“It’s just that you’ve shown great compassion for me and Mr. Hathaway, yet none for your own brother. I’ve often wondered why you took pity on Mr. Hathaway, or for that matter, why you didn’t just leave me in York.”
Nathan gazed at her intently. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be standing at a crossroads looking as pathetic as he did.”
“Oh? Did someone once throw you out of a carriage and leave you standing at a crossroads, uncertain which path to take?”
He reached for the wine carafe and refilled his own goblet before the footman could even budge. “I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t throw me out of the carriage, but otherwise, yes—only I wasn’t left at a crossroads, but in the woods. It was about twenty years ago, so I was only eight. And to answer what I’m sure must be your next question, the culprit was my half brother.” He sipped the claret. “But after that, I could never abandon anyone, even an adult who could ideally look after himself.”
“Why did he do it? And what did you do?”
Nathan shrugged. “He didn’t want to be responsible for me, or for my mother, because she wasn’t his mother—just as your stepfather didn’t want to be responsible for you because you’re another man’s daughter.”
“You two seem to have a great deal in common,” Susannah interjected.
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “We were on our way to a house party, and my brother was riding in a great big barouche with all his friends. I was supposed to be in another carriage with my mother, but I wanted to be with the big boys and was very happily surprised when my brother agreed. About an hour later the barouche stopped in some woods and everyone disembarked with the idea that each of us was to find a tree.”
He paused, as if he thought Kate might inquire the purpose of finding a tree, but having traveled with her stepfather she already knew. “Go on,” she said.
“To make a long story short, they didn’t bother to wait for me, and they never came back. I chased after the barouche, shouting the whole time, just as I did the other day when we missed the stage with Bilby atop it, but they never stopped and came back for me.”
“What a cruel thing to do!” Kate exclaimed. Her heart went out to him, or at least to the child he’d been. “You must have been frightened out of your wits.”
“I was, but I survived, as you can see. I just kept plodding along that road till I was out of the woods, and then I came to a crossroads but had no idea which way to go. Fortunately, another carriage going to that same house party came along and they knew who I was. They took me the rest of the way there. So you might say that when I spotted Freddy at that crossroads the other day, I saw something of myself in him.” He favored Kate with a wry smile. “So you needn’t worry that I’ll ever abandon you.”
At least not until they reached London, she thought bleakly. For that reason, she couldn’t let her heart go out to him, though she feared she’d lost it already.
Chapter Fifteen
In the days that followed, Nathan couldn’t help noticing that Kate, as he now thought of her, seemed to be taking great pains to avoid him—or at least not to look at him.
He could only conclude that she feared he would try to take advantage of her again—which he had absolutely no intention of doing—unless, of course, she wished it.
He certainly wished it, even though he knew he shouldn’t. If he did, she would certainly and rightly expect marriage, and that was not how he wanted to acquire his duchess.
So why couldn’t he get her out of his head, especially when she wanted nothing to do with him?
A dancing master from Derby came to Ellington Hall, bringing his wife, who accompanied on the pianoforte. Since Trevor and Susannah were planning a ball that Friday and Susannah had never attended a dance in her life, she wanted to learn. She insisted their guests join them.
“No one wants to dance with me,” Kate insisted.
“Perhaps Nathan will wish to dance with you,” Susannah countered. “Nathan, you do know how to dance, don’t you?”
“I ken a great many Scottish reels, lassie,” he teased her in his best Highland burr.
“I don’t know any Scottish reels,” Kate said flatly in an accent that revealed her wish to be in London, far from the barbarous Highlands, or at least from the desolate moors of Yorkshire.
“What? Ye nae ken any reels, my wee lassie?” Nathan asked in mock dismay.
“Oh, do speak English,” she said peevishly, without so much as a glance his way.
“Kate, do learn to dance with us, even if you think you won’t be dancing at all this Friday,” Susannah said. “I won’t feel like such a fool as long as there’s someone else to—to—well—”
“Feel like just as big a fool?” Kate suggested. “I do believe I understand, forasmuch as I feel like a fool almost all the time. Very well, I shall learn with you.”
The ladies and gentlemen had to learn their steps separately before the dancing master would allow them to dance with each other. Nathan enjoyed watching Kate whirl about on the dance floor as the dancing master put her through the steps of various dances. He liked the way the hem of her sprigged muslin skirt swung around her slim ankles. He loved watching her skip haphazardly down the length of the ballroom, looking like a butterfly newly emerged from her chrysalis and still trying to figure out how to fly. Strands of her honey-colored hair fell out of her bun and dangled over her face. As she stroked them back behind her ears, Nathan found himself wishing he could do it for her. In fact, he longed to remove all the pins from her hair and let it fly free as she spun and twirled.
He never tired of admiring her form. The high waist of her borrowed frock emphasized the pointed, upright breasts that he’d cupped and tasted the other night, while the long skirt hung straight all around—except at the back, where it gently curved out and over her perfectly formed derriere, as upright as the breasts.
Her face was flushed from the exertion, yet she never once cast a glance his way. He knew she never did because he never took his eyes away from her. Every time she made a stumble, he was careful to hide his amusement, even though she never failed to make light of it. The dancing master only shook his head.
“Miss Baxter, you will never learn the proper steps unless you take them more seriously.”
“I do take the proper steps seriously,” she retorted. “It’s precisely why I take the improper ones more lightly. Would you prefer I throw a tantrum and cry every time I make a misstep? Rather like you do, sir?”
Nathan couldn’t suppress his mirth as the dancing master, on cue, threw another tantrum about difficult pupils who didn’t understand the grave importance of what they were supposed to be learning.
That was one of the things Nathan liked about Kate. She never threw tantrums or cried whenever something went wrong—and a great many things had gone wrong from the moment he met her. Instead she tossed off each mishap with a lighthearted jest and moved on to the next imbroglio as if she couldn’t wait to encounter more chaos. She embraced life, but more than that, she relished adventure. She was like a princess who’d lived her entire life locked away in a high tower, or who’d been sleeping under a spell for many years, her life a ruin of cinders, yet she never abandoned her hope, nae, her determination, to escape from those who would cut out her heart and lock it in a box for all time.
Trevor had said that Nathan wanted a fairy-tale bride, and to find her in a fairy-tale way.
But now he realized that most fairy tales did not take place at balls.
If only she would look his way, for just a second. Why was she so determined to act as if he were invisible?
When it was his turn to take to the floor, he didn’t look at his feet. He kept his eyes on Kate, who sat next to Susannah on a sofa pushed against the wall. She looked everywhere but at Nathan. When she wasn’t smoothing back her hair, she was tugging on the bodice of her frock to keep it from sticking to her perspiring chest. She bent forward, unwittingly allowing him the slightest
glimpse of cleavage, yet it was enough to send a hot shard of desire straight to his loins.
Bloody hell. The last thing he needed was to become aroused in the middle of the dance floor. He stumbled and made just as many missteps as Kate, if not more, and he knew it was because he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
Which raised an interesting question—had she been stumbling about because she couldn’t get him out of her mind? And then he quickly dismissed that as she wouldn’t even look at him.
Finally, the dancing master had both couples on the floor together. At his cue, Nathan bowed as Kate curtsied, still keeping her gaze averted.
“Well, Miss Baxter, at least you’re not looking at your feet anymore,” the dancing master remarked. “Now if only you would look at your partner.”
“I’m afraid she finds me hideous,” Nathan said as he fell into the steps of the dance.
“Miss Baxter,” the dancing master said crisply, “if you don’t look at your dancing partner, you’ll—”
She smacked right into Nathan’s backside with her own.
He chuckled. “I do believe I like this dance.”
She stepped around in front of him, fixing her gaze not on his face, or his waistcoat, but on the falls of his buff breeches.
Well, in that case, he’d settle his gaze on her gently curved bosom, which turned out to be a grave error, for he felt an immediate erection just from observing how the shirred bodice of her frock seemed to make her breasts stand out more, instead of nearly flattening them as her pelisse had done when he first saw her in York.
He forced himself to glance away, only to bump into her front to front, her breasts briefly pressing into his chest, and his partial arousal jabbing her just long enough to prompt a startled chirp as she spun away.
“Stop!” the dancing master called out. “Lord and Lady Ellington, the two of you dance as if you were made for each other.”
“I should hope so,” Trevor replied.
“But you, Your Grace, and you, Miss Baxter—I fear you are both a very poor match.”
An awkward silence fell over the ballroom as Nathan stole a glance at Kate, who looked quite pointedly at the dance master and said, “On the contrary, I believe we are just as perfect a match as Lord and Lady Ellington. Surely His Grace can’t be as exasperated with me as he might be were he a more skilled dance partner than I am. In that sense, I daresay he and I are evenly matched.”
Touché, thought Nathan.
The dancing master gaped at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head on top of the one she already had. Then he turned to Nathan, as if checking to see if he, too, might have a new head erupting from his scalp. “Your Grace, dare I ask if you and Miss Baxter are betrothed?”
Maybe now she was looking at him to see what he would say! Nathan threw her a glance, but to his chagrin, she’d turned away from him.
“No,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
“If that were the case, then you would likely be her only dance partner on Friday night. I mean, if you were betrothed, then surely you would not wish her to dance with anyone else?”
“I most certainly would not,” Nathan heartily concurred.
“But since you are not betrothed, then you agree she is free to dance with whoever else might ask her?”
“She is indeed,” Nathan affirmed, albeit grudgingly.
“Very well. Miss Baxter? You will not be dancing only with the duke this Friday evening.”
“You’re assuming that other men will ask me.”
“On the contrary, I’m assuming at this point that none of the other men will ask you, once they see you stumbling about with the duke.”
“Then he’ll be the only man I dance with,” she said stubbornly.
“Ah, but if you dance more than one dance with him, people will make assumptions about the two of you,” the dancing master warned.
“Faradiddle. No one there will even know who we are—well, except for Lord and Lady Ellington, of course. Perhaps I shall do as I’ve always done in the past at dances, and simply remain a perpetual wallflower.” With that she flounced out of the room.
“Kate, do come back,” Susannah pleaded, but to no avail.
The dancing master threw up his hands and stormed over to the pianoforte in the corner, to consult or even commiserate with his wife over difficult pupils.
“Allow me to make some attempt to pacify the dancing master before he quits,” Trevor said. “I’m paying him, after all.” He strode over to the corner, leaving his wife to tell Nathan exactly what he knew she was going to say.
“Perhaps you should propose to her, Nathan.”
“Why? Because we stumble so well together on the dance floor? She never even looks at me. I vow she’s trying to convince herself that I’m invisible and nonexistent.”
“She looks at you from afar, while you’re occupied with something else,” Susannah countered. “She’s afraid to look at you up close.”
Annoyance bubbled within him. “Whatever the devil for?”
Susannah shrugged. “She’s afraid you won’t look back.”
Nathan chortled. “Then perhaps she should try looking at me when she’s in such close proximity to my intimidating person! I daresay she might be pleasantly surprised.”
“She’s afraid it might rend her heart,” Susannah said with a sigh. “Apparently, she thinks if she ignores you, her feelings for you will eventually ebb. Alas, I do believe they’ve only gotten stronger, and she’s becoming ever more frustrated with herself.”
“And me, I suppose.”
She nodded. “Trust me, Nathan. She sees you not just as a duke or any other man, but a fairy-tale prince who rescued her from captivity and the clutches of an evil stepfather.”
The fairy tale again. And wasn’t that what Nathan wanted, according to Trevor?
“Yet she doesn’t believe she stands a chance of ever living happily ever after with you,” added Susannah.
He furrowed his brow, nonplussed. “Why does she think that?”
“Because she believes she’s far beneath your touch.”
“That’s nonsense,” he scoffed. “Evil her stepfather might be, but he’s still an earl, and she has an uncle who’s a marquess. She may not have a perfect pedigree or a dowry, but she seems well connected enough.”
“Her lack of dowry is one of the reasons she believes she will never marry well,” Susannah said. “I’ve tried telling her that’s not so, for I never had a dowry and I do believe I couldn’t have done better.” She cast an affectionate glance at her husband, who was now occupied with the dancing master and his wife.
“I do not need an heiress,” Nathan declared.
“But she believes you’ll never consider her a suitable prospect because, as a duke, you can have any lady you choose—so why, according to her way of thinking, would you choose her?”
Without giving him a chance to respond—not that he knew how—she whirled around and glided across the room to join her husband.
So Kate talked about him all the time and admired him from afar.
While he thought about her all the time and admired her up close. Yet now that he thought about it, he realized he’d never admired her from afar because, as Susannah had pointed out, he’d always been busy with something else, like riding about the grounds with Trevor while she and Susannah strolled through the garden, or playing chess with Trevor, trying to figure out his next move while Kate and Susannah sat on the other side of the room embroidering or covering screens.
Yet he observed her at mealtimes, where she made conversation with their host and hostess and never ventured so much as a word or glance his way. As opinionated as she was, at least she knew how to make intelligent conversation about something other than the latest fashions or scandal. It amused him to hear her and Susannah take turns reviling their respective stepfathers, as if they were competing with each other to see whose stepfather was the most odious.
After dinner that evening they
gathered in the drawing room where Kate and Susannah kept them entertained on the pianoforte. Nathan expressed amazement at Kate’s ability to play many of Bach’s concertos without benefit of sheet music.
She didn’t even glance up from the keys as she blithely replied, “I’ve played them so many times that by now I shouldn’t need sheet music. And what a joy to play an instrument that’s properly tuned. The pianoforte at Bellingham Hall seemed to have a permanent wheeze.”
Occasionally Susannah sang, while Kate accompanied her. When Nathan asked if Kate would sing, she kept her eyes on the keys as she swept a hand across them and stated, just as blithely as before, “You should thank me for not inflicting such excruciating torture upon Your Grace.” Since coming to Ellington Hall, she’d become very formal and proper with him, much to his chagrin. “Haven’t I vexed you enough?”
“More than enough, Miss Baxter.” Though he really wanted to call her Kate, since she vexed him no more—well, maybe she did, but in an oddly positive way.
She glanced at Trevor and Susannah, seated together on the sofa. “I’m sure he gave you his account of how we met, didn’t he, and of all the trouble I’ve caused him?”
“Yes,” said Trevor. “And I understand it’s remarkably similar to your account. Clearly, the two of you have no secrets from each other, like Susannah and I did.”
He was wrong about that, Nathan thought.
“Frankly, I think it’s romantic,” Susannah said. “Rather like how Trevor and I met. He found me hiding in the window draperies.”
Kate clucked her tongue. “He and I do agree it’s scandalous. That is, not finding you wrapped in the draperies, but wagering innocent women at card games.”
“Ah, but I’m not the one who did the wagering, nor were you the one who was wagered,” Nathan reminded her. “I simply won the hand, and I was quite willing to forgive the debt. But you insisted on honoring it on the other lady’s behalf. And you don’t think that’s scandalous?”
Kate met his piercing gaze. Oh, what a joy it was to see her looking at him again! “What’s so scandalous about honoring a debt? And even if it was scandalous, it was only the first scandalous thing I’d ever done.” With that, she launched into a lively rendition of Mozart’s A Little Night Music.
Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 19
