Anne Barbour (13 page)

No, David didn’t need her as an ally. Did he need her as a friend? When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, she sent a hesitant smile to him as he entered the room. Though it seemed to her that his glance had sought her out, he did not return the smile, but instead looked quickly away.

Kate’s heart sank. He could not have rebuffed her more pointedly had he turned his back on her. Miserably, she followed Cilia to the piano to accompany that young lady in a song. Cilia was blessed with a singularly sweet voice, and in a few moments, she was joined by Lucius. The two performed several duets, apparently growing more pleased with one another with each note.

Afterward, a game of piquet was suggested, but Kate had by that time developed a raging headache. Pleading fatigue, she retired to her room before the tea table had made an appearance. David, deep in conversation with Crawford and Lucius, apparently did not notice when she left.

Once in her bedchamber, she did not immediately slide beneath the coverlet. Having undressed and donned her night rail, she dismissed her maid and slumped into a small armchair by the fire and gave herself up to gloomy ruminations.

She had found David changed on his return to Westerly, but she did not doubt that his affection for her remained strong. Now, he had been catapulted into an exalted position, and seemingly had forgotten his childhood playmate.

She scolded herself. She had got along very well without him for the last six years, and there was no reason why she should become glumpish at the prospect of getting along without him for the rest of her life. She was happy for him, of course, for now Westerly would always be his. As for herself, she thought rather forlornly, she must get about the business of her own life. As David had said, she was not a child anymore. Beginning tomorrow, she told herself, she would look about to expand her horizons. Explore possibilities. And see what the world had to offer.

With these admonitions clutched firmly to her breast, she climbed into bed and blew out her bedside candle and waited for the sleep of the just and the sensible to descend upon her.

Instead, it hovered somewhere above her, near the ceiling, refusing to be grasped. After an hour spent in restless kicking of covers and adjusting of pillows, she gave up. Slipping on a robe, she tiptoed out into the corridor and hurried in the direction of the library.

Turning to descend the great staircase, she paused a moment at a sound that reached her from the other end of the corridor. Again it came, and this time Kate recognized it. It was David, beginning one of his dreams, and without thinking, she hurried toward the bedchamber of the master of Westerly. As she ran, she recalled that Lucius now slept far from David’s room, and she had no idea where Curle spent his nights.

The sound came again—a low moan of inutterable despair, and without hesitation, she turned the door latch and entered David’s room.

Chapter Nine

The chamber was in darkness, illuminated only by slices of moonlight slanting between the draperies. The sound of a muttered groan led Kate to the great bed where David lay, tossing in unconscious anguish.

She sat on the bed and bent to grip his shoulders. His nightshirt was soaked with sweat.

“David!” she called softly, shaking him.

His only response was an unintelligible murmur as he twisted in her grasp.

“David!” she repeated, shaking him again.

He sat upright, his eyes wide and staring.

“My God!” he cried. “The water! Do you see? Look— he’s ...”

She raised a hand to smooth the dark hair falling damply over his forehead and tried in vain to control his convulsive shuddering.

“It’s all right, David. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

“Look!” His voice was a hoarse shout. “Oh, Jesus! They’re falling—they’re all falling! Ferris! Halloran!”

He flung an arm out, nearly knocking Kate to the floor.

“Come back! The ladders ...” And then, again. “The water! Can’t you see? He’s drowning. Somebody ... Lucius!”

With all the strength she possessed, Kate threw her arms around him and flung her body against his in an effort to bear him back against his pillows.

“David!” she gasped, pressing her face against the muscles bunched beneath her. “It’s all right. Wake up. You’re safe—at Westerly.”

He uttered a long, shuddering groan and suddenly was still.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the rasping of his breath. Kate remained silent, holding him close against her, aware of the pounding of his heart against hers. His arms crept slowly about her.

“Kate?” The word came in a whisper. “Kate.”

Over and over he said her name, burrowing his face in her shoulder. His breath was warm in the hollow at the base of her throat, and without volition she curled her fingers in the softness of his shaggy hair.

Kate did now know for how long they remained thus, locked in a primal giving and taking of comfort. She did not know when she became aware of the heat of his body invading the thin linen of her night rail, or of the feel of his lips on her skin. The need to provide solace was giving way to another need, one she did not understand. She sensed that David had wakened, but he did not pull away from her. Instead, he began a caressing motion along the length of her back that made her arch against him involuntarily. She uttered a sound that was not quite a moan, and David stiffened. His arms dropped and he pulled away from her.

Suddenly cold, she rose from the bed.

“Kate!” He spoke her name quietly, but his intonation was sharp. “You should not be here.”

She shivered, and, feeling bereft, hugged herself.

“No,” she whispered, “but you cried out.”

There was a moment’s silence before David replied in a barely audible voice.

“Yes, I suppose I did, but—please, just go now.”

Without a sound, she whirled and ran.

Once in her own room, she plunged beneath her coverlet and lay trembling and breathless, as though she had been running for her life.

What had happened in that moonlit chamber?

When she had taken David in her arms, her only intention had been to provide solace for a friend. She had been wholly unprepared for the torrent of emotions that had engulfed her like the first waves of a storm at sea. She relived the feel of him—the roughness of his beard, the strength of his fingers, the shattering Tightness of his arms about her. Even the scent of him—the sharp, musky odor of masculine sweat—filled her senses and elicited an unfamiliar, almost frightening response.

Most alarming of all, she hadn’t wanted it to stop. Her breasts, pressed against him, had suddenly swelled with longing.

Lord, was she a wanton, then? Granted, her experience with men was limited. Her first kiss, taken hastily by one of Lawrence’s friends had been unpleasant. His mouth had been wet and demanding, and she had felt nothing but disgust at his furtive gropings. The shy kiss bestowed on her by her London beau, Charles, Lord Stevendon in a secluded alcove at her comeout ball was another matter. She had experienced a definite tingle on that occasion. Would she have welcomed a further encroachment on her virtue? Possibly, but being a correctly reared maiden, she did not indicate this to her smitten partner, so none had been forthcoming.

No such reserve had troubled her tonight, however. In the urgency of David’s embrace, she had been filled with an aching desire to melt into his very bones.

Forcing herself to abandon this dangerous line of thought, Kate turned her mind to the words David had uttered in his nightmare delirium. His cries undoubtedly had been torn from the heart of a battle somewhere in Spain. Water? Drowning? Most of the captured towns she had read of lay in strategic river positions.

Lucius had said that David had changed after the Battle of Badajoz—where Philip had been killed. Did the nightmares have something to do with her brother’s death? Lucius said David did not want to talk about Badajoz, but perhaps talk was what was needed. Surely it could not be good to keep such horror locked inside, festering in the dark corners of his memory. Sighing, she resolved to insert a gentle probe into David’s emotional wounds. She wouldn’t press, of course, but if she could get him to air his pain, perhaps it would begin to heal in the warmth of a little friendly concern.

Yes, friendly concern. She liked that phrase. It had nothing of a fire in the blood in it, nor the delicious feel of a muscular body pressed against her own. She turned her face into her pillow. David had need of her friendship, she told herself firmly, and tomorrow she would search him out for some quiet, reasonable conversation.

Her quarry, however, proved to be singularly elusive. She made an early appearance in the breakfast parlor the next morning, garbed in the most becoming of her mourning gowns, only to be told that his lordship had taken toast and coffee early, and then disappeared into the library with orders not to be disturbed. Nor did he appear for luncheon, having asked for a tray to be sent in for himself and Mr. Pettigrew, the bailiff, with whom he had been closeted for several hours.

Kate did encounter Lady Falworth and her son, however, each of whom were apparently laboring under a strong sense of ill-usage.

“B’God,” muttered Lawrence morosely, crumbling a slice of bread onto his plate. “He’s becoming insufferable, practically ordering us to attend him at a time of his choosing. Does he think I have nothing else to do with my afternoon that I must attend his every whim?”

“It is most annoying,” agreed her ladyship. “May I have just a little more of that chicken, Carstairs? I was planning an inventory of the linen cupboards with Mrs. Seagrave, but of course that means nothing to him.”

“And if he intends to lecture me on my spending habits,” continued Lawrence, his eye kindling, “I—well, I won’t stand for it.”

“Never fear, my dearest, if he starts anything of the sort, he will have me to deal with.” Regina’s voice was filled with calm authority. “In fact, I have a little something to say to him on that matter. I did not at all care for the way he spoke to you last night.”

“Nor I!” Lawrence responded, reaching for a plate of grapes lying within his reach. “It’s not for the likes of him to be telling me how to live my life.”

Kate, who had grown increasingly angry during this exchange, could contain herself no longer.

“What do you mean, the likes of him? Have you already forgotten that his birth has proved to be as noble as your own, Lawrence? Why do you think the servants now address him as Lord Falworth instead of yourself? As for his right to ...”

“Please Kate,” reproved Regina gently, “manners. And I hardly think we can speak of David’s, er, background on a level with that of Lawrence, when one considers the low birth of his mother.”

“Only fancy,” added Lawrence angrily, “Father’s first wife wore a grass skirt. What a blot on the family escutcheon.”

Kate opened her mouth to deliver a stinging retort, but was forestalled by a voice drawling from the doorway. “I believe, my dear boy, you’re thinking of the natives of the Sandwich Islands.”

She whirled to observe Lucius entering the room.

“Those from the West Indies,” he continued, the mildness of his words belied by the glint of his eye, “favor brightly colored cloth.”

Kate cast him a grateful smile, and gestured to a chair next to her.

“What difference does it make?” Lawrence asked pettishly, as Kate helped Lucius to fruit and meat and the prime cheese of the region, a sharp Cheddar. “The fact remains that Father betrayed everything that he should have held sacred by bringing a—a prancing native into the family. People will say that the Earl of Falworth has tainted blood in his veins.”

“Perhaps, my dear ...” Regina’s smooth voice held a warning. “It would be better to simply acknowledge the fact that David’s mother was a resident of the Indies. I cannot see that anything would be gained by advertising to the outside world David’s, er, plebeian origins.”

“Closing ranks, my lady?” Lucius queried, idly twirling his quizzing glass on the end of its silk ribbon. “Just as the third earl’s family did when it put it about that the infant he had brought to Westerly was the son of a mythical friend?”

Regina leveled a steely glance at him.

“You go too far, Mr. Pelham. You have intruded on a discussion of private matters, and since you obviously have no concept of the behavior expected in polite society, I shall take leave to tell you that your remarks are singularly inappropriate.”

Lawrence thumped the table with his wineglass in agreement.

“Anyway,” he said, “why are you still here? Thought you didn’t plan to stay above two or three days.”

“But isn’t it obvious, my dear?” interposed Regina with a malicious smile. “He has just discovered that his old comrade-in-arms is a peer. How foolish it would be for a farmer’s son not to take advantage of such a relationship.”

“Aunt Regina!” cried Kate, her hazel eyes flashing like new-minted pennies. Crawford uttered an inarticulate sound, and Cilia breathed an agitated, “Oh, Mama!”

Regina fluttered her hands.

“Perhaps I was a little blunt, but with persons of a certain order, sometimes one has to make oneself plain. For example ...” She turned again to Lucius. “I believe you have overstayed your welcome, Mr. Pelham. I’m sure you must have more pressing demands on your time in, er, Kent. I shall inform the servants that you will be taking your leave no later than tomorrow morning.”

“It is David who invited Lucius to remain,” cried Kate hotly. “And he may remain here for the rest of his life if he’d like.”

“God forbid,” murmured Lucius.

As though she had not heard, Regina replied complacently, “I believe my wishes still hold some weight in this house. When I inform David that his so-called friend has made himself unwelcome here, I am sure he will be the first to insist on your departure.”

Lucius, unscathed, sat back in his chair and smiled with great sweetness.

“For all that you had a lifetime to become acquainted with his lordship”—he placed a deliberate emphasis on the words— “it astonishes me that you know him so little.”