Mmmm. Could it be she had nicked her little brother’s consequence more deeply than she had intended? Did he actually care about his ruined sister’s good opinion? She tucked the thought away for another time.
“Where did you meet Bromton and his friends?” she asked.
“Gaming hell.”
“Lovely,” Katherine groaned.
Markham groaned right back. “Don’t be such an ape-leader. I gamble with restraint.”
“I’m sure you go whoring with steadiness and sobriety, too,” she replied.
“We never go whoring at all.” He jostled her shoulder. “Brom’s really gotten under your skin, hasn’t he? You are in rare form tonight; your vocabulary alone would be enough to shock the thread from the needles of a ladies sewing circle.”
She pursed her lips in a rotten expression. She was exceptionally angry. And frustrated. Still, she felt more alive than she had in years.
Yet another thought she did not wish to examine.
“Back to the gaming hell, please,” she said primly.
“They invited me to join as their fourth.”
“Who invited you?”
“I don’t remember. Rayne, I think. After that night, we went gambling in one another’s company so often, we acquired names. Brom is Spades, Rayne, Diamonds, Farring, Clubs.”
“Leaving hearts for you?”
“I’ll give you a hint as to why.” Markham wiggled his brow. “Let’s just say I don’t need to go whoring.”
Katherine made a gagging noise.
“Do not ask if you do not want to know,” Markham quipped.
“So.” She slanted him a glance. “Hearts are for”—she shuddered—“love, clubs are for luck, diamonds are for money, and spades are for…” She frowned. “Digging?”
“Spades,” he said, “are for war. Brom is unable to resist a challenge, or haven’t you noticed?”
She scowled. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I wouldn’t have brought him here if he was a lecher.”
“He must be a lecher, else he’d already be attached.”
Markham pursed his lips while he weighed what he was about to say. “Bromton had an implied connection to Rayne’s sister, a longstanding childhood arrangement that ended before I met him.”
What had just run riot through her chest?
“Ah-ha.” Markham smoothed his thumb over a wrinkle between her brows. “You’re jealous.”
She scowled.
“You needn’t be,” Markham continued. “The lady has chosen another.”
Her scowl deepened. “I do not trust him.”
Markham sighed. “Why must you deny a clearly natural match?”
“Natural?” she asked.
“You’re quick. He’s quick. You like to argue. He likes to argue.”
“Sounds like a proper suitor to me,” she said with derision.
“You’ve been closeted up in Southford for so long, you would not recognize a proper suitor if he built a willow cabin at the gate.”
Her heart squeezed. “So, you did invite him hoping we’d suit!”
He shrugged. “Bromton’s been more energetic in the past few days than I’ve ever seen him—as have you—so if I did, I’d say I’ve chosen well, don’t you agree?”
“You say he is honorable—” she started.
“But you have never trusted me,” Markham finished.
Her brows rose. “I challenge you on occasion, but I trust your judgment.”
“Why Kate.” Markham held his chest. “I am all astonishment.”
“…in matters of importance, anyway,” she clarified.
“And you don’t consider finding you a husband a matter of importance?”
Heat stained her cheeks. “Finding me a husband is not your responsibility.”
“Poor word choice.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I want to see you happy. And you cannot convince me you’ll be happy when I marry and Southford gains a proper mistress.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had the sensation the bed beneath her was moving—rushing like a log on an overfilled river in spring. “Do you— I mean, are you…?”
Markham wrapped an arm about her shoulders. “Not yet.”
The rushing stilled. She nodded.
“Is Lord Bromton absolutely out of the question? Even if I swear to his honor?”
“Honor, as men define the word, doesn’t tell me much about what kind of husband Bromton would make. Is he understanding?”
Markham scoffed. “You are such a woman.”
“I am all astonishment,” she repeated his words. “If you want me to consider his suit, tell me something useful. For instance, how does the marquess treat his sisters—his mother?”
“If that is a measure of a man’s worth, then I am in real troub—”
Again, she lopped his arm. “Just answer, for once.”
Markham sighed. “He hasn’t any siblings. He’s the last of his line.”
She bit her lip, haunted by a sudden sense of loss. What would she do without Julia—without Markham?
“I haven’t been introduced to his mother,” Markham said. “Remarried some months ago. An artist, I think. Or was it a musician?” He removed his arm and examined his fingers. “Whatever he was, there was definitely a minor scandal.”
“Really?” Interesting. “Some peers wouldn’t have blessed such a union.”
“I know,” Markham replied, and he glanced up, his gaze steady. “If he’s already invited scandal into his home, isn’t that proof enough he’d be willing to overlook your past?”
She had no answer…just a nagging feeling. But was the marquess the source of the unsettling sense something was wrong? Perhaps, the discontent sprung from within.
He sighed. “Again, I wouldn’t have invited Bromton if I did not think you’d suit.”
“I believe you…now.”
He cocked his head so he could see her face. “He has a castle.”
She thinned her lips.
“I imagine,” he said with false lightness, “such a vast estate is a taxing load to bear on one’s own.”
She answered with a low growl.
“You’d love being a marchioness,” he continued. “You know you would.”
“You didn’t bring Bromton here because he needs me.”
“What if,” Markham spoke with serious care, “that was exactly why I brought him?”
“I told you—no more quips.” Only Markham did not look as if he were jesting.
“I am telling the truth. Brom is first-rate—not like the others. And you’re—” Markham scratched his neck.
“I am what?” she asked, her throat clogged.
“You’re first-rate, too.” He picked at a spot on the coverlet. “Brom’s alone. No termagant sisters. I’d call that heaven…only, truth is, it sounds…”
“Lonely,” she finished, blinking away an unexpected sheen in her eyes.
Markham nodded. “I cannot truly explain, but the more time I spent with Bromton, the more I thought you’d suit. Will you consider him?”
If she’d been wrong from the start—wrong about Bromton’s reason for coming, wrong about the sincerity of his friendship with Markham, wrong about his intentions—could she also be wrong about him?
“I may,” she said carefully, “contemplate the possibility of considering him.”
Markham glanced upward. “Only you could consider considering.”
She lifted her chin. “That is all I will grant you.”
“Think of Julia,” he said. “You could be in London for her debut.”
“That is low, Percy.”
He grinned. “I know.”
She composed herself with a stiff inhale and a sarcastic tone. “You will continue to pester me, won’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Markham replied. “And on the subject of pestering, do call off the servants, would you? I’ll be half-mad if I don’t get sleep tonight.”
/> Half-mad—yes. She was well past mad herself. And her efforts to make Bromton leave had pushed him to the very edge as well, hadn’t they? Neither of them had been at their best.
“Very well,” she sighed. “Since you’re too stubborn to leave…”
“If we’d left, you would have been disappointed.”
He was right, blast all. She nudged his shoulder with hers.
“I love you,” she said. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Such a woman.” He sighed, throwing his arm around her.
She laid her head on his shoulder—something she doubted she’d ever done before. How odd. Had she been incapable of accepting help…accepting comfort?
“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said.
“Good night, Kate.”
She got up and strode to the door. “Good night, Percy.” This time, she said Percy with affection.
The latch clicked closed behind. The dimly lit corridor welcomed her like a comforting haven. She wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned against the door.
First-rate. She held the word up to an inner light and examined its mysterious facets. Was she first-rate? Dare she allow such a thought? She stoked her long-standing shame. It sputtered and smoked but failed to fan to flame. First-rate.
No. She could not claim to be a treasure. But what if Markham was right about Bromton? What if the marquess truly wanted to court her because he believed they would suit? Had she finally found a man who could see past her mistakes?
She tested the possibility of a future she’d long ago relinquished. A place in the ton. The ability to ease Julia’s way. A home. A husband.
Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. As if she’d summoned him, Bromton’s pensive form took shape at the top of the stair. Broad shoulders. Strength in his stance.
Maybe, just maybe, her first impression of the marquess had been right. Maybe Lord Bromton really was strong enough to wrestle fate and walk away the victor.
But was he strong enough to wrestle her fate?
She cleared her throat. “Your rooms are in the other direction.”
He turned, half-bowed in acknowledgment, and then straightened, looking as embarrassed as she was. She’d caught him unaware; he hadn’t the time to don his usual mask. For the first time, she perceived his vulnerable underbelly.
Could she—no proper lady, a ruin and, now, a mess—have something of value to offer this man? Was the danger she’d perceived nothing more than a screen for a lonely soul?
“Lady Katherine,” he cleared his throat, “my behavior in the billiards room—” His jaw tightened. “I owe you an apology.”
She crossed the corridor. “Please don’t.” She wasn’t proud of the things she’d said and done, but neither did she wish to relinquish the memory of that kiss. “Neither of us,” she hesitated, “has gotten much rest. I…” she wet her lips, “…I was about to, well…” She inhaled. “You should be able to sleep tonight.”
He lifted his brows. His hopeful expression made her want to thread her fingers through his hair and clasp his head to her chest. Appalling…and, also, sweet.
“A truce?” he asked.
She nodded. “A truce.”
His exhale was audible relief. And not just any relief, but the relief of a man holding a spent pistol, peering through smoke and discovering his opponent had survived their duel unscathed.
“Where do we stand?” he asked.
“That,” she replied carefully, “remains to be seen.”
He opened his eyes. “A test?”
As if she had any right to test a marquess. “Time for us to know one another, more like.”
His face lit with a promise of knowing that went beyond words. Then, he took her right hand into both of his and placed a lingering kiss against her knuckles—adoration that could and would spread to her body the moment she granted him permission.
Heat and desire urged a budding tenderness to blossom. She turned her hand and cupped his cheek.
“Good night, Lord Bromton.”
A smile ghosted his lips. “Sleep well,” he murmured, “my hellion.” He bowed and then disappeared into the darkness.
His hellion she wasn’t.
But, heaven help her, she wanted to be.
Chapter Five
After a rocky start, Bromton could hardly believe everything had fallen so effortlessly into place. He eased into the sway of the carriage carrying them all to Sunday service and willed away a nudge from his conscience.
He should be pleased, for goodness sake. Katherine had offered time to know one another. Last night, her offer might as well have been a vein of pure gold for all the greedy glee it had roused in his soul.
So, why did he now feel he had triumphed without winning?
He glanced at Katherine. Didn’t the hellion understand that a trap was a trap, no matter how tentative the rabbit? Not that he’d be foolish enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. He drummed his fingers against his knee as the carriage stilled, shunting aside thoughts of Trojans.
Thankfully, most of the village parishioners had already taken their seats within the small chapel. Only the rector and an older woman lingered in the churchyard.
“Ah, Markham,” the rector said, “what a delightful surprise.”
Markham returned the dismayingly cheerful greeting, made introductions, and then inquired after the health of the elderly woman—Miss Watson. The spinster beamed with happiness and then proceeded to regale them with a list of aliments that, if true, would have confined her, not only to home, but to bed.
Yet, if Markham and his sisters found Miss Watson tedious, they did not betray their frustration. Instead, Markham offered solicitous concern, while Katherine and Julia supplied various suggestions.
The old marquess would have been revolted if he had witnessed a noble family exhibiting such familiarity with someone so clearly beneath them. He would have said the Stanleys’ rapport with the spinster bore the marks of gentry. Lower gentry.
Katherine unpinned her shawl and wrapped it around Miss Watson’s shoulders. Markham dismissed the woman’s protests with a hearty chuckle. All the while, the rector looked on with unmistakable pride.
Confounding.
Markham and his sisters—Bromton blinked—were genuinely liked. Not just esteemed or admired, but liked.
Bromton had been esteemed, perhaps even admired, but, with the exception of Farring—whose affability left one exhausted, truth be told—no one, to Bromton’s knowledge, liked him, not even the woman who had given him birth. Certainly, the ladies of his parish church had never eyed him with delight the way Miss Watson eyed Markham and his sisters.
Bromton frowned. Markham’s dimples didn’t hurt their perception of him as an affable gentleman. Those dimples misled. Little did these people know the pup had made a marquess quake in the not-so-distant past.
Still, he might try using that expression Markham had perfected—the one that enchanted everyone he met.
Try…and be met with astonished derision. His frown remained. He was what he was—imperious and dammed.
“Our little town has many unique assets,” the rector said. “And one couldn’t ask for a better guide than our Lady Katherine.”
Our Lady Katherine? With renewed interest, Bromton turned. “Have you been with the parish long?”
“Not long.” The rector’s eyes twinkled. “I merely officiated the last earl’s marriage, and christened all three of his children. Lady Katherine could not be dearer, if she were my own daughter.”
A disturbing thought danced at the edge of Bromton’s memory. Hadn’t Markham said something about Katherine’s first betrothed having been the son of the rector and the nephew of an earl? Bromton slid a hand beneath the lapel of his coat, wrapping his fingers against his ribs.
But for a twist of fate, could this man have been father-in-law to Katherine, and Katherine a happily wedded matron…forever beyond his reach? His disquiet grew into the shocking sense he
had narrowly missed disaster.
“…such a dear, our Lady Katherine.” Miss Watson joined the conversation. “So kind. Always ready to lend a hand.”
“Yes,” Mr. Chandler added, “she is a jewel.”
Everyone but Katherine turned an expectant gaze to him.
He cleared his throat. “Making Lady Katherine’s acquaintance has been,” he hesitated, “of great significance.”
Katherine’s eyes flew to his. His chest constricted, and his heart raced. Oddly enough, this discomfit belonged, not to him, but to Katherine. He acted on instinct to turn attention away.
He held his arm out to the spinster. “Miss Watson, may I escort you in?”
Markham then took Julia’s arm, Katherine, the rector’s, but not before Bromton caught Katherine’s grateful glance.
In a not-so-discreet whisper, Miss Watson asked, “Is there reason to anticipate?”
He glanced askance. “To hope, Miss Watson. To hope.” Hope. Perhaps the only word that could encompass the mass of fear, expectation, and agitation swirling in his gut.
Whispers rushed through the congregation as they entered. One fed another, and then another, punctuated by sharp inhales and an occasional sigh. Katherine had warned him his presence would arouse speculation. She hadn’t exaggerated.
They took their seats, and the service began. Nothing about the chapel’s brownish stone walls and timbered roof should have caused foreboding, but as the hymns droned on, the walls encroached and the ceiling inched down.
Perhaps such sensations preceded one’s skin bursting into flame.
Yes, he was wooing a lady of the congregation under false pretense, but Katherine would have compensation adequate to her sacrifice. A husband. A title. An indisputable position as mistress of Bromton. And the thing she’d value most—connections to ease Julia’s way.
Not enough.
He suppressed the thought, but it bounced back in the form of the accusations she had hurled since he arrived.
She’d accused him of not believing in love. She’d called him a brute. She’d said she was sure he was after something.
Guilty on all counts.
What was love, anyway? An ephemeral notion constructed by poets and storytellers. He had never actually seen such folly up close. And if, in his near three decades, he hadn’t seen romantic love—or any love for that matter—why should he believe it existed?
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