"Well," Nicholas said slowly, following her with his eyes and rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms against his thighs, "there is one other way you could keep Crestley Hall safe."
She returned to his side. "What is it?" she asked hopefully.
He started to answer, then found that he couldn't do it. Not that anyone would believe it, but the Black Duke was terrified that the spitfire schoolroom chit gazing expectantly at him would turn him down. He cleared his throat. "We just haven't thought of it yet," he replied, improvising.
"Really, Nicholas," she said disgustedly. "That's no help."
"What's in the package?" he asked, to change the subject. He pointed at the object she had left sitting by the flowers.
She walked over to retrieve it. "I forgot. It came for you this morning, from your mother."
"Will you open it?" he asked, wondering with some trepidation what it might be. He wouldn't have put much past Julia Varon.
"It's one of the quartos," Katherine exclaimed after a moment as she lifted it out of the heavy, protective paper.
"I should have realized that I need merely get shot to have her send me one," he remarked, and Katherine laughed at him. "Which is it? Perhaps we could read it together."
"I would like that," she said, glancing down at it. Abruptly the stubborn expression that he was beginning to know, came into her face.
"Which one is it?" he asked again, intrigued.
"I'm not going to tell you," she said flatly.
"No? Then show me," he suggested.
She shook her head. "No."
"Katherine," he warned, "give it to me."
"It's The Taming of the Shrew," she finally answered, glaring at him.
Nicholas gave a shout of laughter. So she saw similarities between herself and the shrewish Kate, did she? Katherine rose, heading for the door. "Katherine, wait," he pleaded.
"I am no longer speaking to you," she said over her shoulder.
"I've just started rereading the comedies in their original order. The Shrew is next. That's all there is to it." She continued toward the door, her chin in the air. "Katherine, I swear it," he said, chuckling.
"I shall consider returning later, Your Grace," she said haughtily, and exited the room, leaving him behind to resume his laughter.
13
Used as the servants at Hampton House were to entertaining high-ranking members of the ton, the presence of the Duke of Sommesby had whipped them into something of a frenzy. Even the already over-dignified Rawlins seemed to stand straighter and loom taller with the Black Duke present.
Katherine found it rather amusing once she was certain Nicholas would be all right. She had been more worried than she could say, and if she hadn't thought that he would laugh at her, she would have told him so. She had finally agreed to read The Shrew, but only because he'd teased her unmercifully and told her she was cowhearted.
On the morning of the third day of his stay at Hampton House she went into the garden to pick more flowers for the vase in his chamber. It was silly, she knew, but they ,.I gave her an excuse to visit him.
"Katherine?"
She jumped, and turned around. Nicholas, jacketless and looking handsome and a bit pale in buckskin breeches and a black waistcoat, stood leaning against the wall of the house. Katherine blushed, wondering how long he had j' been watching her. "Good morning."
"Good morning." When he reached her side he leaned over and sniffed the flowers bunched in her hand, and it was only with a conscious effort that she resisted running her fingers through his dark hair. "For me?" he asked, raising his head to look at her.
She nodded, abruptly fascinated by the deep-emerald flecks in his gray eyes. "You and the duchess have such pretty eyes," she said, wishing his would keep looking at her in that amused, affectionate way forever.
"My father used to say that the Varon family's greatest wealth lay in the emerald of my mother's eyes," he murmured, then reached out to touch Katherine's. cheek. "Though I find my favorite gem to be the sapphire of yours."
"Oh, my," Kate whispered, then cleared her throat and turned away. "I wanted to tell you, we'll have to delay finishing the play until tomorrow. I'm going riding with Thomas and the others today."
"You see Thomas quite a bit, don't you?" he asked coolly, his eyes on the garden.
"He's very nice to me," she replied, watching his face and wondering what he was thinking.
"I'm nice," he responded, his eyes glinting as he looked back at her.
"I thought we had decided that you were irritating, selfish, and provoking," she returned with a grin.
"Ah," he said, raising an eyebrow, "you have used those same epithets on me before."
"You continue to earn them," she pointed out.
"You put me to the blush, m'dear," he drawled, walking over to the stone bench by the path and seating himself. He fiddled with his watch fob for a moment, then looked up at her. "I'm going home this afternoon," he said. "If I stay any longer people will begin to talk, if they haven't begun already."
She looked away to hide her sudden keen disappointment that he was leaving. "Can you ride?"
"I believe I will manage."
"I'm sorry I shot you," she apologized for the fiftieth time, sitting beside him.
He grinned. "We both know it was my fault." He touched her sleeve. "And I've never been wounded by a more attractive assassin."
She wasn't certain whether that was a compliment or not, and frowned. "Would it have hurt more if I'd been ugly?" she countered.
"Infinitely," he replied. His hand drifted down her arm to her wrist, and she shivered at the feathery-light touch. He turned her hand to caress her palm, then twined his fingers with hers and tugged her closer.
"You think to win the argument this way, then?" she commented, finding that her voice was shaking.
"Mm-hm." He raised her chin with his fingertips and kissed her.
He was cheating again, but she decided that was all right. Nicholas captured her other hand and placed both of her arms up around his neck before he let his palms slide slowly down her body to her waist.
"Kate?"
Her entire body tingling, she pulled away and shot to her feet as Thomas came around the comer. The viscount came to an abrupt stop as he saw them. Nicholas remained seated, and though she didn't remember having dropped them, the flowers she had picked were strewn across the bench and on the ground,"
"Nick." The viscount spoke stiffly, his easy expression darkening. "Glad to see you're all right."
"Thank you, Thomas," Nicholas returned coolly. Katherine looked back and forth at the two of them for a moment, feeling the tension there, and then smoothed at i her skirts. "Thomas, come inside," she said, and both gazes shifted to her, angry pale-blue eyes and enigmatic dark-gray ones. "I need to get my hat and gloves, and then we can go."
"Of course, Kate." The viscount offered her his arm. She took it, and they headed back toward the house.
"Katherine."
She turned her head. Nicholas had picked up one of the discarded flowers and tucked it into a buttonhole of his waistcoat. "Au revoir," he said, his accent impeccable.
"Can you make it inside on your own?" she asked, stopping.
"I believe so. If not, I assume someone will come looking for me eventually."
She nodded, chuckling, and allowed Thomas to lead her inside. He waited at the foot of the stairs while she hurried up to get her things. The groom had already saddled Winter, and in only a few moments they were on their way to Hyde Park. With Nicholas hurt, she and the Hamptons had remained housebound, and this was the first time she had been out in several days.
"Kate, I know I have no claim on you and it is therefore not my place to speak, but if Nick has overstepped his bounds I beg that you will let me see to it that he ceases bothering you." The viscount's voice was deeply serious, and she was tom between amusement at his concern and annoyance at his presumption.
"No one has overstepped anything," she replied, n
odding as they passed an acquaintance whose name she could not at that moment recall.
"But I saw―"
"No one has overstepped anything," she repeated firmly, and though he blustered for a moment, he didn't press her further.
He sulked for the rest of the afternoon, however, which had the result of making her testy and bringing Althaea close to tears. For the first time she noted how closely the girl observed the viscount, and saw how hard she tried to raise his spirits, to no avail. Kate knew that Louisa and Reg were in love, but she hadn't realized Althaea had a tendre for Thomas Elder. Evidently the viscount hadn't realized it either, for he was so concerned with being jealous of the Black Duke's erratic attentions to her that he barely noticed the brown-eyed beauty.
On the return home he began pestering her again, and she decided she had had enough. "Thomas, stop it."
"I only have your best interests in mind," he protested.
"I thought you and Sommesby were friends," she responded.
"We are," he agreed. "It's just that . . . that I care for you, and I doubt he has your best interests in mind. He is infamous for breaking hearts."
"I am aware of his reputation," she informed him with a frown, "and I can take care of myself."
"But you can't, Kate. People are already beginning to talk, to wonder if you are the Black Duke's latest."
She imagined that question to be on his mind as well. She couldn't answer it, because she had no idea herself. "I don't care what people think," she declared.
"You should."
"You were a great deal more fun before you became so stiff," she said with a sniff.
"I am not . stiff," he protested, his voice rising an indignant octave.
"Yes, you are, and I shan't ride with you any longer. Go home, Thomas."
"Not until I've seen you back to Hampton House," he replied, still acting entirely too stiff for her taste. Perhaps she had spent too much time in Nicholas's lax company.
"Nonsense. It's only a street away. Go home."
"Only if you say you're not angry at me," he said, giving in a little.
"I'm not angry at you. And I shall consider what you have said," she added, though for that moment she had no intention of doing anything about it. Not if it meant she couldn't see Nicholas any longer.
"All right, then. May I call on you for tea tomorrow?"
"Of course," she replied.
He inclined his head and then pulled Orpheus around to leave her to ride on by herself. She rode Winter to the stable, and William, the groom, helped her dismount. As she walked to the house she pulled off her hat, tired of the way the pins stuck into her scalp, and wondered if Nicholas had returned to Varon House already or whether they had time to finish Act Four of The Shrew. Abruptly someone grabbed her from behind.
Before she could protest, a dirty hand was placed over her mouth. Terrified, she kicked out backward and was rewarded by a grunt and an oath, and then she was pulled off balance, and someone grabbed her legs. Both men were dirty-looking and dressed in rough homespun, and she was certain that she had never seen them before.
Although Kate fought them all the way, the men dragged her around to the back of the house, where the second one produced a stout rope, bound her legs, and tied her hands behind her back. The men gagged her, and then a smelly cloth sack was pulled over her head, so that she couldn't see.
She was lifted again, and after a very short time her hip bumped cruelly against something and she was dumped on the ground. Not the ground, she realized as it began to move. She was in some sort of coach. Panicking, she flailed about again, and was rewarded by a rough kick in the leg.
"Stop your fighting, missy, or you'll get worse than that," a gruff voice said, and she was shoved over on her side with the toe of a boot.
She lay still, wondering what was happening, where she was being taken. Her panicked thoughts went to Nicholas, and she hoped with all her heart that wherever he was he would know that she desperately needed help.
Nicholas was dozing before the fire in his library when a rapid pounding sounded at the front door. His shoulder ached despite the two glasses of brandy he had consumed after supper, and he had been loath to rise and make his way upstairs to his bedchamber. Sleepily he looked at the clock on the mantel. It was just past eight, so his visitor was likely one of his cronies, wondering why he had ceased attending his clubs. He hoped Grimsby would get rid of whoever it was, so he wouldn't have to explain that a madcap schoolroom chit had him so distracted he seemed unable to win a game of jackstraws or bilbo-catch, much less faro.
The library door was flung open, and he started and turned to view his uninvited guest. "Neville?" he exclaimed, for the Baron of Clarey was the last person he would have expected.
"Is she here?" Neville asked, looking frantically about the room. "By God, if she is, you've made an enemy of me!"
Grimsby had followed Neville into the room, and with a jerk of his head Nicholas motioned him out. More than used to odd goings-on at the Black Duke's residence, the butler complied and shut the door behind him. "What the devil are you talking about?" he asked once they were alone. Neville looked more than half in a panic, which was unusual enough in itself, and the baron's words had started a queer, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Is she here? Is Kate here? Your damned closemouthed butler wouldn't say whether you were entertaining anyone or not!"
"Why in the world would Katherine be here?" Nicholas asked, sitting up a little straighter and ignoring the fact that until several weeks ago it wouldn't have been unusual at all for him to be entertaining a woman at home.
"Please, Nick, just answer me," Neville pleaded, continuing to pace around the room. "I'll forgive you. Just tell me she's here."
"She's not here," Nicholas said flatly, the feeling of uneasiness in his stomach changing to one of dread. "Tell me what's happened."
"She's gone."
Nicholas stood. "What do you mean, 'She's gone'? Explain yourself, man."
"She went riding with Sheresford and the Hillarys, rode back on her own, and brought her mare to the stables. She never came back inside." Neville held out a crumpled lump of mauve felt. "We found her hat halfway between the stables and the house."
"Let me see it," Nicholas ordered.
Neville sat heavily in one of the chairs. "Nick," he whispered, "someone's taken Kate."
Nicholas clutched Katherine's riding hat in his hands. He was angry, quite possibly more than he'd ever been in his life. Someone had taken his Katherine, and someone was going to pay. And pay dearly. "You said she rode back on her own," he murmured. "Where the hell was Sheresford?"
"I went to Thomas's first. They apparently had something of a disagreement, and she refused to ride further with him. He said they were only a street or so from home."
''The fool," Nicholas spat out.
"He's gone to the Hillarys' and to the Dremonds' to see if Kate's there. He's the one who suggested she might be here." Neville's face was drawn and gray, and if Nicholas had needed any proof that the Hamptons cared deeply for their goddaughter, he saw it in the Baron of Clarey's worried countenance.
"And you naturally thought that might be so," he said with a sneer.
"You've made your own reputation," Neville retorted, then stood, blanching. "I'm sorry. I'm half out of my mind. If anything happens to her . . . "
"Nothing is going to happen to her," Nicholas snapped, refusing to believe otherwise. "If she's been kidnapped, it must be for some purpose."
"Kate has done nothing . . . except to be seen with you."
"I know." If Katherine had been taken because of him, because of something he had done, he would never forgive himself. Other than Josette Bettreaux and her young conspirator, there had been nothing blatant of late. And Josette, as far as he knew, was still in Paris nursing her wounds. He straightened, cursing. There was one other possibility, something that Kate had most definitely been involved in. "Francis DuPres," he said.
&
nbsp; "DuPres?" Clarey echoed. "I know he's an annoyance, but kidnapping?"
A knock came at the library door. ''Not now, Grimsby!" he. said with a growl.
"It's Gladstone, Your Grace," came his secretary's muffled voice.
"Not now, Glad―" He stopped abruptly, another horrifying thought jolting into his mind. He strode over to yank open the door. "Get in here."
Gladstone complied, nodding at the baron as he entered. "With your recent incapacitation I thought you might have forgotten our schedule regarding"―Gladstone paused to glance at Neville―"regarding that property up north," he continued, "so I thought to stop by and remind you."
Nicholas waved an arm at him, thinking madly. "Never mind the secrets," he said. "The Baron knows all about it."
"Oh, splendid," Gladstone said, and took a seat, opening his case in his lap. "Well, then―"
"Quiet," Nicholas interrupted before his secretary could get started. "Was Mr. Smith aware that the heir would have to sign the Crestley Hall deed over to make the transfer legal?"
"Oh, God," Neville moaned, sinking back into his chair and covering his face with his hands.
"Why, yes, Your Grace. In fact, he brought it up before I could remind him of the fact. He informed me that there would be no problem. And you pointed out several days ago that he would likely handle that little difficulty himself."
It was Nicholas's turn to groan. When he had so callously suggested that getting the heir to sign the deed was not his problem, he had had no idea. that the "youth" they had been referring to was Katherine Ralston.
"What have I done?" Neville whispered.
"You thought you were acting in her best interests," Nicholas replied. Neville was distressed enough as it was. "Don't fault yourself for that."
"Your Grace, might I inquire as to what is going on?" Gladstone asked, looking up curiously.
Nicholas nodded. ''The heir to Crestley is Neville's goddaughter, and we believe that she has been kidnapped by her uncle, our Mr. Smith." Gladstone had known the intimate details of the Duke of Sommesby's finances for years, and Nicholas saw no reason not to trust him with this.
The Black Duke's Prize Page 11
