“Well, I don’t know, maybe she’s secretly in love with you, and…”
Derek crossed himself and spat upon the ground, effectively cutting him off. “God forbid, Geoff. Keep your curses to yourself, will you? I’ve already got a pox, I don’t need anything else.”
Colin was laughing so hard tears were streaming from his eyes. Duncan, who was less prone to laughter, only grinned broadly with mirth. Geoff looked ready to burst into rampant laughter that was only held in check by the hand covering his mouth. Only Derek looked un-amused, and that was only because their joke was his reality. It wasn’t that humorous to him.
“Rather sporting of you lads to be so understanding,” he began, but he was cut off by an approaching coach nearing the house. They all stood back as it pulled up, the proud Beverton crest on the side. In a moment, Nathan stepped out, looking bright and eager and sickeningly happy.
“What a welcoming party to greet us,” he said with a grin as he stepped forward and shook hands with all of them.
“Yes, it’s quite a relief to find the house so intact,” came a tart, but rather amused voice from within the carriage. Moira stuck her head out and prepared to disembark, but Nathan quickly moved to help her down. She glanced up at him in irritation, but he only smiled and took her hand. Once she was settled, she smiled up at the lot. “My, you are a sight for sore eyes, and you all look much more attractive now than you were when I left you. I have had no one to look at but Nathan for a whole month, and let me tell you…”
“That will do, Moira,” Nathan overrode, giving her a look, to which she responded with a bright smile, which made him smile, which made her kiss him.
“See?” Derek said, turning back to Colin, who looked a little green at the lovesick couple. “Not all wives are bad.”
“No, just yours,” came the quick retort. “That seems quite enough.”
“What’s that?” Nathan asked, looking back and forth between them, having disengaged his lips from his wife’s.
“Derek is going to London to be with Katherine,” Geoff said, grimacing a bit.
Nathan’s eyes shot to Derek’s, his mouth gaping a touch with abhorrence. “What? Why?”
“Nathan,” Moira scolded, flicking a quick, but rather painful slap of her hand across his chest.
“Another reason to avoid getting wives,” Colin muttered to Duncan, who bit the inside of his cheek and nodded.
Moira glared at them both. “I don’t see anyone asking you to turn her into one,” she snapped. Then she looked back to Derek. “I think it is good of you to go see Katherine, Derek.”
“Oh, it’s not for pleasure, Moira. I have been summoned.”
“Summoned why?” Nathan asked, rubbing his now tender chest a bit.
“Her mother died.” He shrugged. “She seems to think it requires my attention, and as I am not a complete waste of a husband, I have seen fit to agree.”
Moira stiffened ever so slightly, then turned to the servants now unloading their luggage from the coach. “Put those things back,” she ordered kindly. “We are going to be off again in a moment.”
Nathan seized her arm as she went to get back in the carriage. “What are you doing, Moira?”
She gave her husband an impatient look. “I am going to London.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “I fancied a visit with the king, Nathan. Honestly, I am going to help Katherine.”
“You don’t even know her,” Nathan protested.
Moira shook her copper hair slowly. “No, but I do know what losing a mother feels like and no one should have to face that alone.”
“She is a witch, Moira, I swear,” Derek said, stepping forward, sensing the equally horrorstruck expressions of his friends behind him.
“That’s enough, Derek. Even witches need friends sometimes. Besides, I am no angel myself. Perhaps we can learn from each other.” She quirked her brows then got back into the carriage.
Nathan turned to Derek and gripped his shirt in a fist. “So help me, Derek, if my wife starts resembling Katherine in any way, I will shoot you between the eyes.”
“I will shoot myself for you,” Derek vowed.
Nathan nodded once and released his friend. “Good luck.”
“Don’t tell me you are going to hide yourself in your house the entire time,” Derek protested as Nathan entered the carriage. “What am I going to do without sentient company?”
“We’ll come, don’t worry,” Nathan assured him with a grin. “I wouldn’t leave you to the harpy alone. Ow!” he cried as Moira punched him again.
“The list grows ever longer,” Colin muttered to whoever would listen, which happened to be everyone.
“Oh, Colin,” Moira called, leaning over to look at him through the window.
“Yes?” he asked, almost wincing.
She grinned at him. “You do know that you are my favorite, yes?”
He returned her smile with a flirtatious one of his own. “Yes, Lady Beverton. It never ceases to delight me.”
She winked and nodded, sitting back. Nathan looked at her in a sort of enraged puzzlement, then signaled to the coachman to drive on, and the remaining men could hear Moira’s delighted laughter over the sound of the wheels.
“Blast,” Colin sighed, watching them leave.
“What?” Geoff asked, looking amused at the forlorn look on his face.
“I am so weak and susceptible to the charms of women. It’s such a tragedy.”
“I know just the cure for that,” Derek said with a wicked grin. “You are coming with me.”
Colin gasped in horror. “I most certainly am not!”
Derek nodded, still smiling. “You are. You can stay at your own house, but you are coming to London. All of you are.”
Duncan and Geoff looked surprised, but said nothing. Colin looked to them for help, but they only shrugged and nodded their acceptance.
“This is a bad idea,” Colin said as he turned to go back into the house and get his things. “This is a very, very bad idea.”
Derek grinned as his friends went to prepare for departure. Spending time with Katherine was rather akin to begging for someone to beat upon him with iron hot tongs, but if his friends would be in town to distract him, then it would not be as bad as it had the potential to be.
The fact that Katherine could not stand his friends was merely a delightful bonus.
Chapter Two
Katherine Chambers, Marchioness of Whitlock, was not happy.
Which seemed to be her normal state of being as of late. But it would not be her normal state of being if people would only do as they were told and stop thinking they knew better than she did.
“No, no, no,” she said firmly, overriding the small man with watery eyes that was before her at the moment. “Mother was very firmly opposed to flowers indoors at all. There will be no flowers.”
A small whimper escaped the man as he frantically scratched out whatever he had written in that little book of his. “What about at the gravesite service, my lady? A small wreath of roses, perhaps?”
Katherine sighed and put a gloved hand to her brow. “No, Mr. Perkins. Mother had a severe dislike for roses being used for anything other than a wedding. No roses. You may have something small and somber, but no color. White only. Nothing fancy, mind you. It is a funeral, not a coronation.”
“Yes, milady,” he stammered out, bowing out of the room, for which she was especially grateful. Another minute of his simpering and she would have been strongly tempted to strangle him.
She had almost done so anyway, and that was certainly not something her mother would have approved of.
“I don’t think flowers would have been so very bad,” her father said quietly where he sat across the room with his book. “It might have brought some light into things.”
Katherine removed her hand and looked over at her father, looking so small in his massive chair, his spectacles sitting so preciously upon his nose, his already very thi
n hair looking more frail than usual. “Father, you know how specific Mother was about things. She gave me charge of her arrangements, and I will follow her instructions to the letter.”
He shrugged lightly. “As you wish, Katherine. You know best. But when I go, I do hope you will have some flowers there.”
“Of course, Father. A whole garden, if you wish it.”
He smiled just a touch, a mere shadow of his former smiles, and went back to his book.
Katherine watched him for a long moment, wondering just what life would become for him now that her mother was gone. Harry Bishop, Viscount Dartwell, was not a powerful man, nor a wealthy one. He had married well, but without affection, and his wife, Lady Penelope, had seen fit to manage the household and everything else regarding his life, which suited him just as well as he would much prefer to sit quietly alone and read.
As their fortune was not one of great standing, but their bloodlines were rich and old, they had arranged for their two daughters, Aurelia and Katherine, to marry into equally noble families with larger incomes. One of the great crowning achievements of Lady Penelope’s life had been seizing the heir to the dukedom at Ashcombe for her younger daughter, Katherine. Only slightly less of a success had been the arrangement of the match between her eldest daughter to Nigel Whittinham, the heir to a rather extensive baronage.
Engaged at the age of three, Katherine had never known anything but her future as the marchioness of Whitlock, and beyond that the duchess of Ashcombe. Lady Penelope had been determined that her daughters would be perfect wives and marchioness, duchess, or baroness, as the case may have been, and the lessons had gone accordingly. Every lesson had a purpose, every activity was fraught with matronly duties, every opportunity to test and examine was exploited. By the age of thirteen, Katherine knew more about running a household and the duties of a marchioness and duchess than she suspected many ladies currently in those positions did.
Satisfied that her life was situated just as perfectly as could be, given their unfortunate circumstances, Lady Penelope had prided herself on being advisor to her two daughters, and such was her influence over them, her advice was heeded. She had never dealt with her husband unless forced to, and the viscount had not minded that either. If he were advised, he would merely suggest they ask his wife, and send them on their way. He had learned long ago that his decisions were not well favored by his wife, and the fewer reasons to let her find fault with him, the better.
Not that she failed to find fault anyway, as faults seemed to magically appear before her, as Katherine well knew, but such was Lord Dartwell’s love for peace that he would relent all he could to maintain it.
He had not run his own house or lands for more than thirty years. He would have no idea how to do anything.
Katherine swallowed back her worry and straightened in her seat. A duchess never worries. A duchess never slouches. She was forever hearing orders barked in her head, and in her mother’s tone. Echoes of her childhood coming back to her, reminding her of her duty.
She nearly snorted at the thought. Duty, indeed. Her duty as the wife of the laziest man in England to ever inherit any title at all. Her husband was never to be seen in her company, and she was grateful for it. He had no idea what sort of pressures she dealt with running his affairs, and maintaining the honor of his family’s name. She was the most capable marchioness she had ever met, and the fine order she kept things in made her husband appear to be very organized and attentive when in reality she highly doubted he even read the letters she sent him.
She could not remember the first time she had met Whitlock, as they had both been very young, but she remembered many visits that had been forced upon them throughout their lives, and they had been a torturous experience for them both. The only quality that Derek Chambers had to recommend himself to anybody was the fact that he was far too good looking for his own good. If one had only seen him, and knew nothing else, they would probably think him the most handsome man that ever lived. But the moment he opened his mouth, or they caught glimpse of his mind, what little there was of it, they would recoil in such horror that he might have been a leprous hunchback with no teeth.
Lady Penelope had made no secret of her dislike for her son-in-law, and he equally made no attempt to hide his aversion to her. Katherine had heard her mother say on many occasions that had he been anything other than the heir to a rather extensive title and one of the finest fortunes and situations in all of England, she would not even have matched him with a milkmaid. Katherine suspected it was the worst insult her mother could conjure up.
What astonished her was how all of her servants, and indeed, all of her tenants at all of their estates were so overwhelmingly adoring where Whitlock was concerned. They practically worshiped him. She failed to see how any set of people so industrious could be so very blind. He could do no wrong in their eyes. Everything he did, and everything he was, was ideal, and he was so kind and so generous and so wise, and she had even heard that one of the tenants in Derbyshire had named their son after him.
She could not imagine anybody who knew him wanting to do such a thing.
Katherine sighed, sending a stray strand of her dark hair into her face. She glowered at it. A duchess always looks her best, regardless of the situation. There was no place for stray hairs. She stood from her chair and went to the nearest mirror, and was relieved to find her hair otherwise immaculate. She carefully affixed the troublesome strand back in place, and then met her own dark eyes in the mirror. She looked rather drawn today, but once upon a time, Katherine had been a beautiful girl, the envy of many.
“Is your sister coming over today?” her father asked from his chair.
Katherine closed her eyes briefly. Therein lay the worst of her current problems. Aurelia was a constant source of aggravation, and the dire situations of late had only heightened it. Though Katherine outranked her quite soundly, Aurelia seemed to think that her position as elder sister still meant something. Nothing Katherine did was ever good enough, which was ridiculous, as Katherine always did everything perfectly and to the letter.
It did not help that Aurelia’s husband practically worshipped the ground upon which she walked. He thought her God’s gift to the world, and especially to himself. He agreed to everything she said, obeyed her every whim, and made sure that she never wanted for any comfort at all. His chief purpose in life was to make sure that he kept his wife happy, and Aurelia was more than pleased to let him do so, and frequently made sure that he would. She then followed her orders to him with her attempt at an adoring look, which never ceased to make Nigel return it with one of his own.
It was a nauseating sight.
“No,” she said, finally answering her father’s question. “Sir Nigel wanted to take the family to see his mother today and as the dowager baroness has yet to see Alice, she decided to pack up the whole family for a few days.”
“But they will be here for the services and the reception?”
“I assume so, Father. Aurelia would never pass up the opportunity to dramatically mourn for the public who come to pay respects.”
Her words had come out rather acerbically, and she bit down on her suddenly clamped lips. A duchess always minds her tongue. That had been the hardest one for Katherine her entire life. She always wanted to say the horrid things she was thinking, and when it came to certain people of her acquaintance, namely her husband and sister, she usually did.
“I apologize,” she said with a shake of her head. “That was…”
“Rather true, I think,” her father finished in his light, carefree tone as he turned a page.
Katherine gave him a sharp look, which he did not see as he had yet to remove his eyes from his book.
“Your sister performs on many occasions, and not very well, but I don’t think that we should hold that against her,” he continued, sounding as though he were commenting on the weather or the state of the roads rather than his oldest daughter. “If she has shed any tears of genuin
e regret or joy in her entire life, I will call myself the King of England and let them pack me off to the asylum.”
Katherine covered her mouth as a very un-duchess-like snort escaped her, followed by a series of giggles, and only then did her father look at her, smiling yet again.
“I miss your laugh, my girl,” he said as she composed herself. “It is quite possibly my favorite sound in the world.”
“Yes, well,” she managed, swallowing briefly, “a duchess must be composed at all times, and a snort is most definitely not a sign of composure.” She noticed the dimming of his smiles and moved over to place a hand on his arm. “If I could find a way to laugh delicately, then I would do so.”
“I don’t want you to change it,” he murmured, adjusting his spectacles and going back to his book.
Katherine sighed and patted his arm once, then went to exit the room. “I am going to call for some tea in the drawing room. Would you like me to have something sent in here to you?”
He shook his head, still reading. “No, thank you, my dear. Your mother would forbid any food or drink being brought in here. I will wait until dinner.”
Swallowing back a lump on her throat, she nodded and went to the drawing room, and rang for tea. Then, assured that she was alone, she leaned forward and set her elbows on her knees, and her face in her hands.
Her father was so lost already. It seemed he could barely think for himself; how could she possibly go back to her home and leave him to his own devices? She had been here for four days already, had taken charge of everything as she was accustomed to, and he had very rarely said anything of his own opinions, which saved her the trouble of asking.
But the strain of preparing for a funeral for the woman who had raised her, who had taught her everything she knew, who had made her the woman she was today, and having to run two households was draining any sort of energy she had.
She would be lost without her mother as well.
Her mother had been her chief advisor, whether she had asked for it or not. She had known the Whitlock estates inside and out just as Katherine did, though it had been quite some time since Katherine had actually asked her for advice concerning her own affairs. She had made it her business to know everybody else’s business, and because of that, she always knew everything.
Married to the Marquess Page 2
