“I was thinking the very same thing, Philip. Perhaps they think they are invisible until they are inside.”
“I do not think I have seen so many feathers in all my life,” Charles said, and all present laughed.
Catherine peered out again and could, indeed, see a great many fine hairstyles sporting thick bands and long feathers. She wondered how the ladies wearing the largest of them had managed to travel in their carriages with any sort of dignity. It struck her that they would have to be bent almost double so that their feathers did not collide with the roof.
She reached out and touched the paper flowers that Evelyn, the maid, had put into her hair and was glad of them. They were just enough and no more.
As she continued to watch the melee of people slowly making their way to the great stone steps of Hargrave Hall, her heart leaped when she caught sight of Thomas. He climbed down from his father’s carriage and straightened the long tails of his black coat. He was also simply dressed, but immaculate and well-groomed, and Catherine could see the red hue of his hair in the light of so many lanterns which burned along the front of Hargrave Hall.
He looked so tall and handsome standing there that she could hardly believe that they were finally to be together at last. It seemed like a dream, a fairytale almost. How many times over the last eight years she had longed to do no more than set eyes upon his face once again and now, beyond all her dreams, she was to marry him.
They were to be together forever just as they had always wanted.
Catherine continued to watch with interest as Thomas leaned into the carriage and helped out a young woman. Once the young woman was down, another man climbed down, an older man. And then, finally, the Duke of Shawcross himself stepped out.
The occupants of her own carriage fell silent, and Catherine knew that they were all intent upon the same scene. She knew that they had all realized immediately, as she had, that the immaculate young blonde woman could only be Lady Eleanor Barchester, daughter of the Earl of Winsford.
Lady Eleanor, like many of the other young ladies present, immediately fell to rearranging her attire the moment she was down from the carriage. Her hair had been curled into immaculate ringlets, and there seemed to be not a strand out of place anywhere.
Over the top of her ringlets she wore not simply feathers, but an elaborate feather filled headdress which was already drawing glances from other young ladies that were a mixture of admiration and envy.
Her gown was very fine indeed and, as would be clear to everybody else, extraordinarily expensive. Although Catherine knew what it was to be the daughter of an earl, she could never have imagined having the confidence to carry off such an ostentatious and fashionable outfit.
The woman was some years younger at perhaps two and twenty, and she struck Catherine as being supremely confident. It was a different sort of confidence to the one that Catherine enjoyed, being more the confidence of appearances and contentment at having all eyes upon you.
That was a sort of confidence Catherine had never had and never wanted. Even at almost eight and twenty, Catherine still would not be comfortable to be the centre of attention.
As the party of four turned to make their way to the front of the queue that was building, it was clear that the Duke of Shawcross was going to use his superior title to greatest advantage.
Catherine’s mouth went dry as she watched Lady Eleanor lace her arm through Thomas’ as they walked up the stone steps. They made a very handsome couple, and Catherine felt her heart plummet at speed, landing hard in the pit of her stomach and making her feel as if she had no air left in her at all.
So, Thomas had not yet mentioned the fact that he had proposed to another woman altogether.
“Catherine, all it means is that he has not yet found the right moment to say it.” Celia, as perceptive as ever, had picked up on her feeling. “As we discussed ourselves, he has a good deal to think about. These things cannot happen overnight.”
“To be honest, Aunt Celia, I really do not know what I had been expecting. I mean, I had thought that he and his father would be here, possibly even separately and very much at odds with one another. But I can honestly say that I had not imagined for a moment that I would have been witness to any closeness between Thomas and Lady Eleanor. I had imagined that he would have told her already, if not his father, but it appears that he has not. I did not think for a moment that she would be here at all.”
“Just give him time, my dear,” Celia stated sensibly. “And in any case, he no doubt has things to tell you this evening and will find a way of doing so. You must not be downhearted at this first hurdle.”
“But this is not the first hurdle, is it? It is just another hurdle in a long line of hurdles, and I find myself very tired.” Catherine looked down at her dress and no longer felt comfortable and confident.
Rather, she felt old for her years, tired of life, dowdy, and outdated. More than anything, she wanted to beg her brother to have the driver turn the carriage around and speed them back to Barford Hall. She knew she could not do that; she knew she had to hold her head up for her family’s sake.
While she knew that they would run their lives entirely to suit hers, Catherine was not the sort of young woman who would be pleased with such power. No, they would go to the ball as invited, and they would spend a convivial evening in one another’s company.
And Catherine would do what she could to hide the fact that the feeling that was now welling within her was pure, unadulterated fury.
By the time they made their way inside Hargrave Hall, they were amongst the last to be greeted. Philip had kept them all in the carriage for an inordinate amount of time out of kindness to his sister. It was clear that he could see that she was upset, however much she tried to hide it, and he was doing what he could to lessen its effects.
As was custom, Philip took the lion’s share of the conversation when they came to be greeted by Lord and Lady Hargrave. Catherine simply smiled and nodded throughout the whole thing, grateful not to be asked any questions about her lengthy absence from Hertfordshire.
As they made their way into the lavish ballroom, Philip took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She turned her head to look up at him, and he quickly winked, just as he had always done when they were younger.
Catherine winked back at him, careful not to be observed by anybody else in such an unladylike occupation. But her brother had gone out of his way to make her feel better, and she would acknowledge it, no matter what.
As much as she did not want to look in the direction of the Shawcross party, Catherine could not help herself. She surreptitiously watched as Lady Eleanor fussed about her fiancé like an elegant, fluttering little butterfly. And, as far as she could see, Thomas seemed content enough with the situation.
Still, he could hardly swat her away publicly, and Catherine knew that. But at that moment reason and sense were not making her feel any better.
She tried her best to make conversation with her family, and yet Catherine could not keep her attention on them for more than a minute. There was a part of her that wanted to look, wanted to see Thomas and Eleanor together as a means of hardening her heart finally.
At one point, Thomas looked over at her, and he began his secret smile, the one that he had used all those years ago, the one that they had both used to acknowledge one another privately. But before Catherine could make her mind up to smile back at him, Lady Eleanor Barchester reached for his hand to gain his complete attention.
And, having done so, the pristine young lady turned her head to stare at Catherine. It was clear in that one, long glance that Eleanor knew precisely who Catherine was. It was clear also that the almost imperceptible smirk on the young lady’s face was designed to convey her triumph.
What an overdone, spiteful little creature Lady Eleanor was and how Catherine at that moment wished Thomas joy of her! If he was to be so weak-willed that he could not stand up to his father enough to even acknowledge her openly at the ball
, how on earth was he ever going to make the final break that he must surely make if the two of them were ever to be together?
As far as Catherine was concerned, it was all impossible. It was as impossible now as it had been back then, and she would waste no more of her time or her heart on Thomas Carlton.
Turning her back entirely on the Shawcross party, Catherine determined not to look Thomas’ way again, that night or ever. With the stoicism that had served her well for eight years, Catherine engaged her family in conversation and pushed everything else from her mind.
How glad she was now that she had not told Thomas anything about Henry. Perhaps it had been a mother’s instinct for protection, or perhaps it had been a woman’s insight into the vagaries of men.
Either way, Henry was safe, and that was the main thing. And as for Thomas Carlton, well, he had made his choice as far as she was concerned, and what became of him now was none of her business.
Chapter 28
Thomas had paced up and down the edge of Stromlyn Lake for almost two hours before he finally gave into the idea that Catherine had chosen not to come. He knew at the ball that there was something wrong; he had felt it in his very soul.
When he had tried to smile secretly to Catherine, she had simply stared back at him without any expression on her face whatsoever. Of course, he knew it had not helped that Eleanor had sought to interfere at that moment by continually straightening his necktie and reaching for his hand.
It was clear to him that Eleanor was making her secret statement, her acknowledgement of Catherine’s presence. And he knew that he ought to have done something about it, and he should have done it long before the ball.
He knew that he had convinced himself that all would be well, that Catherine would not yet have expected him to have made an announcement of any kind to his father, let alone Eleanor. He had assumed that after eight long years she would not mind waiting a little longer. But why should she? And why had he been so foolish as to drag his heels?
After all, when he had last met her at Stromlyn Lake and declared his love for her, Thomas had meant it with every fibre of his being. He had always loved Catherine and always would, and now it seemed very likely that he had, with his foolishness, lost her forever.
He had kept his note to her as brief as possible since he had wanted to say everything he had to say in person, just as he had before. He did not want to apologize on paper; he wanted to apologize face-to-face. Catherine deserved that much at least, and he thought it his only hope of keeping them together.
When she had turned her back on him at the ball, Thomas had known her to be angry and upset. He felt dreadful, knowing it was all his fault and knowing that she had every right to feel that way. Even if he had proposed to her, what woman should have to put up with the sight of a man she had loved and waited for so long in the company of another? And certainly, a woman of Catherine’s calibre should not have to put up with it; he should have realized that. He should have acted more quickly, been more forceful, taken back a little of his old personality.
And it was that personality that he knew Catherine had fallen in love with all those years ago. If he no longer had his spirit of adventure, his determination to speak his mind and be disagreeable in front of his own family, then what was left of him for her to love?
She would no more love him than she would have loved Pearce had she known him to be so different now.
When had he become this man? When had he lost his spirit of adventure and his determination to fly in the face of convention? What had happened to the young man who cared so little for the opinions of his overbearing family that he had sought out the daughter of his father’s enemy, made it his business to befriend her?
For that man was certainly not at the ball the night before. That was a very different man altogether, a man who had allowed the weight of spurious responsibility to hold him down. Even though he had fully decided that he would accept his disinheritance for love, still he had acted in a way that had tended to protect his family’s interest rather than Catherine’s.
He had acted as the heir to the Duchy instead of the young man who had raced to Derbyshire and fruitlessly searched the county for his one true love. Where had that man gone? What had become of him?
Thomas stopped his pacing and sat down on the grass at the side of the lake. He stared into the glassy water, at the beautiful, faithfully inverted reflection of the trees that surrounded it. He had hoped against hope that Catherine would come today, that she would meet him there in that place which had always been so very special to them both.
It was as if the lake had been the sole witness to their burgeoning love when they had been but twenty years old and so very full of excitement, adventure, and courage.
Could his courage really have gone forever? Or was it simply buried deep beneath the layers of guilt and duty that had overtaken his soul on the day his brother died? In his guilt, Thomas had simply become Pierce. Or at least he had been determined to take on his role and fulfill it to the best of his abilities, at any rate. Anything to assuage his dreadful guilt and honour his brother’s memory.
But that had been before; that had been when he had thought he would never see Catherine again. Was this really what Pearce would have wanted now?
That sad young man who had tried for month upon month to atone for the pain he had caused, would he have wanted to see Thomas just follow in his footsteps, forever trying to please an old man who could not be pleased?
In the months before he died, Pierce had come to see through it all, even if Thomas would not acknowledge it. Pierce had come to realize that he would never gain his father’s good approval, and Thomas was sure that, in the end, his brother had decided not even to seek it anymore. If he had lived, perhaps Pierce would have made a better job of all of this. He had changed so much and grown into his own person, however short-lived that had been.
Thomas knew that he would have made a fine heir and an even better Duke had he lived because Pierce had learned from his own mistakes; he had changed. He would have found a way to tolerate their father without bowing to his every whim, and Thomas, staring hopelessly into the lake, realized that he had not done the same.
For all his pride in his individuality, intelligence, and wit as a young man, he had grown into a silent adult, a man who had been persuaded to take Lady Eleanor Barchester for a wife simply because she had good breeding and her father great wealth. He had become everything he had despised before, everything he had mocked Pierce for being.
On the night before the ball, he had displayed his new character most completely to the only woman he would ever love. Catherine was nobody’s fool, nobody on the earth. He had never known anyone of sharper intellect and keener perceptions than Catherine Ambrose, and in that she had remained constant.
Catherine had suffered exile, complete estrangement from the brother she loved; she had been the one to pay the price. And yet she was still standing, still herself after all these years. She was still courageous where he now seemed to lack. And of all the people there in the ballroom, Catherine Ambrose would have been the only one to truly see it, to know it with certainty.
In his heart, Thomas knew that she would not come, not this time. She had given him a chance to prove himself, and he had failed her miserably.
It had been time for him to suffer disownment, to put his love before anything else, and he had failed utterly. He had known when he had penned his letter to her that morning that there was a very good chance that she would not come to him there at Stromlyn Lake.
“My Darling Catherine,
I fear things did not go quite as planned last night, and I am bound to apologize for all of it. But I should not like to apologize here on paper, but rather to see you in person so that I might do it properly. We still have much to discuss, and I should have liked to have had the opportunity to speak to you last night, but it did not present itself. I know you turned your back on me with purpose and do not blame you, but I wou
ld beg that you turn back towards me now and at least meet me today at Stromlyn Lake so that I might explain.
I shall make my way to the lake at midday and wait there in hopes of seeing you at some point thereafter. Please allow me this one opportunity to explain myself and make amends for what I know now was clearly very hurtful behaviour.
With all my love,
Thomas.”
He ran over the contents of his brief letter in his mind, feeling certain that he had explained enough in it to leave her with the distinct impression that, as far as he was concerned, his proposal to her still stood.
But perhaps it did not matter to her now if his proposal still stood. Perhaps Catherine Ambrose had seen enough of him at the ball, seen the changes in him that he was only realizing now himself. Perhaps she now thought him weak and vacillating, a shadow of his former self. Surely as she had looked upon him at the ball, pleasing his father and pleasing a young woman he had no intentions of marrying, she had seen nothing of the vibrant youth he had once been.
A Soulmate for the Heartbroken Duke Page 22