Elizabeth Mansfield (11 page)

Then Benjy had bounded in with the liveliness of a puppy, eager for Kate to continue the dancing lesson of the night before. "Not right now, Benjy," she'd said to him. "It's low tide with me this morning, I'm afraid. Perhaps Deirdre will teach you." And she'd left the room, picked up a shawl, and set off for a brisk walk round the grounds.

It was about an hour later, when she was returning, that she'd become aware of footsteps behind her and heard Harry's uncivil greeting. "Wring
my
neck?" she asked with that combination of laughter and fury. "It's yours that ought to be wrung! What dreadful thing have
I
done?"

"What you've done, ma'am," Harry said, falling in step beside her, "is broken my poor brother's heart."

Kate stopped in her tracks. "What nonsense is this?"

"It's not nonsense. He's adored you, you know, since the day you arrived and let him escort you in to dinner."

"You can't be serious. Adored me?"
 

"Utterly and completely."

Kate uttered a scornful laugh. "What a ridiculous exaggeration. The boy's fourteen! I'm ten years older than he. At worst what you're describing is a schoolboy infatuation."

"I'm not exaggerating," Harry insisted. "In the game of love, a schoolboy infatuation can be very painful, especially if the object of the infatuation is as cruel and heartless as you."

"Cruel and heartless?" Kate gaped at him in disbelief. "What did I
do?
"

"You broke your promise."

She put a hand to her forehead in bewilderment. "Promise?"

"To continue the dancing lesson. Not only did you put him off, you foisted him on to Deirdre."

He was right about that much, Kate admitted to herself. "Yes, I did, didn't I?" she said thoughtfully as they resumed walking. "I had no idea it meant so much to him. If I hurt him, I'm sorry. But I was too blue-deviled for dancing this morning."

"That's no excuse," Harry said. "To encourage his affections by being so kind to him, and then cutting him to the quick because your mood had changed is, as I said, cruel and heartless."

Kate shook, off the accusation with a wave of her hand. "You're making too much of a small matter."

"My dear girl, in the game of love—"

"Harry Gerard!" she snapped. "If you utter the words 'in the game of love'
once more-—!"

His eyes widened in surprise. "I say it often, do I?"

"Only with the frequency of a parson giving a blessing."

"Oh," he said, rubbing his chin ruefully. "Sorry."

"But in the matter of Benjy," she said, returning to the subject of her own embarrassment in order not to prolong his, "perhaps I
am
at fault. I'll make amends, truly I will."

"How?" Harry wanted to know.

She thought for a moment. "I know. I'll give him that dancing lesson, but I'll behave with such dancing-master formality that he'll wonder what he ever saw in so elderly and dull a person as I. I hope that will settle the matter."

"As simple as that, eh?" he asked dubiously.

"Yes, as simple as that." And, having no other solution to offer^ she started down the path away from him.

"I might have expected you to salve your conscience so easily," he remarked to her retreating back. "With your stubborn mind, you're not likely to face the extent of your blame."

"Blame?"
She wheeled about in a fury. "For what am I to blame? You can't believe that I
encouraged
him to become infatuated with me!"

"Yes, I can," he argued, though his voice was gentle. "I believe you felt sorry for his loneliness and used your charm to cheer him. Therefore, though your motives were generous, the end result—"

"Used my
charm?'
She laughed bitterly. "I didn't think you believed I had any!"

Harry's slow smile made an appearance at last. "After last night, you know perfectly well how charming I find you."

Though his words and that smile disconcerted her, they were not enough to calm her fury. "Those, sir, are the words of a practiced flirt," she accused, "and quite beside the point. Are you suggesting that I purposely tried to
flirt
with Benjy?"

"You may not have seen it that way, but that's what it was."

"That's ridiculous!" The idea that he could accuse her of flirting with a fourteen-year-old boy positively enraged her. "How can you even
think
such a thing?" she cried. "You, of all people, blaming me for Benjy's calf love, when you yourself—!" Abruptly, with a sudden sting of guilt, she stopped herself.

Harry
^?
s eyes narrowed with sudden, sharp attention. "I myself?"

"Yes, you yourself!" She knew she was on forbidden ground, but her anger seemed to have gained control of her tongue. "Blaming me is just as ridiculous as if I blamed you for encouraging Deirdre—" As soon as she said the name, she stopped herself again. She could not throw that accusation at him without violating Deirdre's confidence. She hoped she hadn't gone too far.

But Harry had heard enough. "Encouraged Deirdre to what?' he asked.

"Nothing. I didn't mean any—"

"Yes, you did. It's not nothing. I can see an accusation in those speaking eyes of yours."

"No, please, it
is
nothing. I... er... I must go." And she started off again.

But he caught her arm and made her face him. "You said something when I first came upon you. Something about it being I who ought to have my neck wrung. What did you mean?"

"I didn't mean anything," she insisted.

"You mentioned Deirdre. Have I done something unkind to Deirdre? Is that what you meant?"

"No! Please, Harry, let me go."

But he would not release her. "You must have meant
something
if you wanted to wring my neck." He grasped her shoulders and peered down at her, sincerely troubled. "See here, Kate, if I've committed some offense, I'd like to be made aware of it, so that I may make amends."

She tried to harden herself against his appealingly worried eyes. "It is too late for amends."

"Come now, whatever I've done can't be as bad as that. If you can make amends with Benjy so easily, I surely can do so with Deirdre."

That infuriated her again. "How can you possibly believe that a boy's infatuation can compare with that of someone like Deirdre?"

The moment the name left her tongue she knew that this time she had gone too far.

He stared at her, her meaning slowly dawning on him. "Dash it all, woman, are you saying that Deirdre is ... that she's infatuated with
me?"

"Dash it all, sir," Kate echoed, turning away in shame, "I didn't mean to be saying it, but yes, that is what I implied!"

"You must be mistaken. She finds Leonard a prince among men!"

"That was yesterday," Kate said, turning back to him. “Today,
you're
the prince among men."

"How can that be?" he asked in disbelief. "There's never been an intimate word exchanged between us."

"Never? Not even last night in the library, when you and she 'talked and talked'? Something about love, I believe."

"It was a completely innocuous conversation," Harry said, his eyes clouded with innocent confusion. "About generalities. My 'in the game of love' pomposities. Trivial nonsense. She cannot have taken it seriously."

Kate eyed him in amazement. "Do you know, my lord, I think you sincerely believe that to be true! I suppose when a man is a rake, his flirtatious manner is so habitual that he uses his charm without realizing he's doing it."

"A rake?" His voice rose in offense. "Do you really think I'm a rake?"

"Everyone thinks it," she said bluntly. "Your reputation is universally known."

"I? Harry Gerard? I'm reputed to be a rake?"

"Universally."

"That's monstrous!" He clenched his fists in fury. "I've never heard such scurrilous drivel in all my life!"

"It's not scurrilous," she said. "It's widely known that Beatrice Hibbert gave up an earl for you. And that you caused a certain Miss Landers to go into a decline."

An expression of utter scorn came over his face. "Miss Hibbert, I'll have you know, gave up an earl to marry Harry Gaddis, not Harry Gerard. And she's been happily wed to said Harry Gaddis these past six months.

"Oh."

"And as for Miss Landers, I've never met the lady."

"Lady Elinor Landers' second daughter?"

"Sorry. Not among my acquaintance."

She dropped her eyes from his, her self-assurance shaken. Had her mother's gossip sources been misinformed? Was she making a fool of herself with him again? She walked away from him down the path to a dusty garden seat and sank down upon it.
What,
she asked herself,
do I say now?

He came up to her. "Well, ma'am," he said, as if reading her mind, "what do you say now?"

Whatever her doubts, she was not one to change her mind easily. She looked up at him, her mouth tightening. "I'm not privvy to London gossip," she said with her usual firmness. "If I've been mistaken about two particular instances, that does not mean I'm mistaken about everything. a reputation such as yours does not come from nothing."

With his eyes fixed on her face, he emitted a slow, deep sigh. "I suppose, after last night, there's nothing I can say in my defense to convince you that you've misjudged me."

"No, nothing."

"Damnation, woman, if you think that last night was typical of the way I behave with women, you've very much mistaken your man."

She did not want to dwell on last night. "Whether or not I'm mistaken, my lord, does not alter the need to deal with the matter of Deirdre."

"So we are back to 'my lord,' are we?" he snapped. "Well,
ma'am,
I don't believe there
is
a problem with Deirdre. With your conviction that I'm a rake who accosts innocent ladies and kisses them against their wills, you're probably imagining it."

"It's not my imagination!" She realized it was time for the whole truth. "Deirdre told me herself that she has a
tendre
for you... a
tendre
strong enough to make her wish to end her betrothal."

For Harry, this was the greatest of the blows he'd been receiving. "Good God!" he muttered, dropping down on the bench beside her. He sat silently for a moment, letting the full implication of what he'd heard sink in. Then, with a sigh, he said quietly, "Then there's nothing for it but to take myself out of her sight."

"I suppose that would be best," Kate said.

"I intended to remain a few more days," he said, getting to his feet and looking down at her, "but since you, strong-minded as you are, are not likely to change your mind about my being a rake, there's no incentive ... I may as well go. I told Grandmama to take Benjy home—out of harm's way, so to speak. Evidently I must do the same for myself." He smiled wryly. "If you'll pardon my reverting to habit, in the game of love it's good to know when to withdraw."

"I suppose it is," she said sadly.

He hesitated for a moment, as if he wanted to say something else, but then he squared his shoulders decisively. "I shall leave this afternoon."

She said nothing as he started down the path toward the house. Before he'd gone a half-dozen steps, however, she called after him, "Harry, I..."

He turned. "Yes?"

She looked down at the hands clasped in her lap. "Whether you're a rake or not, I'd like you to know that... that..."

"Yes?"

Despite the reddening of her cheeks, she met his eyes. "... that I never said I was kissed against my will."

"Oh?" a shadow of his smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. "Thank you, ma'am," he said as he continued to walk away. "That, at least, was kind of you to say."

NINETEEN

While Kate and Harry were attacking each other on the garden path, Deirdre and Leonard were sitting side-by-side at the table, lingering over their teacups in the otherwise-deserted breakfast room. Leonard noticed that Deirdre was not responding to the questions he'd been asking her. Granted, his questions were innocuous, like "Do you think it will rain?" or "Would you care to go riding this afternoon?" But the fact that she seemed not to hear them was strange. "Is something wrong, Deirdre?" he asked at last.

She blinked up at him. "Wrong? Why do you ask?"

"Because your mind seems to be elsewhere. What's troubling you?"

She picked up a spoon and stirred the air in her empty cup. "Nothing, really," she murmured without conviction.

He put a hand on hers and stayed her aimless stirring. " 'Tis not nothing, my love. I know you too well not to recognize when you're disturbed."

"Oh, Leonard!" she sighed, her eyes filling. "You are so ... so very dear! How can I—?"

"How can you what?"

"How can I say it?"

He tensed. "Is there something you're finding hard to tell me?"

She lowered her head and nodded miserably.

"Heavens, girl, you behave as if you're about to announce that you have a fatal disease," he said, laughing to cover his unease.

"No, no, I'm quite well," she assured him.

He found her humorlessness endearing. "I thought so. You're the very picture of good health." He took her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. "There's nothing you should fear to say to me, dearest," he assured her. "Nothing you say can make me stop loving you."

"That's just it," she groaned and burrowed her head into the curve of his shoulder. "Perhaps you
should
stop loving me."

"And pray, why should I do that?" he asked, his hps against her hair.

"Because I've been thinking ..."

"Yes?"

Her answer was blurted out in one breath. "... that we should postpone our wedding."

He drew his head back in surprise. "Postpone it? But we haven't even set a date."

"I know," she said, drawing him close again, "but we'd thought about the spring."

"That's four or five months off. Are you saying that's too soon?"

The head nestled in his neck moved in a little nod.

Leonard lifted her arms from about his neck and pushed her away. "Why?" he asked, peering at her closely. "Isn't that enough time for bride-clothes and such?"