Wed at Leisure (10 page)

Because of Peter. Peter, who saw her. Who had always seen her from as far back as that day by the river. From whom she kept a distance for good reason. Who kissed her with a drunken kiss that he claimed to have forgotten. But she had not known that at the time. Now she thought him yet another person who did not want her, who rejected her. Now he claimed to watch her, desire her. To love her.

And Bianca was getting married. It was all too much. Too confusing, too hard to take in. She looked up at the dark stones of the folly that loomed above her. It was cold in this little nook and she shivered there. Before she’d ever gone to that place by the river, this had been the place where she had played with Bianca in those long-ago days.

Her little sister with the blond ringlets running about, hugging her. Her little sister getting married. And Peter . . . She couldn’t finish the thought.

Once she and Bianca had been the closest of sisters. Once she would’ve done anything for that little girl. The same Bianca to whom she had written letters month after month. In her mind, the Bianca who received that correspondence was her own creation and not the object of her mother’s affection.

Kate longed for that closeness, that unconditional love her sister had seemed to give when they were children. With the distance that London, Brighton, and Bath gave, it was possible to pretend. But whenever Kate came home, the memories were there and her sister was impossible—angered her, infuriated her. And her father made his preference so clear. Thank goodness for Henrietta. However Kate was always terrified that if they lingered too long, Henrietta would realize Bianca was the better sister. Then there was Thomas: Thomas, so like Bianca, who loved Bianca the way Bianca had loved Kate The way Kate had loved her mother. They were all so misguided. Eventually everyone had to grow up and realize that humans were flawed. Deeply, irrevocably. It wasn’t worth loving anyone. It was better to be alone, to have actions independent of heart.

Maybe today should have been a joyous moment, but instead it felt like the end. Her sister would go off to another estate. They would be distant strangers, even more than they already were.

“Katie.” Kate whirled around at the sound of the childhood diminutive on her sister’s lips. Bianca wasn’t sneering now. In fact, she looked softer, more tentative, like her little sister.

Kate forced a tight smile, tilted her head to the side, but the pretense was harder than usual.

“Where is your little earl in waiting?”

Bianca opened her mouth. Then she shook her head. “Your Orland seems to think that I should forgive you the cruelty of the past years, that I’ve misunderstood pain for hatred. But I think he’s deluded by his baser desires.”

Kate blinked.
Had Bianca really just said that?

“He isn’t mine,” she said reflexively.

Bianca laughed. “Worldly Kate blind to a man’s admiration? He is yours if you want him. Truly, though. He’s the only person in the world who thinks you have a softer side. That beneath that self-absorbed exterior is a heart of gold. You might as well snag him. Then you can trump my earl with a duke.”

A duke. Peter was so much more than some title.

“What? No scathing retort? Here I’ve insulted the great Kate and she has nothing to say?”

Her sister’s words finally penetrated the thick fog of Kate’s emotions. The tone was so bitter, so unlike the quiet, almost meek girl she’d known. As if being engaged gave her strength.

Strength to slay the dragon she thought Kate was, when once—still—Kate would have slain dragons for her.

She tried to swallow back a sob that wouldn’t stop. That released into a spray of tears, that she caught on the back of her hand even as she turned.

“You’re crying?” Bianca sounded incredulous . . . and angry.

She wanted to run, hide, but at the same time this felt like a turning point. If she didn’t say something to bridge the chasm between she and her sister, forever after they would each go their own ways in the world, only crossing paths by chance.

“You may as well stop, because I am not Father, nor am I Henrietta, nor anyone else you can manipulate into doing your bidding with the false tears. I’m finished being afraid of you.”

A desperate hilarity, a swirling loss of control, threatened to bubble up. Kate struggled against it, but then her hysterical laughter punctuated the sobs and she fell down to her knees, pressing her head into her hands in an attempt to make it stop.

“Katie?”

Bianca hated her. It was to be expected, after all. No matter Kate’s softer emotions, the ones that played out across the written page when she had the safety of distance, she knew the relationship was bitter and flawed.

“Katie, stop.”

She was dimly aware that her sister was on the ground beside her, touching her shoulder.

“Stop! If this is some trick I shall never forgive you.” Then Bianca’s arms were around her.

Kate rebelled against the touch, the pity inherent in it. But just as she started to push away, clarity struck. This was not who she wanted to be. Not the Catherine Mansfield she was proud to be out in the world. She couldn’t give in to her emotions like this or she would forever be their slave.

That was what Bianca did not understand. All these years the tears had been real. Only before, so often, they were fueled by rage. Now they were fueled by despair.

Her flat palms curled, fingers grasping. She clutched at Bianca and pulled her close. Tight.

Until Bianca’s tentative embrace tightened, as well, and Kate felt the dampness of her sister’s tears, as well. Which made her own sobs intensify.

Bianca was so much bigger now than the little girl Kate had adored. In fact, she towered over Kate whenever they stood side by side.

Her breathing slowed, the rivers of emotion drying on her cheeks. She tightened her embrace, loathe to let go but knowing this charged silence would have to end, that something must be said.

“I’m . . . I’m happy you found someone who loves you and whom you love,” she said, separating slowly.

Bianca smiled warily. “Be he tutor or earl?”

“Naturally, earl is preferable,” Kate admitted.

Bianca laughed. “Admittedly, for me, as well. I would have married him penniless as I thought he was, but I cannot pretend that I wouldn’t have missed the comforts to which I am accustomed.”

Kate eyed Bianca’s green dress, crafted by the village dressmaker. Passable but nothing compared to Kate’s wardrobe.

“Few as they are,” she said finally, all humor absent from her tone. “Are you certain he’s the one, Bea? Future earl that he may be, you haven’t yet had a Season—my fault, I know, and which we could remedy this year. You could return with me to Brighton. We could—”

“I love him,” Bianca stopped her. “But . . . this sudden change of heart? Where is the Kate I know? The one who terrorizes everyone? Is that it? You’d prefer a husband for me that
you’ve
chosen?”

“No . . . I . . .” Of course, Bianca doubted her. The enormity of understanding, of
accepting
, for secretly she had always understood, her sister’s perspective was overwhelming. Intensified the self-loathing. “I simply wish you to be happy.”

“Even though I am engaged to marry before you? That I hope to be wed as soon as possible?”

“You do realize it won’t be as fast as all that? You’ll have to meet his family. There’re the matters of contracts and your dowry. His mother will likely want a large, stately wedding.”

Bianca laughed. “If you are trying to scare me off by boring me with the details, it shan’t succeed. Even if his mother is as much a terror as you, though I certainly hope she will not be.”

“I’ve been wretched, I know. But I love you dearly, Bea. I know I’ve written that to you a thousand times.”

“Yes, your strange twin. I grew to hate your letters. They were proof of a loving sister I would never have.”

The words tore through Kate’s heart. How deep were the wounds they each had. But Kate’s were not her younger sister’s fault.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Kate reached for Bianca again, pulled her sister to her, and buried her head against her shoulder. A moment later she felt her sister lift her own arms and hug her back. Tightly. The tightness felt good. It had been so long since they had embraced this way, and the circle of her sister’s arms ripped at her heart. She had missed this and longed for it without understanding what she had lacked.

At length they parted and Kate wiped at her eyes with a little laugh. Then dared to look at her sister.

Bianca smiled.

“He loves you, you know.”

“Hardly,” Kate denied with a laugh, even though the thought of it was warm and tantalizing. But impossible. “Peter knows me . . . and to know me, as you well know, is not to love me.”

“Until today, I would never have understood why. But it’s clear now. He
does
know you. All of you.”

“Then he cannot love me.”

“But I love Luc, the good and the bad. I even love the foolish part that lied to me. After all, the flaws make us perfectly imperfect.”

Kate smiled. “What philosophizing from my baby sister.”

“Who reads Plato in Greek.”

“True. So tell me all that I’ve missed. Tell me how you fell in love.”

They sat there for hours, till the air turned cold with the descent of the sun. Then Bianca returned to the house and Kate stayed there, knees to her chest, shivering but needing time. Perhaps the relationship was not and never would be healed, but it was not over. And perhaps Kate still felt that niggling old resentment, but she would not act on it. Simply because she felt it did not make it worthy of attention. She could control her jealousy. Yes. Jealousy.

She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, clearing her mind with that exhale.

But what was left was Peter. Looming there in her thoughts. Bianca thought he loved her. Said he’d sent her after her, berated Bianca for humiliating Kate.

Could he?

For the first time she allowed herself to consider the possibility. He desired her, she knew. That much, and her equal desire, was clear.

He’d defended her to her sister.

Perhaps he did harbor some feeling for her.

As she did she.

Only, it was no small feeling. No, it was far more than that. Her long-held and long-suppressed admiration had seemed to blossom in the last week. In the days since their first—no their second—kiss.

“Kate.”

She heard Peter’s voice in her head, saying her name, like a longing deep in her chest. She shivered again. It was dark now, the wind picking up, and the ground beneath her growing cold.

“Catherine.”

This time the voice was undeniably real, as was the warmth of his coat and his hands around her shoulders. She turned. Found his face so close, his body crouched beside her.

He’d come for her.

H
e had spent the afternoon at Hopford, waiting for Kate to return, needing to say his piece, to make his apology. The shooting party had returned for lunch, with Mr. Mansfield and his soon-to-be son-in-law surprisingly laughing and joking about as if it had all occurred in a far less irregular way, and in the afternoon, there was the ubiquitous walk to the folly, a staple of every house party to which Peter had ever been. He had remained in the library, which had an excellent vantage point of the south lawn. And beyond the south lawn was the stream to where he had no doubt Kate had fled.

As the sun set, he watched Bianca return without Kate. It was time to go to her.

Now she was looking up at him, her face pink with the last blush of the sun, and he wanted to kiss her.

“Marry me.” The words were impetuous and unplanned, but the sentiment not.

She stared at him, agape.

He took a breath. Settled down on the ground.

“I meant to say, I’m very sorry for hurting you.”

“Do you offer marriage with every apology?”

He laughed. A good sign if Kate had not lost her bite.

“I am not usually so turned about. I meant to apologize first and . . . then propose.”

“Why?” There was no humor in her voice now, merely curiosity, and it set him back. Why propose? Or why should she accept?

“I’m a duke, Kate,” he said, abashed even as he reminded her. “Certainly more of a catch than Asquith.”

“Why tell me that? Do you think that matters to me? Perhaps Bianca thinks it does but I shan’t marry you to trump my sister. To save my reputation. It’s very kind of you. No . . . No, perhaps it isn’t kind of you at all. Tell me, Peter, is it true? Was your courtship merely a sham in service to your brother’s scheme?”

At a loss under the intensity of her dark gaze, he hesitated. In his mind there were three words that pushed insistently:
I love you.
But he held back the words he wanted to say, unsure of their reception. Perhaps it was too much and too soon. Perhaps there
was
a hint of thinking he was saving her by offering now. After all, it was not as if she were about to be engaged. Certainly not to Lord Lindley. There was time to woo at leisure. “Reggie’s misguided plot merely prompted me to explore what I had long suspected, if we are well-matched. And if . . . if I had not been so drunk that I cannot remember so important an event as our first kiss, then perhaps I would have learned the answer much sooner.”

He drew her stiff, resistant body into his embrace, kissed her gently. She softened, her lips parting, and he felt a sad triumph in her silent surrender. Would she ever love
him
?

She pushed away.

“We’ve missed dinner. I have guests to attend to and a house party to salvage. Let’s not speak of this, shall we?

H
e didn’t speak of it. Not through the awkward dinner at which everyone spoke of everything
but
the scandal. It was like a great, noisy elephant had taken up residence in the room and no one would acknowledge it. They accepted Luc’s presence as if he had always been an intended guest. The charming Viscount home from his continental journey. Yet, even as they all sat here with this pretense, the greater world was likely gossiping about the shocking happenings at Hopford Manor.