The Bishop's Daughter (9 page)

Strolling forward, he drew up a chair opposite her. He had always felt more comfortable with people who behaved in outrageous fashion than those who punctiliously observed all the rigors of a social code.

Lady Dane removed the covers of the silver breakfast service and thrust at Harry a plate laden with muffins, dry toast, eggs, crispy bits of bacon, and deviled kidneys.

"Won't you be joining me?" he asked.

"I breakfasted hours ago," she told him loftily.

Harry grinned, but bent over his plate with assumed meekness. As he ate, he was aware of her ladyship studying him over the rim of her coffee cup.

"You have a look of your mother about you," she pronounced. "She came out the same year as my eldest daughter. I knew her ladyship quite well."

"I fear I didn't," Harry said. His mother had died before his third birthday. It saddened him to think he bore not even the vaguest memory of her.

"More's the pity," Lady Dane said, some of her sternness melting. "Nan Thorpe was a magnificent girl. The best horsewoman I ever knew. She could manage her men with the same skill as she did her horses. You and your father would have been the better for it if she had lived."

"I am sure we would have." He set his plate aside and waited for her ladyship to come to the point of her visit. She did so with an alarming bluntness.

"Do you love my granddaughter, sir?"

"Yes," Harry replied, equally forthright.

"You still wish to marry her?"

"Very much so."

"Then you have an odd way of going about it. I suppose you thought to pique her interest by pretending to be dead?"

"That was not of my devising." Harry frowned. Yesterday afternoon, he had finally managed to uncover an explanation for his ‘demise.’ His death had been reported on the basis of a saber found engraved with his name near a body blackened beyond recognition, the same saber he had tossed to a friend before making that final, fatal charge. Charles had become unarmed, and Harry had still had his pistol.

Leaning back in his chair, Harry briefly closed his eyes, his heart heavy with the memory of that grim moment. He had heard much talk of the glories of battle, but all he recollected was choking on gun smoke, the terrifying sense of confusion, the thunderous explosions, the screams of the wounded, the searing pain in his shoulder, his horse going down beneath him.

"It must have been Charlie they found with my sword," Harry said wearily, opening his eyes. "When I came to, I had been taken to a convent where some nuns looked after me. I didn't make much effort to communicate to anyone that I was safe, but I never deliberately set out to deceive anyone either." He paused, glancing toward Lady Dane. "Do you think Kate will ever believe me?"

Her ladyship's features had remained noncommittal during his account. She said slowly, "Kate is not an unreasonable girl, but I am not sure it will make much difference whether she believes you or not."

"But she loves me. She could not hide that from me yesterday." Unable to ever keep still for long, Harry rose and leaned upon the back of his chair. "She fainted in my arms, kissed me, gave me a clout upon the ears that was like to take my head off."

"That sounds like a young woman in love," Lady Dane said dryly. "But that doesn't alter the fact that you and my granddaughter are a strangely mismatched pair. I should have never thought to put the two of you in harness together."

A brief laugh escaped Harry. "I wouldn't have either. I must have passed Kate at least a dozen times upon the streets of Chillingsworth and never particularly noticed her. And then one winter evening . . ." Harry stalked restlessly toward the chamber's tall windows and stared out at the sun-washed morning. Over the tops of the trees in his park, one could just make out the distant spire of St. Benedict's. But the greenery of summer blurred before Harry's eyes, and he was once more seeing a world blanketed in white, Kate settled before the fire, her dark curls spilling about her face as she bent over his garrick, her eyes shining with a soft light as though all the serenity of the world was to be found centered there.

He had felt like a weary traveler, descending from the wind-blasted heights of some mountain peak and coming across a quiet vale whose stillness had touched his heart.

"As I sat watching her," Harry murmured, "it slowly came to me that she was beautiful. I think it must have been at that precise moment that I fell in love with her, that I knew my life was never going to mean anything without her."

Harry did not realize he voiced his thoughts aloud until Lady Dane asked, "And so, sir. Did you ever explain all this to her?"

He forced a smile, and shrugged. "Not in so many words."

Her ladyship nodded with understanding. "Aye, I know. My husband was never a one for making pretty speeches either. But women, foolish creatures that we are, occasionally like to hear them."

"Do you think that pretty speeches would win me Kate?"

"Frankly, no. Is that how you are planning to go about it?"

Harry didn't answer. His chief plan of campaign was to gather up Kate in his arms, capture her lips ruthlessly until she responded in kind, melting against him, but he could not confess that to her grandmother.

He didn't have to. The old lady was too shrewd by half.

"That won't answer either, attempting to make love to her all day long," she said, raking him with her keen gaze. "Though I imagine you could make quite a satisfactory job of it. But it will always come down to this. Kate possesses a rock-hard bottom of sobriety. She gets it from her father, though where he came by it, the Lord only knows."

Harry heaved a frustrated sigh. "Then what do you suggest I do? I don't intend to let her slip away from me this time."

"Your only hope, young man, is to acquire an image of respectability. That absurd memorial out there can be put to some use. Let it commemorate the demise of Hellfire Harry."

"Hellfire Harry has been dead for some time," he said. "Do you think I would have ever presumed to ask Kate to marry me if I had not meant to put my wild days behind me?"

"Apparently you failed to convince her of that." Leaning on her cane, her ladyship rose majestically to her feet. "You may begin this morning by making your appearance in St. Benedict's."

"St. Benedict's!"

"It is a church, my lord, not a debtor's prison."

"I know but—but to try to make Kate believe I have turned into some sort of psalm singer! It seems the worst sort of hypocrisy."

"Not a psalm singer, but a man who understands his duty to God and sets a good example for his people. You cannot expect a bishop's daughter to marry an irreligious dog."

"I would do anything for Kate," Harry said, "slay any dragon but—"

"She doesn't need any dragons slain. She will be more impressed by the sight of you cracking open a prayer book."

Harry opened his mouth to voice another protest, but he felt caught on the crest of a wave, propelling him irresistibly forward. Before he knew where he was at, her ladyship had pulled the bell and summoned his valet to help him dress.

"You have not much time. Services begin in twenty minutes," Lady Dane said, gliding toward the door.

Harry made one last effort to save himself from what he anticipated was going to be an embarrassing and likely futile ordeal. He called after Lady Dane, "You know there is a belief in the village that if Hellfire Harry sets foot inside St. Benedict's, the roof will come tumbling down."

"I am prepared to take the risk," said Lady Dane, calmly closing the door behind her.

The bell in St. Benedict's tower had long since rung its final warning knell as Harry sprinted up the steps. He paused beneath the eight-column portico to catch his breath, leaning one gloved hand up against the church's mottled stonework.

"Hang it all," Harry muttered. Nothing had ever looked more forbidding than the set of massive wooden doors closed in his face. He whipped off his high-crowned beaver hat and brushed back the dark strands of hair from his brow in frustration.

Now what the deuce was he supposed to do? His father had opened many doors to him in his life, the exclusive gaming club at White's, Gentleman Jackson's prize fighting salon, the discreet chambers of many lovely opera dancers. But the governor had never seen fit to initiate Harry as to the doings behind St. Benedict's mysterious portals.

He guessed that those inside must already be deep into the service. Harry grimaced. He would cause enough of a stir simply by entering St. Benedict's without creeping in late as well. Despite what his cousin Julia might think, Harry did not enjoy setting the world by the ears.

He was tempted to turn and slip quietly away again, only held back by a single thought . . . Kate. She was behind that barrier, her face likely stilled into solemn lines as she prayed. For him? Harry doubted it, remembering how they had parted yesterday, the cruel trick she believed he had played. Lady Dane was right. Kisses alone would not be enough to erase such bad impressions.

Harry sighed and took one last self-conscious inventory of his appearance. He was immaculately (and to him, most uncomfortably) attired in biscuit¬colored breeches that clung to the outline of his muscular thighs, the forest green coat straining across his shoulders, unbuttoned to reveal the shirt frills peeking beneath a striped waistcoat. The starched cravat with all its intricate folds felt like it was choking him.

Drawing in a deep breath, Harry eased one of the church doors open a crack, enough to peer inside, his eyes adjusting to the dark stone of the interior. The lancet windows let in not so much as a whisper of breeze on this hot, summer morning. The scent of the flowers adorning the altar hung in the still air like a heavy perfume, the rise and fall of the vicar's voice as sonorous as the drone of bees outside the window.

The benches and pews, scarred and venerable with age, held most of the citizens of Lytton's Dene, some of Harry's servants from the hall, and the gentry from the surrounding countryside, like Squire Gresham's boisterous family.

Adolphus made an impressive sight in his vestments, mounted high above the congregation upon the elaborately carved pulpit Harry had heard acclaimed as the pride of St. Benedict's. Harry craned his neck, scanning the pews, but he could not see Kate.

Easing the door open further to slip inside, Harry winced. The ancient hinges groaned so loudly that all the coffins in the graveyard might well have been creaking open to offer up their dead.

No matter how careful Harry tried to be, the door banged closed beneath him with a loud thud. Those on the rear benches were already shifting to see what sinner dared to sneak in after the service had begun. The inevitable astonished whispers followed, and Harry could see some of the good folk actually casting anxious glances toward the roof.

At any other time he might have been amused, but his sense of humor seemed to fail him. Giving a nervous tug to his cravat, he started forward, but no matter how quietly he attempted to walk, his shoes clattered on the stone floor. Those in the front were now also turning to stare, including his cousin Julia, who cast him a look of blistering reproach.

Harry was beginning to feel like the devil invading the sanctuary of some holy shrine when he spied Kate. She sat three rows from the front, near the aisle, by her mother and Lady Dane. Kate alone appeared unaware of any disturbance although by this time the astounded Adolphus had floundered, losing his place in the text.

Serenely bent over her prayer book, Kate was wearing one of those old-fashioned gowns that became her so well, white muslin embroidered with dainty flowers. A cluster of ebony curls peeked from beneath a bonnet trimmed with pink rosettes and a satin ribbon was tied in a demure bow beneath the delicate curve of her chin. Never, Harry thought wistfully, had she looked more like an angel.

She did not glance up until his shadow fell across the pages of her book. Kate emitted a tiny gasp, the volume tumbling from her grasp to land at his feet. Harry bent to retrieve it, handing it back to her with a rueful smile. Two bright spots of color appeared in her cheeks as Harry edged himself beside her on the pew.

"You are in the wrong seat, my lord," she whispered, staring rigidly toward the altar.

Harry spared a glance toward the pew at the very front reserved for the Arundel family, the coat of arms carved on the end. It was unoccupied this morning, for as usual his stepmother had one of her megrims.

"It looks too lonely over there," Harry murmured.

Kate said nothing more, diving behind the protection of her prayer book. Much to Harry's relief, the commotion he had caused died away, all eyes turned back to the front as Adolphus coughed and then shuffled the pages, resuming his place in the service.

But Harry continued to be aware of the stiffness in Kate's frame, noticing how she shrank from brushing up against him. Lady Dane had been wrong, Harry thought. His coming here today had only caused Kate unhappiness and embarrassment.

For her part, Kate could concentrate neither on the pages of her book nor upon what Reverend Thorpe was saying. St. Benedict's was the one place she felt safe from Harry's pursuit. Whatever was he doing here? She knew she had threatened not to be at home when he would call, but surely not even he would seek to foist his attention upon her in church.