“Well,” Kate said cheerfully, “you’re certainly going about it the right way. I don’t imagine there’s a girl in London who could resist a man who calls her bullheaded.”
Freddy pulled at one end of his thick golden mustache. “You know what I mean. Why d’you have to be so stubborn?”
“I’m not being stubborn, Freddy,” Kate said. “You know I love you. Just not as a wife should love a husband. I mean—I’m not in love with you.”
“How do you know?” Freddy demanded. “You’ve never been in love before.”
“No,” Kate admitted candidly enough. “But I’ve certainly read about it in books, and—”
Freddy made a rude noise. “You and your books!”
“You ought to try reading one once, Freddy,” Kate said mildly. “You might actually like it.”
“I doubt it. Anyway, what does it matter whether or not you’re in love with me? I’m in love with you, and that’s all that matters. You could always learn to be in love with me,” Freddy said, warming to his subject. “Wives do it all the time. And you ought to be better at it than most of my friends’ wives. You’re a quick study, after all. Everyone said you’d never last a minute at this governessing business, but look how well you’ve done for yourself.”
“Who said I’d never last a minute at governessing?” Kate demanded, but the earl waved her indignation aside.
“I can be quite lovable, you know,” Freddy informed her. “Virginia Chittenhouse was mad for me last spring. I assure you she cried dreadfully when I was forced to admit that my heart would always belong to you, even though you haven’t a penny to your name anymore, and that in your old age, you’d developed an acid tongue in that head of yours.”
“You ought not to have put Virginia Chittenhouse off,” Kate said, with some effrontery. “She’s hardly acid-tongued, and I understand she’s just come into fifty thousand pounds.”
The Earl of Palmer got up again, and made a dramatic gesture. “I don’t need fifty thousand pounds. I need you, Katherine Mayhew!”
“Precisely how many glasses of Mr. Sledge’s brandy did you consume while you were waiting for me, Freddy?” Kate asked suspiciously.
“You’re to give up this governessing slavery at once,” Freddy declared, “and run away with me to Paris.”
“Lord, Freddy, we’d be at one another’s throat by Calais, and you know it. I sincerely hope you’re drunk. It’s the only logical explanation for this extremely perverse behavior.”
The earl sank back down into his chair defeatedly. “I’m not drunk. I just got so wild with boredom waiting for you. That fool Sledge kept looking in every five minutes, asking me if there was anything I needed. He tried to talk to me about those popping new guineas.”
“Papua New Guineans,” Kate said, correcting him with a smile.
Freddy made a dismissive gesture. “Whatever. Where were you, Kate? The concert was supposed to end by nine.”
Kate said, “I got back as quickly as I could. I had to take the omnibus, you know, as I hadn’t the luxury of the use of your carriage, since you never appeared.” She shot him a reproving look, and was bracing herself for more marriage proposals, when she suddenly straightened and added, “Oh, and I nearly forgot. I ran into the most extraordinary scene on my way home. Right outside—right on Park Lane—I saw a man fling a young woman over his shoulder and attempt to stuff her into a chaise-and-four.”
The Earl of Palmer stirred in his seat, and his truculent expression darkened. “You’re making it up. You’re making it up to put me off the subject of marrying me. Well, Kate, it won’t work. I’m absolutely determined this time. I even told Mother. She wasn’t for it, but she said if I wanted to make a fool of myself, she couldn’t stop me.”
Kate chose to ignore his last sentence. “I swear to you I’m telling the truth. It was perfectly astonishing. I had to threaten the fellow with the tip of my umbrella before he’d put her down again.”
Freddy blinked. “Was he an Arab?”
“Certainly not. He was a gentleman—or at least, he professed to be. He was dressed like one, in any case, in evening clothes, and he had a number of rather dim-witted lackeys about him. He was quite tall, and very broad-shouldered, and had a lot of very wild, very dark hair, and an olive complexion—”
“An Arab!” Freddy cried excitedly.
“Oh, Freddy, he wasn’t an Arab.”
“How do you know? He might have been.”
“First of all, he spoke to me in perfect Queen’s English, without the slightest accent. And secondly, one of his idiot servants addressed him as ‘my lord.’ And he had the most extraordinarily green eyes I have ever seen. Arabs have dark eyes. His were light, almost glowing, like a cat’s.”
Freddy set his jaw. “You certainly got a good look at him.”
“Well, of course I did. He was standing not four feet away from me. The fog wasn’t that thick tonight. Besides, there was light falling from the house.”
“Which house?”
“Not two doors down.” Kate pointed at the wall to their left.
The Earl of Palmer relaxed visibly. “Oh,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Traherne.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Traherne. He’s taken old Kellogg’s place for the season. His daughter’s first.”
“Yes, the girl he’d been abusing so abominably turned out to be his daughter. A very headstrong young person.”
“Isabel,” Freddy said, stifling a yawn. “Yes, I’ve seen her about quite a bit. She’s every bit as wild as her father, from what I understand. Made a spectacle throwing herself at some penniless second son of someone or other at the opera the other night. It was excruciatingly embarrassing, even for a jaded observer of human behavior like myself. It isn’t any wonder the old man was playing a bit rough with her.”
Kate knit her brow. “Traherne? I’ve never heard of a Lord Traherne. I’ve been out of society for quite a little bit, I know, but—”
“Not Traherne. Wingate. Burke Traherne’s the second Marquis of Wingate. Or the third, or something. How a fellow’s supposed to keep track of all that, I still haven’t—”
“Wingate? That sounds familiar.”
“Well, it should. The man created quite a scandal—though now that I think of it, you were probably in the schoolroom at the time. I was was still at Eton. I remember your mater and pater talking about it once, over dinner with my own ma and pa. Well, things like that can’t help but get round—”
“Things like what?” Kate was not fond of gossip, having been the subject of more than a little of it in her time. Still, those eyes weren’t easily forgotten.
“The Wingate divorce. It was all anybody talked of for months. It was in all the papers—” Freddy frowned. “Not that I read them, of course, but you can’t help glancing at the stories as you tear them up, you know.”
“Divorce?” Kate shook her head. “Oh, no. You must be mistaken. The young lady—Isabel—told me her mother was dead.”
“And she is. Died penniless on the Continent after Traherne was finished dragging her and her lover through the courts.”
“Lover?” Kate stared. She couldn’t help it. “Freddy!”
“Oh, yes, it was quite the scandal,” Freddy said pleasantly. “Married absurdly young, Traherne did—a love match, with the only daughter of the Duke of Wallace. Elisabeth, I think her name was. Anyway, it turned out to be a love match on his side only. Not a year after Isabel was born, Traherne caught her—Elisabeth, I mean—in a clinch with some sort of Irish poet or something, at a ball in his very own house. Traherne’s house, I mean. Threw the fellow out a second-story window, from what I understand, and headed straight for his lawyer’s office the next day.”
Kate gasped. “Good Lord. Did he die?”
“Traherne? Of course not. I’m certain that’s who you saw this evening. He’s kept to himself a good bit, understandably—well, no decent hostess’ll have ’im at her table—but I suppose he feels he’s
had to make an entree back into society, if he ever wants to get that hellcat of his married off.”
Kate took a deep breath for patience. Her long acquaintance with the Earl of Palmer had done more to prepare her for a teaching career than any formal training ever could.
“I meant,” Kate said, “did his wife’s lover die, when Lord Wingate threw him out the window?”
“Oh,” Freddy said. “No, not at all. He recovered, and married the woman, once the divorce was final. Of course, the two of them couldn’t set foot in England again, not after that. Nobody would have ’em, not even their own families.”
“And the child?”
“The child? Isabel, you mean? Well, Traherne raised ’er, of course. You’d hardly expect ’im to let his wife do it. Former wife, I mean. I doubt the woman ever saw her daughter again. Traherne would have seen to that. I remember there was a bit of a fuss not too long ago about old Wallace—Elisabeth’s father, don’t you know—wanting to visit with his grandchild, and Traherne forbidding it. Very unpleasant, I must say.”
“Very.” Kate frowned in distaste. “What a perfectly horrid little tale.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” Freddy said cheerfully.
Kate held up a hand, palm out. “I don’t care to hear it, thank you.”
“But it’s quite good. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, Katie.”
Kate, lowering her hand, shot him a warning look. “You know I don’t like gossip, Freddy. Particularly when it involves members of the beau monde. There is nothing duller to me than hearing about the trials and tribulations of the absurdly rich.”
Freddy grinned delightedly. “Oh, are we going to have a debate? I dearly love debating with you, Kate. It will be just like old times.”
Kate glared at him. “No it won’t. Because there’s nothing to debate. There can’t be two sides to this issue. I’m sick to death of hearing about wealthy, educated people who are incapable of behaving better than ... than back alley curs.”
“You’re being quite hard on poor Traherne,” Freddy chastised her. “From what I understand, the fellow never recovered from his wife’s betrayal. He’s turned into a cold, bitter shell of his former vigorous self.”
“He looked extremely vigorous to me,” Kate said, thinking of the ease with which the man had thrown his daughter—who was no lightweight, being a good few inches taller, and a good many pounds heavier than Kate.
“Oh, he’s not wanting for female companionship,” Freddy assured her. “Sara Woodhart’s the latest, from what I understand. You remember, I told you about seeing her last month in Macbeth.”
Rousing herself from memories of the marquis’s vigorous figure, Kate said, “Yes, that’s right. His daughter mentioned something about how he’d rather be with a Mrs. Woodhart than tagging along after her from ballroom to ballroom—”
“Which would be why Traherne’s got a slew of chaperones looking out for her. And not very well, either, from what I’ve observed.”
Kate shook her head. “He ought to remarry. It would be cheaper for him, in the long run. And I’m certain in this year’s crop of society misses he could find a girl stupid—or greedy—enough to turn a blind eye to his philandering with vapid actresses.”
“Except that Traherne’s sworn off marriage. Everyone knows it. Says marriage ruined his life, and he won’t chance it a second time, thank you very much.”
“Oh,” Kate said knowingly. “How original. A rich and handsome nobleman who has sworn off marriage. He must have every eligible young lady in London in a dither, trying to dissuade him.”
“There, you see?” Freddy, grinning broadly, leaned forward and tapped her on the hand. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You did quite well. I’m prodigiously proud of you.”
Kate, after blinking at him for a second, realized what he was talking about, tightened the hand he had touched into a fist, and got up suddenly from her chair.
“That wasn’t fair,” she said, facing away from him, her back very stiff.
“Of course it was.” Freddy did not seem to notice her distress. He yawned and stretched before the fire. “It was a lovely gossip. I feel quite like it was old times again.”
“Stop it,” Kate said, still addressing the wall, and not him. In fact, she spoke so softly, Freddy only then noticed she’d left her seat, and looked toward her curiously. “It can never be old times again. You know that.”
“Now, Katie,” Freddy said, staring at her back with a certain degree of alarm. “Don’t go dredging up all of—”
“Freddy, how can I not?” Her voice did not shake, not even once.
“Katie,” the earl said gently. “Don’t.”
“I can’t help it. I think about it all the time. The other night I even ....”
“The other night you even what?” Freddy asked.
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes, however, when she finally turned around to face him, were too bright. “Nothing.”
“Kate,” he said, with a severity that didn’t sound teasing. “Tell me.”
She shrugged, but couldn’t meet his gaze as she said, “I thought I saw him again.”
Freddy blinked at her. “Thought you saw who?”
“Daniel Craven.” The words, as they fell from her lips, sounded heavy, as if each syllable were a brick, dropping onto the floor. “I thought I saw Daniel Craven.”
Freddy was up and out of his chair almost before the words were fully out of her mouth. He strode toward her, and took one of her hands in his. “Kate,” he said gently. “We’ve talked about this.”
“I know,” she said. Her gaze was on the carpet beneath their feet. “I know. But I can’t help it. I saw him, Freddy.”
“You saw someone who looked like him. That’s all.”
“No.”
Kate snatched her hand from his, and went to the closest window, parting the velvet curtains that covered it. She gazed unseeingly out into the fog-enshrouded street.
“It was him,” she said. “I know it was him. What’s more, Freddy, he was following me.”
“Following you?” Freddy hurried to her side. “Following you where?”
“Right here, on Park Lane. I was with the boys—”
“Daniel Craven,” Freddy said skeptically. “Daniel Craven, whom no one’s seen in London in seven years, was following you along this very street?”
“I know it sounds absurd.” Kate dropped the curtain back into place and turned back toward the fire. “You think I’m mad. And maybe I am ...”
Freddy stared after her, clearly troubled. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Kate. It’s just ...”
She stood, bathed in firelight, fingering the back of her chair. “It’s just what?” she asked, not looking at him.
“Well, so what if it was Daniel Craven, Kate? You can’t still think he had something to do with your parents’ deaths, can you? I thought we’d settled all that. What are you imagining?” Freddy shook his head. “That after seven years he’s come back to finish you off, as well?”
Kate set her jaw. “Yes. That’s rather what I was thinking. I’m sorry if you find it maudlin.”
“Oh, now, Kate,” Freddy cried. “Don’t look at me like that. You know there’s nothing, nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you. But all this rubbish about Daniel—you know what people said about it, at the time.”
Kate, looking very cross, sank back down into the chair she’d abandoned. “Of course I do. They all thought I made it up. I forgot you were among them,” she added, with genuine bitterness.
“Well, Kate, really,” Freddy said in gently chiding tones. “You always did have something of an imagination. That isn’t a bad thing, not at all. I’m sure it helps a good deal where your little charges are concerned, but—”
“All right,” Kate said, closing her eyes tiredly. “All right. I couldn’t have seen Daniel Craven. I won’t mention it again. But you ... you’ve got to stop proposing to me, Freddy. I can’t bear it. I really can’t. I mean, be
sides the fact that I’m not in love with you, you know I don’t want anything to do with those people—”
“Those people,” Freddy echoed. “Polite society, you mean?”
“I never saw anything polite about them,” Kate said stiffly. “Nor anything kind or considerate. My God, Freddy, I’m quite sure Cyrus Sledge’s Papua New Guineans would have treated me with more compassion than your mother—or all those people who claimed to be my friends—ever did. I’d hardly call a society that spent all of its time whispering about me, blaming me, for what my father did, a polite society—”
“Bloody hell!”
Now it was the earl’s turn to stride across the room. He did so with his fists buried in his trouser pockets.
“I came here to take you out for a nice evening, Kate,” he declared, from behind a table heavy with stuffed birds beneath glass bell jars. “So that you could forget, for a little while. How is it that no matter how hard I try to make you forget what happened with your parents, we always manage to come back to it?”
Kate turned on her hard chair to look at him, a little smile playing across her lips. “How? Freddy, take a look around. Isn’t it obvious? We’re sitting in someone else’s drawing room, because I haven’t one of my own anymore, and I daren’t set foot in yours, for fear of what your mother will say. Freddy, I am living proof of the fact that the gods do visit the sins of the fathers upon the children—”
“I thought,” Freddy interrupted, “that you hated the Bible. You always said that it didn’t have enough female characters in it to be interesting—”
“That wasn’t a quote from the Bible, Freddy, for heaven’s sake. It was Euripides. Didn’t you ever pay attention in school?”
Freddy ignored that question. “I feel like smashing something up,” he declared loudly.
“Well,” Kate said. “Then you’d better go. I can’t afford to get the sack on account of your smashing something. The Sledges might be hideously boring, but at least they’re kind, which is more than I can say for some of my past employers.”
Freddy said, “Bloody hell,” again and turned to go, just as the doorknob moved, and Cyrus Sledge, looking extremely nervous, poked his head into the room.
A little scandal Page 3
