Promise Me Heaven

by Connie Brockway

  Cat questioned him with a raised brow.

  Giles took a deep breath before continuing. “Lady Catherine.”

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  “I know this is sudden on my part, but these things are often understood between two parties before…” Giles trailed off, muttering a soft epitaph.

  A sudden explanation for Strand’s extraordinary behavior horrified Cat. Giles had heard the rumors about her. It should have been amusing. All of her well-laid plans, her carefully thought-out stratagems, her lessons with Thomas, had never garnered her the intense interest with which Giles was now watching her.

  Her goal had finally been achieved. It had taken the malicious tongues of society to pique Strand’s interest and bring him to the point of making an offer. But not the offer she had sought. Giles, Cat suspected, was going to offer her carte blanche. And it was not amusing.

  Cat felt the blood drain from her face. “Please, Lord Strand, do not—”

  Lifting a hand to forestall her, Giles smiled wryly. “Besides, what with your erstwhile parent gallivanting about the world, I might well be in my dotage were I to await a personal reply to my suit.”

  Cat stared at him, now utterly confounded.

  Her shocked expression apparently dismayed him. He ran a hand through his tangled golden hair. “I’m going about this badly, ain’t I, m’dear? I would look as shocked myself if some disheveled brute burst into my sanctuary spouting inane chatter. Let me begin again.”

  My God! Cat thought in a daze. Giles Dalton, Marquis of Strand, was going to offer for her hand. His brilliant silver eyes were alight with tenderness, his hesitancy suddenly explicable. She knew she should be fair swelling with triumph, delight, joy even as she knew the only emotion she felt was… pity. What did she know of Giles Dalton? She had pursued him with as little regard for his thoughts, concerns, or future happiness as the most hardened of social roués. She was ashamed.

  He was saying something else now. She had to stop him. Bursting into his soft recitation, she said, “Lord Strand, speaking in a purely hypothetical manner, I could not imagine a greater honor than to have you circumvent convention on my behalf. But I can also not conceive of any situation in which you might wish to do so.”

  She waited, her heart in her throat, praying he would understand and relinquish his as-yet-unvoiced suit.

  His eyes narrowed slightly in his handsome face, and his silence lasted a long heartbeat. “Well done, m’dear. Well felt.” They were by far the most intimate words he had ever spoken to her. “Is it Montrose?”

  Unprepared for that name coming from Strand, Cat brought her head up and she knew that in that instant her heart was clear in her eyes.

  “I thought as much. It is hardly unexpected. Thomas alone seems able to surprise you into candor. I have seen you all but yawn at some of the most celebrated wags, but say Montrose’s name and you fair blaze with emotion. You have never even spoken my given name, and yet you are no end filled with exclamations of ‘Thomas.’ ”

  “Surely you overstate the case, Lord Strand.”

  “No,” Giles said thoughtfully, “I think I state it very plainly. To society you are Lady Catherine Sinclair. To Montrose you are ‘Cat,’ and ‘Lady Cat,’ and any number of possibilities. And to you, Thomas Montrose is not merely a rusticating peer bored with the ton. I never stood a chance against a mentor, a co-conspirator, a playmate, a friend… a lover.”

  Her chin rose at that.

  Giles smiled grimly. “The ultimate physical act is, when all is said and done, merely that. It is not essential, though desirable.”

  Seeing Cat’s blush, Giles hurried on. “Forgive me,” he said. “I have been unconscionably forward. Thomas would call me out if he knew I had caused a stain to rise on your lovely cheeks. Regardless of his reputation, he is the most doggedly honor-bound man I have the pleasure of calling friend.”

  She froze. “Are you saying you know Thomas? How long have you known him? Do you know him well?”

  “Well?” Strand asked, cocking his head. He gave a short laugh. “I would have said so. We were at Salamanca together. It was he who asked me to keep an eye on you in Paris.”

  “In Paris? Thomas asked you to be my escort? He arranged it?”

  Strand noticed the color flushing her cheeks. “Of course. He told me not to leave you unattended under the direst of penalties. Not that I needed much persuasion. I confess, I was suspicious at first he was trying his hand at matchmaking. I know better now.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. I know Thomas very well. But then, I had thought I knew you, Lady Catherine. You have saved us both from a grave mistake. You would make a delightful marchioness, if only Montrose were a marquis.”

  He saluted her and, bowing sharply from the waist, took his leave of her.

  Thomas fair flew to Brighton, pushing his gelding to a punishing pace, desperate to outdistance the rumor of his claim. Claiming her as his wife was the only thing he could have done, he told himself. Cat—practical, systematic Cat—could be convinced it was the only sensible course to follow. A part of him was enraged because, through no fault of her own, she was forced to this pass. But the intoxicating joy that surged through him at the thought of making her his wife left little room for noble sentiments.

  Stopping at his rooms only long enough to change his linen and rid himself of the travel dust, Thomas sought Cat at the Castle Inn. It was still early. Few people were about. Thomas took the stairs two at a time in his eagerness to find her. In his haste, he nearly knocked over Marcus at the top of the stairs. Thomas nodded, intending to hurry past the boy, but a terse voice stayed him.

  “Well. Cat’s all sorts of popular today. How kind of you to remember her, Mr. Montrose.”

  “Of course I do. What the bloody hell is this?”

  “How splendid and miraculous. For no one else does! No one else remarks her very existence!”

  “I haven’t the time or the inclination for this now, boy. Your outraged sense of family honor is very commendable, but I won’t be offering you any explanations,” Thomas said, leaving the angry youth behind him.

  Rapping on the door, Thomas felt his heartbeat quicken in response to Cat’s voice, bidding him enter. She stood before the window, the soft light lining her voluptuous elegance with incandescence and teasing a coppery sheen from her tresses. She held a small silver shear and was ruthlessly beheading the blossoms in an enormous vase of roses. He smiled at the picture she presented. Though she adopted an attitude of regal composure in society, he well knew that the private Cat was an active one, given to very physical displays of emotion.

  “Something has not gone well?” he queried softly.

  Cat stiffened at the sound of his voice.

  “Why should you say that?” she asked without turning. Her voice was collected, even.

  Here was certainly no vaporous miss lying prostate with the horror of social ignominy. But he hadn’t expected there to be. “The grim testimony is scattered about your feet.”

  “The spent blooms merely take up room,” she said meaningfully.

  He heard the gravity of her tone and dropped his own cajoling one. “Oh?”

  She turned at last, and Thomas read the anger in her tight lips.

  Cat’s gaze flew to the livid wounds scoring his dark cheek. “What has happened to your face?” she demanded.

  “My face?” He furrowed his brow in obvious confusion.

  “Yes, your face. The thing that looks as though it has been attacked by a drunken chef with a fillet knife.”

  Thomas briefly touched the wound. “A mishap with a headstrong horse and some low-hanging branches.”

  “Pish.”

  “I swear, Cat, I have grown to loathe that expression with an unparalleled passion.”

  She stepped back from him even as he stepped forward. “Strand has just left.”

  “Strand?” Thomas repeated dumbly.

  “I applaud you on finally pronouncing his name
correctly. How timely of you, Thomas. But timing is a rake’s milieu. And that is what not only society but your own words assert you to be, is it not?”

  He narrowed his eyes, attempting to discern the reason for her obvious ire.

  “Is it not?”

  “I do not give a damn what society chooses to call me.”

  “How happy a circumstance for you. Would that I were so fortunate as to disregard an entire community, to serve my own whims.” Cat held up her hand to stop whatever he would have said. “So, society be damned. Do you not claim the title seducer? Libertine? Debauchee?”

  How quickly those words killed what had been the first stirring of hope in his jaded heart. How conveniently he had forgotten that those very titles she now flung at him were the same ones she had first sought him out for. But she had not forgotten, nor lost sight of the purpose that had led her to his home—and into his heart—months ago.

  “What is it, Cat? Has our association impeded one with Strand?” He came toward her, his advance slow, deliberate, until he stood before her, his size obstructing her view of the rest of the room. “Or is it something else? Has Strand had the temerity to suggest that you and I are—”

  “That we are what?” she flung out. “Lovers?”

  “I would have thought better of him,” Thomas murmured, adding, “There will be no further misunderstanding. I will see that he retracts his suggestion.” He turned to leave, but she reached and clasped his wrist.

  “Strand has proposed.”

  So she has finally gotten what she wanted, he thought. It was good that he was looking at her fingers. It was good, because he was not sure what he would do if he saw the triumph in her eyes. Yes, much better to see her hand. How pale it looked against his darker flesh.

  “It is deemed bad form to congratulate a prospective bride. But in your case, m’dear, I can think of nothing more appropriate.” He was relieved the words sounded so even.

  She snatched her hand from his arm. “I do not want your congratulations.”

  Still he did not look at her. “My best wishes then.”

  “Nor your best wishes.”

  His smile was tender. “But I have nothing left to offer you, nothing I have not already given.”

  And then he was gone, and his absence was more tangible than any other man’s presence.

  Chapter 29

  Bloody cold, isn’t it, Strand?” Thomas said without turning from his hotel window overlooking the street. “Last year the Thames froze over. But this seems just as cold. I cannot remember a more brutal winter.” He heard Bob promise Strand a hot cup of tea, and the door click shut. He continued staring out of the window. There was no sound behind him.

  “Napoleon chose a damn chill time to escape Mediterranean climes,” he finally said. “I hear Castlereagh has sent for Wellington. The wisest choice. Surprising that he’s capable of wise choices. After all, he precipitated this altogether avoidable situation.”

  Still Strand did not answer him, and Thomas sighed. Strand had not come to discuss Wellington’s command of the allied forces being mustered.

  “I hear you offered for Cat,” Thomas turned.

  “This morning,” Strand said, tossing his hat onto an inlaid desk and yanking off his gloves. “That’s why I’ve come to see you.”

  “Really? I never would have taken you for the gloating sort, Giles. I really do not think I can stand here and listen to an enactment of that tender tableau.”

  “Tender?” snorted Strand, obviously overset. “In a way. Tell me, Thomas, why haven’t you offered for the gel?”

  Thomas scanned Strand’s urbane figure. Giles looked angry. Thomas shrugged tiredly. “I don’t believe even our friendship allows you that intimate knowledge.”

  For a long moment, Thomas held the elegant blond man’s gaze. Strand did not look away. Strand was one of the very few men whom Thomas trusted, whose judgment he valued and whose friendship he revered. He trusted him and so, finally, Thomas answered his unvoiced concern. “She has certain knowledge of me that precludes any possible attachment.”

  “Thomas.” Strand’s smooth brow furrowed in consternation. “I have known you since we were at school together. There are chapters in your past which are displeasing, but the offenses you committed in your youth were just that, a matter of youth. Many of the proclivities of our peers are far more onerous. Surely Cat would have forgiven you your past?”

  “Perhaps,” said Thomas, “if the past had not intruded on the present.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cat had the misfortune of witnessing the culmination of a little seduction between Daphne Bernard and myself.”

  “Bloody hell. How could you?”

  “Fool that I am, I thought the price worth the information it garnered.” His smile was humorless. “I didn’t even get the bloody information.

  “And too, there are certain things in my past that might just be unforgivable to someone like Cat,” Thomas murmured, his thoughts on Mariette Leons. Giles was scowling at him. Giles knew nothing of Mariette and her son.

  “You see, Strand,” Thomas went on, “long ago I bartered away something irreplaceable: the right to declare myself to Cat Sinclair. But I would have done it anyway, had you not beat me to it. I was going to.” Thomas fell silent, battling his inner anguish. Purposefully he gathered his resolve. “Tell me, when are the nuptials to take place? No doubt I’ll be called upon to give the bride away. What’s the saying? ‘Those whom the gods would destroy, first make mad?’ ”

  “For God’s sake, Thomas,” Strand said, snapping his gloves into his open palm. “Cat refused me. I know my proposal was precipitate. I would never have rushed my fences were it not for the situation you have gotten her into.”

  Thomas scowled uncertainly at Strand.

  “It is all over London, thanks to that degenerate Satan spawn, Barrymore. Her name is being bandied about everywhere. I had even purchased a special license in hopes of staving off the majority of the tattle mongers. I had hoped to be allowed the honor of protecting her,” Giles said bitterly. Perhaps he, too, knew the feeling that he’d had something irreplaceable within his grasp and had lost it, because his voice was hard. “I swear, Thomas, if you allow her to be ruined by this, I will call you out myself. You are a bloody fool, but it appears you are the bloody fool she wants.”

  Snatching up his hat, Strand strode from the room with no further word.

  Thomas stood frozen in place, hardly daring to believe what he’d been told.

  There was no other situation that could have conspired to make Thomas offer Cat his tarnished name. No other set of circumstances that would allow him to beg for her hand. That it had occurred nearly made him believe in a merciful God. He might have an opportunity to protect her, shelter her—bloody hell, he would not lie to himself—love her! It was a boon so munificent, it staggered him. And it really was her only practical recourse. She would simply have to wed him.

  He grinned.

  He hadn’t the least idea why Cat had let him think she had accepted Strand’s proposal, or any clue as to the reason for her all-too-obvious anger. Perhaps it was his neglect, an inner voice suggested. Perhaps she had missed his company. Anything seemed possible right now.

  He thrust the provocative idea away. Whatever the reason for her reception of him, he would have to address it later. Right now he had to formulate some convincing speech, some immutable argument, to persuade his enticing pragmatist to become his wife.

  Slumping down into a wing-backed chair, Thomas steepled his fingers in front of his lips, considering the tack he might take. A soft rap broke through his concentration.

  “Yes, yes, Bob, do get on with it! The marquis is gone, and there’s no one here to impress with your redoubtable valeting.”

  The door swung open. Cat stood framed within it, her chin thrust out belligerently. “Why?” she asked in a voice that was a full octave higher than her usual one. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Giles Dalton?�
��

  “Cat?”

  She took a few steps into the room. Her color was high, her eyes sparkling like dew-shimmered leaves.

  “Don’t you dare ‘Cat’ me!”

  Thomas strode toward her, his hands rising as he approached her. She glared at him. His hands dropped.

  “I reiterate, why didn’t you tell me you knew Giles Dalton? That he was a confidant of yours?”

  “Strand?”

  “And why is it that each time today I have mentioned his name, you echo me, but for the past seven months you were unable to choke out even a near approximation of his name? How you must have laughed behind your hand at me.”

  “Well, yes. I did,” Thomas admitted slowly. This must be the reason she had allowed him to believe she’d accepted Strand. She thought he’d been mocking her.

  “I knew it!” Cat stomped past him, kicking out the flounced hem of her gown as she went. She wheeled around. “Well, sir, I think that was unspeakably caddish of you!”

  “I can see how you would consider it so.”

  “Anyone would!”

  “Cat. Lady Catherine, might I send Bob for some tea? You appear somewhat overset—”

  “Bob?” Cat scowled, bewildered. “What the devil are you mumbling about?”

  Thomas jerked his head toward the door. “Bob. The cur with the overlarge ears and wriggling nose. The fellow lurking about in the shadows of the doorway. I’m sure he would be only too happy to fetch you some refreshment. I would even hazard to wager he returns with it in record time.”

  A hoarse clearing of a throat drew Cat’s attention to the doorway.

  “I brung the tea for Lord Strand already, sir,” Bob said equitably, walking into the room with a silver platter laden with a china pot of tea, a toast holder, and various containers of jam, butter, sugar, and cream.

  “Lord Strand?” Cat exclaimed in a shrill voice. Apparently, she divined some sort of conspiracy.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bob said as Thomas groaned. “He must’ve gone then, sir?”