She placed her hand on his arm, and lust sluiced to every pore. God help him. He was in bloody damned trouble when it came to her. Only an idiot would subject himself to her company day after day when he’d already fallen hard despite knowing full well she could never be his.
Katrina’s sweet perfume wafted upward, and Nic’s groin pulsed. He needed a woman, moaning her pleasure beneath him. It had been months since he’d found release. That was why he responded to her like a rutting stag.
Ballocks.
“Everyone else has already left for the dining room. I asked Mama if I might wait and accompany you, since, when you didn’t join us in the salon, I suspected you might be slightly uncomfortable.”
“Your consideration is touching, but I’m not suffering from discomfort as much as ineptitude. I failed to inquire where I should meet my host and hostess, and then succumbed to your father’s excellent brandy.” As he set his empty tumbler aside, he winked to lighten her mood. What a pair they were, both in the doldrums this evening. “I vow, I’ll commit a social faux pas. Use the wrong fork, speak to a guest about a taboo subject, gulp rather than sip my wine, talk with my mouth full …”
She shook her silky head, the candles catching the coppery highlights. “Nic, you’ll be fine. It’s just my family, Miss Atterberry, and a few other guests, none of whom outrank you.”
Outside the dining room’s entrance, she hesitated. Conversation, occasional laughter, and the clatter of crystal, silver, and dishes carried into the corridor.
“Do be mindful of that stunning blond sitting next to Simon. She’s Phoebe Belamont, a title-hungry termagant. She’d treat your sisters horridly. The woman wearing the garish turban is her aunt. A pushy fussock, so if you value your virtue, watch yourself. They’d trap you into marriage faster than a frog gobbles a fly.”
His virtue?
He nearly laughed aloud at Katrina’s concern for his honor. She took her ducal-wife-hunting duties seriously, precious darling.
Leaning nearer, he inhaled her perfume again, enjoying the satiny skin exposed by her gown’s low bodice, even if the swells tantalized him unmercifully. “Why did your mother invite them if they’re so objectionable?”
Katrina tightened her hand upon his arm, and Nic stole another glance at the Belamonts.
“Mama didn’t. Wouldn’t either. Ever. They’re horrid,” she whispered, “and I cannot abide them. No one can.” Her nostrils flared, pink dotted her high cheeks, and her stiff shoulders, tense brows, as well as the hand clamping his forearm further revealed her distress. “You wait, Phoebe will say something nasty to me, and I’ll have to be polite and pretend I don’t know what she means.”
“Why are they here then?” Another societal dictate—forced to endure the presence of people one couldn’t stomach. As a privateer, he’d been spared the ridiculousness and surrounded himself with people whose company he enjoyed.
“They came on the Huntingtons’ coat sleeves, unannounced, as always. Osborne was quite put out, as was Cook. They had to scramble to accommodate two more guests.” She bent forward a mite and pointed to a cleric. “The Huntingtons are the kindly rector and his wife, and somehow the Belamonts are related. They visit quite often, usually arriving unexpectedly and staying past their welcome. By the time they depart, Mrs. Huntington is nipping the communion wine.”
Nic couldn’t contain his low chuckle.
“I wasn’t aware they’d returned since they were here a mere fortnight ago, or I’d never have invited you to dinner and subjected you to their company.” Katrina’s abundant lashes swept closed, and she inhaled a bracing breath. She opened her eyes a moment later. “The final couple is Lord and Lady Gervais.”
As they entered the noisy room, Miss Belamont boldly met Nic’s gaze. Seductively arching, thrusting her full breasts upward, and half-closing her peridot-green eyes, she resembled a great indulged Persian cat. No innocent miss there, by George.
“Why, Miss Needham. Wherever is your handsome Major Domont?” Miss Belamont cooed, her pale green eyes wide and innocent while pointedly peering at the empty entrance before snagging on Nic’s groin.
Avast, there’s the predicted snide inquiry.
Katrina stiffened and lifted her pert nose fractionally, but didn’t answer. No, she definitely didn’t favor Miss Belamont.
Neither did he, if he’d read Miss Belamont correctly in the few moments he’d assessed her. Beautiful, spoiled, full of her own importance, and a bully, hiding her malice behind politely worded, barbed questions and feigned concern.
“Curse me for a lubber. A veritable shark. I shall heed your warning,” Nic whispered as he pushed in Katrina’s chair, grateful Miss Belamont and her generously exposed bosom sat across and near the table’s head, while his assigned seat put him safely at the foot.
A pout upon her painted lips, the gilflurt cut Nic a ravenous, sidelong look and not-so-casually brushed a hand across her bosom.
The chit was nothing but a prettily packaged trull.
Aye, he saw Miss Belamont’s breasts gushing over her scarlet bodice. He also observed the other guests’ discomfort with her provocative exhibition evidenced in the vexed lines furrowing their foreheads and tense brackets framing their mouths. By God, if she shifted abruptly, her bubbies would pop loose of their straining confines and plop into her soup.
“Wasn’t he to have returned by now?” Miss Belamont breathed a heavy, decidedly unsympathetic tsk.
Her spiteful titter met with flat stares from those assembled and a glower from the younger Needham brother. Two four-stemmed silver candelabras’ glow lent a delicate radiance to Katrina’s composed countenance, enhancing her ivory skin as the air fairly sparked with charged tension.
Miss Belamont’s brows winged upward in artificial distress, and she splayed her hand across her chest again.
That game already grew tiresome.
Mrs. Huntington, her lips pursed in displeasure, rolled her eyes while Mrs. Needham darted Katrina a sympathetic glance.
Nic clamped his teeth and, for Katrina’s sake, forced himself to remember his ragged manners and abstained from telling the Belamont chit to shut her goddamned yawp and cover her teats. However, his rigid jaw didn’t stop the stream of salty oaths directed at her that paraded through his head. Pity his ducal role didn’t permit him the same freedoms a privateer enjoyed, or he would’ve laid a verbal lashing on Miss Belamont the twopenny wench would not soon forget.
“Oh dear, never say you’ve had a lover’s spat?” Would Miss Belamont never leave off harping? “Should we assume the expected betrothal announcement won’t be forthcoming?
The shrew needed her tongue pruned.
As she’d no doubt intended, every eye focused on Katrina, although, with the exception of Miss Belamont’s corpulent aunt greedily slurping her soup, concern or compassion colored their gazes.
With poised deliberation, Katrina unfolded her serviette and, after draping the cloth across her lap, regally lifted her head and calmly met the other woman’s probing stare. “Nothing of the sort. Major Domont’s been detained in Cambridge on army business.”
Miss Belamont’s lips edged upward in feline satisfaction.
Damn my blood.
A shrieking alarm pealed in Nic’s brain, the same warning that had saved his life on more than one occasion. Miss Belamont meant to draw blood. Katrina’s blood.
Katrina tilted her head at an endearing angle, refusing to cow to the hellcat.
Bravo, plucky darling.
He slipped his hand beneath the table and found her icy fingers. She responded with her alligator clamp, and he welcomed the numbing vice. It showed her strength even amidst her trepidation.
“Cambridge? Are you quite certain?” Miss Belamont dipped her spoon into the cream of asparagus soup, her smile brittle. “Aunt Miriam, didn’t we see Major Domont in Stratford-Upon-Avon last week?”
Katrina’s grip tightened, and Nic hid a wince. Hell’s bells. Who knew a woman could have such strong hands?
&
nbsp; “Oh, yes, we did indeed.” Mrs. Belamont took a noisy sip of soup before looking ’round the table at everyone’s stunned or distressed expressions. “He had a young lady on his arm. A very pregnant young lady.”
Chapter Six
Katrina managed to drag a shallow expanse of air into her lungs. And then another slightly bigger breath. Though only due to Nic’s reassuring hand clasping hers and his thumb trailing back and forth across her knuckles, calming her fitful pulse and even more juddery thoughts. Scandalous and ruinous if anyone caught them holding hands beneath the lattice-patterned tablecloth.
Propriety be hanged.
She squeezed his fingers and rejoiced in the immediate counter-pulse. Stunned from the verbal pummeling she’d just endured, Katrina required the strength he lent. Springing from her chair and bolting from the room, though tempting, would give Phoebe Belamont a satisfaction Katrina would never permit. And tearing the burgundy ribbons from Phoebe’s perfectly coiffed curls, though immensely gratifying, would shame Katrina’s parents.
Was Richard in Stratford-Upon-Avon?
No, no, the Belamonts must be mistaken.
She’d not jump to hasty, emotional conclusions without evidence.
They’d seen him.
Perhaps they’d only thought the man was Richard.
“Men oft’ look similar in uniforms,” Simon said, leveling Miss Belamont a cold stare.
“Yes, indeed,” Shona piped in, nodding enthusiastically while marshalling a how-could-you? scowl for Phoebe. Fork in hand, Shona looked ready to stab her across the table. “That might very well be the case. Why, half the time, I cannot tell one officer from another unless I stand directly before him.”
Precious, loyal dear.
“Surely a plausible explanation exists if, indeed, the Belamonts are correct.” Patting his mouth with his serviette, Nic murmured the comment for Katrina’s ears alone, and she gave a jerky nod.
So Richard had absentmindedly named the wrong township?
Unlikely as snow in July. Pink snow.
Stop.
Richard hadn’t lied to her before. Had he? His many absences—a week or two at a time … Not uncommon for an officer, but a faultless defense against a woman’s qualms and suspicions.
“Trust him.” Another whispered encouragement from Nic amidst the stilted conversations the others attempted in order to cover the dreadful awkwardness.
The diners could no more have ignored the Belamonts’ insinuations than they could’ve a singing, dancing goat upon the table. Bless Nic for trying. Once more, he sought to reassure Katrina, this man she’d known but three days.
She had trusted Richard. Until now. She loathed the suspicion tangling her thoughts, cramping her lungs, barraging her middle with jagged-bladed knives.
Swallowing hard, her mouth gone dry as summer grass and her voice sure to crack if she spoke, Katrina summoned every ounce of pluck she possessed and, with a steady hand and nonchalant glance at Papa, casually took a sip of wine.
True, humiliation beleaguered her, by Miss Belamont’s calculated design, but without evidence, Katrina refused to convict Richard. Appearances weren’t always what they seemed, and besides, they weren’t actually betrothed. He owed her nothing except, perhaps, an explanation.
Not entirely accurate.
Richard had asked her to marry him, had promised he’d ask Papa for her hand, had begged her to be patient while he put his affairs in order. Mayhap she, the unnamed woman, was the affair he’d needed to order? If Richard were involved with another woman—God help me bear the shame—one in the family way … that explained his reluctance, the litany of excuses, and the continual delays.
Have I been a gullible dunderhead, refusing to see what’s been before me all this while?
“Major Domont has three sisters, Miss Belamont, as well as several female cousins.” Mama’s eyes spewed violet sparks, and from her hand’s reflexive balling atop the table, she longed to slap the superior expression from the beauty’s face, though her modulated tone revealed none of her contempt. “And his familial home is near Stratford-Upon-Avon as well. There are any number of reasons he might have been there with an enceinte woman upon his arm, if it was even the major whom you saw.”
How had Mama known those interesting snippets when Katrina had been ignorant of them? Richard refused to speak of his family, claiming an estrangement. She’d ask that exact question the second she caught her mother alone. But, by Hades, she’d gnaw harness leather before allowing Phoebe Belamont to see her disconcerted.
“Oh, it most certainly was him, and he wasn’t in uniform either.” Miss Belamont fairly preened under the attention, her wide-eyed gaze vacillating between Nic and Katrina. “I spoke with the major myself, though he did seem in a terrible rush. Barely civil to Aunt Miriam and me, he was, and the woman with him spoke not a word. Why—”
Papa loudly cleared his throat. “I’ve always held the opinion that it’s unjust to discuss a person unless they are present to give an account themselves. Some might call talking behind a person’s back tattlemongering or gossiping.” A censuring brow raised, the last words he directed straight at a flushing Miss Belamont.
She huffed unbecomingly and flounced in her chair, her arms folded, which launched her bosoms frightfully higher.
On either side of her, Simone’s and Vicar Huntington’s studious absorption in their cooling soup conveyed their awareness of her indecorous display and their commendable effort to ignore the bouncing mounds.
“Tell me, Huntington,” Papa said, “was that a new pair of bays I saw before your landau today? Beautiful steppers, I must say.” He neatly quashed any further mention of Richard as the men launched into an impromptu horseflesh discussion, floundering and blathering like half-drowned men seizing a single lifeline.
Would that Katrina’s riotous musings could so easily be quelled. Her stomach twisted and knotted sickeningly, but she had promised to help Nic tonight. She selected a soup spoon and casually dipped its side into the bowl, taking care to skim from the front to the back.
Nic immediately mimicked her.
Miss Belamont’s narrowed gaze and petulant pout conveyed her displeasure, but for the rest of the meal, she conducted herself with unexpected restraint.
Over an hour later, Mama and Papa having wisely foregone the gentlemen’s customary post-dinner libation, all the diners assembled in the drawing room. Nic chatted with Papa and Mr. Huntington, but every now and again, sent her a heartening look. His haircut lent him a refined air, but his carriage and mannerisms clearly bespoke a man of humbler—no, not humbler … unpretentious—origins. And she admired that. It set him apart from the ton’s fops and dandies, whom she’d never found appealing.
Mama and Shona flanked her on the settee, not a coincidence to be sure, as Mrs. Huntington settled onto the pianoforte’s smallish bench and proceeded to play one soothing tune after another.
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough, though everyone dutifully abstained from mentioning Richard again. A headache thrummed behind Katrina’s eyes, and though she’d intended to engage Nic in a wife-hunting conversation, she, instead, yielded to her need to be alone. Impossible to sort through her topsy-turvy thoughts with so many people about. Besides, if she had to watch Phoebe Belamont gushing over Nic any longer, what little dinner Katrina had gagged down would make a violent reappearance.
Katrina gave Mama’s hand a pat. “Please forgive me, but I fear I’ve developed a fierce headache and should like to retire early.”
“I don’t wonder,” Shona commiserated. She leaned near, giving Katrina a sisterly hug and whispering in her ear, “You’ve performed marvelously. That she-cat is practically hissing and scratching in frustration.”
Looked more like purring in lust to Katrina.
“Of course, my pet.” Mama bussed Katrina’s cheek, saying quietly, “Go along then. Be sure to arrange what time his grace will call tomorrow for his comportment lessons.”
Shona g
iggled and slid him a covert peek. “Poor man. To be his age and have to suffer through that balderdash. I pity him.”
Katrina’s attention involuntarily strayed to Nic again, as it had repeatedly throughout the evening. Finding Miss Belamont clinging to his arm snugger than a barnacle embedded on a whale grated.
“He’s not completely without social graces,” Katrina said. “A little polishing, and he’ll be quite presentable. I can think of more than one peer whose manners are impeccable, but who is nevertheless a boorish lout. Manners do not a gentleman make.”
I rather like Nic as he is.
She did prefer the rough privateer, and she oughtn’t to favor him at all. She should be beside herself with angst that her intended had, perhaps, thrown her over, or at the very least, not been forthright.
Pregnant woman—No. Not now.
She stood, and the movement drew Nic’s attention.
With practiced finesse, he extracted his arm from Miss Belamont’s clinging grasp. With five long paces, he reached Katrina’s side. “Mrs. Needham, might I have a word with you and Miss Needham? Perhaps we could step into the corridor?”
Katrina checked a smile. One didn’t conduct conversations in the passageways. “I think the library would suit better.”
After Mama rose, she clasped his extended elbow and nodded to her other guests. “Please excuse us. His grace requires a moment with Katrina and me.”
As she swept from the drawing room, Katrina did smile, broadly and a touch gloatingly, at Phoebe Belamont.
Once in the library, Katrina lit a pair of tapers in the dual holder atop her writing desk. No fire burned in the grate, and the muted candlelight only illuminated a small sphere.
Nic faced them, and a hint of uncertainty hovered around his daunting form. “When would be most convenient to collect my sisters and aunt? I don’t wish to impose upon your hospitality until you’re prepared.” He rubbed his nape. “I confess, I’m completely out of my element with all of this.”
Katrina angled her head. He didn’t like indebtedness, nor was he accustomed to deferring to others. His title afforded him as much—more—power in many regards than his captaincy had, yet he hesitated to wield his status. Perchance had no desire to?
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