by Lisa Berne
“You—you cad! And it’s Lucretia!”
A few moments later the woman, skirts more or less in place, flounced around the stable’s corner, checked for a moment when she saw Katherine, then hurried past her, head down, toward the DeWitt mansion, even as her partner sauntered into view, calling, “Sorry about the slip,” before stopping and—rather than scurrying away in embarrassment—looking Katherine up and down, with a lazy, brazen lack of hurry. He was a tall, loose-limbed man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, seeming to be in his late twenties: not conventionally handsome, but there was something about his sublime confidence that caught the eye—as if he was so pleased with himself, he was sure you would be, too.
“Oh, hullo,” he said. “Like to eavesdrop on other people’s naughty activities, do you?”
Katherine was so taken aback by his entire attitude, so suddenly annoyed, that instead of prudently retreating she instead answered, rather snappishly, “As a matter of fact, I don’t.”
“Really? Still, it wasn’t very nice of you to hang about like that.”
“It wasn’t very nice of you to pursue a married woman.”
He came closer. “You’re straitlaced, eh?”
“I’m none of your business, that’s what I am.”
“I think you ought to be.” He was closer now—closer than he should be—and Katherine could almost feel his rakish charm, smooth, oleaginous, rolling over her as he again swept his dark gaze over her in a highly improper manner.
“You’re like a ripe little pear,” he remarked. “Juicy and delicious. Of course, the green of your gown doesn’t quite work with the metaphor.”
“It’s a simile.”
“Whatever you say, my dear. I’m glad you’re not wearing yellow—you’d look more pear-like, but also, I fear, jaundiced. Really, the only solution is to take your gown off.”
“Take my gown off.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or to spit in his eye.
“Do you need some help? Chivalry is not yet dead, you know. Allow me.”
He was actually crouching down, reaching for the hem of her dress, and Katherine was so surprised by his casual audacity that even though her brain was saying, Kick him, and hard, her body was still a few beats behind. She felt his hand on her ankle and in a rather muddled way managed to say:
“Stop it.”
“Surely you don’t mean that,” he said with the same smooth confidence, and just as his hand began to slide up her leg, he was whisked up and away from her and set on his feet as easily as an adult might remove a small troublesome child from a place where he ought not to be.
Hugo had done it. Hugo. He was here. He had found her, and she was safe. With Hugo she always felt safe. Always. He said to the other man, “She told you to stop,” and his deep voice was very calm, but within it was a distinctive timbre that made Katherine’s eyes go wide.
The other man resettled his coat and nodded in the most amicable way at Hugo. “Oh, hullo, I haven’t seen you in ages. Didn’t you go off to our benighted former Colonies? Meet any interesting women there? I hear those American ladies are quite an armful.”
“What,” said Hugo, “is going on here?”
“What’s going on,” replied the other man with unimpaired sangfroid, “is that I was in the midst of an intimate encounter, and you’re getting in my way.”
“An intimate encounter? Why, you—you nasty, despicable marmot!” Katherine exclaimed, gathering her scattered wits. “He’s lying, Hugo, I assure you!”
“Oh, you know each other? Is this an assignation? Hugo, I extend to you my felicitations. She’s charming. A little too fierce for my tastes, to own the truth, but still, a prime article.”
Hugo’s jaw was now visibly clenched. “I don’t care to hear my wife described like that, Thane.”
“Your wife?” echoed the other man, even as Katherine gaped and said:
“You’re Thane?”
He executed a low bow with an extravagant sweep of his arm, as would a gallant of the old French court. “Philip Thane at your service, my dear Mrs. Penhallow.”
“Ha,” she said rudely, adding in a severe tone, “Your grandparents have been looking for you, you know.”
“I do know, and that’s why I’ve been laying low for the past several weeks. I don’t care to be scolded or, in the case of my mama, wept over. But when the wealthy and willing Letitia summoned me here, how could I resist her wiles?”
“It’s Lucretia.”
“Whatever you say, my dear. It’s coming to me, by the way, that you look a little familiar. Weren’t you at a party last year hosted by the rather common Mrs. Spindlow? If I recall correctly, you wore diamonds, rubies, and pearls. Frankly, it was too much. I was going to talk to you, thinking you might benefit from a little kindly advice about your ensemble, but then I heard who you were. Rowland Brooke’s daughter, aren’t you?”
She scowled. “Yes.”
“I took nearly a hundred pounds off him that night at piquet. He fancies himself quite the Captain Sharp. If I were you I’d tell him to leave off the cards.”
“When I desire your counsel, Mr. Thane,” Katherine said coldly, “I’ll be sure to inform you.”
“Oh, do call me Philip, we’re more or less cousins, after all.” He swung around to Hugo. “So you caught yourself an heiress, eh? That’s very well done of you. Speaking of heiresses, I’ve got my eye on a promising one myself, only her curst parents have carried her off to Tunbridge Wells and I’m a trifle low on travel funds at the moment. Any chance you could lend me a small sum, now you’re rolling in the stuff? A few hundred pounds would set me up nicely.”
Hugo gave him a level look. “As it’s well-known that you never pay back a loan, Thane, I’m more likely to give you a good drubbing.”
Philip Thane raised his hands, as if appeasing an armed opponent. “Never mind, my dear Hugo, never mind! It was merely a request. Well, I’ll leave you two love-birds alone to enjoy the moonlight. Do try to avoid creating a scandal. That’s my purview, after all.” He smiled breezily. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Penhallow, and may I compliment you on your greatly improved appearance? Good night.”
And with that he loped past Hugo and away toward the house, the sound of his shoes, crunching on gravel, rapidly fading away.
Katherine said quickly, “Oh, Hugo, you know he was lying, don’t you? With his ridiculous story of an assignation?”
Hugo didn’t answer for a moment; he was hearing again Thane’s insouciant congratulations. So you caught yourself an heiress, eh? That’s very well done of you. The words were a stiletto, worming their way inside him, sharp and wounding. Now he wished he had given Thane a drubbing, if only for the sake of relieving his own feelings. If only to forget for a moment that he was on a lonely dark road, going nowhere. He said to Katherine, “Yes, I believe you. Shall we go in?”
She remained very still, her brilliant eyes huge in her face as she looked up at him. “Would you—would you like to stay here for a little while? And we could talk?”
More talking, more words. What good could words possibly do? “I think not,” said Hugo. “Westenbury told me you were tired. Are you feeling more refreshed? Allow me to take you in.”
He spoke to her with kind courtesy, the sort of politeness he would extend to—well, anyone really.
And so they went in.
Chapter 13
Katherine was in her room, Hugo was in his. In the hallway, a little earlier, having returned from the DeWitts’ ball, they had parted as they always did; he had said good night to her with that same civil, distant tone that seemed to turn her blood to ice. Why had he begun talking to her in that way? She hated it.
Still in her beautiful green gown, Katherine was sitting on the floor, next to one of her tall stacks of books, from which she had carefully extracted a certain volume, very large and heavy; set it on her thighs, opened it. Shakespeare. The complete plays. That line about blindness—where had it appeared? Was it Titus Andronicus? Julius Ca
esar? Cymbeline?
She began scanning the pages by the flickering light of a single candle.
Searching, searching: Our very eyes are sometimes, like our judgments, blind.
When she reached page 28, Katherine realized just how absurd a task she had set before herself, given how small the type was. And that there were some six hundred pages to go.
She pressed on.
When she got to page 43, she realized that she was tired. Oh so tired.
When she got to page 47, she realized that for the last thirty pages or so she hadn’t really even read anything. Because the truth was that she didn’t want to be sitting here on the cold floor flipping pointlessly—hopelessly—through a book of Shakespeare’s plays. The truth was that there was some other place she wanted to be.
Wanted it more badly than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
So she set the book aside and stood up, and went to the table next to her bed, where she found the key on its green ribbon—noticing without surprise, as if it were meant to be, how precisely it matched the green of her gown—and then, quietly, she went to the door that separated her room from Hugo’s and quietly, carefully, she unlocked it.
She pushed the door open a little and peeked inside. It was dark in Hugo’s room; she could just barely see him in his bed. He was there, thank God, he was there. Katherine blew out her candle and softly, padding on stockinged feet, went into his room, went to the unoccupied side of the bed, and very quietly crawled underneath the covers.
Her heart was beating hard, hard, within her, so loud in her own ears that she was surprised the noise of it didn’t wake Hugo. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see that he slept on his side, facing her, one bare arm flung over the bedclothes. She looked, as if for the very first time, at him, at the strong lines of his face, that perfect straight nose, the firm jaw, his hair, slightly rumpled, which in the light would shine like gold.
Katherine looked, and this time, she hoped, she saw.
She didn’t know what the morning would bring—if Hugo even wanted her there—if there would be an uncomfortable, painful, possibly devastating scene—but for now, at this moment, in this time and in this place, she was exactly where she needed to be.
He was dreaming of chocolate. The sweet, tantalizing scent of it in his nostrils, teasing him, filling him with desire. Hugo stirred, brushed aside a great handful of curly hair from his face, snugged his arm over a plump silken hip. Vaguely was he aware of a feeling of contentment. Rightness. Of being alone no longer. He smiled a little, and let himself drift back into a deep untroubled sleep.
It was only a tapping—knuckles on a wood door—that brought him awake, that made him realize that he lay body to body with Katherine, who, sleeping on her side with her back pressed against him, still wore her green dress from last night. Surprise came first, and then desire flamed again, the quick rush of lust, but there was nothing to be done as, standing on the threshold to their connecting rooms, was a maidservant with a tray which she balanced on her forearm, using her other arm to tap again on the open door, her eyes very wide with the surprise, Hugo supposed, of finding her mistress in bed with her husband. Who could blame her? It was an unprecedented event.
“I brought the chocolate, sir,” the maidservant said. “Like I do every morning. Where shall I put it, sir?”
“On the table next to me, please,” he answered, and she complied, then bobbed a curtsy and went back to the connecting door, closing it so slowly, and with her eyes fixed upon them with such fascination, that he wanted to laugh. He sat up, and poured chocolate from its little silver pitcher into the delicate china cup.
“Katherine,” he said, and he watched as she stirred, sighed, and then turned onto her back and looked up at him. Her hair, still with its green silk ribbons and jeweled ornaments, was in a wild, tangled tumble, and he could see that she had on her emerald necklace from last night, lying twisted on her collarbone. Her mouth curved in a dreamy smile and she said, as if it was the most natural thing in all the world:
“Hullo.”
“Hullo,” he answered, just as easily, as if this was something they said to each other every morning in bed, and added, “Here’s your chocolate.”
She looked at the cup, then back at him. “You first.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks, then.” He took a sip. Warm, sweet, wonderful. “It reminds me of you.”
“What does?”
“Chocolate. The scent of it. Here.” He held out the cup, and Katherine sat up to accept it. Her green ball-gown was rumpled, the neckline was askew, and one puffed sleeve had slid haphazardly down to reveal the soft white skin of her shoulder. She looked, he thought, wonderful.
She sipped at the chocolate, then held the cup out to him. “Your turn.”
“But it’s yours.”
“Let’s share it.” She was sitting very straight, and he saw that her expression was no longer sleepy, dreamy, but alert. Determined. He took the cup.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hugo, I have something I want to tell you.”
She reminded him, suddenly, of how she’d been that night at the inn. Words wanting to spill out: about that ghastly school of hers. The music instructor. The so-called Reflection Room.
Boxes concealed, boxes revealed.
He said, “What is it, Katherine?”
She had flushed a vivid red. “Hugo, sometimes I have a scent of chocolate about me because—well, I like to eat it.”
“Oh, is that why?”
“Yes.”
Her face was even redder, her lips compressed, and so in the spirit of helpfulness it seemed only decent of him to add:
“I like chocolate also.”
“Yes, but . . . I like it very much.”
“I too.”
“No, I mean I like it a lot.”
So might a shamed penitent in the confessional admit to criminal acts. He said, “Is there anything wrong with that? I’ve been known to eat spring lamb till I was ready to burst.”
“Yes, but I—love chocolate.”
“And so?” He handed her back the cup. She stared into it, then up at him, and hurriedly said, as if afraid her nerve would fail her:
“My mother told me I couldn’t have it. I’ve been sneaking it for years.”
It seemed, on the face of it, rather a small thing, but then again, you couldn’t know unless you walked in another person’s shoes. “If you expected I’d be shocked, I’m not.”
She was silent. Then: “Have you ever done anything like that?”
He smiled, just a little. “Surely you’ve not forgotten the time I tried to sneak a pair of Impures into my dormitory.”
“Oh!” She knit her brows. “Yes, I remember. You told me about it the night before we arrived at Surmont Hall. I was a trifle drunk, as I recall.”
“You were well on the way. Hope you won’t feel bad about that either.”
“There’s so much to feel bad about.” Katherine gave another sigh, on her face now an expression of such sadness that he seemed to feel it within himself, heavy and dark. She went on: “Do you want to hear about my books?”
“Your books? You feel bad about them also?”
“I’ve been sneaking them for years, too. You remember my maid Céleste?”
“Yes, of course.”
“We had our own little smuggling scheme. Books and chocolates. I paid her, and somehow she got them for me. Whatever I wanted. From all over the country. Even from abroad.”
Hugo couldn’t help it, he laughed. “Katherine, I’m impressed.”
She was staring at him. “Impressed?”
“Very. How delightfully clever of you. Wish I’d been as practical, instead of smuggling in cows and ladies of the night. Should’ve been sneaking in portable things, like spirits. And cheroots, just to try them. Now drink your chocolate before it gets cold.”
Looking a little dazed, K
atherine obeyed. He took the cup and put it back on the tray, then tugged up a pillow so that she could lean back against it and did the same for himself. “Comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Last night . . .” she said, then stopped.
“What about last night? Still worrying about our awful cousin Thane?”
“No. He is awful, isn’t he? But last night—you didn’t want to talk.”
“Last night,” he said, “was a long time ago.”
She took this in, and slowly nodded her head. “Hugo, I want to thank you for coming when you did. You were very heroic, lifting Thane up like that.”
“Heroic?” He laughed. “Hardly. A bit of brute strength, that’s all.”
“It seemed heroic to me. So—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And—you don’t mind my being here?”
“No. I’m glad you came.”
Hugo was smiling at her, and Katherine felt her spirits lifting, in a giddy rushing swoop upwards. Physiologically impossible, of course, but the sensation seemed very real. Wonderfully real.
Yesterday evening, she had been afraid that Hugo would never smile at her again. It would be like living in a world in which the sun had been blotted out. Desolate. Hopeless. Last night was a long time ago. And today was a new day, filled with possibility.
Katherine pushed back the bedclothes and scrambled out of bed, went with eager steps to the windows and flung back one of the curtains. Bright sunlight flooded the room. She turned back around. Yes. Hugo’s hair illuminated to gold. The blue of his eyes like a Grecian sea. He was naked to the waist, and probably everywhere. I’m glad you came. The word came, Katherine thought, feeling warm all over, had multiple meanings, some of them more immediate than others.
Hugo said, “You’re getting up, then?”
“No. I’m coming back to bed.” Which is what she did. She knelt next to Hugo, her gown splayed about her. Coming. To come. “Is that all right with you?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Yes. What do you want to do?”