Julien found that he was losing rather than gaining headway. She relieved him of the burden of finding suitable words to express his feelings by smoothly changing the topic.
“Harry will be sorry to have missed you. He thought you a great gun, you know. Well, perhaps not all that great, and now we’re getting into that infamous area again. He did think you might be arrogant and conceited, but, of course, he didn’t have the benefit of fishing with you.” She chuckled. “Harry was afraid that you would expose me and thus kindle Father’s wrath. And I must say, I did find myself rather on tenterhooks when Father asked me where I had met you. Thank you, my lord, for your kindness.”
She smiled, reaching out her hand to lay it lightly on his arm.
Julien took her hand in his and pressed her fingers. He looked into those incredible green eyes, and saw only openness and, yes, trust. She didn’t yet understand, nor did it appear to him that she felt anything for him but friendship. It rankled a bit. For all her independent ways, for all her outrageous hoydenish behavior, she was innocent of the ways of the world and even more innocent of the ways of men. He curbed his impatience, realizing that he would have to give her time.
He rose and helped Kate to stand. “I must be going now. I’ve kept you overlong as it is.”
“Well, you haven’t really, but perhaps it is best if you leave. I never know how Sir Oliver will react.” He said nothing to that, afraid that if he did, it would come out harsh and angry and serve only to upset her. He was extraordinarily pleased when she looked up at him, all her disappointment in her eyes, just like a child who was going to lose a coveted treat.
“I have the best of ideas. Will you ride with me tomorrow morning, Miss Brandon?”
“Miss Brandon? Surely, my lord, you can call me by my first name now. After all, we have shared a very personal attachment—we have shared fishing poles.” She laughed when he grinned down at her, then she frowned. Seeing that he waited for an answer, she hurriedly said, “Oh, yes, I would very much like that. It is only that I must have my father’s permission. Sometimes he isn’t all that one would expect or prefer.”
“Don’t fear on that score. Sir Oliver won’t mind.” Mind, ha! The damned bastard would probably kick his heels in the air.
“How true. I had forgot how you have quite won him over. But sometimes he changes his mind. I never know, but I will ask him.”
“He won’t say no this time, I promise you.”
As the remnants of the frown still furrowed her forehead, he asked, “What else troubles you, Kate?”
The frown vanished, and she turned laughing eyes to his face. “It will be such a bore. Oh, it has nothing to do with you, my lord. It is just that I will have to wear a riding habit and not my breeches.”
“I am most honored that you’re willing to make that sacrifice, ma’am.”
“Ah, I’m not all that willing, but I must, for you will come to Brandon Hall and my father will be there, and, I assure you, he would be quite upset upon seeing me in breeches. But the problem is that my riding habit is much outdated and quite tight. I do but pray that I will not pop my buttons.”
Julien laughed aloud and in an unthinking swift movement brought his hand up and cupped her chin. She made no resistance whatsoever, merely looked up at him, her eyes shining with innocent humor.
“You are an outrageous chit, Katharine.” He drew her arm stiffly through his, and looking straight ahead, walked back to the hall.
Kate awoke slowly from a dreamless sleep. She stretched luxuriously under a mound of covers, savoring the warmth of the August sun upon her face. Her body felt light, and as she turned to look at the clock on the table beside her bed, as she had each morning for the past week, her lips curved into a smile of anticipation. She would be riding with the earl in but two hours.
She slipped quickly out of bed, wincing slightly as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. Hurriedly she stripped off her nightgown and bathed in the basin of cold water, scrubbing and splashing the water over her body until her skin tingled. She shivered and looked at the empty grate with displeasure. It was a chilly summer, and she wished that her father would break his rule, just once. As far back as she could remember, he hadn’t allowed fires in the bedrooms until after the first snow.
She was tugging on her stockings when a light knock sounded, and a moment later Lilly peered in. She said with an arch expression, “Squire Bleddoes is downstairs and wishes to see you.”
“Good Lord, whatever can that wretched man want at this hour? Oh, Lilly, can’t you tell him that I’ve come down with the plague, remind him how very virulent it is? He is very sensible and quite terrified of catching any illness at all. Perhaps it will send him directly back to his doting mama.”
“He is probably here for the usual reasons, my lady,” Lilly said, eyeing her mistress.
“Well, I suppose that means you won’t lie for me. Ah, well, then I will see Robert, curse him for his rude timing. Do help me into my riding clothes, Lilly. The earl will arrive in little more than an hour, and I want to be ready.”
Lilly’s face took on a look at the mention of the earl, a rapturous expression fit to rival that of an actress on Drury Lane.
“Oh, Miss Kate, whatever will you do if the two men meet? I would swoon, I would.”
“Don’t be a goose, Lilly,” Kate said sharply. “That expression you’re wearing is really quite professional.”
She sat herself at her dressing table and began vigorously brushing her hair. In the mirror she saw that Lilly was still in blissful contemplation over this imaginary scene. She put down her hairbrush and said matter-of-factly, “Lilly, let me be serious. The earl honors us with his friendship. That is all. Indeed, he probably simply has more time on his hands than he’s used to, and thus he wants for diversion. We are the diversion. As for Robert Bleddoes, well, you know as well as I do that the idiotic man expects all females to swoon at his feet. Why he must continually pester me, and with no encouragement, is more than I can fathom, curse his hide.”
She turned back to her mirror and continued brushing the tangles from her hair. She’d not been exactly forthcoming with Lilly, but it was none of her maid’s affair in any case.
Lilly shot her mistress an incredulous look. If only she knew the servants’ gossip. It was plain as a pikestaff that the earl was smitten with Miss Katharine Brandon, daughter of a mere baronet—and a daughter also despised by her father. Why, he had called at Brandon Hall no fewer than four times during the past week. Everyone knew it, save, it seemed to Lilly, her mistress. As for Squire Bleddoes, that pompous windbag, Lilly would be quite content to see him routed. Quite a nuisance he’d become, presenting himself at the hall on only the flimsiest of pretexts.
Kate harbored very close to the same opinion of Robert Bleddoes as her maid did. She’d met him by accident nearly six months before, when she’d ridden a far greater distance than she had intended. She thought him at first to be a rather overserious young man but quite unexceptionable. She soon realized that his prosaic opinions, invariably uttered with monotonous precision, masked a feeling of vast self-importance that made her grit her teeth and talk herself out of smacking his face. After his first visit to Brandon Hall, she was convinced that he was a total bore.
She said as much to her father and stared at him with disbelief when he rounded on her in fury. “You discourage him, my girl, and you’ll feel my walking stick on your back.” He added with such blatant derision that she flinched, “You think yourself so puffed up, my little lady. Let me tell you, if Bleddoes offers for you, it will be much more than you deserve. That any man would want you is more than I can imagine.”
Mindful of Sir Oliver’s warning, she didn’t openly discourage Robert. She forced herself to learn tolerance and tried to treat him as kindly as she treated Flip, the pug. She’d played a dangerous game the past three months, holding Robert off as best she could with soft, vague words, and skirting the issue of marriage whenever Sir Oliver tried to
broach it.
Sir Oliver, happily not aware that Robert had declared himself on several occasions, blamed her for her failure to bring the squire up to scratch. He commented to her sourly one evening at dinner, “I might have known that you couldn’t attract a man. You are a witless, unnatural girl.”
Kate didn’t think of herself as being witless or unnatural, but she remained wisely silent. She kept her head down and concentrated on forking a lone pea that lay in the center of her plate.
It occurred to her now, as she handed Lilly a ribbon with which to secure her hair, that Sir Oliver hadn’t mentioned Robert Bleddoes for the past week. She tapped her fingers on the tabletop. No, it was true, there had been no mention of the squire since the earl of March had come to call. She went pale at this realization. Dear God, Sir Oliver couldn’t possibly think the earl was interested in her.
Kate rose somewhat unsteadily and raised her arms for Lilly to slip the riding skirt over her head.
“Draw a deep breath, Miss Kate. The buttons won’t meet elsewise.”
Kate sucked in her breath and felt the buttons dig into her skin through the thin material of her chemise.
Her jacket followed, but as it didn’t meet over her breasts, she was forced to leave it open, revealing a well-worn white blouse.
“I’m not exactly the height of fashion, am I, Lilly?” She stepped back and regarded herself ruefully in the mirror, making a moue at herself. “Well, no matter, it’s not that important just so long as I don’t gain enough flesh so the buttons won’t meet.”
Lilly felt a stab of indignation. It was disgraceful how Sir Oliver treated his daughter.
“You look just fine, Miss Kate. Now, just let me twitch this pleat in place. There.”
“You are quite kind to say so, Lilly. But so untruthful. However, a compliment shouldn’t ever be turned away. I’ll savor this one fully, I promise you.” She gave Lilly an affectionate hug, picked up her riding gloves, and made her way with a light step downstairs.
She took a deep breath, planted a smile on her face, and squared her shoulders.
9
Robert Bleddoes rose with alacrity and hurried over to greet her. He was dressed in his usual brown broadcloth, eminently suitable for country wear, as he had once informed her. Harry, who now affected the “windblown” fashion made stylish by Lord Byron, had sniffed disdainfully at Robert’s close-cropped brown hair, declaring him to be the complete flat, which, truth be told, he was—a conceited, arrogant, complete flat.
“Good morning, Robert,” she said, extending her hand. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?”
Robert bowed ponderously and clasped Kate’s proffered hand in his longer than necessary, but she pulled it firmly away.
“Good day to you, Miss Katharine. May I say that you are in great looks today.”
“I would prefer that you did not say something so utterly untrue, Robert, but since you have already, I suppose it would be inhospitable of me to cavil.” She watched him closely as he blinked in an effort to understand her words.
He brightened. “Ah, my dear lady, you have such a ready wit. I see that you are jesting with me. Jesting is suitable for a young girl, so it doesn’t bother me at all. A few more years and you will grow more properly reserved, I doubt it not, particularly with kindly superior nurturing.”
She wanted to hit him on his head with a fireplace poker, then kick all his superior nurturing to York, but she managed to contain herself. She pictured her father’s reaction and forced a very false smile. “Do take a seat, Robert. What news of Bonaparte do you have for me today?” With Napoleon’s defeat and his subsequent departure to Elba, Robert, for the past six months, had never arrived at Brandon Hall without some bit of news to give credence to his visits.
He cleared his throat, beaming at her with approval. “I had thought that you and Sir Oliver, of course, would find it of great interest that the Allies will convene this fall in Vienna to determine the fate of France.”
She didn’t tell Robert that the earl had already discussed this interesting topic with her and that as a result, she found his news to be not entirely accurate. “It’s a critical step in restoring a balance of power,” the earl had told her. “Lord Castlereagh, our ambassador, has a mighty difficult task facing him, particularly after the bad will resulting from the Czar’s visit to England in June.”
“Actually,” she’d said with a laugh, “it was more the Grand Duchess Catherine who nearly flummoxed the Regent.”
He laughed and ruffled her hair, the braid coming unbound beneath her old hat. Just that one afternoon, she’d sneaked out of Brandon Hall wearing her boy’s clothes and they’d gone fishing.
She answered Robert now with only a ghost of humor in her voice. “How very kind you are to ride such a great distance to so enlighten me. Why, I wish I could pack my bags this instant and accompany our ambassador to Vienna. I do wonder, though, how much diplomacy will actually be conducted, with all the routs and balls and soirees.”
Robert pondered her words with great seriousness and finally announced, “Ah, you are attempting to jest with me again, my dear. You would, of course, have no desire to travel out of England. Foreign travel is not at all the thing for well-bred English ladies. And your jests about our men of power, well, naturally they are not quite the thing. These men will comport themselves with high propriety.”
Kate forced a smile and a nod, allowing the veil of boredom to close over her. She listened politely as Robert regaled her with the happenings of the past week. His mother was in fine health, barring, of course, her anxiety over the chill he had contracted.
Kate, knowing her duty, said, “Nothing serious, I hope, Robert. You seem to be quite well now.”
Robert was delighted with her expression of concern. Though he thought the Miss Brandon to be a bit too vivacious upon occasion, he had always dismissed it as girlish spirits. Now, for instance, the true womanliness of her nature would be apparent to anyone.
He expanded most willingly upon the topic of his health, anxious to allay her concern about his illness.
Kate was near to screaming with vexation when Robert’s commentary was halted by the entrance of Filber, announcing the earl of March.
She nearly leapt from her chair, a radiant smile on her face. Rescue was at hand. She walked swiftly to the earl and stretched out her gloved hand.
Julien lifted her hand to his lips and murmured softly so that only she could hear his words, “My poor Kate. My timing is exquisite, is it not? What have we here? Dare I take it for a suitor?”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing aloud and raised her eyes to him in silent warning.
“Humph!” Robert had risen and stood alarmingly red-faced, his eyes narrowing upon the unwelcome intruder.
“Oh, do excuse me, Robert.” She pulled her hand slowly from the earl’s. Somehow she hadn’t noticed that the earl had held her hand overlong, much less kissed her fingers lightly.
“Mr. Robert Bleddoes, this is the earl of March, our neighbor.” She added smoothly, “The squire has been good enough to bring us news of Napoleon this morning.”
A strange transformation came over Robert. He appeared to shrink visibly, and he was able to murmur only a strangled greeting to the earl.
Julien seemed not to notice the stumbling phrases that were proffered and performed his greetings with his customary grace. He found himself being scrutinized, from his exquisitely tied cravat to his polished Hessians. He bore up under this well, quelling the set-down that rose automatically to his lips for such behavior. He thought with well-concealed amusement that much could be forgiven a man who was so obviously smitten and hiding it so poorly.
Julien was glad that he’d remained silent, for a chance glance at Kate’s face showed her to be in an agony of apprehension.
Robert managed to recover a modicum of self-assurance and observed in a tight voice, “I did not know that your lordship was acquainted with Sir Oliver.” He realized that he d
idn’t show to advantage next to the earl, that somehow his serviceable brown breeches and coat seemed perhaps a bit bland, perhaps a bit too serviceable, as if he and his clothes were fading slowly and inexorably into the wainscoting. His lordship wore a superfine light-baize coat that fit so well it seemed a part of him.
Robert cast a surreptitious glance at his near-conquest to see if he could read her feelings about her noble guest. What he saw sent red flashes of danger shooting through his mind. He reluctantly pulled his eyes away when he became aware that the earl was answering him.
“Yes, Miss Brandon and her brother were riding in the village. We met there.”
“But Harry isn’t here any longer.”
“True, but I contrive to make do with his sister. She is, upon occasion, sufficiently charming. And she fishes well, for a female, of course. Do you not agree, sir?”
“Well, naturally, certainly. Of course I agree. She is all that is charming and modest and demure. I say, do you really fish, Miss Katharine? Surely not.”
“She tries, sir, she tries. Perhaps some years from now she’ll come close to my skill.” To his surprise, she seemed to have lost her tongue, and Robert was tugging unconsciously at his cravat, even while he reddened with anger. Julien felt laughter bubble up but sternly held his amusement in check. He shifted his attention back to the squire, who looked fit to slay him, and asked easily, “What news have you of Napoleon?”
Robert drew himself up at this opportunity, knowing that his brilliant mind would now be admired and duly appreciated. His mother had assured him that he was brilliant, that he should himself be traveling to Vienna. “I was telling Miss Katharine that Bonaparte is safely secured on Elba and that the Allies will convene in Vienna this fall to determine his fate.”
“How very interesting. Is there nothing else going on?”
Thinking that he had impressed the earl, Robert proceeded to favor the company with his opinions on Napoleon, Tallyrand, and the Restoration of the Bourbons. It didn’t occur to him to halt because, after all, his mother had always assured him that his political knowledge was unrivaled and that she could listen to him for simply hours. It had never occurred to him to doubt her assessment.
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