by Lisa Kleypas
“Did you see the direction they went in?” he asked.
“If I did,” she said, fuming, “I wouldn’t need spectacles, would I?”
A short silence. “I’ll help you find them.”
“How kind of you,” she said acidly.
For the next few minutes the two of them traversed the garden on their hands and knees, searching among the daffodils. They both chewed on the gristly silence as if it were a mutton chop.
“So you actually need spectacles,” Leo finally said.
“Of course I do,” Marks said crossly. “Why would I wear spectacles if I didn’t need them?”
“I thought they might be part of your disguise.”
“My disguise?”
“Yes, Marks, disguise. A noun describing a means of concealing someone’s identity. Often used by clowns and spies. And now apparently governesses. Good God, can anything be ordinary for my family?”
Marks glared and blinked in his direction, her gaze not quite focused. For a moment, she looked like an anxious child whose favorite blanket had been set out of reach. And that caused an odd, painful twinge in Leo’s heart.
“I’ll find your spectacles,” he said brusquely. “You have my word. If you like, you can go into the house while I keep searching.”
“No, thank you. If I tried to find the house on my own, I’d probably end up in the barn.”
Seeing a metallic glimmer in the grass, Leo reached out and closed his hand around the spectacles. “Here they are.” He crawled to Marks and faced her in an upright kneeling position. After polishing the spectacle lenses with the edge of his sleeve, he said, “Hold still.”
“Give them to me.”
“Let me do it, hardhead. Arguing comes to you as naturally as breathing, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said immediately, and colored as he gave a husky laugh.
“It’s no fun to bait you when you make it so easy, Marks.” He placed the spectacles on her face with great care, running his fingers along the sides of the frame, viewing the fit with an assessing glance. Gently he touched the tips of the earpieces. “They’re not fitted well.” He ran an exploring fingertip over the upper rim of one ear. She was remarkably pretty in the sunlight, her gray eyes containing glimmers of blue and green. Like opals. “Such small ears,” Leo continued, letting his hands linger at the sides of her fine-boned face. “No wonder your spectacles fall off so readily. There’s hardly anything to hang them on.”
Marks stared at him in bewilderment.
How fragile she was, he thought. Her will was so fierce, her temperament so prickly, that he tended to forget she was only half his size. He would have expected her to slap his hands away by now—she hated being touched, especially by him. But she didn’t move at all. He let his thumb brush the side of her throat, and felt the tiny undulation of her swallow. There was something unreal about the moment, something dreamlike. He didn’t want it to end.
“Is Catherine your real name?” he asked. “Will you at least answer that?”
She hesitated, fearful of yielding any part of herself, even that scrap of information. But as his fingertips slid along her neck, the light caress seemed to disarm her. A bloom of color rose from her throat.
“Yes,” she choked out. “It’s Catherine.”
They were still kneeling together, her skirts having billowed and settled everywhere. Folds of flower-printed muslin had been caught under one of Leo’s knees. His body reacted strongly to her nearness, heat sliding beneath his skin and gathering in inconvenient places. Muscles tightened, thickened. He would have to put an end to this, or he was going to do something they would both regret.
“I’ll help you up,” Leo said brusquely, making to rise. “We’ll go inside. I warn you, however, I’m not through with you yet. There’s more I—”
But he broke off, because as Marks had tried to struggle upward, her body had brushed against his. They went still, caught front to front, their breath mingling in uneven surges.
The dreamlike feeling intensified. The two of them were kneeling in a summer garden, the air weighted with the perfume of hot crushed grass and scarlet poppies … and Catherine Marks was in his arms. Her hair shimmered in the sunlight, her skin petal-soft. Her upper lip was nearly as full as the lower, the curves as delicate and smooth as a ripe persimmon. Staring at her mouth, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift in reflexive excitement.
Some temptations, Leo decided hazily, should not be resisted. Because they were so persistent that they would only keep returning, time and again. Therefore such temptations absolutely had to be yielded to—it was the only way to be rid of them.
“Damn it,” he said raggedly, “I’ll do it. Even knowing I’ll be annihilated afterward.”
“You’ll do what?” Marks asked, her eyes huge.
“This.”
And his mouth descended to hers.
At last, every muscle in his body seemed to sigh. At last. The sensation was so pleasurable that for a moment Leo couldn’t even move, just felt her mouth with his mouth. Sinking into the feeling, Leo let it take him. He stopped thinking altogether and did everything and anything he wanted … tugging at her upper lip and then her lower one, sealing their mouths together, touching his tongue to hers, playing with her. One kiss started before another had finished, a chain of erotic strokes and skims and nudges. The delight of it went all through him, echoing in every vein and nerve.
And God help him, he ached for more. He was dying to put his hands inside her clothes, and feel every inch of her body. He wanted to drag his mouth over her in intimate trails, kiss and taste every part of her. Marks responded helplessly, curling her arm around his neck. She moved against him as if sensation were coming from all directions. And it was. They both struggled to press closer, tighter, their bodies pursuing a new and unsteady rhythm. Had they not been separated by so many layers of clothing, it would have been outright lovemaking.
Leo continued to kiss her long after he should have stopped, not only for the sheer pleasure of it, but also because he was reluctant to face what would happen afterward. Their cantankerous relationship could not resume as usual after something like this. It had been set on a new track with an unknown destination, and Leo was certain that neither of them were going to like where it led.
Finding that he couldn’t release her all at once, he did it by degrees, letting his mouth nuzzle the edge of her jaw, following to the vulnerable hollow behind her ear. Her pulse was swift and vibrant against his lips.
“Marks,” he said on a rough breath, “I was afraid of this. Somehow I knew…” Breaking off, he lifted his head and looked down at her.
She squinted through the mist that had accumulated on her lenses. “My spectacles … I’ve lost them again.”
“No, you haven’t. There’s steam on the lenses.”
As the fogged spectacles cleared, Marks shoved at him. She struggled to her feet, frantically swatting away his efforts to help.
They stared at each other. It was hard to say which one of them was more appalled.
But judging from her expression, it was probably Marks.
“This never happened,” she snapped. “If you have the gall ever to mention it, I’ll deny it to my last breath.” She gave her skirts a few agitated whacks to remove the bits of leaves and grass, and shot Leo a fierce warning glance. “I’m going to the house now. And don’t follow me!”
Chapter Two
Their paths didn’t intersect again until dinner, a crowded affair that included his sisters Amelia, Win, and Poppy, and their respective husbands Cam Rohan, Kev Merripen, and Harry Rutledge. Catherine Marks sat with Beatrix at the far end of the table.
So far none of Leo’s sisters had chosen conventional men to wed. Rohan and Merripen were both Romany Gypsies, which accounted in part for their ability to fit in easily with the off-kilter Hathaways. And Poppy’s husband, Harry Rutledge, was an eccentric hotelier, a powerful man whose enemies reputedly liked him m
ore than his friends did.
Could it be true that Catherine Marks was Harry’s sister?
Leo glanced from one to the other of them at dinner, searching for similarities. Damned if I can’t see a resemblance, he thought. The high cheekbones, the straight lines of the brows, the slight feline tilt at the outward corners of the eyes.
“I need to speak to you,” Leo said to Amelia as soon as dinner had concluded. “In private.”
Her blue eyes widened with curiosity. “Of course. Shall we walk? It’s still light outside.”
Leo gave her a curt nod.
As the two oldest Hathaway siblings, Leo and Amelia had had their share of arguments. However, she was his favorite person in the world, not to mention his closest confidant. Amelia had a great deal of common sense, and she never hesitated to say what she thought.
No one had ever expected the pragmatic Amelia to be swept off her feet by Cam Rohan, a dashing Romany Gypsy. But Cam had managed to seduce and marry Amelia before she had quite known what was happening. And as it had turned out, Cam was able to provide the levelheaded guidance the Hathaways had needed. With his black hair worn a trifle too long and a diamond stud glittering in one ear, he was hardly the image of a staid family patriarch. But it was Cam’s unconventionality that allowed him to manage the Hathaways so adeptly. Now he and Amelia had a nine-month-old son, Rye, who had his father’s dark hair and his mother’s blue eyes.
Walking leisurely along the private drive with Amelia, Leo cast a proprietary glance at their surroundings. In summer, the Hampshire sun lingered until at least nine o’clock, illuminating a mosaic of woodland, heath, and grass meadows. Rivers and streams scored the landscape, feeding bogs and wet meadows teeming with prolific wildlife. Although the Ramsay estate was certainly not the largest in Hampshire, it was one of the more beautiful, with an ancient timber forest and three thousand acres of arable land.
In the past year Leo had come to know the estate tenants, he had made improvements in irrigation and drainage, repaired fences, gates, and buildings … and the devil knew he had learned far more than he’d ever wanted to know about farming. All part of Kev Merripen’s merciless instructions.
Merripen, who had lived with the Hathaways since childhood, had undertaken to learn as much as possible about estate management. Now he was intent on teaching this accumulated knowledge to Leo.
“It’s not really your land,” Merripen had told him, “until you’ve put some of your own blood and sweat into it.”
“Is that all?” Leo had asked sarcastically. “Only blood and sweat? I’m certain I can find one or two other bodily fluids to donate if it’s that important.”
But privately he acknowledged that Merripen had been right. This feeling of ownership, of connection, couldn’t be acquired any other way.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Leo let out a taut sigh. Dinner had left him restless and irritable.
“You must have had a row with Miss Marks,” Amelia remarked. “Usually you’re slinging arrows at each other across the table. But tonight you were both quiet. I don’t think she looked up from her plate even once.”
“It wasn’t a row,” Leo said curtly.
“Then what was it?”
“She told me—under duress—that Rutledge is her brother.”
Amelia glanced at him suspiciously. “What kind of duress?”
“Never mind that. Did you hear what I just said? Harry Rutledge is—”
“Miss Marks has been under quite enough duress without you adding to it,” Amelia said. “I do hope you weren’t cruel to her, Leo. Because if so—”
“I, cruel to Marks? I’m the one you should worry about. After a conversation with her, I usually walk away with my entrails dragging behind me.” His indignation doubled as he saw his sister trying to suppress a grin. “I gather you already knew Rutledge and Marks were related.”
“I’ve known for a few days,” she admitted.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“She asked me not to, and I agreed out of respect for her privacy.”
“The devil knows why Marks should have privacy when no one else around here does.” Leo stopped in his tracks, obliging her to stop as well. They faced each other. “Why is it a secret that she’s Rutledge’s sister?”
“I’m not certain,” Amelia admitted, looking perturbed. “All she would say is that it’s for her protection.”
“Protection from what?”
She shook her head helplessly. “Perhaps Harry might tell you. But I doubt it.”
“By God, someone’s going to explain it to me, or I’ll throw Marks out on her arse before she can blink.”
“Leo,” she said in astonishment. “You wouldn’t.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
“But think of Beatrix, and how upset she would be—”
“I am thinking of Beatrix. I won’t have my youngest sister being looked after by a woman with a possibly dangerous secret. If a man like Harry Rutledge, who has ties to some of the most nefarious characters in London, can’t acknowledge his own sister … she may be a criminal. Has that occurred to you?”
“No,” Amelia said stonily, beginning to walk again. “Honestly, Leo, even for you this is a bit dramatic. She is not a criminal.”
“Don’t be naïve,” he said, following her. “No one is exactly who he or she pretends to be.”
After a curtailed silence, Amelia asked warily, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m leaving for London on the morrow.”
Her eyes widened. “But Merripen is expecting you to take part in the turnip planting, and the fertilizing, and—”
“I know what Merripen expects. And I do hate to miss his fascinating lectures on the wonders of manure. All the same, I’m going. I want to spend some time with Rutledge and pry some answers out of him.”
Amelia frowned. “Why can’t you talk to him here?”
“Because he’s on his honeymoon, and he won’t be willing to spend his last night in Hampshire chatting with me. Besides, I’ve decided to take on a small commission to design a conservatory for a house in Mayfair.”
“I think you want to be away from Catherine. I think something happened between you.”
Leo glanced at the last brilliant orange and purple vestiges of daylight. “The light is going,” he remarked in a pleasant tone. “We should head back.”
“You can’t run from your problems, you know.”
His mouth twisted in annoyance. “Why do people always say that? Of course you can run from your problems. I do it all the time, and it never fails.”
“You’re obsessed with Catherine,” Amelia persisted. “It’s obvious to everyone.”
“Now who’s being dramatic?” he asked, striding back toward Ramsay House.
“You watch everything she does.” Amelia stubbornly kept pace with him. “Whenever her name is mentioned, you’re all ears. And lately, every time I see you talking or arguing with her, you seem more alive than you have since…” She paused, seeming to think better of what she’d been about to say.
“Since when?” Leo asked, daring her to continue.
“Since before the scarlet fever.”
It was a subject they never discussed.
The year before Leo had inherited the viscountcy, a fatal epidemic of scarlet fever had swept through the village where the Hathaways had lived.
The first to go had been Laura Dillard, Leo’s fiancée.
Laura’s family had let him stay at her bedside. For three days he had watched her die in his arms, hour by hour, until she had slipped away.
Leo had gone home and collapsed with the fever, and so had Win. By some miracle they had both survived, but Win had been left an invalid. And Leo had emerged an entirely different man, scarred in ways that even he couldn’t fully catalog. He had found himself in a nightmare he couldn’t wake from. He hadn’t cared if he lived or died. The most unforgivable part was that in his torment, he had hurt his family and cau
sed no end of problems for them. At the worst of it, when Leo had seemed bent on destroying himself, the family had made a decision. They had sent Win to recover at a clinic in France, with Leo accompanying her.
While Win’s weak lungs had regained their strength at the clinic, Leo had spent hours walking through the heat-drowsed pantiled villages of Provence, up switchback footpaths scattered with flowers, across arid fields. The sunshine, the hot blue air, the lenteur, or slowness of life, had cleared his mind and calmed his soul. He had stopped drinking except for a single glass of wine at dinner. He had sketched and painted, and finally he had grieved.
When Leo and Win had returned to England, Win had wasted no time in achieving her heart’s desire, which had been to marry Merripen.
Leo, for his part, was trying to make amends for the way he had failed his family. And above all, he was determined to avoid falling in love ever again. Now that he was aware of the fatal depth of feeling he was capable of, he would never give another human being such power over him.
“Sis,” he told Amelia ruefully, “if you have some lunatic notion that I have any kind of personal interest in Marks, forget it at once. All I intend to do is find out what skeleton she has in her closet. Knowing her, it’s probably a literal one.”
Chapter Three
“I didn’t even know about Cat’s existence until I was twenty,” Harry Rutledge said, stretching out his long legs as he and Leo sat in the Rutledge Hotel’s clubroom. The quiet and luxurious spot, with its numerous octagonal apses, was a popular gathering place in London for foreign nobility, travelers of means, aristocrats and politicians.
Leo regarded his brother-in-law with thinly veiled skepticism. Of all the men he would have chosen to marry one of his sisters, Rutledge would certainly not have topped the list. Leo didn’t trust him. On the other hand, Harry had his good points, among them his obvious devotion to Poppy.
Harry drank from a snifter of warmed brandy, considering his words carefully before he continued. He was a handsome man, capable of great charm, but he was also ruthless and manipulative. One would expect no less from a man of his achievements, among them creating the largest and most opulent hotel in London.
