A little scandal

by Patricia Cabot

  It was a joyous reunion. So joyous, in fact, that Kate felt it only proper to withdraw, and leave the two of them alone to enjoy it. Discreetly, she made her way down the hallway to the staircase, at the bottom of which she noticed the little maid, pacing back and forth across the foyer, looking furious.

  Determined to discover the truth about Daniel’s whereabouts—or at the very least, his motives—Kate made her way down the stairs, trying to appear as unconcerned as possible.

  “Oy,” the maid said, when she noticed Kate. “Listen here. You’ve got no cause to come bustin’ in here like you did. Dan—I mean, Mr. Craven’s not done anything wrong.”

  “Of course he hasn’t,” Kate said soothingly, when she reached the bottom of the staircase. “No one is suggesting any such thing.”

  “I don’t know what she’s been telling you”—the maid lifted a reproachful gaze toward the ceiling—“but it ain’t true. Mr. Craven’s a right gentleman, he is. He didn’t lay a finger on her.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Kate said, pausing in front of an ormolu framed mirror to tuck a few loose strands of hair back beneath her bonnet.

  The maid’s face, which Kate could see plainly reflected in the mirror, lost some of its pinched look.

  “She told you that, then?” The girl nodded. “Well, it’s the truth. He’s got no interest in her. Not that way.”

  It was quite evident from the maid’s tone where she believed Daniel Craven’s interests lay instead.

  “Indeed?” Kate turned, and looked down at the young woman. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. Kate Mayhew.” She extended her hand.

  The girl blinked at the gloved hand for a second or two before taking it loosely in hers, and giving it a squeeze. “Martha,” she said quickly. Only because she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the th, it came out sounding like “Marfa.”

  “How do you do, Martha?” Kate asked. She busied herself with rifling through her reticule, as if she were looking for something.

  “I do all right,” Martha said sullenly.

  “It’s strange, don’t you think, Martha,” Kate went on mildly, “that Mr. Craven should have left you so suddenly.”

  The girl threw back her shoulders. “He only went,” she said importantly, “to settle a few business matters in town. He’ll be back by week’s end. He told me so.”

  This was an entirely different version of events leading up to Daniel’s departure than the one told by Isabel.

  “And the Lady Isabel?” Kate asked casually. “Was she to wait for his return?”

  Martha’s expression turned scornful again. “Not her. He said she’d be well gone by the time he got back. He said her family would come ....” Martha’s blue eyes widened, and her mouth clamped shut. Apparently, it occurred to her that she had said too much.

  But what little she had said was all that Kate needed to hear. She was still uncertain as to the reasons behind Daniel’s scheme, but that it went beyond a mere elopement she had now ascertained beyond a doubt.

  “Go upstairs,” Kate said, closing her reticule and looking down at the maid, not without compassion, “and pack up her ladyship’s things. We’ll leave as soon as you’re finished.”

  The girl shifted her weight uncertainly from one foot to another. “You ... you’re her family, then?” Martha asked.

  “Yes,” Kate said decidedly. “We’re her family.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Smoke.

  It was what had wakened Kate that night, so many years ago. The smell of smoke. It was a smell which had stayed with her for months afterward, and not just because it had clung to everything she owned—everything that was not lost to the fire or to the debt collectors after her parents’ deaths. It was an odor to which she’d grown so sensitive, so alert, that the slightest burning of a tea scone sent her scurrying down to the kitchens, even from several floors above.

  But it seemed unlikely, when she opened her eyes that night, that anyone was burning scones at three o’clock in the morning.

  That was what the face of the watch she’d placed by her bedside read, and Kate had no reason to disbelieve it. Her sleep had not exactly been restful, but rather fitful, and not just because she was sharing her bed with another. Another who, even as she lay there, blinking in the semidarkness, was snoring fitfully.

  Not the Marquis of Wingate. No, the marquis never snored. But his daughter, the Lady Isabel, did, and quite noisily, too.

  Kate turned her head on her pillow, wondering whether she ought to wake the sleeping girl. Isabel had dozed off in the midst of one of the many tearful fits she’d suffered since they’d found her. Isabel had her own room, of course, but she seemed to prefer Kate’s. Now she slept, fully clothed, in the room to which Kate had been shown by the innkeeper’s garrulous wife, leaving Kate to wonder whether or not she was really smelling smoke, or had only dreamed she did ....

  And to continue pondering the topic that had kept her awake long after Isabel had dozed off, a topic she had not dared bring up with the girl ....

  What was she going to do?

  Not about Daniel Craven. That subject, as far as Kate was concerned, was closed. Burke had made it more than clear that he intended to find the man and dispatch him at his earliest convenience. Kate’s attempts to convince him that, though Daniel had treated Isabel very shabbily, indeed, he had not actually caused any irreparable damage, had fallen upon deaf ears. The Marquis of Wingate intended to find Daniel Craven and kill him, just as soon as he’d safely delivered his daughter back to London.

  And Kate found that she couldn’t blame him. Daniel had outdone himself this time. Though she tried, Kate could not, for the life of her, imagine what he’d hoped to accomplish in his mad dash with Isabel ....

  Well, that wasn’t quite true. She had one theory about why he might have done it. But it was so perfectly ridiculous—and so thoroughly frightening—that she pushed it immediately from her mind.

  No. Daniel, being Daniel, had seen in Isabel an invitation to a fortune, and he’d accepted that invitation, only to find that in the end, for some reason known only to him, he could not quite bring himself to go through with it.

  But what was the point of wondering at the motives of such a man, when there was another so much more complicated—and so much more appealing—man to consider? For the real reason Kate could not sleep was that she could not stop thinking about Burke.

  And not just about Burke, but about what she was going to do tomorrow, when he ordered the carriage round.

  For she realized now that what she’d said to the maid Martha that morning was true: they were a family.

  And there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it. Not when she was as hopelessly in love with Burke as she knew she was. Not when she knew she would never be happy without him.

  How could Kate turn her back on such love, when all that was keeping her from embracing it was her dislike of the social circle in which he traveled? She felt now that she could endure it—endure it all, the sneers, the cuts, the stares—as long as she had Burke at her side. Even toward Isabel, she knew now, she felt as protective and affectionate a love as if the girl were her own child. With such love to support her, no social slight could hurt her. Not anymore.

  The problem, of course, was that now that she’d finally realized her love for Burke was stronger than her hatred for his social set, she had no idea how to go about letting him know it.

  They had not had a private moment together since discovering Isabel. And Burke’s attitude toward her during the course of the day had been decidedly unloverlike. Oh, he’d been unfailingly polite. But he had certainly never made anything like another proposal.

  And as firmly as she’d put his last proposal down, he wasn’t likely to make another.

  Nor could she blame him. He had been appalled, Kate knew, by what she’d revealed to him that morning—first about the baby, and the fact that she would not marry him, and then, later, the truth about Daniel Craven. App
alled and, she knew, disbelieving. And why should he have believed her—about Daniel, anyway—when no one else ever had?

  In any case, he’d made no reference to it afterward. All through the rest of the day, the marquis had not said a word to her, except when obligated to do so out of politeness. His attentions had, rightfully, been focused on Isabel. It was in deference to Isabel’s still fragile state that the marquis decided they would stay another night in Gretna Green to allow her to rest, before starting back for London the next morning. It had been for Isabel’s sake that Burke had sought out the finest hotel in the town, and bribed the innkeeper to turn over three of his best rooms to the marquis, in spite of the fact he’d not reserved them beforehand.

  And now it was three o’clock in the morning, and though Kate was in what was surely the most comfortable bed, in the prettiest hotel room, in all of Scotland, she couldn’t sleep.

  She had been, she knew, a fool. And like any fool, now she would be forced to suffer for her folly. She would have to go back to Lynn Regis, and to Nanny Hinkle. The marquis would, of course, offer support for their unborn child, and Kate supposed she would have to take it, since she truly had no other source of income. And he would doubtless insist on seeing the child from time to time, which would necessitate her being in his company, making it all the more difficult for her to forget him.

  Miserable, Kate rolled over ...... and smelled it again.

  This time it was unmistakable. Smoke. Wafting through her bedroom.

  But not, she realized, smoke from a fire. No, this was the smell of burning, all right, but burning tobacco. Someone was smoking. Someone was smoking, and quite close by.

  Bemused, Kate sat up and reached for her peignoir. The rooms to which the party belonging to the Marquis of Wingate had been assigned were on the third floor, where each chamber contained a pair of French doors that opened out onto a small terrace, upon which, the innkeeper’s wife had explained, when she’d shown it to Kate, guests liked to breakfast, weather permitting. Getting out of bed, Kate could see that the woman had left the doors to this terrace open a crack, allowing not only the autumn chill to seep in, but the smoke she kept smelling.

  Could it be—Kate’s heart leapt a little—that Burke was out there, on the terrace belonging to his own room? Had he gone outside to smoke in solitude? She had known the marquis to partake of a cigar now and then. Perhaps he, like herself, was finding it difficult to sleep, and had stepped outside to enjoy some fresh air.

  She didn’t hesitate another second.

  She swung open the French door, and stepped outside.

  The rain of the past few days had passed, though the sky was still not completely cloudless. It was dark, but a bit of moonlight shone ... enough so that she could plainly see such things as the small wrought-iron table at the center of her narrow terrace, and the fountain—shut off, this time of year—in the hotel’s courtyard below.

  She did not need the moonlight, however, to trace the source of the pungent aroma of burning tobacco. She saw that quite clearly when the person smoking it inhaled, and sent the tip of the cigar glowing bright red. He was not sitting, however, on the adjacent terrace, or even on the one after that. Instead, he was leaning against the railing of Kate’s, and it was clear, from the light which spilled from the open doors to the terrace belonging to the room next door to hers, how he’d gotten there.

  If he was surprised to see Kate join him so suddenly, he didn’t show it. Instead, he only said softly, “Well, isn’t this fortuitous. I was just sitting here thinking, How in hell am I to wake her without alerting the bloody child?, when out you step. Good show, Kate.”

  Kate, shaken to the core, reached up and gripped the collar of her peignoir, as if clutching the flimsy material together would keep out not only the chilly air, but his unwelcome presence, as well.

  “Daniel,” she said, through lips that had gone bloodless. “What ... what are you doing here?”

  But the truth was, she knew. She had known all along.

  And it hadn’t anything at all to do with Isabel.

  “The marquis is right next door,” Kate said quickly, before he had a chance to reply. She pointed at the balcony to her right, though truthfully, she hadn’t the slightest idea if that was Burke’s room, or the room Isabel had eschewed for hers. No light came through the tightly sealed French doors. “He’s furious with you. He’ll kill you, if he finds out you’re here.”

  “I know it,” Daniel said, calmly exhaling another long plume of blue smoke. “I took care, however, not to make my way upstairs until I’d received word he’d retired for the night.”

  His expression grew thoughtful. “It’s amazing what a man can discover when he ventures into the kitchens of an establishment.”

  “Oh, you have quite a way with the help,” Kate said bitterly. “I’m certain it will be months before Martha recovers from your venturing into her establishment.”

  He cocked up an inquisitive eyebrow. “Martha?” he asked. And then, brightening, he continued, “Oh, Martha. Yes, yes. Charming girl. Not quite as charming, perhaps, as the wife of the proprietor of this fine old place, but quite equally ... malleable.”

  Kate set her jaw. “So you secured from that charmingly malleable woman a key to the room next to mine,” she said coolly.

  “Indeed.” Daniel stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles. “You are an extremely difficult person to locate, Kate. You know I tried for some time to contact you after that fascinating conversation we had—what was it, now? Three months ago?—at Lady Tetmiller’s ball, that night many weeks ago. I attempted to continue this conversation in Lord Wingate’s garden, but ... well, you remember. Lord Wingate had a serious objection to our tete-a-tete, you’ll recall. I suppose I ought to apologize for leaving you so suddenly—but then, I’m opposed to bullets entering my person, and I was quite certain he’d never shoot you.”

  Kate stared at him. It was just as she’d thought, of course. She really shouldn’t have been surprised. And yet ....

  And yet she was, a little.

  It’s all my fault, she thought. Everything—every bit of it—was my fault. Poor Isabel. Poor, sweet, stupid Isabel.

  She felt cold, but knew that her chill had nothing to do with the temperature outside.

  “I had, of course, a devil of a time figuring out what happened to you when you disappeared from London so suddenly,” Daniel went on. “I didn’t want to flatter myself, but I couldn’t help wondering if your disappearance and our little conversation had something to do with one another. You were never one to run from a fight, but then, a good deal of time had gone by since I’d last seen you, and so ...” Daniel shrugged. “I thought it might behoove me to establish a friendship with Lady Isabel, in order to better ascertain your whereabouts.”

  “Friendship?” Kate echoed bitterly. “Is that what you call it? You seduced her, you vile—”

  “Good Lord.” Daniel actually heaved a shudder of distaste. “Bite your tongue. I never laid a finger on the child. Well, all right, a finger, but ‘seduction’ is entirely too strong a word for it. Especially when it became all too clear that the silly chit was not only ignorant of your location, but suspicious of your motives for abandoning her, which led me to believe you had, indeed, fled London because of me.”

  Kate said nothing. She wasn’t about to admit the truth, which was that until Burke had come to her with the astonishing news of Isabel’s elopement, Kate had not given her conversation with Daniel that fateful night a second thought. She’d had far more pressing concerns.

  But now she remembered it. She remembered it all too clearly.

  “I devised, as I’m sure you are now more than aware,” Daniel continued, “a plan by which, since the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain. I knew how fond you were of that insipid offspring of Traherne’s. If you thought her in danger, you’d most definitely come out of hiding—even at the risk of encountering me. And you see, of cours
e, that I was right. Here you are. And here”—he smiled, and she noticed, not for the first time, what a reptilian smile he had—“am I.”

  Kate realized she was shaking, shaking all over, and not with cold. No, she was shaking with something she couldn’t explain ....

  Or maybe she could, but didn’t want to.

  “You can’t possibly think,” she said, in a voice that trembled every bit as much as her fingers, “that after what you’ve just told me, I’m going to stand out here and speak with you as if nothing has happened. Quite frankly, I think you’re mad. And I don’t care to converse with madmen. Good night, sir.”

  She turned to go back inside, intending to slam and lock the French doors behind her. But before she’d gone two steps, he had leapt up from the terrace railing, and seized her by the wrist.

  “Not so fast, Katie,” he said, the words coming out a bit garbled, thanks to the cigar he still kept clenched between his teeth.

  Kate twisted in his iron grip. “Let go of me!”

  “Little cat.” The moonlight showed that Daniel’s expression, while calm, was eerily so, the way the wind, just before a storm, often calmed to a deathlike hush. “Where do you think you’re going? We haven’t finished our chat.”

  “Please let go of me, Daniel,” Kate said, realizing that struggling against his grip was proving not only painful, but useless, as well. She decided to try pleading instead. “If you let me go, I swear I won’t tell anyone you were here. You can trust me. No one believed me when I told the last time, did they?”

  He gazed down at her, his face no longer calm at all, but tight with stark emotion.

  “The last time?” He dragged her forward and bent down so that his face was just inches from hers. His breath, when he spoke, was hot on her face, and stank of cigar smoke. “My God, there was no last time, do you understand? I had nothing to do with that fire.” He thrust her suddenly away, though he still kept a firm hold on her wrist. “Nothing.”

  Tears had begun to slide down Kate’s cheeks, but she paid not the slightest heed to them. They were not from the pain of his grip—though it was hurtful. They weren’t from fear, either. They were the result of something else. Something that Kate, up until that moment, had never dared to allow herself to feel, not in seven years.