Making sure it was her aunts that discovered them in that clinch had been a masterstroke on his part. He knew her so well! She would never risk upsetting them by trying to wriggle out of this engagement. She would never expose them to the public censure that would ensue if this snake at her side were to tell the world that her oh-so-respectable aunts had taken a fallen woman into Almack’s and tried to foist her onto the ton as a decent, marriageable woman!
“To think I trusted you with my deepest secrets! And this is how you repay me!”
She could not bear to remain a moment longer in his company. Uttering an incoherent cry, she dashed towards the exit.
“Katherine, don’t be like this!”
It was the note of exasperation in his voice, when she needed to hear contrition, that tipped her over the edge. Seizing the nearest plant pot, she turned round and hurled it at him. It struck one of the iron pillars that supported the roof, shattering, and showering him with finely sifted loam. She froze, stunned that it had gone anywhere near him. Her eyes had been too full of tears to have made the effort of taking aim anything but a waste of time.
“I will call on you tomorrow then,” he infuriated her further by saying calmly, as he began brushing earth and clumps of roots from his waistcoat, “when you have had time to…”
His words were lost in the sound of the glass doors slamming shut behind her.
Left in the darkness, Viscount Maldon sat down, removed his shoes and tipped the soil out into the greenery behind the bench.
What a mess!
Katherine was sitting on the sofa between her aunts when he entered their drawing room the next morning. She looked wan. As though all the life had drained out of her during a night spent pacing her bedroom floor.
“I have come to take Miss Malahithe out for a drive,” he announced. “It is such a beautiful day, and some fresh air is bound to put the roses back into her cheeks.”
He received two baleful glares from the aunts, but a thoughtful expression appeared on Katherine’s face. And in next to no time, she was sitting beside him in the curricle he had borrowed, rigid backed and with her ugliest hat rammed firmly on her head.
It was only when busy streets began to give way to green fields that she seemed to take note of anything but the bleakness of her thoughts.
“Are you intent,” she asked icily, after a few more minutes, “upon adding abduction to your list of crimes?”
“Not a bit of it. I intend only to ensure we have some privacy, so that we can properly finish the discussion we began last night.”
“I do not recall any discussion taking place. I only recall your disgraceful behavior in luring me into that romantic spot, filling my ears with nonsense and then kissing me senseless.”
“Is that what you recall?” he replied, skillfully tooling the curricle into an inn yard. “How interesting.”
The groom, who had been riding up behind, jumped down to take the horses’ heads while Viscount Maldon handed Katherine down from the bench seat.
“Would you like to take some refreshment before we set out?”
“Set out where?”
Viscount Maldon indicated a cobbled lane leading from the inn yard, which soon petered out into a track that meandered onto some woodland. “I thought we could take a walk. While we talk. But if you would prefer our discussion to take place in the coffee room…?” He tipped his head towards a low door, leading into the dim interior of the bustling posting house.
She did not want to risk anyone overhearing what she had decided she was going to say to him! She had spent all night alternately pacing her bedroom, shredding his character and falling onto her bed to indulge in bouts of weeping. There was not an insult in the dictionary she was not now ready to apply to his person. In fact, she could not wait to get somewhere that she could give him a no-holds-barred account of exactly what she thought of his amoral, beastly, conniving, duplicitous…
Snapping her parasol open with a decided click, Katherine began to march briskly down the lane to the woods.
“You are still upset,” she heard him observe from several paces behind. “But you have no need to be. I understand your reasons for not wishing to marry, and I assure you, I do not mind a bit.”
No, she was sure he did not! What did it matter that she was not a virgin, when his knowledge of that very fact served to place her very firmly in his power! She had no choice but to agree to this shameful engagement. But, oh, if she had her way…
He caught up with her just as she plunged into a copse of beech trees, and steered her down the left-hand fork of the track. Katherine shook her arm free. His very insouciance was making her angrier by the second. And as he passed her, she pressed her lips into a thin line. She had long since established that the scoundrel was impervious to insults, so she might as well save her breath! He led her into a clearing, sauntered across to a fallen log, withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket with a flourish and spread it over the mossy bark. He had so obviously chosen this spot with cool, calm deliberation, that Katherine’s anger heated by a few more degrees.
“Do sit down,” he said, blithely ignoring her fulminating glare.
She sat, consoling herself by remembering the look on his face when her random throw had showered his previously pristine waistcoat with damp soil.
“It is not as if I am without taint, either,” he said, linking his hands behind his back, in the manner of a man about to make his excuses before a meeting of his creditors. “People will always whisper about the Maldon Madness whenever we walk by. Even if we live lives of unimpeachable virtue, they will only be waiting for the taint to appear in our children or grandchildren. So I understand, Katherine, why you have done all you could to avoid falling under a similar cloud.”
She decided she would just wait for him to finish his cleverly rehearsed little speech, designed, no doubt, to lull her into a state of meek compliance, and then she would calmly inform him that all her money was tied up so that he could never touch a penny of it! Not that it was true, but oh, how he would sweat until he could get to see her lawyers! It would be worth telling just one lie to get some measure of revenge for the way he had betrayed her trust in him!
He began to pace up and down the clearing in front of her log now, his hands linked behind his back, his head bowed–the very picture of sincerity! But she could see through him now. She was not going to believe one word that slithered from those lying lips.…
“I have been up all night working out this plan,” he was saying. “So please, do not interrupt until you have heard the whole.”
He did look somewhat drawn. She had noticed, the very moment he had come into the drawing room, that his usually immaculate appearance was marred by bruise-like shadows under his eyes and grim lines bracketing his mouth. She had ruthlessly dismissed a fleeting notion that he looked just like a man whose conscience had given him a sleepless night. She knew him better than that. It was more likely carousing that had given his skin that unhealthy pallor. He had probably been up all night, celebrating the end to all his financial problems with his cronies in some dark drinking den…wherever it was that fortune hunters slithered off to when they were not insinuating themselves into the hearts…she had terminated such thoughts at once. He had no place in her heart. None at all!
“I love you, you know, and I am sure you do not dislike me as much as you say you do.…”
Katherine almost fell backwards off her log. Love her! How could he compound all his villainy by telling her such a monstrous lie? A tangled mass of emotions rose up from her breast and clogged in her throat, preventing her from doing more than uttering a sort of choking snarl.
“So I am sure we can make a success of our marriage. Once we have settled my family’s debts.”
That was more like it! The debts. The sole reason he had come to London. To hunt for a susceptible heiress. And she had been the gullible fool to fall for his charm. Oh, how hard she had fallen! Even now, angry as she was, she knew it would not
all hurt so much if she had been deceived by anyone but Viscount Maldon.
“So I am going to tell Acton to sell the estate.”
What? Her head snapped round to follow his progress across the clearing. His back was to her at the moment. Could she possibly have misheard him? He could not really have just said he was going to sell the estate!
He turned round and began to pace back towards her. “It is just the sort of place that would appeal to one of these newly wealthy men from the north, I suspect. Someone who wants to make an impressive show. For the priory is impressive, you know,” he said wistfully. “It came to my family at the dissolution of the monasteries. Stuffed with family portraits and collections from various campaigns…We even have a ghost. One of the priors still guards the wine cellars…” His face brightened. “He might even drive the price of the place up a bit, if we can find the right type of buyer.”
Katherine shook her head, feeling completely bemused.
Why was he talking about selling the estate? He was marrying her to save it, surely? That had been the whole purpose of all his plotting and planning.
“Now that will fetch enough to wipe out the debts and leave a tidy sum over, which I am hoping will be sufficient to put all five of my sisters through school. And by the time it comes to the first of their presentations—” he dropped to his knees before her, and clasped her hands in his. “Now, this is where I am going to have to ask you to be very brave, my love. It is going to have to be India for us.”
“India?” Katherine was completely bemused.
“Lots of fellows go out there and make immense fortunes, you know. Why should not I? I am as sharp as a tack. And you are so full of pluck, I am sure you could cope…no, more than cope. You are stifled here in London, bound by its rigid conventions. You are made for a life of adventure.”
She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears as it suddenly dawned on her what he had been saying.
“You would sell the estate?”
He nodded.
“Put the girls in school. And go off to India?”
“Without a backward glance.” He grinned. “So long as you come with me.”
“But…but then why did you go on and on about how vital it was for you to marry an heiress?”
“Oh, that was old Acton’s solution to the situation,” he said, with a dismissive gesture of his hand. “But there is no need for me to sacrifice myself on the altar of propriety now. No, now that we’ve compromised each other, we can put everyone else’s expectations to one side, skip the country and live any way we dashed well please!”
Katherine shook her head. “You are trying to make it sound as though marrying me, and going out to India and working for a living is exactly what you have always wanted. But surely, you do not wish to figure in your family’s history as the man who lost your estate?”
He reached up, and stroked her cheek. “Is that what has been bothering you? Is that why you think you do not want to marry me? You are afraid that I might one day regret finding you too luscious to resist and hold you to blame for losing the estate? Ah no, my sweet Kitty Kat, I do not regret a thing. I did my best to salvage something from the wreckage my father and brother left behind them, but last night, when I realized it was all gone, I felt nothing but relief.”
Her heart began to hammer in her breast. What did he mean, it had all gone? It sounded as though he really believed he had to sell his estate to settle his inherited debts.
“Do you know how miserable I would have been if I had married one of those rich girls, for whom I felt nothing but…well…a kind of pity, I suppose?”
One of those rich girls? Did he truly have no suspicion that she was one of them?
“Yes, I would have kept the estate going, and yes, I would have provided for the girls. But I would have slowly died inside. Well, you saw how sick it made me feel, to have to walk into Almack’s and let the world watch me demean myself in that way.”
“What kind of fortune hunter are you?”
“A fatally flawed one.” He grinned again. “I found it well nigh impossible to make up to women I don’t like. It made me hate myself. But now—” his eyes lit up with fervor as he grasped her hands more tightly “—I am the happiest man alive. I knew you were something exceptional the very first moment I clapped eyes on you, sidling out of a respectable ballroom to hide behind that potted plant with me. Don’t you think we were made for each other? Kitty Kat? Don’t you think you could be happy as my wife?”
“Viscount Maldon,” she replied, easing her hands from between his so that she could cup his face. “Do you really mean to tell me that you don’t care if we never have a penny to our name?”
“Tarquin,” he corrected, his eyes fixed on her softly parted lips. “If you mean to kiss me like you did last night—and I very much hope you do—then we should be on first-name terms, don’t you think?”
“But the money,” she persisted.
“Hang the money,” he breathed, hauling her into his arms and taking the initiative by kissing her passionately. “I do not want any money I have not earned through my own endeavors.” He did not notice her wince. He was too busy untying the strings of her bonnet. “I was never any good at being a fortune hunter,” he declared, tossing the bonnet towards a clump of bracken, into which it vanished without trace. “Fortune hunters need far thicker skins than I seem to possess.”
A determined look came to her face. Very calmly, she tugged off her gloves, then slid her hand into the gap that had ridden up under his waistcoat.
“Your skin feels exactly right to me.” She purred.
“Kitty Kat.” He groaned, when she tugged his shirt from his breeches so that she could more easily slide her hands up the satin-sleek muscles of his back, “Please, do not do that.…”
“Do you not like it?” she enquired pertly, knowing from the expression on his face that he was enjoying her exploration immensely.
“You know I do,” he breathed. “But if you carry on like this much longer, I will forget all my scruples—” He gasped as she leaned forward to nibble at the small patch of skin behind his ear. He gave a soft groan and angled his head to grant her better access.
“I do not think those kind of scruples stand much chance against what has sprung up between us,” she breathed into his ear as she reached down to stroke the evidence of his passion for her.
“It is love, kitten,” he protested with the last remaining scrap of his sanity.
“I know,” she replied, undoing the flap of his breeches.
“Grass stains…” he moaned as her fingers reached inside, and almost sent him straight to heaven. “A dead giveaway.”
He seized her wrist, hauled her to her feet and swung her into his arms. “I may be about to behave in a completely reprehensible fashion, but I have not so far lost my wits that I would shame you by letting anyone else know about it.”
She fell in love with him a little bit more. He would never have used his knowledge about her experience to bend her to his will. Oh, how she had wronged him!
He dropped her to her feet, at the base of a tree. Her legs trembled so much when he reached down and began bunching up her skirts, she had to lean back against it for support.
He paused. “Are you completely sure about this?”
By way of an answer, she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him as ardently as she knew how. And then, as soon as her legs were freed from the restricting swathes of her walking dress, she wrapped them round his waist.
“God, I love your bottom.” He groaned as he grasped it tightly. “It was the first part of you I fell in love with.”
“There is no part of you I do not love.” Katherine sighed, as he slid deep inside her.
And then there was no more talking.
And it seemed to Katherine that there was no more fitting place to consummate their love than here, under the leafy green canopy with the wind soughing through the branches, natures counterpoint to their own sighs and m
oans.
Tarquin was not gentle with her. But it thrilled her to feel his passion raging so very far beyond his control. She reveled in every forceful thrust, the way he grasped her soft flesh with a grip like iron, even the way he sank his teeth into her neck with a predatory growl. It sent her spiralling up, up, until she felt like a bird spreading its wings and soaring into the sun.
Total rapture burst through her, shattering her into a million pieces, then drawing her back together, reforming her as a woman who was more whole than she had ever dreamed it was possible to feel.
With Tarquin in her arms.
He was only a heartbeat behind. She cradled him as he shuddered to his own moment of rapture, a serene smile on her lips.
“I cannot believe—” he growled, withdrawing and straightening their clothing hastily “—that we just did that.”
Katherine just sighed dreamily, her eyes half shut as she gazed up into the lacy greenery shimmering overhead.
“You will have to marry me now,” she murmured drowsily as he swept her into his arms and carried her back to the fallen log, “in case you have got me with child.”
He settled her onto his lap, his arms round her waist, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“And soon,” she sighed.
“It will have to be banns, love.” He frowned, kissing her absently on the crown of her head. “A special license would cost too much.”
“Oh, not necessarily,” she said, risking a peek up at him through lowered lashes. “And we do not need to go to India, either.”
“Well, no,” he agreed, giving her a hug. “I dare say we could live in a modest fashion in this country, if you really do not want to go abroad. It is just that I should like to set you up in style, if only I could. And since I have some very useful connections with the East India Company, I thought that would be the obvious way to go about it.”
Notorious Lord, Compromised Miss Page 4
