by Mary Balogh
“Ah,” she said as Margaret poured the tea and Stephen offered the cakes, “so you have a love of the country too, Miss Wrayburn. So do I. Much as I enjoy the occasional visit to London, I am always more than happy to return home.”
She talked determinedly about Warren Hall and even about Throckbridge. She talked about Isabelle and Samuel, her niece and nephew, and about Vanessa, her sister. She did not monopolize the conversation-that would have been discourteous-but she did talk more than she usually did.
And at every moment she was aware of the man who sat almost silently at her side and at whom she did not once glance. But she knew he was amused. She knew he was aware of her awareness and was deliberately causing it. How he did it she did not know, but after sitting beside him for ten minutes or so she felt as if her left side were on fire and as if her heart were running a footrace uphill against a stiff wind.
She deeply resented all this. Why had she not simply refused to dance with him? But she had done so, had she not? And had danced with him anyway?
Lord Montford, she concluded, was a master puppeteer, and she was his helpless marionette.
It was a thought that made her bristle and turn her head to glare at him. He was looking politely back at her, a benign smile on his lips.
“Your sister being the Duchess of Moreland,” he said.
“I suppose you have not met her,” Katherine said, turning back to Miss Wrayburn. “Perhaps we may have the pleasure of taking you to call on her one day. She would enjoy that, and I am sure you would like her. She has the sunniest nature of us all, does she not, Meg?”
The girl was delightful. Even so, it was perhaps not the best of ideas to prolong their acquaintance with her since she had the distinct misfortune to be a half sister to Baron Montford. The words had been spoken now, though.
“A duchess,” Miss Wrayburn said, looking suddenly nervous again. But then she smiled brightly. “I would indeed like it.”
“And perhaps,” Meg said, “you would care to accompany Kate and me on a walk in Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon, Miss Wrayburn-if you do not have other, more interesting plans, that is.”
“Oh, I do not,” the girl assured her, leaning forward in her chair. “I am not out yet and have been hardly anywhere except to a few shops and galleries. And I have met hardly anyone except ladies as old as my mother, though some of them do have daughters like me, it is true, and sons. Walking in the park with you sounds very interesting indeed to me. I will come. May I, Jasper? I do hope it will not rain.”
“I shall escort you, Char,” he said, “if the company of a male will not offend Miss Huxtable and her sister. I will certainly be the envy of every other gentleman in the park when I am seen with three of the loveliest ladies in town.”
They had, of course, Katherine realized, played right into his hands. He must have hoped for just this sort of chance to see them-or her-again. He had not even had to exert himself beyond coming here to introduce his young sister.
“Jasper!” Miss Wrayburn laughed gleefully. “How silly you are.”
“What?” he said. “I ought to have said with two of the loveliest ladies, then, Char? I have overlooked all sorts of imperfections in your appearance, have I, because you are my sister and I am partial to you?”
He spoke to the girl with a lazy affection in his voice, Katherine noticed grudgingly. She did not want to discover that there was any goodness in him.
“You have certainly not, Monty,” Stephen said. “There are no imperfections in either my sisters or yours. And not all the other gentlemen will envy you. You are not to be allowed to have the pleasure of walking with the ladies entirely to yourself. I will come along too.”
“That will be lovely, Stephen,” Katherine said. “It always gives me the greatest pleasure to walk on your arm and watch all the young ladies expire with envy as they pass.”
She was aware, even though she did not look directly at Lord Montford, that he pursed his lips and looked amused.
“I would come too,” Constantine said, “but I have another commitment for tomorrow, alas.”
Lord Montford rose to his feet and raised his eyebrows in his sister’s direction, and they proceeded to take their leave.
“I shall look forward with the greatest of pleasure to tomorrow afternoon,” he said as he bowed over Meg’s hand. He favored Stephen and Constantine with an affable nod. He ignored Katherine, whose hand Miss Wrayburn was shaking.
Except that he had somehow conveyed the message that the words spoken to Meg were intended for her.
Oh, how did he do it?
And was it just her imagination? Was she being ridiculous?
She knew she was not.
He had set himself the task, purely for his own amusement and because he was a very bored gentleman indeed, of making her fall in love with him.
Even though she had assured him it could not be done in a billion years.
That assurance, of course, had merely goaded him on.
“It was a waltz Monty danced last evening,” Stephen said after the visitors had left. “With Kate. He dances as well as he seems to do everything else. I could not waltz, alas. I was obliged to sit out with Miss Acton because she has not yet been granted permission to waltz.”
Constantine was looking steadily at her, Katherine was aware. She turned her head and smiled more fully at him.
“And Monty brought his half sister to call upon you this afternoon,” he said to her, shaking his head slightly, “even though she has not yet made her come-out. I can remember warning you against him once a long time ago, Katherine. Nothing has changed, you know. Monty is one of my closest friends, but if I had a sister, I would not allow her within five miles of him unless she had a chaperone chained to each wrist.”
She laughed.
So did Stephen.
“Constantine!” Margaret said reproachfully. “Lord Montford is a gentleman. His manners are more than pleasing. And his fondness for Miss Wrayburn is to be commended.”
“I am no green girl, Constantine,” Katherine said-just as she had said last evening to Lord Montford himself.
“I suppose not,” Constantine admitted. “I forget that by now you are almost elderly, Katherine. You are… what? Three-and-twenty? Do remember, though, that he is not safe company for any unescorted lady.”
“And you are, Constantine?” she asked with a laugh.
He winced deliberately. “Sometimes,” he said, “it takes one rakehell to recognize another. Not that I am making any admissions that might incriminate me.”
She loved him dearly-he was a second cousin they had discovered late in life. He had always been kind to them. Yet she was aware that she really did not know him at all. He hardly ever came to Warren Hall, and he was not often in London either-neither were they, of course. He had a home and estate in Gloucestershire but had never invited them there or told them anything about it. And he had a long-standing quarrel with Elliott, Duke of Moreland-his first cousin and her brother-in-law-that had somehow drawn Vanessa in too a few years ago. Neither of them spoke to him whenever they could decently avoid doing so. Katherine had no idea why. There was, in fact, an intriguing aura of mystery surrounding Constantine that was, she supposed, part of his appeal.
Was he a rakehell? He was a friend of Lord Montford’s and every bit as dashing and handsome as he was, even if his looks did narrowly escape perfection because of his nose, which had been broken at some time in the past and not quite straightened afterward. Though actually the bend in his nose made him look more attractive than perfection would have done.
“Enough of this,” Margaret said firmly. “You will stay for dinner, Constantine? Bar the doors, Stephen, lest he say no.”
“Coercion succeeds with me every time,” Constantine said. “But so does a friendly invitation. I will be delighted to stay.”
And so, Katherine thought, she was surely doomed to another disturbed night. She was to go walking with Lord Montford tomorrow-and Meg and Stephen and Mis
s Wrayburn. She must make a determined effort to walk with one of them.
She must also pray very fervently that it would rain tomorrow.
The five of them went walking as planned the following afternoon, which was fortunately fine, even sunny, after a damp, unpromising morning. Jasper walked with Miss Huxtable while Merton had Charlotte on one arm and Miss Katherine Huxtable on the other. After they had all spent a while down by the Serpentine, admiring the swans and watching a young boy sail his small boat on the water under the eagle eye of his nurse, they walked back again with Merton between Charlotte and his eldest sister and Jasper with the younger.
As he had planned from the start, of course. One must never be too obvious in such pursuits, but one must be relentless. He had maneuvered the exchange without any of the others even suspecting that maneuverings were going on. Except, perhaps, Katherine Huxtable herself. She favored him with a tight-lipped but otherwise expressionless stare as she took his arm.
“Miss Wrayburn is charming,” she said almost vengefully.
“But sometimes anxious about how she will be received,” he said, inhaling to see if he could catch a whiff of that soap smell again. He could. It was faint but unmistakable. It must be the most seductive scent ever invented.
She looked very fetching too in a sage green, high-waisted walking dress with a straw bonnet adorned with ruched pale green silk about the crown and ribbons of a matching color beneath her chin. Her hair looked very golden beneath its wide brim.
“Oh, but she need not be anxious with us,” she said. “There is no reason to be. We are very ordinary people.”
“Indeed?” He looked down at her with raised eyebrows, but she was being quite serious. “One wonders, then, what extraordinary people would be like. One might need an eye shade just to look at them.”
She clucked her tongue and raised a reproachful face at the same time.
“That was a compliment, was it?” she said dryly. “Thank you, my lord, on behalf of Stephen and Meg.”
“Charlotte is very taken with you,” he said quite truthfully. “And with your sister,” he added to be fair. “She is flattered by your kindness and condescension in taking notice of her.”
“It is hardly condescension,” she said. “We were very ordinary mortals indeed just a few years ago and living in a small cottage in a small country village. I was contributing to our meager income by teaching at the village school a few mornings a week. The most glamorous events in our lives were the infrequent village assemblies and the annual summer fete at Rundle Park, the manor of Sir Humphrey Dew. Our circumstances have changed since then, but we have not, I hope. I liked us as we were.”
Was she deliberately making herself sound dull? He felt a wave of amusement.
“I believe, Miss Huxtable,” he said, dipping his head a little closer to hers, “I would have liked you then too. Did you dance about a maypole on the village green every spring, by any chance? There is nothing more enticing than the sight of a lovely woman weaving her ribbon about the pole, dipping and swaying and flashing her ankles as she goes.”
“No maypoles.” But she laughed suddenly. “And no flashing ankles.”
He felt enveloped by sunshine and warmth and noted with some surprise when he glanced upward that the sun was hidden behind clouds. It amazed him that he had tried to forget her for three whole years, that his memories of her had not been pleasant ones. That, of course, was because his memories of her had been all tied up with memories of humiliation.
“No maypoles or flashing ankles,” he said. “How very sad. Though perhaps not. Perhaps the males of your village from the age of twelve to ninety were thereby saved from unutterable suffering at your hands-or should I say rather, at your ankles.”
“I wonder, Lord Montford,” she said, though her face still laughed, “if you have any skill or experience with ordinary conversation.”
“But of course I have,” he said, all astonishment. “I am a gentleman, am I not? You wound me with your assumption that I have none.”
“But I have never heard any evidence of it,” she said.
“Would you say,” he said, looking upward, “that those clouds overhead presage more rain to come later? I would say not. You will observe that they are white and fluffy and really quite benign. And there is blue sky beyond them. My prediction is that in one hour’s time, or even less, the sky will be a pure blue and we will bask in the bliss of it for a short while before the pessimists among us start to worry about tomorrow. Have you noticed how good weather invariably brings on the prediction that we will have to suffer for it with some shockingly infelicitous storm in the near future? Have you ever heard anyone do the opposite? Have you ever heard anyone on a day of cold sleet and arctic gales gloomily predict that we will suffer for this with blue skies and sunshine and warmth at some time in the future?”
She was laughing out loud.
“No, I never have,” she said. “But is this ordinary conversation, Lord Montford?”
“The topic is the weather, is it not?” he said. “Could anything be more ordinary?”
She did not answer, but she continued to smile.
“Ah,” he said, “I understand. You did not mean ordinary at all, did you? You meant dull. Yes, I am capable of dull conversation too, and will demonstrate if you wish. But I must warn you that I may fall asleep in the middle of it.”
“You need not worry about that,” she said. “I would be asleep before you.”
“Ah, an interesting admission,” he said, moving his head a little closer to hers, “and one I may use to my advantage at some future date.”
“You would be unable to,” she said. “You would be asleep too.”
“Hmm. A thorny problem,” he admitted.
“Besides, Lord Montford,” she said, “you cannot make me fall in love with you while I am asleep, can you? And I assume that is what this is all about? This visiting me with your sister? This walking in the park with us?”
“While you are asleep?” he said, moving his head even closer to hers.
And actually, in his attempt to arouse her interest in him, he was arousing himself to no small degree. The idea of making a sleeping woman-all warm and languorous in the depths of a soft mattress-fall in love with him had a very definite appeal. Good Lord!
“Miss Huxtable, you are quite-”
He got no further. They had progressed by this point to a more public part of the park, and the daily promenade had begun-vehicles of all descriptions, horses, pedestrians, all jostling for space on the crowded thoroughfares, all vying for attention. For the purpose was less to acquire air and exercise than it was to see and be seen, to show off new bonnets and new mounts and new beaux, to see and criticize other, inferior bonnets and mounts and beaux. It was the ton at play.
And one garishly ostentatious open barouche, which was almost abreast of Jasper and Miss Huxtable, was slowing and then drawing to a halt. Its occupants peered down at them with frowning disapproval-or at him, actually.
Lady Forester and Clarence, by thunder!
He had been hoping to avoid them for what remained of the Season, though it was admittedly a forlorn hope when they had come up from Kent for the precise purpose of displaying their displeasure with him and snatching Charlotte out of his wicked clutches.
He had not even told Charlotte about their arrival in town. Why distress her before it was strictly necessary?
“Lady Forester?” He touched the brim of his hat to the lady. He had not called her Aunt Prunella-or even Aunt Prune-since he was a boy. She was no aunt of his, for which fact he would give daily thanks if he were a praying man. “Clarrie? How do you do? May I have the pleasure-”
But apparently he might not have the pleasure of introducing Miss Katherine Huxtable to them-or her sister and brother either.
“Jasper,” the lady said in awful tones and with a swelling of the bosom that he remembered well, “I will see you in my own home tomorrow morning at precisely nine o’clock. Charlo
tte, step away from that man’s side this minute and come up here to sit beside me. I would have expected you to know better even if your half brother does not. I thought you had a respectable governess.”
“Aunt Prunella!” Charlotte exclaimed with a gasp and a look of open dismay.
“Oh, I say!” young Merton exclaimed at the same moment, indignation in his voice.
“Clarence,” his mother said, “get down this instant and assist Charlotte.”
“You had better stay where you are, Clarrie, old boy,” Jasper advised. “It would be a waste of effort to hop down here only to have to hop right back up again. And you stay where you are too, Char, with Miss Huxtable and the Earl of Merton. You are not footsore, are you?”
“N-no, Jasper,” she said, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Then you do not need a ride,” he said. “She does not need a ride, ma’am. But thank you for stopping and offering. I shall do myself the honor of calling upon you in the morning, then. I may be four minutes late as the clock in the library, by which I invariably time myself, is four minutes slow. Or do I mean early? I have never quite worked it out. Which do I mean, Miss Huxtable?”
He glanced down at Katherine on his arm.
“Late,” she said. “You would be late. Or will be late as I suppose it has never occurred to you to have the clock set right.”
“It would be too confusing,” he said. “I would not know where I stood. Neither would my servants.”
“Jasper,” Lady Forester said in tones that clearly had Clarence quaking in his boots and not sure whether he should stay where he was and incur her undying wrath or whether he should hop down and risk Lord Montford’s, “I will not be spoken to thus in your usual insolent vein. Charlotte-”
“Clarrie,” Jasper said conversationally, “you are holding up traffic, old boy. I daresay there are curricles and phaetons and barouches backed up all the way to the gates and out into the street, not to mention other vehicles. You had better move on before this good coachman behind you decides to get down from his perch and knock your hat off. He is already purple in the face. So are his passengers. I shall see you both at precisely four minutes after nine tomorrow morning. Good day to you.”