Wed at Leisure (9 page)

“Kate, stop.”

“No, I have dishonorable designs upon you.”

He laughed and she reveled in his laughter. In the gasp that met the exploratory touch of her tongue to his ear.

“I mean, you should return to the party.” She didn’t want to think about the party, but the very word was like a bucket of cold water. She sighed and stepped out of his embrace.

“The
scandalous
party, you mean.”

“Yes, Bianca did create quite a scandal.”

“But now she’s to be married, while it shall follow me back to Brighton. Not that I’m going back to Brighton.”

“You will,” he said and his eyes were kind. No, not kind. Strong. “But first, you need to return to your guests, before they remark on your absence. Because Bianca’s actions do not need to reflect on you, but yours will. If you are thought to be jealous, or embarrassed—”

“I am not jealous.”

“Good.”

But when they reached the stairs, she hung back. “You go on, I’ll be there in a moment.”

He turned, studied her. Then nodded and descended. She watched his progress.

“Peter! There you are! Tell me you didn’t miss it all.” Reggie. Kate edged closer to the stairs. She should make herself known, before Reggie gossiped about her family the way he’d hardly do if she were present.

“Miss what?”

“Luc did it. He and Bianca are to be married. You’re off the hook. No need to woo the shrew anymore.”

Kate froze.
Woo the shrew.
Was that what this had all been about? For Peter to court her so that she would let Bianca marry? As if she or her father really would have stood in the way of Bianca marrying a future earl?

Yes, perhaps she might request that Bianca allow Kate one more Season alone in London, but Kate was not an idiot. Asquith’s family was well regarded, even if she’d never met the man before his ridiculous masquerade.

But clearly her sister had believed that. And so had Lord Reginald. And so had Peter.

Pain weighted her down—a darkness on her soul.

Those kisses. She had believed him. Trusted him.

“She isn’t a shrew.”

That was something at least.

“I think her sister’s actions and your friend’s at this moment are far more reprehensible. Yours, as well. In fact—”

“No need to sermonize, Peter.”

“No need at all.” They both started at her voice, turned to watch her descend the stairs. She took a perverse satisfaction in the embarrassed flush on Reginald’s face. He should feel that way. If what she understood from the snippet she had heard was true, he had colluded with Luc and Bianca and Peter to trick her. “He only says what everyone else in Watersham thinks. Your mother even.”

“Not everyone, Kate.” Peter looked so serious, so mournful, so . . . could one single expression convey so much or did she read into it more than he meant?

“Even you, Peter, have said as much to me.”

“Listen, Kate—” Reggie started.

“I don’t have time for this,” she interrupted. “I have guests. And a scandal to make light of. A house party to . . . somehow get through. I’d like . . . I’d like you both to leave.”

T
he sitting room was still filled with people, although there were some noticeable absences: Penelope Wildwood and her parents and Miss Edmonton and Lady Vane. But everyone else was still there gathered around Henrietta, who seemed to not be disturbed at all by the events.

“I admit,” she was saying as she held court, “that one hopes for the most advantageous match for one’s daughter, but I always thought if scandal were to grace our home it would come from Catherine.”

All gazes swiveled to Kate and she froze. Henrietta did not look the slightest bit upset to be caught saying such a thing, and well she wouldn’t. She would just as soon say it in front of Kate. Unlike the conversation between Peter and Reggie. Her stepmother had never been blind to her faults. And now she was using them to try and do what Kate had intended to do, save what was left of this gathering.

She laughed. “How I do love you, Henny! But where are my
scandalous
sister and Lord Asquith? Surely Father has allowed them to live?”

They all laughed, but it was the sort of high-pitched laughter that was both scandalized and titillated.

“I am certain we shall learn in good time,” Henrietta said.

“Well then,” Kate said, lifting her hands. “Anyone for chess?”

“W
ell.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Peter growled. As he had again and again for the fifteen minutes of the ride that he was cooped up with his brother in the dark carriage. He was angry. No, furious. At Reginald, Bianca, Luc. At himself.

He wanted to turn the carriage around and go back to Hopford. Find Kate and convince her to forgive him. To talk to her until he found the right words, the ones that conveyed everything he felt. That made everyone’s stupidity irrelevant and unimportant.

To kiss her again as he had in her bedroom. To go back in time and keep her there. Hell, to go back in time further, four years back, and leave that flask at home. To kiss her by the river and remember. To make her his then and now and forever.

But she had needed him to leave and the part of him that was rational understood that. He would return tomorrow, survey the situation, make his apologies, and profess his love.

Yes, his love.

“I’m going to marry her.”

Reggie’s gasp was audible even over the noises of the carriage. “You cannot. Your life will be hell. She’s demanding and ill mannered.”

“Hardly ill-mannered. Her relationship with her family aside . . .”

“And you would then be family,” Reggie stressed. “For God’s sake,
I
would be family.”

“I know a different Kate than you.”

“Mother won’t have it.”

Peter laughed. As if his mother could control his actions. He had stopped letting the opinion of his parents sway him the day he left to join the army. He afforded his mother the respect he was due, but . . .

“I am the duke. She has no say in my choice of wife.”

“I never took you for a fool, brother. You’ve chosen the wrong Mansfield girl. She’ll make your life miserable. Make all of us miserable. When you’re hen-pecked and tired of her demands, you’ll tell me I was right.”

Peter had never wanted to punch his brother before. Shake him, yes. Pound some sense and fiscal responsibility into him, yes. But physically hurt him? This was new, all of the anger and frustration wanting an outlet. But Peter relaxed his fists and let the force of his displeasure show in his voice.

“Reggie, stop it. If Catherine will have me, despite the stupidity of my younger brother and the way he perpetrated a masquerade upon her family, then she will be my duchess. And you will apologize to her.”

“I will do no such thing,” Reggie said hotly. “I’m off for Brighton tomorrow.”

Peter squinted at his brother. He had always thought his brother irreverent, carefree, and rambunctious. A bit of a bumbling jokester. He had never thought there a layer of maliciousness beneath. But this was a different Reginald he saw by moonlight and the knowledge unsettled him. Perhaps Brighton was a good thing.

Kate was impetuous and she had learned to rein in her behavior. Aside from his one great moment of obstinacy, disobeying his father’s wishes, Peter had always been in control. But his emotions were no less wild and the way he felt about Kate proved that to him.

Why her? Why now? Had it always been there but it took Reggie’s prank to make him look past the fears that held him back?

For that he could forgive his brother.

“Do as you will,” he said simply. “And I shall, as well.”

K
ate awoke with the sense that some disaster had occurred. Then she remembered. She’d let Lord Lindley win at chess, and if he’d noticed that his victory was unearned, he hadn’t said a word. She’d done it to spite him. Because he had not even put up a fight. He’d bowed out when he’d thought Peter pursued her. Hah!

The sound of breathing caught her attention.

“Is that you, Jane?”

“Yes, miss. I brought you some tea and toast.”

She had thought to go down to breakfast but clearly she had overslept.

“How late is it?”

“Your father and mother have broken fast already. Many of your guests, as well. He took the men out to shoot.”

“And the women?”

“In the morning room.”

It all sounded so normal. So like the original plan.

“Some have left already.”

“The Wildwoods and Lady Vane and her daughter, I presume.” It made the most sense. And while Miss Stanbury was equally young and presumably impressionable, her brother was not such a careful guardian that he would think to leave.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And what of Mr. Dore . . . I mean, Lord Asquith?”

“He will be moved to Lady Vane’s room once it has been aired.”

Interesting. She would have forced him to go to an inn. Or thrown him on Lord Reginald’s mercy. After all, the Colburns were the ones to introduce him, to initiate the fraud. But her father had never done well with conflict. He would bend over backward for a peaceful home.

Then, as she prepared to leave her room, she stopped in front of the glass once more. There had been another disaster. Bianca. Like a bit of knitting that had come unraveled and kept unraveling, events were out of control. The way they had been years ago.

She took a deep breath. She could hardly bend the world to her bidding, no matter how hard she tried. All she could do was to act as if she didn’t care, as if no one should care.

She stepped out into the hall. Walked its length, then down the stairs. She half-expected to see Peter and Reggie there, to relive the experience the way she still felt the pain in her chest.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Why go to the morning room? Why pretend? Why not go back to bed?

“There you are, Kate. Your guests have been asking about you.”

Kate blinked at Bianca, who had appeared as if from nowhere, spouting off nonsense as if nothing untoward had occurred the night before.

“You were with them?”

“Why shouldn’t I be? They wished me well on my engagement.”

Kate stared at her in amazement. She had never known a time that she hadn’t had to be careful with everything she said and did. First, her mother had criticized all of her actions and then society had scrutinized. Every mistake Kate had ever made had been one she had had to work to overcome. Not so her sister. “You’re completely shameless.”

“You should be happy for me,” Bianca said, “I’m marrying an earl. You don’t need to be embarrassed. And beyond that, I’m in love. You should be happy for me but you’re not. All you care about is yourself. And despite your attempts to ruin my life, I’m living one anyway. Without benefit of a Season. It must just eat at you inside, doesn’t it? Something you couldn’t dictate.”

There were two Kates listening to this speech. One, the hurt child, the one who needed approbation, who loved her sister, who wanted everything to be perfect. And the other, the woman who would never let anyone see weakness or hurt her. So nothing Bianca said mattered. The words flowed off Kate’s skin like water. She didn’t need to hear this.

But as she walked away, she did hear it. Over and over again. The same way she had stared at herself in the mirror. The way she had determined never again to be the woman who would choose a ball over a brother.

She heard everything.

I
t was like watching a stone wall crumble, a fortress crack. As Kate walked away, he could see the softening of her shoulders, the hesitation in her gait. He glanced back at Bianca.

She, too, bore the wounds of the exchange. She might have achieved her goal but she looked harder in some ineffable way.

“You want to say something, say it.” At Bianca’s tired words, Peter stepped forward from the shadows. Embarrassment at having been caught listening was not as great as his anger, as his sense of injustice.

“She doesn’t deserve that. Your sister loves you.”

“What do you know of it, Your Grace? You think because you’ve spent a handful of days with her that you know the real Catherine Mansfield? I’ve seen her now, in action. She has her society face and then there is the one beneath.”

“And the one beneath that. There are depths to Kate that you have never imagined. She may have her flaws, her jealousy, her need for admiration, for being . . . in control of everything around her.”

“Perhaps you do know her better than I thought if you are not completely blinded,” Bianca muttered.

“Do you know how your mother was to your sister? The way she found fault in everything she did? I can see you didn’t. Because she treated you very differently. It was much the same in my home. If you ask me to describe my brother to you, you would not recognize Lord Reginald. The way a sibling sees another . . . it is not the way the world sees him. Or her.”

“And that is the most unfair of all.”

For the first time since he had returned to Watersham, Bianca Mansfield had said something with which he had to agree.

S
o Peter was right. It had all been about attention. About needing someone to love her. To want her to see her. And it always had been. Kate remembered the first day that she started treating her sister differently. She has been seven years old and she started to realize what the words her mother said meant. That she was ugly. Unlovable, would always be bad. About the same time she realized Bianca was praised. Was beautiful, good, perfect. Kate couldn’t make a mother love her. Couldn’t make her father pay attention. And the nanny . . . Well, Bianca needed her more since she was still a little girl.

Before then Kate had adored Bianca. From the first hour in which her sister had been born, she’d seen the girl as hers. She hadn’t been jealous.

Jealous.
Awareness hit Kate hard in the chest. Embarrassingly. That she should be jealous of her own sister. Oh, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known. After all she understood enough to know she had made Bianca wait to come out because she didn’t want to compete in London, the way she competed back at home in Watersham. But knowing and knowing were two different things. And the self-loathing that Kate normally pushed deep beneath the surface was inescapable.