A Little Scandal (17 page)

The marquis frowned. “Nervous,” he echoed. “I was not under the impression that you were a nervous sort of person, Miss Mayhew.” But the way he was looking at her, with those too green eyes, was making her very nervous, indeed. “I am, however,” he said, “hardly the ogre you evidently think me. I’m sorry, Miss Mayhew, to hear of the loss of your parents. When did they pass away?”

She said faintly, “Seven years ago.”

“And may I ask how they died?”

“There was a fire.”

There was a fire. Four fairly simple words, none above a syllable. And yet to Kate, they were the four worst words in the English language, words that would always cause a shiver to go up her spine. In fact, she gripped the lapels of the coat he’d draped across her shoulders a little tighter, as if to shield herself from a sudden dip in temperature.

And then, rather to her confusion, she felt the fingers of the marquis’s ungloved hand slide along her jawbone, then take hold of her chin, and lift her face so that he could look down into it.

“That,” he said, so quietly that it was almost as if he were speaking to himself, “is one I haven’t seen before.”

Kate, not having the slightest idea what he was talking about, but nevertheless instantly paralyzed by his touch, asked, “I beg your pardon?”

“You have a strangely expressive face, Miss Mayhew,” he said, his voice still no more than a murmur. “And, I’ve noticed you’ve a marked inability to hide your emotions. You appear to be quite cheerful by nature, and so when you mentioned the fire …. Well, I was surprised by what I saw in your eyes.”

Kate, completely unable to tear her gaze from his, asked softly, “And what did you see in my eyes, Lord Wingate?”

She didn’t mean to be provocative. She asked because she was genuinely curious. Had she looked frightened? She hoped not. Kate could not abide cowardice, though she knew she hadn’t acted with any great bravery when Daniel Craven had appeared so suddenly.

Or had she merely looked sad? There were times when Kate’s loneliness for her parents—for anyone, really, with whom she had a shared history, someone besides Freddy with whom she could talk about her life before the fire that had changed it so irrevocably—seemed almost more than she could bear. How had she looked? What had he seen in her eyes?

But she was never to know. Lord Wingate was just opening his lips to reply, his fingers on her face very warm—a warmth that, like his coat about her shoulders, ought to have been reassuring, but which caused Kate’s heart to slip into a rhythm that was certainly less than even—when the French doors burst open, and Isabel, her face very flushed, cried, “There you are. I’ve been looking all over! It’s time for the Sir Roger. Are you coming?”

The marquis had dropped his hand the second Isabel started speaking, and Kate, for her part, had turned quickly away, already allowing his coat to slip from her shoulders. As Isabel stood there, looking aft them expectantly, Kate said, passing the garment back to its owner, “Thank you for the use of your coat, Lord Wingate. I’m feeling much better now.”

Lord Wingate took the coat without a word, but Isabel was not so tactful.

“Oh, you needn’t worry, Miss Mayhew,” she said, “about that man who made you so pale. He left straight after Papa took you away. Who was he, anyway? Someone who used to be in love with you? He was very handsome. I don’t know why you didn’t marry him.”

“He wasn’t anyone,” Lord Wingate said, before Kate had a chance to reply. Shrugging back into his coat, he took his daughter by the arm, and continued. “An old business acquaintance of her father’s, whom she hadn’t seen in quite some time. Now, what’s this about the Sir Roger?”

“It’s starting,” Isabel said, “in five minutes. Everyone’s got to take part, or it won’t be any fun. You and Miss Mayhew have got to join. Will you, Papa? Miss Mayhew? Will you, please?”

Kate, who’d been revived by the claret—but even more so by the heat Lord Wingate’s touch had quite inexplicably sparked within her—said, with something like her normal no-nonsense tone, “You know very well, Lady Isabel, that I can’t join you. But I shall be delighted to sit and watch you and your father dance.”

Isabel made a face as they reentered the ballroom. “Me? And Papa? Dance? No, thank you. Geoffrey’s already asked me. Papa, if Miss Mayhew won’t dance with you, you’ll simply have to find your own partner.”

Lord Wingate, Kate saw, smiled a bit enigmatically. “I shall see what I can do,” he said.

And then they were swallowed up in the crush of bodies that crowded the ballroom. Isabel, soon finding Mr. Saunders, hurried away, and Lord Wingate, Kate saw, was directly accosted by a large, heavily jeweled woman who spun around when he inadvertently brushed against her in an effort to get by.

“Wingate,” she bellowed. “I didn’t know you were here! I saw the lovely Lady Isabel, but not you. When did you arrive? How could you have come out and not looked for me?”

How the marquis bore being greeted by this overbearing woman Kate did not wait to find out Their conversation on the terrace—the whole evening in general—had made her quite uncomfortable, to say the least, and it was with great relief that she slipped away, hoping that her employer would be too distracted by his admirer to notice that Kate had gone.

But when a few minutes later she had slunk back to her seat in Spinsters’ Corner, she caught sight of him again, and found that the marquis’s penetrating gaze had followed her, despite the gaggle of splendiferously dressed women who’d gathered round him. He looked at her over the heads of his admirers—admirers who did not seem in the least concerned about the Marquis of Wingate’s reputation, violent or otherwise—and raised a hand.

Kate, staring at that hand, felt a sudden and curious rush of emotion. And then she blushed at the absurdity of her reaction. Because it was only a hand, of course, casually raised to let her know that she had not, in fact, escaped unnoticed, that the marquis had been perfectly sensible of her disappearance, and that he had troubled himself to discover where, exactly, it was that she’d slipped off to.

And yet to Kate, it was more than just a hand. It was an indication that, for the first time in a very long time, she was not alone. Well, she had certainly never been completely alone … after all, she had Freddy. But though Freddy had always been a good friend, he had not necessarily been the most reliable—and now that she knew about his soprano, she saw why. He had certainly not been someone who, lost in a crush of admirers, would think to seek out Kate, wherever she happened to be in the room, and wave to her.

Which caused Kate to wonder what, in fact, Lord Wingate was doing at the ball in the first place. She had been under the impression that he couldn’t stand these sort of events. So what was he doing at this one? Certainly he could not be here because of Isabel. That was her duty, looking after Isabel. Had Lord Wingate harbored some doubts about Kate’s ability to handle his daughter? Had he come to the ball to see how well she fared at it?

Or was there some other reason he’d come all this way, in all this rain?

I was very much afraid something like this might happen. Those had been his words when he’d first taken her aside. Had he been afraid that she would be tempted to desert her post, as it had surely looked as if she had, when he’d first walked in and found her in Freddy’s arms?

Yet he had not rebuked her for it. He had, in fact, apologized for Freddy, believing the earl had taken a liberty.

And when Daniel Craven had accosted her, the marquis had been almost protective in the way he’d steered her from the room, sensing she was unwell ….

I was very much afraid something like this might happen.

Good God. Kate straightened in her seat, almost as suddenly as if she’d leaned back upon a pin someone had carelessly left upon the chair back. That was it. That had to be it.

Lord Wingate was looking out for her.

He was doing it this instant, right before her eyes. For though he had lowered his hand, his gaze still alighted upon her, every so often, even as he casually shook hands with acquaintances, and sipped a glass of champagne. He was keeping an eye on her. He kept an eye on his daughter, too, but ….

But he was also looking out for her chaperone.

It was ridiculous, of course. Ludicrous, even. Here was a man who had the worst reputation imaginable: he had divorced his wife, and tried to kill her lover; he had kept the product of their union from her in an effort to punish her for loving another man; he’d dueled with Lord knew how many men, and had had affairs with women all over Europe, and had even, shortly upon making her acquaintance, attempted to make love to her ….

And yet, here Kate sat, feeling a rush of warmth and gratitude and—she might as well admit it—liking for her employer.

How could she? How could she possibly like a man like that? How could she, Kate Mayhew, whose head was planted so firmly upon her shoulders, possibly like a man like Burke Traherne, who was, in every way imaginable, so thoroughly lacking in morality? What was the matter with her? What was she thinking?

But she knew exactly what she was thinking. And what she was thinking—what she couldn’t help thinking—was that it had been a terribly long while since anyone had troubled themselves to look out for her, even a little.

Oh, certainly Freddy did, when he remembered to, which tended to be whenever his mother was out of town. But the marquis had come down, on his own accord, for the express purpose of seeing how Kate was faring. He had even apologized to her for what he had perceived as a slight against her by one of his set.

And it had been a long time—a very long time—since anyone had apologized to Kate for anything. The fact that the marquis had done so made her feel … well, it made her feel as if she belonged.

It was a little thing, a ridiculous thing. But there it was. She felt as if she belonged … not necessarily to someone, but to something … a family. And not the pages-and-binding variety, which she had only just a few hours earlier explained to Isabel was the only kind of family she had anymore. But a real family, of flesh and blood.

She had never felt as if she belonged to any of the other families with whom she’d lived since the deaths of her parents—not the Piedmonts, or the Heathwells, or, God forbid, the Sledges. It didn’t do, Kate knew, for someone in her profession to get to feeling too close to her charges. Children grew up, and then there was no need for a governess—or, in this case, a chaperone. It had already happened to Kate several times, even in her relatively short career. The only thing for it, really, was to put on a brave face, and sally on to the next assignment. What else was there for her to do?

Oh, she could marry Freddy, she supposed. She could always marry Freddy … providing, of course, she could put up with his mother.

And the soprano, of course.

But Kate wasn’t ready to give up, and if she married Freddy, that would be precisely what she was doing. Somewhere out there, she was convinced, was the man for her, and even though, at twenty-three, she was advanced in age for the marriage market, she wasn’t going to allow herself to surrender without a fight. After all, she’d known girls of eight and twenty—even over thirty—years of age, who’d found love and marriage. Why shouldn’t she?

So there was nothing for it, really, but to carry on, and work to earn her keep, and face each day as another opportunity at finding the love she was certain was waiting for her. For everything she had ever read had assured her that love came to those who were patient, and good at heart. And she trusted that she was both things. Love was surely just around the corner for Katherine Mayhew. She simply had to find the right one.

Corner, that is.

But in the meantime, it seemed, she had found a family. A fractured one, to be sure, but still, something to which she felt she belonged.

And that feeling of belonging was what was making her feel so warm. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced in quite some time. It was a feeling she quite liked.

It was a feeling she very much feared she could get used to.

“No,” Lady Isabel Traherne said petulantly. “That isn’t what I asked for. I asked for sugared orange slices, not peach.” She fell back against the pile of pillows behind her, raised a lace handkerchief to her red and running nose, and moaned, “Oh, take it away. Just take it away.”

Brigitte, Lady Isabel’s personal maid, shot Kate, who was sitting a few feet away, an aggrieved look. Brigitte was taking her mistress’s illness quite hard. She had been working ceaselessly at trying to find ways to amuse and cheer the invalid.

Kate, on the other hand, found it exceedingly difficult not to laugh at Lady Isabel’s theatrics. She managed to keep a straight face this time only because she’d had some little practice over the course of the past week, during which Isabel’s cold—and it was, the physician had assured them, only a spring cold—had gone from bad to worse.

Kate’s belief that she had finally found a place in which she belonged had not lessened, even as her charge grew more and more irritable, and less and less likable, as her cold progressed. For now that they were not constantly at the opera, or a ball, or a card party; not attending the races, or a luncheon, or hopping from milliner shop to milliner shop in quest of the perfect bonnet, Kate had come to know the rest of the household quite well, and had developed a thorough liking for almost all of the inmates of 21 Park Lane.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Cleary, was a clever and sensible woman, who seemed to worship Kate for her ability to discipline the headstrong Isabel—whom, Kate learned, had run quite wild before she’d taken up residency. The butler, Vincennes, was everything that Mr. Phillips had not been, and a good hand at chess, besides, and was forever hovering about, asking Kate if she had time for a game. Even Brigitte, the French ladies’ maid, whose head was filled with little more than giggles and gossip, was a thoroughly pleasant companion, though Kate suspected the only reason she’d taken so to her mistress’s chaperone was that Kate spoke a little French, and Brigitte, missing her mother tongue, enjoyed conversing in it once again.