The Black Duke's Prize (16 page)

"Y
ou
may go, Doctor," Nicholas said as Katherine hesitantly entered.
"And thank you."

The doctor nodded. "I'll come by this afternoon to change your
bandages, Your Grace," he responded, exiting the bedchamber with a bow.

Katherine stared at Nicholas from across the room, her blue eyes wide
and her face white. He knew he must look about the same, for even with the
laudanum his shoulder and arm throbbed. "Come over here," he finally
commanded when she made no move to approach.

It was a measure of how upset she was that she did as he said. "How
do you feel?" she asked in a small voice.

"How am I supposed to feel?" he retorted. "You shot
me."

Color appeared in her cheeks again. "It was your fault," she
returned. "I wasn't going to shoot you at all, and then you attacked
me."

"My fault?" he retorted. "You summon me to meet with you,
lie to me, threaten my life, and shoot me, and it's my fault?"

She began crying. "I thought you were trying to steal Crestley from
me," she said, sobbing, and wringing her slim hands in the folds of her
skirt. "I feel so awful. I might have killed you."

"Not with your aim," he muttered, and held out his hand. He
hadn't expected her to cry, and it curiously touched him. Women had attempted
to use tears on him before, and, when he had refused to react, labeled him
hardhearted or cruel. She came forward and took his hand in her own, and he squeezed
her fingers. "Don't cry, Kate," he murmured.

"I'm not crying," she answered, sniffling. "I'm only
tired."

"Yes, I would imagine you are," he answered dryly, the
laudanum beginning to make him feel lethargic. "You've been quite busy
this morning." He and Neville had spoken, rather harshly, a few moments
earlier, and after what Katherine must have discovered, he was surprised she
hadn't really tried to kill him. "Have you been told about my part in
these dealings?"

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. "I still want you to stop,"
she said, tightening her grip on his hand.

"Why?"

"Because I won't pay for my own property."

"I'm paying for it, remember?" he reminded her, his words
slurring a little.

"I would be obligated to repay you," she responded. Nicholas
found that his eyes were shut, and he forced them open again to look up into
her deep-blue ones. "You don't have to repay me," he answered slowly.
"It would be my gift."

She shook her head. "I would be obligated to repay you," she
repeated. "Are you truly that wealthy?" she asked curiously, cocking
her head.

He chuckled, wincing as that jarred his shoulder. "Even wealthier
than that."

"There must be another way to stop my uncle," she went on.
"Please say you won't buy Crestley, and help me figure out something
else," she said softly.

His eyes shut again at the silky sound of her voice. "All
right," he murmured, and then was asleep.

When he awoke again the curtains had been pulled back, letting in the
afternoon sun. Katherine stood by the bed arranging two roses, a white one with
several petals missing and a very badly bent red one, in a small vase.
"What happened to those poor things?" he asked sleepily.

"They were the best ones left after I dumped the bouquet you sent
me into the chamber pot," she explained, her eyes twinkling. "I'll
find you some better ones out in the garden."

"Into the chamber pot?" he echoed, trying to force the cobwebs
out of his brain.

"I was very angry this morning," she reminded him. She seated
herself in the chair someone had placed by the bed.
             
 

"You'd think I'd be used to having people angry at me by now,"
he muttered, mostly to himself. The anger of most people didn't concern him at
all, but the hurt and fury in her eyes that morning had been alarming and disturbing.

"Do that many people dislike you?" she asked, raising an
eyebrow.

''Tally all of my personal, business, and political acquaintances, and
yes, that many people dislike me." And she wasn't the first person to try
to kill him, though he preferred not to go into that.

"Do you like being disliked?" she asked after a moment.

"Like it?" he repeated, not expecting the question. "I
suppose I really hadn't thought that much about it."

Katherine looked away toward the window. "I would find it very
lonely, I think," she said quietly.

He looked at her profile in the sunlight, barely resisting the urge to
finger the dark curls of her hair that hung over one shoulder, then chuckled.
"It's not as though everyone in England despises me, you know. I'm not all
that terrible. Occasionally I even do something pleasant." It occurred
to him that a few short weeks ago he never would have been able to confess that
perhaps he did have a good side. Perhaps no one before Katherine had ever tried
to find it.

Her lips quirked as she looked back at him. "Occasionally.
Maybe."

"Nicky," His mother's voice came from the doorway. He turned
his head. "It's all right, Mama, don't send for Cousin Julius in Paris
yet. I believe I still have a few breaths left in my body."

"I'm certain Julius will be disappointed to hear that," Julia
Varon replied, the tense lines in her face easing. She sent a sharp glance at
Katherine and him, and Nicholas wondered how much she knew, or had guessed. His
mother missed very little.

. Katherine stood. "I shall leave you to talk," she said,
smiling at his mother. She slipped out of the room before he could protest.

The Dowager Duchess took Katherine's vacated seat. "We have put out
the story that you were here on business. As you rose to get a glass of brandy
you were shot through the window."

"The window? Inventing an assassin is a bit much; don't you
think?" He shifted uncomfortably, already tired of lying flat on his back.
"Kate's not the best shot, but she did hit me, after all."

"Mon dieu,
do not tease. You might have been
killed," she reprimanded sternly. She leaned forward and tapped him on his
good shoulder with one finger. "And you have someone else's reputation to
consider this time."

He nodded. "You're right."

"Did she really shoot you,
mon
fils?"
Julia asked, her gray eyes
twinkling.

"Yes, by God, though she didn't mean to. I was trying to disarm
her, and she squeezed the trigger. I should have known better."

Julia Varon sat back, looking at him for a long time. "You love
her, yes?" she asked finally.

Nicholas looked at the two pitiful roses dying in their vase and
grinned. "Yes." He had realized it after his return from the picnic.
He had sat in his study planning battle strategies for their next encounter,
and abruptly realized that he had already lost the war. Or. perhaps he had won.
Katherine had unsettled him so much at their first encounter that he had
likely been trying to make her fall in love with him ever since, out of
revenge. Instead, he had fallen for her.

His mother returned his smile. "I am so happy for you,
mon
enfant,"
she responded. "I like her very much."

"Don't be happy for me yet," he commented. "I still have
a long way to go before I can convince Katherine that I'm not bamming her. I
have enough pride left that I don't intend to declare myself to her and then
have her laugh at me."

"You do mean to offer for her, then?" Julia asked, clearly
delighted.

"When I can be certain she'll say yes. She's a bit . . .
unpredictable. "

"Nicholas," the duchess said unsympathetically, "sometimes
you must take a chance. Love is never predictable. That is why it is so
special."

"End of lecture?" he said testily. He would handle
Katherine-not that he yet had a clue how to manage it.

"End of lecture," Julia agreed with a faint smile.

Nicholas's valet finally arrived with appropriate wardrobe and
necessities, and the next morning he dressed in a loose-fitting house jacket
and sat up in the chair for a while. The wound wasn't that bad, and he likely
could have made it back to Varon House, but he had little inclination to do so
as long as he had an excuse to remain under the Hamptons' roof for another day
or two.

He and Neville had been discussing alternatives to his plan to purchase
Crestley, with little success, when Katherine's knock sounded at the door.
"Come in," he called.

She had donned a pale-yellow sprig muslin dress, and her black hair was
swept back in a long tail. In her hands she carried a well-wrapped package and
a vase of garden flowers, which she placed next to the window. She was the
first female ever to bring him flowers, he realized with a grin.

"Good morning." She smiled, leaning over to kiss Neville on
the cheek. "Have you considered a solicitor?" she asked,
straightening to look at the duke. "Mr. Hodges offered his services to
me."

Nicholas shook his head, for he and Neville had just been debating that.
"I'm not convinced that would be a wise idea."

"The property is hers, Nick."

"Yes, but Simon Ralston is the younger sibling of the owner of the
estate, and a male. If this goes to court he has a chance of wresting Crestley
from Katherine legally, even if it isn't entailed." Nicholas leaned
forward stiffly. "Besides, this could easily be tangled up in the courts
for years, leaving Ralston on the property as the proprietor until
settlement."

"No," Kate said, "I won't have that."

"An estate is a difficult thing to steal, or I would suggest we
try that," he said dryly. "The easiest thing would be to do as we
planned and let me simply buy it and give you the deed."

"Nicholas, I already told you, I have n―"

He waved his hand at her. "I know. You have no intention of paying
for your own property. The problem, dear Kate, is that by the time you inherit
it, there may be nothing left."

''There will be if he doesn't sell it to anyone," she retorted.

Out of the comer of his eye Nicholas noted that. Clarey had risen and
left the room. Apparently the baron still considered him too weak to be a
threat to Kate's virtue. "If he doesn't sell to me, he'll sell to someone
else. I've already had to outbid five other parties to get this far."

"Other parties," she repeated slowly. "I'd forgotten
about that."

"Did you forget that one of them is Francis DuPres?" At her
stricken look he abruptly wished that he had remained silent.

"I didn't forget that. And I won't have him setting foot in
Crestley Hall," she spat out, rising and striding about the room in a
rather unladylike manner. "He will not buy his precious respectability
with my home. I won't allow it."

"Well," Nicholas said slowly, following her with his eyes and
rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms against his thighs, "there is one other
way you could keep Crestley Hall safe."

She returned to his side. "What is it?" she asked hopefully.

He started to answer, then found that he couldn't do it. Not that anyone
would believe it, but the Black Duke was terrified that the spitfire schoolroom
chit gazing expectantly at him would turn him down. He cleared his throat.
"We just haven't thought of it yet," he replied, improvising.

"Really, Nicholas," she said disgustedly. "That's no
help."

"What's in the package?" he asked, to change the subject. He
pointed at the object she had left sitting by the flowers.

She walked over to retrieve it. "I forgot. It came for you this
morning, from your mother."

"Will you open it?" he asked, wondering with some trepidation
what it might be. He wouldn't have put much past Julia Varon.

"It's one of the quartos," Katherine exclaimed after a moment
as she lifted it out of the heavy, protective paper.

"I should have realized that I need merely get shot to have her
send me one," he remarked, and Katherine laughed at him. "Which is
it? Perhaps we could read it together."

"I would like that," she said, glancing down at it. Abruptly
the stubborn expression that he was beginning to know, came into her face.

"Which one is it?" he asked again, intrigued.

"I'm not going to tell you," she said flatly.

"No? Then show me," he suggested.

She shook her head. "No."

"Katherine," he warned, "give it to me."

"It's
The Taming of the Shrew,"
she finally answered,
glaring at him.

Nicholas gave a shout of laughter. So she saw similarities between
herself and the shrewish Kate, did she? Katherine rose, heading for the door.
"Katherine, wait," he pleaded.

"I am no longer speaking to you," she said over her shoulder.

"I've just started rereading the comedies in their original order.
The Shrew
is next. That's all there is to it." She continued toward
the door, her chin in the air. "Katherine, I swear it," he said,
chuckling.