The Bishop's Daughter (24 page)

"Now what? Has one of the kitchen boys dropped the custards?"

"No, my lord." Grayshaw bent forward and mumbled something about grave crisis and ladies in the tent.

"What sort of crisis?" Harry drawled. "Are they in danger of bringing the contraption tumbling about their ears?"

"It wouldn't surprise me, sir."

"What!"

Grayshaw pokered up, refusing to say more, glancing about him as though fearful of being overheard. With an exasperated sigh, Harry motioned him off, falling into step behind, feeling a little impatient of having to deal with another tempest in a teapot. Where the deuce was Kate?

"There, my lord." Grayshaw pointed at the tent flap with a trembling finger. "Never in all my days as—"

"Oh, stubble it, Grayshaw. I get enough high drama from Lady Lytton without you. . ."

Harry trailed off, startled by the sound that suddenly rang out from the tent, laughter, but not the well-bred mirth to be expected from ladies of quality. It sounded more like some doxies on a drunken spree.

He darted a questioning look at Grayshaw who stared stolidly ahead of him. Harry entered the tent with the butler creeping at his heels. Before Harry had time to so much as blink, a flash of silver came hurtling at him. A lady's sandal glanced off his chest and landed at his feet.

Startled, Harry tracked the missile to its owner. Julia leaned against Mrs. Gresham, the squire's wife providing none too steady support as Julia struggled to remove her other shoe.

"Grayshaw!" she barked. "You rashcal. Dinnit I bid you fetch some champagne?"

Harry's jaw went slack, the flushed blowsy-looking woman hardly resembling the icy perfection that was Julia Thorpe. Her unfocused blue eyes drifted toward him and she hiccuped.

"Good. Here's Lytton. He'll make that villain obey."

Mrs. Gresham tittered. She ogled Harry and slurred, "I do love this fashion for tight breeches." She whispered something to Kate's mama and both women went off into a fit of that disconcerting laughter.

Damnation! If Harry had not known better, he would have said they were all as well glazed as a parcel of sailors on shore leave. In the midst of this madness, it was a great relief to see Kate seated calmly on a stool. Harry hastened over to her.

"Kate, what's wrong with your mother and Julia?"

She glanced up slowly, a beatific smile spreading over her face.

"Harry!" Kate swayed to her feet, and if Harry had not caught her, she would have tumbled to the ground. She merely giggled, wrapping her arms around his neck. Harry inhaled an unmistakable odor.

"Gin!" he cried, outraged. "Grayshaw, what the devil have you been feeding these women?"

"It wasn't me, my lord. I came into the tent earlier and and I greatly fear your friend Lord Erwin did something to the lemonade."

"Ridickulous," Kate said. "Nothing wrong with the lemonade." She clung to him, allowing her weight to sag against his frame, nearly tipping Harry off balance. Harry cursed Erwin under his breath, his mind filling with a vision of what he would do with the bounder the next time he laid eyes upon him.

"To hell with lemonade," Julia called out. "We want champagne. Go fetch it." She gave Grayshaw a ringing smack on his rump.

The butler appeared about to have a fit of apoplexy at this affront to his dignity. As appalling as the situation was, Harry's chest rumbled with the desire to laugh. But it was impossible to do so with Kate maintaining such a stranglehold on his neck. He managed to gasp. "Fetch water, Grayshaw, at once."

"Why?" The squire's wife trilled. "Is someone about to deliver a babe?"

Her comment provoked another gale of hysterical laughter.

"Cold water, Grayshaw," Harry shouted above the din. The butler looked only too relieved to scurry from the tent.

Harry tried to ease Kate away, but she hugged him tighter. "Schtop giving so many silly orders and kiss me, you foolish boy."

"Kate . . . Kate! Behave yourself and sit down."

 "I am behaving very badly, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," Harry said with all the gravity he could muster.

"It is great fun." She chuckled and stood on tiptoe until she brushed the tip of her small nose against his. She stared owlishly into his eyes. "Harry, I . . . I don't know how. But I think I may have shot the dog."

"I fear you have, love." Harry regarded her with tender amusement. She wriggled out of his arms. Although somewhat unsteady, she managed to keep her feet.

"Need some air. Need to find Mrs. Prangle."

"No!" Harry cut her off in alarm. "Believe me, Kate, this is not the time to go seeking out the archdeacon's wife."

To his relief, she nestled contentedly back into his embrace. Harry felt beads of perspiration gather on his brow. This was the most damnable coil he had ever found himself in. If he did not wish this day to end in complete disgrace and scandal, he had to keep all these women confined to the tent until they could be brought to some state of sobriety.

"Ladies, please. All of you sit down," he commanded. "We're going to have some tea."

"Tea be damned," the incorrigible Julia shrilled, shying her other sandal at him. "Bring us the bloody champagne."

While Harry wondered where Julia had ever acquired such language, Kate looked up at him, breathless with laughter. "You are so 'dorable, Harry, when you try to be stern. I do love you. I will never be vexed with you again."

"You will, my dear. Oh, yes, you will," he muttered. The next minutes that stretched out proved more nerve-wracking than those hours spent waiting the enemy's charge at Waterloo. Harry would have defied Wellington himself to keep order amid a parcel of very foxed ladies.

Mrs. Gresham nearly drew his cork, attempting to leave the tent, shrieking she was being held prisoner. Julia leaped up the table, declaring that it was "Better to marry, than to burn," and launched into a sermon threatening him with fire and brimstone.

As for Kate, she began nuzzling kisses beneath his ear in a manner that was painfully distracting, while Mrs. Towers hummed quietly to herself. When Harry heard someone at the flap, he gasped, "Grayshaw, thank God."

But his prayer of gratitude was cut short. Instead of the butler, it was Reverend Thorpe who peeked into the tent.

If Harry could have done so, he would have thrust Adolphus right back out, but any such maneuver was impossible with Kate melting against him.

"My lord! Miss Towers!" The vicar's eyes popped with disapproval.

"Hell and damnation!" Julia cried with a sweeping flourish of her hand.

Adolphus's shocked gaze swiveled to his sister. "Julia!"

"We all know our names," Harry snapped. "Would you kindly do something useful like getting your sister down from there and, oh damn—"

While Harry's attention had been fixed on Adolphus, the squire's wife had managed to escape from the tent. As soon as Mrs. Gresham staggered out, Lady Dane stalked in.

"What is going on in here, Lytton?" she demanded.

Harry groaned, feeling the entire situation slipping beyond his control. As the vicar tugged Julia down from her perch, she burst into tears, wailing, "Oh, why wasn't I born a man?"

Even the gentle Mrs. Towers joined the fracas, tipsily shaking her finger at Lady Dane. "You're a mos' tiresome, meddlin' old woman. Hold your tongue and stop orderin' everyone about."

Harry was not privileged to hear Lady Dane's shocked response, for his attention was claimed by a bellow of outrage from outside the tent. Apparently, the squire had just encountered his wife. Harry rolled his eyes, not able to imagine how this horrific scene could possibly get any worse when he felt a tug at his sleeve.

He glanced down to discover Kate's face gone alarmingly pale.

"Oh, Harry," she said. "I think I'm going to be sick."

The day after the fête, morning dawned just as bright and clear, but Kate made no movement to leap out of bed. She lay flat on her back, the light striking against her eyelids only served to intensify the throbbing in her head.

Merciful heavens! If she had been a condemned prisoner, she would have begged the executioner to wield his ax. Amputation was surely the only cure for such agony.

By degrees, she came more fully awake and attempted to roll onto her side. A soft moan escaped her, her stomach muscles feeling bruised and sore. Her mind yet hazed with pain and sleep, Kate tried to recollect the reason for her wretched state. What sort of mishap had befallen her? What dread manner of illness?

She forced her eyes open. The room pitched so precariously, she had to close them. Raising her lids just a fraction, she managed to focus, peering at her room through the thickness of her lashes.

The chamber appeared as ever a haven of serenity and order except for the frock crumpled upon the carpet, the same frock she had worn yesterday when she had—

Kate sucked in her breath as memory flooded back to her. Harry, the fete, the lemonade! She groaned, flinging one arm across her eyes as though that gesture might serve to shut out the remembrance. But recollections, at first quite fuzzy, began to emerge with painful clarity.

She had been arguing with Miss Thorpe about the lemonade. Why had she not paid more heed to Julia's insistence that something was wrong? The vicar's sister had been odiously correct. Kate vaguely recalled Harry's conversation with his butler, something about Harry's horrid friend, Lord Erwin, tampering with the punch bowl. He had added . . . what was it Harry had exclaimed?

Gin! That was it. Dear Lord! She had been gulping down gin. How oft she had heard Papa preach against that evil brew—the bane of the poorer classes the bishop had called it. What would he have said if he had seen its effect upon his own daughter?

Kate could not say precisely all that she had done, but she knew, with dread certainty, she had been thoroughly intoxicated. Groaning, she massaged her throbbing temples, seeking to recall what was best forgotten.

The laughter . . . everything had seemed so uproariously amusing. And Harry . . . she had flirted with him. Flirted? Kate winced. She had pounced upon him in a manner that would have shamed a tavern wench. He had attempted to make her sit down, but she had kept right on kissing him before the entire assemblage of other ladies.

Kate's cheeks burned at the memory. And then . . . oh, no. Had the vicar really come into the tent? And Grandmama? She could not be sure for at that point Harry had helped her back to the house because suddenly it all had no longer been so diverting.

Kate half pulled the counterpane over her head as she remembered the gleaming white chamber pot, Harry's strong arm supporting her while she had been hideously sick. After that, all was blank. She had no idea when she had been conveyed home or how she had come to be tucked up in her bed.

It didn’t matter, she thought, her face damp with humiliation. One fact emerged with painful clarity. She had made an utter fool of herself. She would never be able to face anyone in Lytton's Dene again—especially not Harry.

It afforded her no consolation that she had not been alone in her folly. Julia, the squire's wife, and even Mama! Kate bolted to a sitting position, the sudden movement making her head feel as though an anvil had clanged down upon it. But the pain was as nothing placed beside the horrified remembrance. Mama, too, had drunk of that poisonous concoction. If Kate had been rendered so deathly ill, what had it done to one of Mrs. Towers's delicate constitution?

Thoroughly alarmed, Kate flung back the covers. Although her stomach did a series of flip-flops, she managed to stand. Never sure how she accomplished it, she crossed to the washstand and sloshed some water from the pitcher into the basin.

The chill liquid stung her flesh, but it revived her enough that she could struggle into her silk wrapper and mules. Padding down the hallway to her mother's room, Kate did not even pause to knock. She thrust the portal open, expecting to find Mrs. Towers at death's door.

But the rose-colored chamber was empty, the bed already made, the shawl Mrs. Towers habitually wore missing from its peg. Far from being reassured, Kate stumbled from the room toward the stairway. She started down, grimacing at every step. Why had she never noticed before how badly each riser creaked?

At the bottom, she nearly collided with Mollie, the plump maid bustling from the small dining room with empty plates. Kate took one look at the china greasy with the remnants of egg and broiled kidney. She shuddered, clutching her hand to her stomach.

"Good morning, miss," Mollie said cheerfully, the scarlet ribbons on her mobcap fluttering in a perky fashion that seemed an affront to Kate's eyes.

Kate stared fixedly at a point past the offending crockery and the ribbons. "Where is my mother?" she rasped.

"Why, gone out, miss, with Lady Dane, to take a turn about the garden out back."

"Mama is out walking?"

"Yes, miss. She and her ladyship have already breakfasted and said as how you were not to be disturbed."

Kate’s mind reeled with relief and confusion. How was it possible? Mama had drunk at least as much of the lemonade as she, hadn't she? Obviously her memory was none too clear.