by Liz Carlyle
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Eavesdrop!” said Mrs. Wentworth, hopping onto the bench in her high-heeled slippers. “I shall climb into the urn.”
In an instant, she had seized the lip with both hands, and hauled herself over, tumbling in almost sideways in a whoosh! of crinoline and lace.
“Good God,” he muttered.
But he could hear hinges squeaking in the gloom. Left with no alternative, he turned and set off toward the drawing room doors.
Sir Francis had already espied him. “Ah, someone is here before us!”
“No, it’s too cold for me,” said Edward. “Gentlemen. Do have that bench; it’s the only spot out of the wind.”
“Thank you,” said Reggie stiffly.
“Good night, Sir Francis,” he said, bowing a little as he passed. “Lord Reginald.”
He went inside to see that Kate now sat with Lord Upshaw. Good Lord, was he not to have so much as a minute of her time? Impatiently, he refilled his coffee, considering as he did so that—for Kate’s sake—he might better concern himself in extracting her mother from her latest predicament.
But Mrs. Wentworth, it seemed, needed him no more than did her daughter. Reggie and Sir Francis returned within ten minutes; Edward put down his cup, preparing to go around and into the rose garden to fetch her out. But he had no sooner stepped into the corridor than the lady herself breezed past.
“Mon Dieu, Mr. Quartermaine, do you leave us so early?” she said in a carrying tone. “I just went out to fetch a fresh pack of cards.”
“Thank you, no cards for me,” he said, discreetly brushing a bit of moss from her shoulder as he dropped his voice. “Madam, I salute your acrobatics.”
“Well, then, we shall miss you,” said the lady brightly. “Oh, there is Reggie! Reggie, where have you been, you wicked boy? I want you for whist.”
He watched her sweep past him, realizing too late that she was dragging a dried rose twig along on the hem of her skirts.
With a muted smile, Edward turned and, after catching Kate’s gaze with a parting nod, started on his way upstairs. The better part of a bottle of the efficient Mrs. Peppin’s brandy, along with a good book by the fire, would doubtless prove less frustrating than staring over his coffee cup at what he ought not have.
CHAPTER 16
Lord Reginald’s Conquest
For perhaps the first time in her life, Kate went up to bed with her arm hooked companionably in her mother’s.
“With Nancy gone, Katherine needs me to brush out her hair,” Aurélie had whispered as they passed Lady Julia. “I shall leave you to your flirtation with Sir Francis.”
The offer to brush out her hair was a tender gesture, and one Kate had not expected of her mother. And so far as Julia was concerned, Kate was glad, for a moment, to focus on someone else’s intrigues.
Tonight it was difficult to determine just who was seducing whom in that little liaison. Having coaxed Julia away from the card table, Sir Francis had urged the lady into a quiet corner of the drawing room, and plied her with poetry and madeira for the latter half of the evening. His flirtation had been so blatant, Uncle Upshaw had murmured his disapproval, and gone up to bed early.
As they turned down the passageway, however, Hetty approached from the opposite direction, carrying a mug and a glass of water on a tray.
“His Lordship’s bilious again,” the maid whispered when they met between Kate’s door and Upshaw’s. “I thought per’aps some warm milk and soda water?”
“Mon Dieu, a bottle of port after dinner would have better served,” said Aurélie, pushing open Kate’s door. “Virtue is rarely rewarded.”
“Thank you, Hetty,” said Kate reassuringly. “That’s exactly the thing.”
The girl nodded, and vanished into the room opposite Kate’s suite. The room that, not so long ago, had been Edward’s.
He had been wise, perhaps, to relocate, Kate thought. Tonight, having been unable to exchange so much as a word with him, she felt oddly cheated.
On a sigh, she went into her bedchamber to see her mother flinging off her things, and casting them onto Kate’s bed in a vaguely proprietary fashion. First her reticule, shawl, and silk gloves, and then, of all things, she unhooked her crinolines at the waist, and with remarkable grace, simply pushed them down and stepped out.
“Ah!” said Aurélie. “Much better!”
Uncertain what to make of it, Kate decided to turn the subject. “Mamma, is Julia after Sir Francis?” she asked, settling herself onto the bench before the dressing table. “He seemed to have resisted her flirtations until tonight.”
Aurélie shrugged, and kicked off her shoes. “Eh bien, Julia isn’t as young as she used to be,” she said evenly, “nor is she rich. But recollect, ma fille, that Julia first set her sights on Quartermaine, which likely put Sir Francis’s nose out of joint.”
“Yes, he was shooting with them for a while,” Kate mused as her mother began to pull out her pins. “But he seems now to have turned his attention to Heatherfields.”
“All of it, mon chou?” asked her mother.
Engaged in removing her earbobs, Kate flicked up a glance in the mirror. “All of what, Mamma?”
Her mother flashed a muted smile. “All of his attention?”
Blushing, Kate dropped the earbob in her jewelry box. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”
On a sigh, Aurélie tossed the first hairpin into its porcelain tray. “Ah, ma fille, can you not see how his eyes follow you?” she said. “And poor Reggie! His pique becomes comical.”
“Nothing about Reggie entertains me,” said Kate darkly. “And what is your point, anyway?”
“My point?” said Aurélie lightly. “It is merely this—if you are still clinging to your virtue, Katherine, I beg you will give it up and take advantage of that golden god fortune has put beneath your roof. He may be a little hard and a little wicked, but both those things will prove their advantages, trust me.”
“Mamma,” Kate chided. “How outrageous you are.”
“Oui, sometimes even I despair of me,” said Aurélie on a sigh. “But Katherine, one hates to see you squander your rare luck. As a baroness in your own right, you are accountable to no one for your wealth or your position. No man can take from you your home or your children, nor threaten you with poverty. And if you are quite, quite sure you shall not marry—”
“Quite, quite sure,” Kate interjected.
“Eh bien, that is very sure indeed,” said Aurélie with gentle sarcasm. “So, that being the case, why not enjoy life?”
“Oh, thank you very much, Mamma, for that sage advice,” said Kate. “But unlike you, I have no interest in breaking men’s hearts for sport. Nor have I even the ability.”
At that, Aurélie looked truly wounded. “Breaking hearts for sport?” she echoed, dropping a hairpin on the dressing table with a sharp plink! “Katherine! Never have I done such a thing.”
“But you have hurt Anstruther,” said Kate a little accusingly. “Mamma, I know him. For all his gruff ways, he is not the sort of man who loves lightly.”
“La, ma petite, Anstruther no longer cares who I am bedding,” said Aurélie. “And I do not know if he ever loved me.”
Something in her tone raised Kate’s suspicions.
“Mamma,” she said, turning around on the dressing bench, “have you been trying to bring Anstruther to some sort of point all these years? Is this what your very public affaires with de Macey and the banker and all the others have been about?”
“Katherine, do not be ridiculous!”
“I hope I am being ridiculous,” said Kate. “You would have to be mad, Mamma, to think a man like Anstruther could be jealous of a fop like de Macey, however rich and dashing he may be.”
Her mother’s lips thrust into that perfect, pretty moue again. “Oui, apparently you are right.”
“And de Macey—my God—he does not deserve to be hurt,” said Kate. “I do like him—very much.”
“Tut, mon chou, you quite waste your worry!” declared her mother. “I fear de Macey shall never have what he wants. But he does not want me—not now.”
“Mamma, you make no sense,” said Kate.
But with Kate’s hair only half down, her mother had gone to the bed and flung herself dramatically onto it. “Mon Dieu!” she said into the ceiling. “Does no one ever believe what I say? Katherine, have I not always told you de Macey was a dear friend?”
“Well, yes. But I believed it a euphemism.”
“Ah, Kate! You are so naive! For all my beauty, Macey has always enjoyed pursuing a vast array of lovers. And his choices can be … well, let us call it exotic.”
Suddenly a picture of de Macey and Sir Francis walking together through the rose garden flashed into Kate’s mind. She had come upon them unexpectedly, and suddenly there had been a glow of color across de Macey’s cheeks …
“Oh,” said Kate flatly. “Oh. Good heavens. Are you suggesting that de Macey … or Sir Francis … that they might be—”
“I’d begun to think it possible,” said Aurélie. But I confess, Sir Francis’s flirtation with Julia tonight gives me pause.”
“Good heavens,” said Kate again.
But splayed across the bed, her mother merely yawned, as if the entire business now bored her. “Do you know, Katherine, you have the most comfortable suite of rooms in the house!”
“So you’ve often remarked,” said Kate, pulling out the remaining pins as best she could.
“Oui, and had your father not died,” said Aurélie wistfully, “they would have been mine.”
Kate laid down her pins and turned around. “Mamma, did you walk up with me just to wheedle my rooms away? I’ve told you on countless occasions to simply have them.”
Aurélie nodded, her elaborate coiffure scrubbing the counterpane. “Oui, I think perhaps I should,” she agreed. “But what if I do not like them? What if, for example, the morning light shines in too brightly? Or what if there are roosters on this side of the castle?”
“These are easterly rooms, Mamma,” she said on a sigh. “I cannot alter the rays of the sun for you. But there are no roosters, I assure you. Shall I have Peppie switch us tomorrow?”
“Mais non, I shall simply try them first,” she said, bouncing a little on the bed as if to test it. “I shall sleep here tonight. You may sleep with Filou. But first, mon chou, have you a nightgown? I find myself too fatigued to go and look for one.”
Kate heaved a silent sigh. “I am not sleeping with a dyspeptic dog, Mamma,” she said going to her wardrobe and yanking a nightgown. “I can sleep across the parlor in the valet’s room.”
“As you wish, ma fille.” Aurélie yawned hugely, and curled herself into a little ball.
Kate went into the dressing room to bathe and change into her nightclothes. She was a little irritated at being put out of her own bed. But Aurélie was right; in a perfect world, the rooms would indeed have been her parents’.
The connected suite consisted of a large dressing room giving on to the master’s bedchamber, then a connected parlor, followed by the valet’s room, with all save for the last also opening onto the main corridor. Kate loved the privacy and comfort the suite afforded her. But she loved her vain and pampered mother more.
She crossed back through the bedchamber, pausing to kiss her mother’s cheek, noting as she did so the feathery lines that were beginning to appear at Aurélie’s eyes.
“There’s warm water still,” she said. “Don’t go to sleep in your dress, Mamma, and mind the hem of my nightgown for it will be too long on you. Shall I fetch Filou?”
“Non, merci,” said her mother, who appeared to be already drifting. “Sleep well, chérie.”
After taking up one of her lamps, Kate crossed through the parlor and opened the connecting door to the valet’s room. The space was rarely used nowadays, but the small bed was not uncomfortable. Kate crawled in and attempted to punch the feather bolster into a suitable shape, but Aurélie’s words were tormenting her a little.
Aurélie had been quite right when she had said that Kate’s situation was unique. While Kate was mindful of the dignity the title was due, one could not deny that a degree of latitude came with it. She would never suffer at the hands of a man as Aurélie had done—if, indeed, Aurélie had suffered.
Kate was beginning to believe that perhaps she had. That Aurélie’s blithe and often shallow demeanor covered up something darker and sadder. Perhaps there was a lesson to be taken from it?
I still want to hold on to you, Edward had said, and it is just so unwise.
But was it that unwise?
Suddenly, she wanted to see him. To throw her ordinary caution to the wind. To actually heed her mother’s mad advice. She did not want to waste her good fortune, and live a life devoid of desire and pleasure.
Kate didn’t approve of the life Edward had led or the choices he’d made, no. But if she waited until a paragon of virtue turned up on her doorstep, she might go gray. And a paragon of virtue, as Aurélie had hinted, was far less apt to tumble her into bed with any degree of skill.
Impulsively, she went into the parlor and picked up a recent edition of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. After scribbling a quick note, Kate sealed it and tucked it inside, then pulled the bell.
In short order, Jasper appeared at the parlor door.
“Kindly take this up to Mr. Quartermaine and see if there is a light under his door,” she said. “I promised him some reading on agricultural chemistry.”
Jasper nodded cheerfully and trotted away again.
Kate flicked a glance at the clock. Not quite eleven. Edward being something of a night owl, it was unlikely he’d be in bed. Her mother, however, was. The faint stirring inside the room had quieted and the lamp had been put out. She hoped Aurélie was not ill.
She began to pace the floor a little anxiously, then went instead to the sideboard for a glass of wine. She had scarcely finished it, however, when a light knock sounded at the parlor door. Swiftly, she opened it.
His coats and his cravat already cast off, Edward stood on the threshold in his shirtsleeves, looking large, lean, and implacable.
Poking her head out, Kate found the corridor empty, and pulled him inside.
“Quick,” she said, “in the valet’s room.”
She drew him into the circle of lamplight inside the little bedchamber.
The light flickered over one side of his face, casting up otherworldly shadows. Edward leaned back against the wide doorjamb, his arms crossed, his heavy, hooded gaze raking down her length.
He had been drinking, she realized.
“I take it you wished to discuss agricultural chemistry,” he murmured, “in your nightclothes.”
“Another time, perhaps,” she said.
“Hmm,” he said. “That nightdress is dishearteningly high-necked, Kate, for any sort of discussion. I count—what, eight buttons? And that robe can only be described as virtuous.”
“Shall I take them off?” she suggested, cutting him an assessing glance.
“Kate.” He bestirred himself lazily from the door. “It is late. What do you want?”
She felt suddenly uneasy. Perhaps this was a mistake? Or perhaps she should wait until he was fully sober? He suddenly seemed too large and a little intimidating.
“I’m not sure,” she confessed.
“Then let me help,” he said, stepping nearer. “Was it this?”
So saying, he tipped up her chin, let his lashes fall half shut, and kissed her almost ephemerally. It was the merest brush, yet it took her breath. Then, to her disappointment, he stopped.
His eyes drifted over her face, which had decidedly warmed. “Your move, my dear,” he murmured.
She backed up an inch. “Have you been drinking?” she asked.
“More than usual,” he admitted. “But come, Kate. You didn’t send me that note so that you might chastise me for my bad habits.”
She
shook her head, and plunged forward. “No,” she whispered. “No, I didn’t. I wanted to ask you, Edward, what you meant by what you said in the library last night.”
He did not pretend to misunderstand. “When I said I cared for you?” he replied.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “And what I wish to know is this: Is that all there will ever be for us? That you will always be fond of me?”
Something dark passed over his face then, and he backed her up another step. “What do you want there to be, Kate?” he asked. “Shall I swear my eternal devotion? Fall at your feet?”
“I just want the truth,” she said.
He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek in that achingly familiar gesture. “The truth?” he said. “The truth, as you so succinctly put it last night, is that it would have been better for both of us if I’d never come here. Never bought Reggie’s house. Never taken you to bed.”
“And do you regret it?” she murmured, lifting her gaze to his.
He kissed her again, deeply and intimately, curling one arm about her waist as he thrust slowly inside her mouth, weakening her knees until she pressed herself to him for strength.
“There,” he finally said, lifting his mouth but an inch. “Does that feel like regret? No, Kate. I regret only what it has come to.”
“What has it come to?” she pressed. “What did you mean when you said you would be near?”
His heavy gaze shuttered completely, but his hand had begun to make those slow, sensuous circles at the small of her back. “I was thinking, I suppose, of Heatherfields, so close to you,” he said, “and I hoped—damn me for a scoundrel—but I suppose I hoped we …”
“Here is what I think,” she blurted. “I think we should be lovers. Not just now, but … but for a time. For as long as it suits us.”
His eyes flashed darkly, his mouth opening to speak, but Kate forged ahead. “I know, Edward, that your home is in London, not here. I know the life you lead, and that eventually country life will bore you. But from time to time, mightn’t you find it pleasant to visit? Mightn’t we find a way to be together, for so long as neither of us finds the other tiresome?”
