Her father’s valet appeared immediately. He looked hesitant, as though he were guilty of something but did not yet know what.
“There is a letter for me,” said Catherine sternly. “A letter which was not delivered.”
Light dawned on Robson’s face. “Ah, Miss – your father’s orders…”
“Never mind my father’s orders. Where is the letter?”
“He gave clear instructions, Miss,” said Robson, wringing his hands. “All of your mail is to go first to him, so that he may –”
“So that he may what? Read it through? Pry into my personal business?”
“I don’t know, Miss. I couldn’t say.”
“But I think you certainly could say, Robson. You are my father’s confidante, after all. I assume you are well-acquainted with all the family business.”
He hesitated.
“Ah ha,” exclaimed Catherine. “Tell me what is going on.”
Robson took a deep breath, anticipating an outburst. “I believe your father’s aim was to remove any correspondence which was addressed in a male hand, Miss. Whether he has read it or not I do not know.”
To Robson’s amazement, Catherine breathed a sigh of relief. “Then there was a letter?”
“Yes, Miss. A little over an hour ago.”
She marched directly to her father’s rooms and flung the door open without ceremony. “Where is my letter, Papa? You can surely have no objection to my reading it now that you have consented to my engagement.”
“Cathy? Have you been out of doors? What on earth –”
She held out a hand, waiting, willing herself not to shake with anticipation. “My letter. Please.”
Her father shrugged, grumbled a little, and acquiesced without too much trouble. He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Very well, my little harridan. If you insist on behaving in this wilful way… The letter is on the desk. It is not hidden away. It does not appear to be very long, in any case.”
Catherine seized it with delight. The handwriting was certainly Harry’s. Mindful of her father’s eyes on her, she swept out of the room and almost ran to her bedroom, where she could be sure of some privacy.
Now all would be explained, she felt certain. Some great disaster must have called Harry away. There was no other reason why he would not wait to call upon her father as he had promised.
She even hoped beyond hope that the letter would contain something to refute Miss Hendrington’s claims. At the very least, she wished for some indication of his love to soothe her unquiet heart.
The letter was short, as her father had predicted. One solitary sheet of paper, written on only one side. And no more than a line or two, at that.
Cathy,
I am called away unexpectedly. I will return once my business is concluded.
Westbourne
And that was all.
Catherine turned the paper over and over again, searching for some new message, some hidden meaning. Nothing appeared. Clearly, in Harry’s eyes, there was no more to be said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Blast that fool of a boy he was cursed to call a brother!
Harry leaned back in the seat of his carriage and closed his eyes, trying to relax. The violent bumping indicated that they were tearing along at a fair pace, but he was filled with the urge to lean forward and order his driver to whip the horses to even greater efforts.
Still, there was no use in sitting and worrying while nothing could be done. It was a long journey from Elmston to London. He prayed that the night would be cloudless with a bright moon so that he would not be forced to stop for the night.
How could William have been such an imbecile?
Grimly, Harry recounted his own recent sins and weighed them up against his brother’s latest escapade. When looked on as a whole, his own life was not so very stainless compared to William’s. He attempted to reason with himself, to cool off his anger, but found he could not.
He hoped the gossip pages of the newspapers would be kind to the Marsdens in future, for the family had certainly provided them with ample fodder of late.
William’s duel was scheduled for ten o’clock the following morning. The Earl of Scarcliffe, brother of the young lady William had deflowered, had demanded satisfaction and, according to William’s panicked letter, was in a towering rage. William, in his youthful inexperience, had put off writing to his older brother until it was almost too late. The little nincompoop appeared to have believed he could smooth the situation over unaided. Now he came begging – possibly for his life.
Harry was not yet quite comfortable in his role as Duke, but everything he knew about the world suggested that he had a much better chance of assuaging the Earl’s righteous anger than his loudmouthed, untitled little brother.
Clinging to his seat as the carriage flew over the potholes in the road, Harry found himself wishing desperately for the counsel of one person above all others. Catherine. How he longed to talk this knotty problem over with her! She was cleverer than he, he was certain, calmer and less prone to rash action; she would surely see some way out of the duel for poor William.
But as matters transpired, he had been unable to do more than scribble a brief note to her before he was hurrying off to stop the duel before it began. He had not even dared convey to her the true nature of the situation, for fear of the prying eyes of servants. If the matter could be kept from public knowledge, Harry was determined to hide it.
He allowed his mind to drift forwards to the happy time forthcoming when Catherine was his wife. He would never need to go anywhere without having her at his side. Her cool voice and her gentle hand would be able to guide him through the stormiest scrapes of his two miscreant younger brothers.
All the regard that he had for her swelled up in his chest so greatly that he felt he might burst with it. Soon, soon, the time was coming when he must declare himself to Catherine – not only his intentions; he hoped he had made those clear enough – but the anguish of his heart. He would go insane otherwise. The knowledge that she considered their match only a marriage of convenience tore at him.
Even if she were to reject him, to toss his feelings thoughtlessly aside, he was resolved to tell her. At least then he would know.
The night proved clear and silver with moonlight. Harry passed it very uncomfortably. If his longing for Catherine and his worry for his brother were not enough to put his mind at rest, there was the continual rattle of the carriage to keep him awake.
They arrived at his London residence as dawn was streaking over the horizon. Harry leapt out, leaving the driver to tend to the exhausted horses, and went immediately to the library. There, as he suspected, he found William in a state of great agitation. It seemed he had not slept either.
“Harry, thank God you’ve come!” cried the boy – a tall and strapping lad of one-and-twenty, but still as much in need of guidance as ever. “What shall I do? I must see Scarcliffe within a matter of hours. He means to murder me!”
“It would hardly be murder,” said Harry sternly. “It seems to me that Scarcliffe is behaving in a most gentlemanly manner. Indeed, if I found myself in the same situation, I know not what I would do. Thank God I was not cursed with sisters!”
“It is not what you think it is, Harry,” said William. He did not look ashamed, as he ought to have done given his situation, but rather proud and defiant. “Celia and I –”
“I don’t wish to hear the details!” snapped Harry. “There is no question that you will marry the young lady, whether you wish to or not. The only matter which concerns me is getting you through this duel with your skin intact. Did you offer the Earl an apology?”
“Yes, but he refused to accept it.”
“Good for him! How could he possibly accept when his sister’s honour has been sullied? Now, where is the duel to take place?”
“On Horton Heath.”
“Is it a remote spot? Far from prying eyes?”
“Quite,” said William, growing a
little pale. “Harry, surely you do not intend that I should actually –”
“And the weapons?”
“We are to fight with pistols,” said William, lowering his hand to the gun which lay upon the table before him. His fingers skittered nervously over its cold surface.
“Very well. Now, do as I say and it will all come to the good. By tonight, you and the Earl will be embracing as brothers. Well…embracing may be a little much to expect. But you shall both survive this encounter and all shall be well. I will go along with you to act as your second. Who is the Earl’s second, do you know?”
“It is his brother. Lord Jonathan Hartley.”
“Dash it all,” groaned Harry. “That’s no good. Whatever possessed you to seduce the sister of two of the bravest and most stubborn men in England?”
“But I –”
“No, I do not wish to hear it.” In truth, Harry did not wish to risk his brother turning the matter around and calling him out for his own indiscretion. His passionate feelings towards Catherine now appeared in quite a different light when he considered what their consequences could have been. “I shall do my best to smooth things over with Hartley and have the whole thing called off. If I succeed, it is all to the good and you shall marry Lady Celia Hartley. If I fail, you will act as follows: when the time comes to shoot, lower your pistol and fire into the ground. I suspect the Earl is gentleman enough that he will follow suit. If he does shoot at you, you must decline to return his fire.”
“But if he hits me? If I am killed?”
“Then it is all that you deserve,” said Harry grimly. William’s face collapsed into misery. Harry could not help but laugh. “Come now! I very much doubt the Earl intends to kill you. He wishes to frighten you into marrying his sister, that’s all. And there’s the matter of his honour which must be satisfied. I cannot imagine he wishes to leave Lady Celia ruined and unmarried. Now, let us go have some breakfast. You’ll need a good meal inside you. I won’t have you disgracing the family name by trembling at the final moment.”
The middle Marsden brother, James, was waiting for them at breakfast in the drawing room. He too seemed very pale, but now that Harry had arrived his nerves calmed. Both older brothers made merry, mocking their beleaguered youngest sibling and regaling him with tales of brave men who’d had their limbs blown clean off in the course of a duel.
“You will look very dashing with a peg leg,” said Harry with a wink. James burst into gales of laughter. William was suitably wretched.
“But what of your adventures, brother?” James asked slyly. “Such a tale we have heard lately! The news of your rascally behaviour has spread all over London.”
This caused Harry a great deal of pain. He had never admired the impulse which drove the ton to circulate all manner of salacious stories about the aristocracy and the gentry. The idea that his own Catherine was now the subject of such gossip – and by his own hand, too – was too much to bear.
“I do not wish to speak of it,” he said.
“What? Are we not to wish you joy?” James evidently expected the answer to be a resounding no. His eyes glittered with merriment. “Why, who could have imagined that I would be the last Marsden brother remaining unwed?”
“I imagined it very easily,” said William, still smarting from the attacks on his own behaviour. “You are quite the ugliest among us.”
James sent a kick flying in his direction, very nearly scattering the breakfast service over the floor. Harry hammered his fist down onto the table top. Both brothers stared at him in astonishment.
“You may wish me joy at the proper moment,” he said, slowly and with extreme seriousness. “And that is all you may imply, imagine, or suggest about your future sister-in-law. Catherine is not to be made the object of your ridicule. Do you understand me?”
“Quite clearly,” said James, round-eyed. “Then…you mean to marry again? Are you quite certain –”
“Tush! You’re worse than that devil, Kirby! Yes, I mean to marry. No, I shall brook no argument.” Harry glowered at them sternly a moment, then broke into a beaming grin. “And I shall be most excessively happy.”
James applauded in delight. Even William looked pleased.
“I am very glad to hear it,” said James, “though I am resolved never to be subjected to the pains of matrimony myself. Let alone twice!”
“This time will more than make up for the last,” said Harry. James clasped his shoulder.
“Believe me. We two have wanted nothing more for you than the love of a good woman. I am very glad to see that you have found it in Miss Sharp. More glad than I can say.”
A cloud passed over Harry’s face. He was reminded again that he had won Catherine’s hand, but not yet her heart.
Still. All matters pertaining to his bride would have to wait. He had a duel to attend and his brother’s marriage to arrange first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Oh, will you not come out with me for just a little while?” Mrs Ridley pleaded with Catherine. “The sun is shining, don’t you see? And Hyde Park is simply lovely in the sunshine.”
“You would have me ride through Hyde Park?” asked Catherine incredulously. “Display myself to the ridicule and censure of all the ton?”
“It is not so bad as all that,” cooed Mrs Ridley in an attempt to soothe her. “After all, no-one will be rude enough to make a remark to your face.”
Catherine tapped the note which had arrived from the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s that morning. The note from which she had not yet recovered – from which she felt she might never recover at all.
“But it quite clearly is as bad as all that,” she said. “And I will no longer flaunt myself about publically for the amusement of people who only wish me ill.”
Mrs Ridley took up the note and squashed it in her fist. “We shall throw this in the fire,” she said to her niece fervently, “and then we shall think no more about it. Do you hear me? No more.”
Catherine watched the note burning in the grate. It made no difference at all. Its words were already firmly ingrained upon her mind. She might live a thousand lifetimes and never forget the shame.
We regret to inform you that we are obliged to decline your request for a voucher of admittance to Almack’s. Please do not trouble yourself to apply again.
Yours, &c
She had been admitted to Almack’s before with no trouble whatsoever. There was only one reason for the Lady Patronesses’ refusal, and it was not hard to guess.
Catherine’s name, in Society’s eyes, was filthier than horse muck. She was now a wanton as well as a pauper. A ruined woman.
It was three days since she had arrived in London, seeking refuge in her aunt’s arms from the whispers which ran rife through Devon and Surrey, and those three days had been more than enough to thoroughly depress her spirits.
If she had the faintest inkling of where she might go to escape them, she would leave in an instant. But the only option which remained to her now was her father’s house and quiet seclusion. No-one would dream of issuing a dinner invitation to a woman as tarnished as she was, let alone ask her to dance at a ball.
It had taken all of Catherine’s pleading to persuade her father not to write to Harry giving his permission for them to wed. She wondered now whether things would be different if he had done. She would be married, yes. To a man who – despite everything – she could not help but love.
Would that make her happy? To be wed to a man she could not trust? Whose eyes wandered towards every woman who crossed his path?
How bitterly Harry must regret that the first to succumb to his charms was a poor spinster and not an heiress!
No, Cathy, she told herself firmly. You are not being fair.
Harry had intended to marry her. She clung to that belief like a drowning man to a rock. But she could not marry him until he had proven to her that he no longer wanted Miss Hendrington – and she could not imagine how that might be done.
He had n
ot begun well. Disappearing to London with barely so much as a goodbye. Abandoning all their plans without a backward glance. I will call upon your father again as soon as you send me word that he is well – that’s what he had said, and then had run away later that very same day.
Following his departure, Catherine had spent one lonely evening in Devon and passed one unhappy morning walking through the village and feeling the eyes of everyone upon her. Seeing the murmurs that passed behind cupped hands. It was too much to bear. All her former friends were horrified by her behaviour – that much was very clear.
To kiss a man publically – deliberately – and fail to secure an engagement! How could anyone be so flagrant, so foolish?
Catherine could not say how she might have acted if she had heard of a friend in this predicament. She only knew she had to escape the claustrophobic rumour-mill of Elmston as quickly as possible – and get closer to Harry. The very moment Alice arrived from Larksley to help with their father’s care, Catherine was off on the mail coach, chaperoned by a manservant and clutching the book which contained Harry’s letter of past love to her chest.
Her plan had been to meet him openly in the course of her aunt’s engagements with Society. It often seemed that all of London was to be found at Almack’s, or riding through Hyde Park in the evening.
Well, she had been chased out of Hyde Park by the sniggers of too many elegantly dressed debutantes. Too well-bred to say anything to her face, naturally. Too hungry for gossip to let her walk past without a snide remark between themselves
And now Almack’s was also closed to her. Since her arrival, her aunt had received no invitations at all. Indeed, Lord Holmes had written to Mr Ridley to cancel an engagement that they had formed months in advance. His excuse – a touch of the flu, and an indisposition to society – was paper-thin.
Catherine was suffering the indignity not only of her own damaged reputation, but the fact that she stained everyone unfortunate enough to boast a connection to her.
The Duke Suggests a Scandal Page 13
