by Joan Wolf
“It’s Richard, my little love.”
“Richard!” She smiled, suddenly delighted. “That was my father’s name.”
“Clearly a good omen.” His voice was sounding more normal. “You must come down and see Monkleigh Abbey, my home. I think you’ll like it.”
“I’m sure I shall.” She looked up into his blue eyes, which were smiling at her so tenderly, and said impulsively, “Let’s have a dozen children, Richard! Wouldn’t it be fun?”
He cleared his throat. “Actually, it would be. I rather like children.”
She grinned at him. “From a former rake and confirmed bachelor, this is very astonishing talk.”
“From now on I can promise you one thing,” he said, and there was an odd gravity in his voice and face, “there will be room in my life for only one woman. You.”
Again Catriona felt that brief stab of fear. She hadn’t realized she was so important to him. “That’s very reassuring,” she said after a minute. And then, because she felt grateful to him and because she did not want to hurt him, she added, “I love you, Richard.”
After the marquis left, Catriona sat by herself in the morning room for a few minutes. She was not quite sure if she had done the right thing. She sighed, looked up, and there was Edmund in the doorway. “Oh,” she said and stared at him.
He moved slowly into the room, and her heart contracted a little as she watched him. He sat down in a chair near her and said calmly, “So you are to be the Marchioness of Hampton.”
“I—I suppose I am,” replied Catriona in a small voice.
“You liked him right from the start, didn’t you?” said Edmund.
“Yes. At first he was attractive because he was a rebel, but then I liked him for himself.”
“A rebel.” Edmund gazed at her out of inscrutable dark eyes. “Of course, that’s what it was.”
Catriona grimaced. “I’m a bit of a rebel myself, as you well know.”
“More than a bit, I’d say.” She smiled a little and he went on, “What else do you like about him?”
“His sense of humor,” she replied promptly. “He’s the sort of person whose eye you can catch to share a private joke.” She swallowed and added, conscious of venturing into dangerous waters, “In that way he’s like you.”
Edmund didn’t seem to hear her. “He loves you,” he said after a minute.
“Yes, I believe he does.” She laughed a little nervously. “I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
“Do you love him?”
It was the one question she had feared. She braced herself and said clearly, “Yes.”
There was a long silence, during which she did not dare to look at him. When finally she did look up from her lap, it was to find him staring into the empty grate of the fireplace. His head was outlined against the pale gold of the wing-backed chair he was sitting in. Then he turned, and she was caught and held by the large, luminous eyes that always looked so startling in the austere masculinity of his face. “Good,” he said. “You, of all people, should not marry where you do not love.”
And she knew suddenly that this was true. She should not marry the marquis. She would never feel for him, she would never feel for anyone else in the world, what she felt for Edmund. The mere flicker of his eyelash meant more to her, did more to her, than the marquis’s most passionate kisses.
She dragged her eyes away from Edmund’s face. But what am I to do? she thought wildly. For a brief minute she hovered on the brink of throwing herself at him and confessing everything. She would beg him not to send her away, beg him to let her stay with him. And then he rose to his feet.
“I believe he will make you a good husband, Catriona.” He smiled at her. “They say reformed rakes do.”
The moment was gone. Catriona rose as well. “Do they?” she asked tonelessly. “Well, we shall see, won’t we?”
“He had better,” said Edmund with totally unexpected violence, “or I’ll murder him.”
Catriona stared in astonishment as on that note her cousin left the room.
Chapter Eighteen
Catriona did not leave but sat down again and stared at the gold wing chair that only moments ago had held Edmund. “He will make you a good husband,” Edmund had said, and Catriona thought that probably he would. A better husband than Edmund, with his complicated personality, his temper, his “tunnels.”
The problem was that it was Edmund she loved.
Very slowly Catriona rose from the sofa. She went upstairs like a sleepwalker and told her news to Meg and Cousin Henrietta. She smiled at their good wishes and talked to Meg about wedding plans. And all the time she felt as if her heart were breaking.
The announcement of both Catriona’s and Margaret’s engagements appeared in the Post the following day. Margaret’s news caused little stir. It was a not unexpected development between two pleasant but not extraordinary people. The ton was agog, however, over Catriona and the marquis. He had been given up as a lost cause years ago. No one had dreamed that now at the age of thirty-four he would be caught by a seventeen-year-old chit just out of the schoolroom.
“It’s really comical,” Catriona told him as they drove in the park a few afternoons after the announcement. “I feel as if I should be wearing your scalp at my belt, as the red Indians do in America, as a sign of conquest. I had no idea you were such a catch.”
He was handling the reins with easy expertise and turned his head a minute to smile down at her. “You thought, in fact, that you were rescuing me from the social dustbin.”
She laughed. “I did. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Not at all. It was quite understandable. Fond mamas kept their daughters away from me because they did not trust me to marry them. If they had thought I was inclined to marriage, however, I should have been welcomed with open arms.” He looked cynical. “I’m very rich, my dear. That covers a multitude of sins.”
“Are you really rich?” Catriona asked curiously.
“I am.” He glanced at her again, an intriguing glint of blue. “I won a fortune at the gaming table.”
Catriona frowned. “Do you still gamble?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “But not for fortunes.”
Catriona’s frown smoothed out. “Good. It would be very disagreeable to lose all that money once you had grown accustomed to having it.”
“Will you like being rich?” He was paying close attention now to his horses.
“Yes,” said Catriona positively. “I was very poor when I was a child, you see, and so I know that being rich is better. When you’re poor, you are helpless. When you’re rich, you can keep your land in good heart, you can repair your tenants’ cottages, you can assist the poor and needy in your neighborhood.” She sat up straighter. “You can buy cows and sheep. You can employ people in your house and gardens and stables, you can ...” She broke off as he pulled the phaeton to a halt and looked at him in surprise. “Why are you stopping, Richard?”
“You never cease to astonish me, Kate,” he said softly.
She looked extremely puzzled. “I don’t see why. What I’ve just said is plain common sense, surely.”
He started the horses again. “I suppose it is,” he said in an odd voice. There was a phaeton coming toward them. “Here are your cousin and Lady Sophia,” he commented as the two carriages approached each other. The marquis pulled up, and Edmund did likewise. The two couples exchanged pleasantries for a minute, and Catriona stared, she hoped unobtrusively, at Sophia.
There was no denying the other girl’s beauty. But there was a coldness about those chiseled classical features that repelled Catriona. There was not the slightest hint of humor in Sophia’s celestial-blue eyes.
“Do you like Lady Sophia?” Catriona asked the marquis after they had resumed their drive.
“She scares me to death,” he replied promptly.
“Me too,” said Catriona fervently. “She’s so—chilly.”
He grinned. “They call her th
e ice maiden in the clubs.”
“Do they?” She looked at him speculatively. “And what do they call me?”
He put a hand briefly over hers as they lay folded together in her lap. “Very shortly they will call you my wife,” he said softly. And smiled at her.
Catriona felt a flicker of guilt. It wasn’t right that he should be so happy at the thought of marrying her. She would be a good wife to him, she told herself. She would see to it that he never guessed the truth. She smiled back, and for a brief second his hand tightened on hers. Then he turned back to his horses.
Catriona and Margaret were both to be married in the autumn. In the meantime Catriona was introduced to the marquis’s sister, Lady Louisa Hartley, who was a good deal older than her brother. She was his only close relative and appeared to be mildly pleased with the prospect of his upcoming marriage.
“I suppose she would have been happier with someone far grander than I,” Catriona commented shrewdly to Margaret, “but she’s so pleased to see him being dragged to the altar that she isn’t going to be too fussy.”
“I wouldn’t say Lord Hampton is being dragged to the altar,” Margaret replied gently. “I should say rather it was the other way around.”
“What do you mean?” asked Catriona cautiously.
“I mean that you’re not happy, Kate. And that I’m worried about you.”
“Why do you say that I’m not happy?”
“Because I know you too well. Oh, I daresay you’ve fooled everyone else. But I shared a nursery with you for seven years. Remember?”
Catriona bent her head. “Yes.”
“Don’t you love Lord Hampton, Kate?”
“No.” Catriona looked up at Margaret, and her eyes were very bright. “I like him very much, Meg. I like him better than anyone I’ve met in London. I want to love him.”
“I see.” Margaret looked at Catriona, and her gentle, pretty face was very sober. “Do you feel you have to get married, Kate? Because of Edmund?”
Catriona felt her heart give one great jolt. Her nails dug into her palms. “What do you mean?” she breathed.
“Well, it looks as if Edmund is going to marry Sophia Heatherstone. Do you feel obligated to remove yourself from Evesham? You shouldn’t, you know. Edmund would be extremely upset if he thought you were marrying only to make things easy for him. You know how he loves you.”
“Yes,” said Catriona hollowly. “I know.”
“I don’t mean to pry,” Margaret said apologetically, “but I am in love, and so I noticed.”
“You aren’t prying,” Catriona assured her. “I think that for me love will come after marriage.”
Margaret’s eyes dropped. “Aren’t you—aren’t you a little nervous about marriage, Kate? About the physical part, I mean?”
“No,” said Catriona truthfully if immodestly. “I rather think that’s the part I’m going to like best.”
* * * *
Margaret was not the only one who noticed Catriona’s restraint. The marquis too was conscious of a shadow that sometimes seemed to lay between them. He was beginning to be aware that he had not penetrated Catriona’s deepest feelings and he was beginning to wonder as well if there was someone else who had. At unexpected moments she would freeze on him, and the unknown shadow would cloud the easy communication they usually shared. He couldn’t pin it down and he tried to tell himself he was mistaken. He hoped that marriage would drive the shadow away once and for all. Once she was truly his, once he was able to show her what love between a man and a woman could be, then, he thought, then she would be wholly his. For now he contented himself with wooing her with all the considerable charm and experience he had accumulated in a notably successful career.
And Catriona responded. She did like the marquis and she knew she would like making love with him. But she did not feel that dizzy wildness that the very thought of Edmund conjured up in her. She would settle down with Richard and have children and try very hard to find a measure of content. But ecstasy would always elude her. For her ecstasy would always lie in the arms of Edmund not in the arms of her husband.
Chapter Nineteen
The betting in the clubs was running high that the Duke of Burford would offer for Lady Sophia Heatherstone. It would be a very suitable match. Lady Dawley talked as if it was almost a settled thing. It was only his grandmother who ventured a note of disapproval, and that to Catriona and not to Edmund.
“Do you like Lady Sophia, Kate?” the duchess asked, unconsciously echoing Catriona’s question to the marquis.
“No,” said Catriona uncompromisingly. “I think she is a cold fish.”
The duchess sighed. “I fear you are right, my dear. And I do not think she is the right girl for Edmund. She will encourage all the wrong aspects of his character.”
“She’ll drive him into a permanent tunnel,” Catriona prophesied gloomily.
“He doesn’t love her,” the duchess said. “I can see no sign of that. He is simply fulfilling his duty, and from an objective point of view I suppose Lady Sophia is extremely appropriate. She is beautiful and well born and elegant.”
“A cold fish,” Catriona repeated.
“Yes.” The duchess sighed again. “And an inflexible moralist, I fear. If he marries her, all the side of Edmund that is warm and spontaneous will be blighted.”
“Why don’t you talk to him, Grandmama?”
“There are some things, Kate, that one simply cannot talk to Edmund about. And lately he has been more unapproachable than usual.” The duchess smiled at Catriona. “You have always been the one Edmund unbends with, my dear.”
Catriona’s throat was suddenly tight and aching. “Well, I cannot talk to him about Lady Sophia, Grandmama.”
“Of course you cannot,” the duchess said quickly. “I never thought of such a thing.” She patted Catriona’s hand. “I’m just an old woman who needed someone to talk to. And you have a talent for attracting people who are in distress.”
“Anyway,” Catriona said with even greater gloom than before, “he may love her. She is certainly the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Men are swayed by things like that.”
The duchess smothered a smile. “Yes,” she said. “They are.”
Catriona rose to her feet. “But she’s a cold fish all the same,” she repeated again before she went off to join Margaret on an expedition to Bond Street.
* * * *
There was a very elegant ball at the Bridge-waters a few days after Catriona’s conversation with the duchess, and the inhabitants of Burford House attended en masse along with the Marquis of Hampton and Mr. Halley. Catriona was dancing with the marquis when she looked toward the French windows and saw Edmund standing next to a woman she had never seen before. Catriona stared.
“Who is that talking to Edmund?” she asked the marquis in hushed tones.
He looked. “That is the Countess of Lochaber. She used to be Frances Stewart,” he added, as if that should explain everything.
“Oh,” said Catriona and kept on staring. The name of Frances Stewart was legendary. The story of her come-out was repeated diligently every year into the ears of aspiring debutantes. She had turned down an array of blue-blooded, wealthy and noble suitors and eventually had married an impoverished Scottish earl and buried herself in the Highlands. Catriona looked at the very tall, very dark man who was standing on Lady Lochaber’s other side and decided he must be her husband.
When the dance ended, Catriona and the marquis moved to join Edmund. Frances Lochaber, Catriona decided, as they were introduced and the countess smiled at her warmly, made Sophia Heatherstone look plain. Frances was fair, like Sophia, but her miraculous hair was so pale that it looked silver rather than gold. She had a hauntingly beautiful face, which was not cold-looking at all. Quite the contrary. The green eyes that were smiling at Catriona held both warmth and friendliness. She was quite tall and slender; Catriona had to look up at her.
“How nice to meet you, Miss MacIan,” she was
saying. “We’ve only been in London for a few days, and already my husband is longing for a fellow Scot to talk to. You must let me introduce you.” She turned and put her hand on the arm of the very tall man, whose attention had been claimed by Mrs. Mason-Burgley. “Ian,” she said gently, “come and meet Catriona MacIan.”
“Catriona!” said a very deep voice. “What is a girl named Catriona doing in a place like London?”
“Going to dances, for one thing,” Catriona replied and looked way up into a face as dark and as vivid with life as her own.
Ian Macdonald grinned and raised a black eyebrow. “You’re a long way from Ardnamurchan,” he said to her in Gaelic.
Catriona frowned and thought for a minute. “Not in my heart,” she answered finally, haltingly, in the same language, and saw approval in the man’s dark eyes.
The Lochabers, it appeared, had come south to bring Frances’s daughter, Nell, to spend a few weeks with her grandparents. Before Frances had married the Earl of Lochaber, she had been married to Lord Robert Sedburgh, the eldest son of the Earl and Countess of Aysgarth, and she had had a daughter by him before he died. The Lochabers also had a baby son, whom they had left at home in Scotland under the care of his grandmother, the dowager Countess of Lochaber.
“How old is your baby?” Catriona asked eagerly when this piece of information came out. She had become quite interested in babies recently.
“Just a year,” Frances replied with a smile. “And he’s an absolute demon.” Her long green eyes glinted briefly. “Just like his father,” she said and looked briefly at her husband, who was now deep in conversation with Edmund.
“I didn’t realize the duke and Lord Lochaber knew each other,” commented the marquis. He smiled a little at Frances. “You must admit they’re hardly alike.”
“They were great friends at school,” Frances said, and the marquis looked even more surprised.
“Hampton can’t understand how you ever came to notice a scapegrace like myself, Burford.” Ian Macdonald’s deep voice sounded distinctly amused as he and Edmund moved to join the larger circle.
