Miss Bower watched the entire scene, her expression indicative of equal parts disgust and triumph.
“A change of companions would do you good,” Finley said.
“Your leaving would do me far more good, Mr. Finley.”
“Afraid your husband will return?”
“Please leave.”
Finley opened his mouth to reply, but a third voice cut him off. “Ah, Finley. I thought I detected the faint smell of horse excrement.”
Philip! Thank heaven. He entered the box, inspecting Finley through his quizzing glass.
“Lampton.” Finley spoke with no hint of warmth or congeniality. “Come to take advantage of an old friend?” Catherine didn’t like the way Finley emphasized “advantage.” Why did she get the feeling she’d just been insulted?
“On the contrary.” Philip smoothed the sleeve of his jacket. “This box seems to be the center of attention at the moment. I’ve come to be seen.”
Philip traipsed to the front of the box, leaned calculatingly casually against the high column, and fixed his eyes on Finley with a look of ennui.
“Useless fop,” Finley grumbled, eyeing Philip with utter contempt.
“This is quite a scene.” Crispin’s voice joined the jumble. He didn’t sound amused.
Catherine looked from Philip’s look of nonchalance to Finley’s glaring eyes to Crispin’s noticeably tensing jaw. Her eyes settled on Miss Bower’s look of triumph. She was enjoying this scene, wasn’t she? Catherine had stomached quite enough.
“You seem to have torn a flounce, Miss Bower.” Amazingly, she managed to infuse the lie with an aura of truthfulness. “Perhaps you should see to it lest someone suspect you’ve been misbehaving.”
Miss Bower flushed a blotchy red and offered a quickly muttered excuse before scurrying from the box. She would, of course, be quite put out when she realized her flounces were entirely intact. Catherine couldn’t care less.
“And you, Mr. Finley.” Catherine spun around to face the second intruder. “You may take your leave as well. I, as I have assured you, have no need for your offer nor any desire for your company.”
“Good show, Catherine.” Finley smiled at her.
“You will not use my Christian name, Mr. Finley.”
Much to her consternation, Mr. Finley stepped even closer, as though her words had actually been encouraging.
“Cavratt does not want you, love,” Finley whispered as he closed the distance between them. Catherine had no room to back away. “I do.”
Crispin appeared behind Finley. “You have quite overstayed your welcome, sir.” His hand clamped Finley’s shoulder. “You will be leaving now.”
“And the dandy?” Finley snapped his head in Philip’s direction. “You really think his intentions are honorable?”
Crispin shot Finley a look that should have leveled him.
“Keep your copy of tomorrow’s gossip sheet, Cavratt.” Finley made his way out of the box. “After this spectacle, it should prove an interesting read.”
Crispin’s gaze never left Finley as the man disappeared from view.
“Finley got his handful of fame,” Philip said, walking to where Crispin stood glaring at the back of the box.
“His intention, no doubt.” Crispin let out a tense breath. “Thank you for coming in after him. I couldn’t get through the crowd.”
“I would much rather make Finley uncomfortable than face the horde of rabid gossipers following you around hoping for a juicy tidbit.”
Crispin shook his head in obvious displeasure. “What a mess this all is.”
Catherine cringed at his words. She had tried to keep the situation under control. She’d sent Miss Bower packing, hadn’t she?
“I shall leave you to see to your lovely wife,” Philip said. He stopped a few steps short of leaving, turned back to the two of them, and offered one more bit of advice before leaving. “Give the tabbies something to claw each other over.”
Crispin picked up the two flutes of champagne he’d brought with him and held one out to Catherine.
“I don’t think I could,” Catherine protested. “My stomach is a bit unsettled as it is.”
“Finley has that effect on people.”
“I really did try to persuade him to leave,” Catherine said. “But he wouldn’t go.”
Crispin took a generous sip of bubbling wine. “He is rather like the plague, isn’t he?”
“Deadly. Painful. Putrid.” Catherine nodded. “An appropriate comparison.”
He smiled after another swallow. “Putrid? He would be mortified.”
“He ought to be mortified more often,” Catherine mumbled.
“Finley was right about one thing, though.” Crispin finished his glass—Catherine didn’t remember ever seeing him drink, let alone finish an entire glass so quickly. He must have truly been upset. “This will, I am afraid, further fuel the gossips.”
“Do you think anyone noticed?”
Crispin motioned with his head to the audience behind Catherine. She glanced covertly over her shoulder. An inordinate number of eyes were, indeed, focused on their box. She turned back to Crispin, closing her eyes to steady herself.
“What should we do?” she asked when she finally trusted herself to speak.
He didn’t answer for a moment. Catherine opened her eyes to find him watching her closely. “We have to convince them you weren’t inviting Finley’s attentions. Or Philip’s, for that matter.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know,” Crispin stepped closer to her, setting his empty glass on an obliging table beside her still full one. “But they”—He eyed the theater beyond—“don’t know that.”
“How do we convince them?” Catherine’s heart beat harder as Crispin stepped closer.
“To begin with, you could smile.” Crispin matched his expression to his suggestion. “Much better. No point convincing them we’re quarreling.”
“We couldn’t be quarreling—there’s no fountain,” Catherine replied.
Crispin cupped her chin with his hand and kissed the tip of her nose. She would never survive another onslaught. “If there were a fountain . . . ?” He let the phrase dangle.
“You wouldn’t be afraid to let the ton see you in a tizzy?”
“I don’t have tizzies, Catherine.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow at him, grateful for the return of his teasing tone.
“Now that is a look I cannot possibly be expected to resist.”
What did he mean by that?
In the next moment, Crispin kissed her. He kissed her in his box at the Theatre Royal in front of three thousand people. It was not merely an obligatory peck, but a thorough, more-than-a-few-mere-seconds’-long kiss. Warmth spread through her entire body as his arms wrapped around her.
Catherine touched his face with her hands, memorizing the feel of him. He could not possibly kiss her so deeply and not mean anything by it. She poured her heart into returning the kiss, praying he would feel just how much she needed him, that he would want her to stay with him.
“If we leave now,” he whispered against her mouth, “the gossips will be entirely convinced.”
The gossips. He had kissed her for appearance’s sake?
Her heart dropped. His performance as the doting and affectionate husband would certainly convince the gossip-hungry members of society. For a moment, she had actually believed he cared for her.
Chapter Twenty-four
The cold night air outside the Theatre Royal went a long way to cool Crispin’s thoughts. He’d told himself, even as he leaned forward to kiss Catherine, that he was doing so merely to convince any interested onlooker that he and Catherine were not at odds with each other. Somehow that motivation had all but disappeared the moment his lips had touched hers.
Blast! He wasn’t a schoolboy who couldn’t keep himself in check. Yet he found it absolutely necessary to sit opposite Catherine during the carriage ride home instead of beside her. What kind
of spell had Catherine cast over him that he couldn’t trust himself to keep a proper distance now that they weren’t putting a spoke in the wheels of the gossip wagon?
The situation had grown nearly unbearable. Only one more week. One week. She’d be gone and he could breathe again. Lud, that wasn’t at all comforting.
Why, by George, did he feel like his mind couldn’t quite keep up? Perhaps the champagne hadn’t been a good idea, after all.
He was not foxed—descending from the carriage and taking the steps into Permount House was easy enough. His surroundings were holding still and his eyes were focusing just fine. He wasn’t completely inebriated, and yet . . .
Crispin rubbed his face as he stood in the doorway of the sitting room. He generally avoided alcohol. He was not one of those gentlemen who could spend a night in his cups and still remain unaffected. It had been a source of endless taunting in his Cambridge days.
“Are you all right, Crispin?”
Catherine’s voice pulled him back to the present. She was watching him from just past the sitting room doors. He did his best to look unaffected.
“Fine.”
“You look a little unwell.”
“I’m not ill.”
Her unwavering gaze proved decidedly uncomfortable.
“The champagne?” she asked, her voice a little lower, her forehead wrinkled with knowing concern.
He was not jug-bitten. His pride suffered a severe blow at the idea that she thought he would get roaring drunk while escorting her. Gads, he was responsible for her safety, her well-being. He wouldn’t allow himself to become cup-shot.
“You never drink more than a few sips of wine with dinner. I simply assumed you do not care for spirits.” Catherine crossed to where he was standing, eyeing him quite penetratingly. “Do you need to sit down? Shall I ring for coffee?”
“I am far from foxed, Catherine, just a little—”
“Light-headed?” she finished for him. “Come, sit down.” Catherine motioned toward a chair not far off in the sitting room.
“I am fine. Really. I think I’m more tired than anything else.”
“Then perhaps you should lie down,” Catherine said.
He shook his head. Catherine took gentle hold of his arm. As it had earlier at the theater, her touch shook him to the core. He stepped back, needing a little space and time to clear his foggy mind. Foggy enough, in fact, that he backed directly into a hall table and managed to topple a flower-filled vase. He barely managed to right it in time.
“I really think you should at least sit down, Crispin.” Catherine led him by the hand toward the stairs. “You will feel better if you do.”
He followed mutely, unsure where they were headed but enjoying the touch of her ungloved hand in his too much to ask or object. A moment later—a very short moment later—she released him. He sat in an armchair beside the fireplace in the library, pondering just how he could convince her to hold his hand again. Low embers cast a soft glow around the room but not a lot of warmth.
As if reading his thoughts, Catherine snatched a throw from the nearby sofa and draped it over Crispin’s lap.
“I am not in my dotage, Catherine,” Crispin objected, feeling like an octogenarian. “Nor am I in my cups.”
“Uncle never could stop drinking before becoming thoroughly foxed.” She ignored his objection. “He never was one to exercise restraint.” She stepped away to stoke the fire, bringing a little more life to the barely glowing coals.
Restraint! Did Catherine have any idea the Herculean effort required to exercise restraint in her company, especially with her hair quite enchantingly escaping its knot and her perfume filling the room? He doubted it. In fact, he knew she didn’t. Catherine wanted nothing to do with him. Catherine was walking out in a week.
“Was your father that way?” Catherine took a seat opposite him, wrapping a second blanket around her shoulders.
What way? What had she been talking about? Ah, yes. Drunkards. “He was not particularly susceptible to alcohol.”
She shook her head. “I meant, was he willing to accept his limits? An exerciser of self-control?”
Did Catherine view him that way? Was a man of restraint her ideal, or did she equate it with weakness? And why, he demanded of himself, did he care so blasted much? Somewhere along the way he’d become sentimental and maudlin. Caring about people never did any good.
“I suppose,” was all Crispin managed to offer.
Catherine gave him the oddest look, as if searching his very soul for some bit of crucial character-evaluating information. Perfect! Sketch his character while he was three sheets to the wind. Or at least a sheet and a half. Calculating the exact sheet percentage of one’s drunkenness was particularly hard when one was just a touch cut.
Where were they? Ah, yes. Catherine was evaluating him and, apparently, his father.
“My father was a good man,” Crispin said. “He was a fair landlord and an attentive father and a devoted husband.” His father had not been a fool, wearing his heart on his sleeve or pining after a lady who wanted nothing to do with him.
“Did your parents love each other, then?”
“They rubbed along well. And I think they were fond of each other.”
“But they weren’t in love?”
“Of course not.”
“Why ‘of course’? Love between married couples isn’t such an outrageous occurrence.”
It was proving more “outrageous” all the time. He’d gone his entire life with a reasonable and logical view of relationships and attachments. A few weeks of Catherine’s company and he’d gone soft. He didn’t need a clear head to see the result of that egregious miscalculation. “Love is the invention of poets, Catherine.” Malevolent, vicious poets.
If her gaze had been searching before, by the end of his declaration it look turned positively dissecting. “I knew you sometimes gravitated toward cynicism, but I hadn’t realized you espoused skepticism, as well. To dismiss an emotion so entirely . . .” Was that disapproval in her eyes? Or simply confusion?
He was feeling a little muddled himself.
“That is a rather bleak assessment,” Catherine said, her brows knit in concentration. “You cannot truly say you do not love your sister.”
Lud, his head was far too foggy for such a philosophical discussion. “It is not the same thing.”
“Love is love, Crispin.”
“All families love each other, in that familial sort of way.” He leaned his head back against the chair. “You were referring to love between spouses.” Ironically enough. “Men and women. Romantic love. That . . . nonsense.”
“First of all, not all families love each other. And secondly, I don’t believe the love between a man and a woman is nonsense.”
Was Catherine glowering? She seldom looked anywhere near upset—disappointed at times, borderline annoyed. But glaring at him?
Why in heaven’s name was he discussing this with her in the first place? He never spoke to anyone about his frustrations with the hypocrisy in the world. He’d seen too many unhappy marriages, been pursued by too many avaricious young ladies to have much faith in the promise of love. Catherine hadn’t particularly helped in that regard. She had dropped him like a hot rock.
“I daresay you don’t understand.” There. Let Catherine glower over that. Even with a clear head he found the topic confusing at best. He refused to have this discussion with his wits dulled and unreliable.
“I understand quite well that you discount an emotion I have believed in all my life.” Lud, she really did sound upset. “What I do not understand is why. You were loved by your parents. You are loved by your sister. You are loved by . . . by others. Yet you are willing to dismiss the emotion so entirely.”
“And you are willing to argue about it incessantly.”
“Perhaps you dismiss it because you have always been loved. If you had ever felt its absence, maybe you would more willingly acknowledge its existence and value its role
in your life.”
“Love plays absolutely no role in my life, Catherine.” He wouldn’t allow it to. Caring for . . . people hadn’t turned out well. He would be indifferent. Unaffected. “Outside of my parents and sister I have never known a single person who inspired in me anything more than detached notice or annoyance. At the moment, you are tending toward the latter.”
Even in his mild stupor Crispin recognized his mistake immediately. Catherine’s face instantly drained of all color and her gaze dropped.
“Catherine—”
“I hope you sleep well,” Catherine cut across him. She rose from her chair. “Black coffee in the morning may be helpful as well.”
“Catherine, please.” He rose to follow her, knowing he owed her quite an apology. She was gone before he’d uttered another word. Down the corridor and around the corner he heard a door close—her door, no doubt.
Crispin rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. What had possessed him to say those things to Catherine? Annoyance? At what? Her concern? Her solicitous attentions while he was less than himself? The fact that she could speak so passionately of love and feel nothing for him?
He’d lashed out, protected himself by implying that he felt little more than a detached awareness of her presence. Heaven help him, his awareness of her lately had been far from detached! That, in fact, had been the heart of the problem. Catherine had become ingrained in his life, in his very being, and he had no idea what to do about it. He’d never cared about anyone the way he cared about her. Those unrequited feelings ate away at him, left him empty and bitter. So he’d reverted to his usual self and offered a cynical and entirely undeserved put-down.
He couldn’t really blame her for wanting to leave him and this chapter in her life far behind her. For the briefest moment, while he’d kissed her in his box at the theater, he’d actually contemplated trying to convince her to reconsider. But hearing his own harsh words repeat in his mind and remembering the look of pain he’d brought to her face, he wondered if, for her, a life without him might be best after all.
The Kiss of a Stranger Page 21