Wed at Leisure (6 page)

“Miss Mansfield! Your Grace!” Kate whirled around to see a footman at the entrance to the greenhouse. “Miss Mansfield, your mother has had word. Master Thomas is ill. She wishes to return to Hopford immediately.”

She didn’t stop to look at Peter. Instead, she lifted her skirts and ran.

S
everal hours later, Peter stood in the entryway of Hopford Manor, unaccountably nervous. He was merely doing the polite thing. Calling on a family that had been dealt a renewed shock.

He hadn’t specified whom he had come to see, but it was Kate who descended the stairs, who led him to a parlor and invited him to sit.

“It is good of you to inquire, Your Grace. Thomas is recovering.”

Peter nodded. Took a deep breath. “What did the doctor say?”

“That it very well might reoccur. That there is no known cure. That sometimes the illness is a mild one, attacks terrifying but recoverable. Sometimes not.”

“Perhaps a specialist, someone in London.”

“Yes, perhaps.” Then she burst into tears. Understandably, she’d nearly lost her brother. Or at least, it had felt as though she were about to.

He reached for her, to draw her into his arms, offer comfort, but when his hand touched her arm, he realized how inappropriate his gesture was and retreated. She looked up at him, dark eyes luminous with tears.

“You think I’m overset because he nearly died,” she stated. Surprised, he nodded. “Of course, I am, but it isn’t that. It’s . . . it’s that we weren’t here
before
. It’s all very well and good to have a grand display of emotions, but we weren’t
here
. When it mattered, we didn’t come home. I think I went to a ball the night we received the letter that we might lose him. The Granville ball.”

He’d been there that night. If she had fretted, she had not worn her anxiety on the surface. At a loss, he waited silently to see what else she would say.

“Oh, I wanted to go home. But we had made social promises, and Henrietta thought it best to wait for the next letter. And that next letter said that he was making a recovery. So we put the entire incident out of mind.

“Only, I didn’t. I’ve been haunted by that decision for three long months, Peter.” She gestured to his hand, the one that had been outstretched but now hung limply by his side. “So, I don’t deserve your compassion.”

“He recovered,” he said simply, since he could not argue with her logic. In her place he would have felt an equal measure of guilt. “And you have learned from the choice you made.”

“Have I?” she asked.

He couldn’t answer that, of course. He hoped she had. Suspected she had. She was not someone who tripped through life oblivious. She felt . . . deeply. Or he thought she did.

“You asked about my sister earlier. The answer is much the same. I love her dearly but my entire childhood . . . I simply wished to have something to myself. A chance to not . . . compete.”

He laughed. “Compete with Bianca? You are nothing alike.” In his mind, there was no comparison. Yes, Bianca was pretty, and full of bright, voluptuous cheer. But Kate had that intensity, that air about her that drew one in, a moth to a flame, so to speak.

“You don’t know me,” she said, standing. Trained well, he stood, too. “You’ve been so kind and attentive since our ‘truce’ but I don’t understand why.”

And she clearly wanted to know. She had not asked a question but the space was there for him to fill nonetheless.

“I remember what you said, about your mother,” he said carefully, trying to say what he had only felt ten years earlier. “It is understandable that a child who feels unloved might desire it above all else as an adult.”

“I desire love?” She looked incredulous. He felt a bit hot under his cravat but having stepped into the mire, he could retreat or make his way through.

“To be loved,” he corrected. “Or at least the adoring attention of those around you. And if not adoring, then their attention regardless.”

“You have a peculiar theory on human desires.”

“I merely extrapolate.”

“You’ve said as much before, that your father . . . how ridiculous we sound, crying about things long since passed! My mother, your father? Who cares? They are both dead.”

But as much as he had to agree that the past was a reason but should no longer be an excuse, she looked like she did care.

“You are mistress of your own fate. You can choose who you wish to be.”

“You are revoltingly irritating!” She looked angry now. “Is this faradiddle your specialty? Perhaps you should have stayed at Cambridge as your father wished.”

Or perhaps he should have recognized that there were things one did not truly wish to hear, especially on the day one’s brother nearly died.

“As you say, it is long past.”

She pressed her lips together, looked about, and smoothed out her dress. “I should go. It really was kind of you to call.”

But the truth was different from the surface politeness of her words. She was dismissing him. So much for a truce.

T
he house party was the last thing Kate wished to think about, or wished her stepmother and father to have to think about. If it were not too late, she would have canceled it. But it was too late. Luckily, by the next day Thomas was even feeling well enough to continue his studies with Mr. Dore.

However, Kate had not yet recovered. Not from her fear about her brother, nor from the bout of self-loathing that had reignited, nor from her heated exchange with Peter. She felt keenly that she had revealed too much. That she had allowed him to make assumptions about her. Assumptions that did not feel true but she also could not deny out of hand, if she were to be completely honest with herself.

Thus, wishing to be anywhere but there, Kate greeted her guests as they arrived. Almost everyone had accepted the invitation. And she had invited guests who were certainly the crème de la crème of society. At least of those who had been in Brighton. There was Lord Lindley, for whom she had concocted this whole gathering. No Camilla Hightower in sight. There was Frederic Graughton, who was always entertaining and such a wit. And Caroline Edmonton and Penelope, both eligible girls with whom Kate felt little competition. Also invited were the Stanbury twins. Bagley, as well, though he had not yet arrived. All in all, it was a young set, a fun set. Except for a few necessary companions and parents, the group was not stodgy at all.

Over the hours, Kate responded to the excited, energetic conversation with a natural lifting of her spirits. She liked the action, not having the space to be alone with her thoughts, and so when the majority of the guests retired to their rooms to rest before dinner, she happily agreed to a game of chess with George Stanbury.

She stared at the chess board, at the half-filled row of pawns, the rest spread out about the board, or already sacrificed in pursuit of winning. She loved the game, and Stanbury was a decent opponent. She had played him a handful of times before and he always put up a good fight. But today, in the quiet of afternoon, she was all too aware of Bianca and Lord Lindley sitting on the window seat watching.

Although she was pretending to be completely absorbed in the game, she could hear Lindley conversing with her sister.

Stanbury moved his bishop.

“As bad as that?” Stanbury said with a laugh. When Kate gazed at him questioningly, he laughed again and gestured at her face. “You winced.”

“Did I?” She laughed, as well, and glanced at Lindley to include him in the merriment. After all, he was the very reason that she had concocted this house party. But somehow . . . somehow in the few days between leaving Brighton and today, he had lost some of his appeal.

Oh, he was still handsome in that rather plain way of his. Pale blue eyes that, as cliché as the idea was, seemed sharp with intelligence, a quality she required in any potential husband. She didn’t want a man she could lead about or one like her father, content for his wife to travel without him. She wanted what she had never seen as a child, a marriage based on love.

She wasn’t certain when she had decided this an important element in her future match. She had been raised—by her mother, Henrietta, Miss Smith, and Miss Norman, the previous governess—to care about rank and about making the
best
match possible. Lindley was not the best, but he was very good. And she rather liked him.

If only Peter hadn’t called a truce.

And then infuriated her again.

“Are you as skilled at chess as your sister?” Lord Lindley asked Bianca. It was the third question he had asked that had referenced Kate.

She refrained from saying that Bianca would never win at chess until the day the board was populated with all her favorite characters from novels.

“No. I cannot claim the skill,” Bianca said. “Do you play, my lord?”

“I do.”

“Have you played with Kate?”

“I have not yet had the pleasure.” He sounded intrigued, as if he could not wait to kick Stanbury out of the chair and take his place. Looking at the board, Stanbury was about to kick himself out with his careless moves in any event. “But I am gaining the advantage of studying her technique.”

Kate bit the inside of her cheek. Contemplated shifting her technique just to throw him off, and then decided against it and moved her pawn as she had initially intended. If he were that observant, that brilliant, she wanted to witness him in action. Perhaps it would finally turn her regard for him into love.

“Surely fifteen minutes cannot reveal that much,” Bianca said.

Dislodge the image of Peter, which disgustingly remained in her mind.

“When one watches closely, a minute can reveal all.”

If only she had Lindley’s skill and could understand Peter’s motivation. Know why he paid her such attention, as if he courted her, when their history . . .

“Do you watch closely, my lord?”

Stanbury’s fingers hovered above his queen. Kate tried not to wince, to show any expression at all. His hand shifted infinitesimally and she knew, instantly, what he intended. Why could she understand so clearly when it came to chess, but when it came to people, to Bianca—

“I try to, Miss Bianca.”

—to Peter, to her mother—

“Lord Lindley!” Kate cried, trying to dispel her thoughts. “Do tell Mr. Stanbury that there are better uses for his pawn than what he is about to do.”

Without hesitation, Lindley met Kate’s desperate gaze. His pale eyes assessed her. Then he nodded and shifted that attention to the board. She smiled, although inside she felt far from happy. But Lindley was good for her. Calming.

She glanced at Bianca. Her sister seemed suddenly illuminated and radiant. Beautiful in a different way from her usual golden, Renaissance beauty.

“Oh no, Lindley,” Stanbury objected. “If I am to lose to Miss Mansfield yet again, I wish to do so on my own merits. No need to drag you into the mess.” And that was exactly why Kate had invited George Stanbury. He was not remotely a match for her, despite being a perfectly good match for any other woman in her situation, but he was good-natured and always knew the right thing to say. This last was a skill Kate admired as she had to work hard to ensure that she never misspoke.

It had been quite a shock to arrive in London and learn that the reputation she’d developed in Watersham, as unfair as it was, had followed her. She’d spent a good portion of her first Season making certain that she had a new reputation. And her efforts had paid off.

“You needn’t lose,” Kate said with a smile. “It is simply that winning is not your focus.”

“You wound me, Miss Mansfield.”

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“Hardly,” Bianca said, and Kate looked to her in surprise. Her sister had been her usual reticent self throughout the afternoon. Until now. “Kate believes in winning above all else.”

For a moment Kate was dumbfounded, unsure of her sister’s meaning. But then . . . the way Bianca had been about the dress, and how she avoided her these last few days, and of course, the fact that she hadn’t responded to any of Kate’s letters in weeks. Was Peter right? Did her sister . . . dislike her? Resent her?

The way Kate, as much as she adored Bianca, resented her, as well?

Not that she’d ever say as much. It wasn’t her sister’s fault that she had been the one to find their mother, to be there when their mother died. But . . . she’d had their mother’s love during her life and then . . . she’d been the last one to see her. While Kate had been off crying by the stream to Peter.

She forced a laugh to break the awkward silence. To stop them all from looking at her almost expectantly. “At chess, I suppose this is true.”

Lindley stood, offered her his arm. “I, too, prefer to win. Perhaps we have just enough time for a turn about the garden?”

Her smile this time was genuine. And grateful. Though she refused to allow that last emotion to show, for it would reveal that there was something amiss. That she had needed saving.

T
he evening was lively and the drawing room full of people, with both the guests staying at Hopford in attendance and also a handful of the neighbors. It was clear from the moment Peter and Reggie entered the house that all the unmarried ladies were cognizant that a duke was among them. It both amused Kate and irritated her.

Not that she could say why it irritated her.

Or rather she could, but she didn’t wish to acknowledge, even to herself, that Peter’s attention the last few days had made her feel somewhat territorial.

For now, she simply ignored him. Or pretended to. As usual, Peter was quite difficult to actually ignore. First of all, he had this presence, strong and serious, as if he could take on the world and protect her from it. It had been with him even as a young man and had become more pronounced after his return from the Continent. Secondly, she still remembered that day, four years ago. She hadn’t yet been to London, was still naïve and impressionable when it came to men. And third, she was currently aggravated with him. She had desperately wanted to rescind his invitation, not that she truly could without creating far too many problems. It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t wanted him to attend, as that she had wanted to find some way to . . . to aggravate him back.