ungraceful and inelegant, but she did not care. She slammed the door, which was a wasted effort, for it unsettled the horses and the three men for whom the thud was meant had already moved into the house.

  Chapter Eight

  Catrin sat in the still carriage, breathing hard, a tight knot aching in the middle of her chest. Oh, how she longed to hit something!

  This was not the first time she had rammed up against the unyielding wall of male opinion of womanhood. It likely wouldn’t be the last, either. Of course, it was her own fault she continued to burn her fingers upon this particular fire.

  It would be much easier to blame Daniel for putting her in such a position, only he had merely been the catalyst.

  He had kissed her on Christmas Day in 1869, then told her they had no future. He’d left Marblethorpe before dawn the next day and, although she didn’t know for weeks after that he had left England in January, sailing for China. She had learned where he was when she saw his name above an article about the Great Wall in the Times newspaper, in March.

  In all that time there had not been a single letter from him, which gave her no address to write to, either.

  While her heart was bruised and her thoughts chaotic after the kisses they had shared, Daniel’s refusal to write to her hurt most of all.

  She dragged herself through the first three months of the year, unenthusiastically preparing for a season in London which she didn’t want to attend. The tedium of this season would not be broken, nor her horizons broadened, via Daniel’s dashing hand.

  The first week of April, invitations to society events arrived at the big house on Grosvenor Square. Catrin could not bring herself to respond in the affirmative. She sat at the desk in the library with her stationary in front of her. Her pen hovered over a clean sheet. Yet she could not write the polite phrases which would commit her to one more season of soirees and dinners and balls and at-homes.

  She watched the pen drip ink upon the sheet, willing herself to put the nib there, instead, but could not.

  Finally, she dropped the pen back in the inkpot with a hiss of frustration and rubbed at her forehead. What was wrong with her?

  She sat back with a sigh and looked at the bright sunshine coming through the window, making lacy patterns on the carpet. Iefan had returned from France. He was upstairs, sleeping. She should have every reason to be happy, yet she was miserable.

  Daniel had refused to kiss her again because it would be the ruin of her. She wished he could see into her heart right now. He would change his mind and kiss her once more, for holding himself from her made no difference—she was ruined no matter what he did—or did not do.

  Her gaze fell upon her open stationary box, sitting on the end of the desk. In the velvet-lined compartment at the back were all the letters he had sent her over the course of a year, from Canada and America, India and Egypt, Singapore and points in between.

  The adventures in those letters!

  Catrin pulled them from the compartment with difficulty, for there were so many jammed into the section, which had held them together.

  She turned them face up and put them on top of the soiled sheet of stationery. Then she opened the very first letter she had received and read it again. She took her time, going through the pages slowly, absorbing yet again the sights and sounds as Daniel described them.

  She wondered if Daniel was aware that when he wrote a personal letter, he sounded far different from the formal reporter in the newspaper. The scenes he painted for her were so alive and colorful! She could smell the gutters in New York and the mountain air in Canada. She could feel the damp heat of Singapore and see the junks with their red, odd-shaped sails among all the huge, world-traveling cutters and trade s
hips.

  She could smell the sand in Egypt and feel the heat of the stones of the pyramids baking her legs as she sat at the top and watched the dunes roll to the horizon.

  As she went through each letter, Catrin wished there was more—not simply more letters, but more of the descriptions of strange places and curious people, so she could linger in that wonderful world a little longer.

  The thought popped into her head unbidden as she was folding one letter and preparing to read the next.

  I should write my own letters.

  Quickly, the thought amended itself. Not letters, no. A story, so she could live in one particular world for as long as it took to write it and later, to read it. She could make the world as interesting as she wished, expand its horizons as far as she wanted.

  Thoughtfully, she pushed aside the letters, shook off her pen and poised it over the ruined sheet of stationary.

  Then she wrote.

  By the end of that day, her hand was cramped and her forearm ached. Still the hot cascade of words moved more quickly than she could write. For the day, she had lived among the sand dunes with the fierce Berbers, fighting alongside them and becoming the heroine of their tribe, who was offered a cavern of jewels in reward…

  Catrin ate at the desk. She did not retire for sleep until long after midnight and still her mind turned over and over, improving the story.

  The next morning at breakfast, she scribbled out letters of regret to every single invitation she had so far received. As soon as she could, she returned to the library to write once more. She turned the cupboards and drawers upside down in search of paper. She asked Stamp to send a footman to buy more, along with more ink and more pen nibs.

  The story took a week to complete. Catrin took another day to re-write the story as a clean copy.

  She titled it An Adventure in The Sahara.

  Catrin curled up on the sofa beneath the window in the library, with a pot of tea and tarts, and read the story through.

  Iefan found her there and snorted in amusement. “What’s this? An admirer?” He bent and turned his head to read the pages lying on the floor beside the sofa. “A rather inspired admirer, I’d say. Hmm…” He bent and picked up the sheet, while Catrin held her breath.

  Iefan frowned as he read the rest of the sheet. “This isn’t a letter.”

  “No,” Catrin admitted.

  He considered her. “This is what you have been doing for days and days? You wrote it. You’ve had ink on your fingers for a week or more…”

  Catrin chewed her lip. “Did it feel as though you were there, when you read it?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. Although, the Berbers don’t speak Arabic, Cat. They speak their own language.”

  “Oh…” She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. I should check everything in the story to make sure it is actually true.”

  Iefan laughed. “Why? Are you planning on publishing it?”

  Catrin grew still. Her heart, though, slammed against her chest. Once.

  Why would I not? The voice was silent.

  Iefan pulled his watch from his pocket and checked it. He held the sheet out to her. “If you do get it published, can I have a copy?” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Must dash. I’m late.”

  She realized Iefan had been in and out of the house all week, on mysterious business which had little to do with the ton, for he rarely dressed appropriately. Tonight, he was wearing a proper evening suit, with everything polished and tied properly.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked.

  “Lord Banbury’s. A card game which a friend of mine wants to join. I’m partnering him.”

  “God forbid you go to Banbury’s for the dancing,” Catrin teased him.

  “Indeed,” he agreed, with a shudder.

  He hurried away, while Catrin picked up and rearranged the pages in order, her thoughts running in a dozen different directions and excitement making her pulse leap and dance.

  It took a week of discrete questions to learn where she might send a story for possible publication, and how. Catrin packaged up An Adventure in the Sahara and sent it off.

  The next day, she began another adventure story. This time, a longer, grander one, set in Singapore upon a junk, featuring silk merchants and opium dens and danger upon the high seas.

  Two weeks later, An Adventure in the Sahara was returned to her. The letter which accompanied it was short and abrupt.

  We suggest you try offering your story to the Ladies’ Treasury or similar. It is too light a tale to fit with our current requirements.

  With regret…

  Catrin put down her knife and fork, as she choked on her mouthful of kippers, indignation making her throat tighten. She took a sip of tea to clear her mouth, picked up the letter and read it again.

  The Ladies’ Treasury: An Illustrated Magazine of Entertaining Literature was devoted to needlework and household management. They did not carry fiction in their pages, and Catrin suspected the editor whose signature appeared at the bottom of the letter she was holding knew that perfectly well. His point was that her story, written by a woman, should only appear on pages printed for women readers.

  “God, I hope you don’t scowl at men in that way,” Iefan said, at the end of the table.

  “Only if they deserve it,” Catrin replied tartly. “In this case, he does.”

  “Remind me never to stand in front of you when you have a pistol in your hand while wearing that expression.” Iefan tossed his napkin onto the table and left the room.

  Catrin stared after him, turning the idea over and over. She smiled. Could she dare…? Why not?

  It took another week to revise An Adventure in The Sahara so the main character was a square-jawed Englishman with the unlikely name of Rigby Jocelyn Blue. Rigby Blue was an adventurer with impressive strength, perfect aim and impeccable morals…except when a beautiful woman crossed his path, when his morals were decidedly tested.

  Catrin selected the next publication on her list and sent the story. Both the title page and her covering letter carried the nom de plume Gresham King.

  Only three weeks later, the London Gentleman’s Monthly accepted the story for publication as a three-part serial. No one questioned whether Gresham King was really a man.

  Catrin read the acceptance letter five times, trying to understand if she was excited or annoyed that her ploy had worked.

  She dressed in a plain day dress and presented herself at the publishing company to request the payment be provided in cash, as her employer, Mr. Gresham King, preferred liquid funds for his travels.

  No one questioned that either.

  An Adventure In the Sahara was a sensation. The magazine doubled its circulation with each of the three instalments. By then, they had brought every story Gresham King could write, including the Singapore story.

  Shortly after, the Morning Chronicle newspaper wrote to Mr. Gresham via the publishers of the London Gentleman’s Monthly, commissioning a novel to be serialized in twelve parts.

  They offered five hundred pounds, an amount which stole Catrin’s breath and made her dizzy for minutes.

  Catrin told no one of her sudden and unexpected literary success. Most of London spent the summer being entertained and enthralled by Gresham King stories appearing in the daily papers and monthly magazines. Catrin stayed at home and wrote, or spent her time reading books in the family’s extended library, in search of new settings and strange and wonderful facts to supplement the sights and sensations in Daniel’s letters, to round out the continuing adventures of Rigby Jocelyn Blue, gentleman at large.

  When the first part of the serialized novel ran in the Morning Chronicle, Sullivan Cornell, her editor at the London Gentleman’s Monthly, sent a letter requesting Gresham King and he meet to discuss future stories and a possible contract. The letter was phrased in a way which told Catrin her editor did not expect a refusal to meet when a lucrative contract was possible. He named the dining room of the Ritz Hotel, at noon the
next day.

  Iefan was nowhere to be found that night. He might be anywhere in England. Catrin could not confess and ask his advice, as much as she wanted to.

  She dressed in her best the next day and presented herself at the Ritz dining room and asked for Mr. Sullivan Cornell.

  The waiter led her to a small table, where a man in his late thirties got to his feet at her approach, a small frown marring his handsome brow. “You are King’s secretary, yes?” he said. “I saw you in the lobby of the magazine once.”

  Catrin squeezed the handle of her reticule. “No, Mr. Cornell. I am Gresham King.”

  He sank back into his chair and failed to ask her to sit. So she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat on the edge. Her throat was dry.

  Sullivan Cornell smoothed a hand over his dark hair, his brown eyes studying her. “This is a disaster of the first water,” he said.

  Catrin’s heart hurt, so fast did it beat. Anger gathered in her belly, too. “I do hope you are not about to be as tiresome as every man on the ton, Mr. Cornell. I have proved my stories have universal appeal. I fail to see why my sex is an issue, now.”

  Sullivan reached for the glass of brandy sitting in front of him and took a large swallow. “What is your real name?” His voice was hoarse.

  “Catrin Elise Davies.”

  He choked on his brandy. “Rhys Davies, the barrister…he is your father?”

  “I see you know a little about society.”

  “Your mother is a princess of some sort, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. I am not, however.”

  Sullivan smoothed his hair once more. “You need to go home, Miss Davies. We will pretend this conversation never took place.”

  “We have business to discuss, remember?” She kept her tone cold.

  Sullivan shook his head. “No, there is no business. Not anymore. Don’t you see? The magazine wants to contract Gresham King so they can publicize that he writes exclusively for them. You cannot sign a contract, Miss Davies. Not as a woman, nor as Gresham King. And you are far too…too…” He drew in a breath and blew it out. “You are too pretty, Miss Davies. No one would believe you are the inventor of Rigby Blue, or that you could possibly have written all those stories, not a society debutante like you.”