“No!” Katherine couldn’t help herself as she brought her hands up to her face with a gasp.
The others looked at her oddly as she turned her head away to hide her tears. This couldn’t be. Miss Worthington’s father couldn’t be dying? Jack’s most noble sentiments would be brought to the fore. Willingly or not, he would accept his role as Miss Worthington’s support and protector, a role that would be of added importance considering this was the man who’d helped him make his fortune in the business world.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said shakily, searching for something with which to deflect the conversation and coming up with, “Has anyone seen Diana? Miss Nibble was looking for her to do her lessons, but the naughty girl has run off again.”
“Well, she’s not nearly as naughty as you were at her age, Katherine, but in fact, she’s with her grandmother.” Lady Fenton smiled at her daughter. “I thought you knew. They’re in the drawing room.”
“Which is why you’re all here?” Katherine countered with raised eyebrows, to which Aunt Antoinette said blithely, “Of course. The dowager really is the most dreadful woman, and as she seemed happy enough to enjoy only Diana’s company, I didn’t see why we should have to suffer hers and be polite. She rarely is.”
Katherine felt a frisson of dislike at the mere mention of her mother-in-law with whom she’d never enjoyed good relations.
“She came here unannounced?” She knew that Freddy’s mother disliked her, though the dowager had been a more regular visitor during the past couple of months, calling on Diana and taking her on outings about which Diana complained endlessly afterwards.
“I didn’t think I needed to announce my intention of seeing my own granddaughter,” came a stentorian voice from just outside the passage before the thin, humpbacked dowager appeared, a gimlet light in the gaze she settled on Katherine.
When she’d been respectfully greeted by the others, and taken to a seat by Katherine, the old lady commandeered the conversation as was her wont.
“That child is running wild. Why, I found her hiding under a chair when I was in the very same room, calling three times for her!” She glared at Katherine as if she thought it her fault. Which she clearly did as her next sentence was, “Diana needs discipline. She needs a father. Yes, I know my son has been dead less than a year, but the rumours flying about suggest you have a replacement already lined up. No need to blush, my girl. I’ve known you seven years, so I know what I’m talking about. You’re a girl who needs a husband with a firm hand.”
“Lady Hale!” It was Katherine’s mother who leaned forward to object. This was going too far, clearly. But superior age and the pretence of deafness in this instance had the dowager ignoring Fanny to continue, pointing her gnarled forefinger at Katherine. “You and Lord Derry. Yes, it’s a scandal, but it’ll be more of a scandal if you don’t enter into an honest union with him the moment you’re free to do so.”
Katherine, whose growing horror could no longer be curtailed, said sharply, “I will not be dictated to!” She stood and pointed at the door. “You have no right to come here and tell me what to do, Lady Hale. You spent seven years doing that when Freddy and I were married, but now I’m my own mistress, and I like it!”
It gave her great pleasure to see the old woman’s demeanour slip, if only for a minute. Then the trembling mouth was replaced by a sneer as she sat hunched on her chair like an old toad in purple, the two grey ringlets that hung on each side of her lined, pinched face quivering with indignation.
Katherine stabbed her finger at the door once more. “Please leave if you can only carp and criticise.”
“Katherine!” Fanny’s mother looked mortified. Aunt Antoinette looked rather excited by the exchange, but clearly, Mrs Patmore was deeply shocked. Katherine didn’t care. Lady Hale had been a poisonous influence on her marriage with Freddy. If she didn’t think Katherine good enough, it was time for the old lady to go.
“Your house?” Lady Hale transferred her scornful look from Katherine to the rest of the company. “I’m not sure what Lady Quamby thinks of such a grasping statement.”
But darling Antoinette simply said mildly, “Katherine’s grown up in this house, so I’m happy for her to refer to it as her house.” She patted a golden twist of hair then waved a languid gloved hand in the direction of the door. “Good afternoon, Lady Hale. Is your carriage waiting? If not, I’ll order mine round to convey you wherever you might wish to go.”
Fanny turned on her sister when Lady Hale had made her furious exit. “Antoinette, what were you thinking? You went too far—like Katherine!”
Katherine was shaking. She sat down, but a terrible pounding in her head made her feel ill and tearful. First, she’d learned that Jack’s wedding might be brought forward for the legitimate reason of Miss Worthington’s father’s illness, and then Lady Hale had aired those terrible, untrue rumours about having an improper liaison with Lord Derry.
She raised her head just as Diana put her head around the door, her lips pressed together before the little girl exhaled. “Is it safe? Has she gone?”
“That’s no way to speak of your grandmother,” Katherine said tiredly. No one would believe her if she even tried to voice her innocence over the old woman’s unfounded allegations.
Mrs Patmore, who was glancing between the women and young Diana, patted the arm of her chair. “Yes, she’s gone. Why don’t you come and sit by me so I can tidy your hair, Diana.” She seemed to realise the tumultuous emotions the rest of them were going through. Katherine had always liked Jack’s adoptive mother. She thought the story of how she had been united with her charming husband, Rufus Patmore, a lovely one.
Diana, who fortunately had taken a shine to Mrs Patmore, trailed across the room and sat beside her while Katherine glanced between her mother and aunt. Both seemed to have plenty they wanted to say but felt they could not. Katherine opened her mouth to speak but was cut short by their visitor’s stifled gasp, before Mrs Patmore shook her head to allay their concerns.
“Such a terrible knot in Diana’s beautiful hair,” she murmured. “Perhaps I should take her for a walk and leave the rest of you to talk.”
“Well, Katherine, that was quite a show you put on,” Fanny’s mother remarked as the door closed behind the pair and she picked up the cold tea she’d been drinking. She didn’t sound too chastening, Katherine thought, surprised. When she looked up, her mother’s eyes were twinkling at her over the teacup. “You did well to put that old termagant in her place.”
“You certainly weren’t going to do it,” Aunt Antoinette said with patent disgust. “Really, Fanny, I was disappointed. Have you lost all your spirit?”
“Certainly not. You just forget I have more tact than you, Antoinette, and that sometimes caution and tact go further than blurting out your outrage and indignation or playing up to something as thoughtlessly as you do.”
“Well, of all the insults to throw in my face,” Antoinette bridled before conceding, “Though there is a little truth in what you say. But when one is a countess, one can rather do as one pleases. And it has pleased me to do a great many things that others—including you, Fanny, and certainly you, Katherine—could not get away with.” She reached for a piece of caraway seed cake and fixed Katherine with a beady stare. “What is this business over you and Lord Derry? I fear there is something in what that sour old crab apple of a mother-in-law has to say about giving the world the impression you’re a bit flirty if you don’t marry Lord Derry. I rather thought you liked him.”
“I’ve always liked him well enough—in fact, a great deal more than Freddy—but not enough to make him my husband!” Katherine sucked in a breath and clenched her fists. “If I’ve been on terms that appear too friendly, that’s only because he’s helped me at my lowest ebb when I’ve needed it such as…” Her voice shook. “When Freddy locked the doors upon me after a night of gambling, and I had nowhere to go, and Derry happened to be passing and came to my rescue. I never meant to give hi
m ideas about marriage!”
Antoinette sighed. “About Freddy, he deserves to be writhing in the flames of Hell right now. But about your feeling, or lack of, for Derry, it’s a pity. He’s pleasant enough and he’s a handsome man, and he has money—which you need, badly, my dear. And he has no son to inherit, so you really would be making a fine match.”
“Not if my heart were engaged elsewhere!” Katherine cried.
“Oh Katherine, you never said!” Her mother looked both concerned and hopeful. “Are you saying your heart is engaged?”
Katherine stood abruptly and turned to look out of the window. “I’ve loved him for so long but…marriage between us is not possible.” She couldn’t risk their questions. It was a relief to unburden herself, but she dare not be drawn on the truth. Jack’s love was forbidden. They all knew how committed he was to marrying Miss Worthington; that the wedding was barely five weeks away. She’d only be an object of pity if she blurted that out.
Her mother put her hand on her wrist, and her eyes were so kind as she drew back her daughter’s attention that Katherine nearly gave in on the spot. But no, she wasn’t ready. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” she said. “Thank you for understanding. And for understanding that I’m not yet ready to talk about it.”
“Oh dear,” Fanny said when her daughter had gone. “I hope Katherine doesn’t do something rash—again.”
“I rather hope she will—if it makes her happy,” countered Antoinette.
Chapter 20
Jack had taken the unconventional approach to Quamby House, cutting across the back garden having slipped through a hole in the hedge after being visited by quite an outrageously impulsive plan to see his…mother. Yes, he’d come purely to see his mother whom he was sure would be visiting her friends, Ladies Fenton and Quamby.
Katherine was unlikely to be there, so, as there was no reason to concern Odette with that faint possibility, he hadn’t thought it warranted mentioning. Besides, Odette had various fittings with the dressmaker and had been in a fluster as to certain important decisions regarding the merits of lace or beading.
Jack didn’t mind that Odette liked to know what he was doing at all times. With her father so ill, she really only had Jack to look to. She’d depend upon him for the rest of their lives, so the fact he could be her rock in a stormy sea now, when her father’s illness was draining her, meant a great deal to him.
Jack liked to help and be needed. He was a man who did not shirk from life’s challenges. He was not a man like his father who would abandon those who depended upon him. The challenge of finding that his heart was not dancing to the tune of moral necessity disturbed him deeply. That kiss in the darkness with Katherine had been more than unsettling. It had tilted him off his moral axis. He should never have kissed her in the first place. Even now, three days later, he wondered what he’d been thinking. He hadn’t. He’d just done what had seemed the most natural, pleasurable thing in the world, and now he couldn’t get Katherine out of his mind.
It was a good thing she was about to become betrothed to Lord Derry. Jack would ensure their paths would not cross until he was thoroughly immersed in the role he’d not undertaken lightly: to be a good husband and a good father.
Yes, the moment he was a father to the children he and Odette would have, he knew his heart would act in line with the moral fibre of his being. Nothing and no one would tempt him from being the most devoted and loyal husband and father.
When, to his surprise, he saw his mother and a small figure he took to be Diana, strolling across the lawn in his direction, he was both pleased and disappointed. His intention had been purely to see his mother—of course—and now he could do so without fear of running into Katherine. And that was a very good thing. A very good thing, he told himself. For then he could answer all of Odette’s questions about what he’d done that day with complete transparency.
“Why, Jack, this is the most wonderful surprise!” his mother greeted him when she was close enough to identify him and had appeared round the bend of the gravel path that bordered the small stream. She bent down to the little girl. “Diana, you remember Jack, don’t you?”
Diana politely executed a little curtsey saying she did, and appeared to lose concentration before swinging her head back to him and asking with a frown, “Are you the Jack my mummy talks about?”
“I don’t know. Does she talk about a Jack?”
“Yes. She said one day her best friend Jack would come back. I’ve never met any other Jacks. Are you that Jack?”
“That’s right. I came to visit your mama as soon as I came back to London.”
Diana nodded. A butterfly had caught her attention but she swung round to correct him. “Not right after. She was waiting.”
Jack looked awkwardly at his mother who in turn sent an interested look back in his direction. “You were always thick as thieves when you were Diana’s age—or a little older,” she said with a smile, adding to Diana, “Jack and your mama played together when they were seven years old. That’s a year older than you are now. But they’ve not seen each other for a long time because Jack went away across the sea.”
Diana nodded as she wobbled a front tooth. “Across the sea,” she repeated, staring at the ducks that paddled over the surface of the nearby ornamental lake. She glanced up at Jack. “Mama was always looking through the window. When I asked her what she was looking at she always said: across the sea.”
Of course, that meant nothing, Jack told himself, and if he imagined there was the slightest connection to Katherine telling an inquisitive child she was merely looking ‘across the sea’ it hardly meant Katherine had been looking for him.
Yet, something niggled in his chest. The way Katherine had looked at him in the brief seconds when the room had been flooded with light as the others had interrupted their unconventional reunion suggested so many possibilities.
He shook his head to clear it while his mother said, “And now Jack is home, and he’s going to get married. You know what that means, don’t you?” Her tone was indulgent but Diana answered sadly, “Poor Jack.”
Startled, Jack and his mother exchanged looks before Diana said brightly, “I can see Thomas over there! I must go and say hello.”
Without waiting for a response, the little girl took off towards an old man balanced on a ladder clipping the hedge that bordered the kitchen garden.
His mother turned and laid a hand upon Jack’s arm. “I think Katherine was very pleased to see you. I hope she approves of Odette.”
“I hope you do, Mama,” Jack said, awkwardly, to deflect the subject. “After all, we are to be married in little over a month—or earlier depending on her father’s health. The decision is hers to make after she visits him this afternoon.”
“Would Odette really want to bring the date forward when all the preparations are made and her wedding dress will not be finished?”
“I think that her preference is for the grand ceremony in her lavish finery, Mama, but she is very attached to her papa and wants him to witness her happy day.”
“And your happy day, Jack. I never thought you’d meet someone who reached the high standards you set for yourself and everyone else. Odette must be a paragon of virtue, a true angel. She is certainly very pretty, and from what I can tell, her nature is sweet and pliant.”
“Oh, she can be headstrong too, Mama. Like Katherine, she knows what she wants.” He looked away, fearing he’d said too much but his mother pressed him.
“You know a lot about Katherine when you didn’t spend too much time with her in your adult years. I suppose the time as children cemented a very brotherly relationship in you towards her.”
Jack looked over the trees towards the house and both dreaded and longed to find Katherine ensconced within. Just a few minutes in her company, sharing an amusing story or laughing at nothing in particular suddenly seemed like the tonic he needed. Then he told himself that Odette’s intensity and
need to have him near her all the time was natural due to what she was going through with regard to her father’s precarious health.
“Katherine was everything to me when I’d been abandoned and had no one.” It was not often he spoke of those early days, but it was as much to explain the strength of feeling he’d developed towards Katherine as a very young child as to answer his mother’s question.
Immediately repentant, he gripped his mother’s hand. “But you and Uncle Rufus took me in when there was no reason in the world you should do that for a boy whose parentage you knew nothing of. I could be the son of criminals, yet you found the goodness in your heart to give me a home.”
“Criminals? Surely you’ve never thought that, Jack!”
“Did it never occur to you, Mama? I thought of it constantly. What if my soul was stained with the blood of my father’s victims and the same blackness was within me, waiting to come out?” He smiled and touched her cheek when she gasped. “Please, don’t look so distressed. No one knows the truth of who left me in a basket in front of the foundling home, but it was only natural for the imaginative boy I was to think the worst.”
“Was it, Jack?”
Again, Jack laughed to lighten the situation. “I didn’t mean to distress you, Mother. But you can see that my confusion about my place in the world meant I was easiest with a friend the same age who did not judge and speculate about what kind of boy I was or the kind of man I’d become. Katherine simply liked to sit up in trees with me and plot devious mischief to avenge herself against George. She was kind and thoughtful, too. Even when I was seven. She knew I was hungry most of the days I was at the foundling home, so she stole from the kitchen on my behalf, though, truth to tell, Cook was more than generous. She’d send me back with a basket of cake or scones to feed the other children.” He smiled. It gave him a warm feeling to recall this rare bright spot of his childhood. Before Eliza and Rufus Patmore had adopted him.
The Accidental Elopement (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 4) Page 15