One Tempting Proposal

by Christy Carlyle

  “Please have a seat, Miss Perkins.”

  The middle-­aged woman twisted her head one way and then the other, as if uncertain which chair to choose, before finally perching at the far edge of the settee. Her jerky uncoordinated movements didn’t match the woman he’d met the previous day. They indicated nervousness, or fear.

  “What brings you to Wrexford House?”

  A long pause followed while the woman stared at her clasped hands, then glanced up at him before ducking her head again.

  Seb still couldn’t quite forgive her for not being Kat, nor for reminding him of the unresolved matter of Alecia’s claim that he’d fathered her child.

  “Miss Perkins?”

  She finally met his gaze, her mouth trembling, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  “I will lose my place over this, so I beg you to understand if it’s difficult for me.”

  She’d come to him and believed it would lose her the post as governess to Archie. Pinpricks rushed across his skin and he stifled a shiver. Only Alecia had ever inspired a dark sense of foreboding in him.

  Miss Perkins struggled to swallow, as if she’d just downed a loaf of bread whole, and reached inside the pocket of her skirt. The document she pulled out looked old, with foxing on the paper and wear at the edges. She handled it with care as she flattened it on her lap and then lifted it out to him.

  His hand shook as he reached for the paper. It looked to be a page from a family history or genealogical record of the Naughton family. Archie’s name was listed near the bottom, with birth date and year recorded as tenth of June, 1883. The boy would turn nine in a few months, and he’d been conceived two years after Seb had last seen Alecia before the encounter at his aunt’s ball.

  “My father is in jail.”

  The non sequitur caught him off guard, tangling his tongue and scattering the words he’d been about to say.

  “He’s a screever, a forger of documents.”

  Seb shook his head slowly, aware that his mouth hung open and he must look a fool. He had no idea what the woman was on about.

  “I thought it very kind of Lady Naughton to employ me and overlook my father’s transgressions. She entrusted me with the care and education of such a fine young boy.” Her voice broke at the mention of Archie and she inhaled sharply through her nose as if bracing herself.

  “I will miss him more than I can say, but I can’t be a part of Lady Naughton’s scheme.”

  Like one of Mr. Turner’s vivid paintings, the details of Miss Perkins’s tale were hidden among the brushstrokes, and he began to glimpse the framework of one of Alecia’s snares.

  “She asked you to alter this document?”

  The woman shook her head so fiercely, Seb feared she might sprain something. “Not me, Your Grace, never. But she believed, given my family history, I would know someone who would. And not to alter that one but to forge a new one.”

  He traced the writing where the boy’s name and birth date were listed, pressing his finger to the last numeral in his birth year. A different number there might have changed his life, the boy’s life, and destroyed the Naughton family.

  “And the rest of her scheme? She forges a new document and then what? Ruins her marriage, destroys her reputation, injures her child. For what?”

  “She said you would give her money. I’m loathe to say it, but funds are not plentiful in the household. Both master and mistress spend freely.” The governess released a breath, perhaps relieved by the confession and yet she held her stomach, as if all the whole matter left her queasy. “Lady Naughton says she should have been your duchess.”

  Seb narrowed his eyes and Miss Perkins shrugged. Apparently, Alecia’s rationales sounded as mad to her as they did to him.

  Another of her schemes. Another betrayal. He let the truth of it settle in his mind and waited for the rage he’d felt in the past, the bitterness that had been his companion for years.

  It didn’t come. He clenched his hands over the arms of his chair, irritated that the morning had not gone in another direction, that he resisted calling on Kat as he’d convinced himself not to do. Beyond irritation there was an unexpected pang of sympathy—­for Miss Perkins and the impossible situation Alecia had put her in, for Archie who’d unknowingly become a pawn to his mother’s greed, and even for Naughton. Whatever the man’s sins, he didn’t deserve this.

  “Lady Naughton intended to present you and your aunt with the forgery to convince you that Archie is your son.”

  “Yes, I see.” Seb lifted the document to return it to the governess, but she shook her head in refusal.

  “You should keep it, Your Grace.”

  Keeping a piece of Naughton’s family history didn’t sit well with Seb, but the document might be his only evidence to refute Alecia’s claim.

  “Thank you. I shall keep it for now. What will you tell Lady Naughton about the forgery?”

  Miss Perkins caught the edge of her bottom lip with her teeth. “I considered telling her I was accosted and the original document lost on my way to find the man.”

  “Seems as good a tale as any. You truly fear she’ll dismiss you?”

  For the first time since her arrival, Miss Perkins sat up straight, gazing at him directly, regaining the poise he’d seen in her the day before.

  “Despite my initial impression of Lady Naughton, I now find her to be quite unpredictable. And this plan to deceive you, with Archie in the middle, has soured me on the lady altogether. If she doesn’t dismiss me, I suspect I’ll have to leave.”

  He understood her reasons, but he hated the notion of her departure and the disappointment of the boy who admired her.

  “I hope you don’t, Miss Perkins, for the lad’s sake.”

  For a long moment, Seb assessed Archie’s governess and she took his measure in return.

  “Seb?”

  He turned at the sound of his sister’s voice.

  “Sorry to interrupt, and pardon me, miss, but I wanted to remind you of our trip to the gallery.”

  He’d ruminated the morning away pondering his future with Kat, and completely forgotten that they’d agreed to all gather on the portico of the South Kensington Museum at noon.

  Miss Perkins shot to her feet. “I should be going, Your Grace.”

  “Thank you, Miss Perkins.”

  After showing the governess out, he headed back to his study but Pippa stopped him.

  “Who was your lady visitor? And should a betrothed man have lady visitors?” she teased. He’d missed that light teasing note in her voice.

  “She’s the governess to Alecia Naughton’s son.”

  He expected her frown of confusion, but if they were to meet Kat and her sister within the hour, he didn’t have time to explain. And more than anything, he needed to see Kat.

  When Pippa didn’t question him further, he moved to pass her in the hall. “We should prepare for the gallery outing.”

  “Seb, wait. You look . . . altered.” She examined him closely, squinting as she studied his eyes.

  “Do I?” Seb felt a bit like an animal at market, and Pippa looked as if she might ask to inspect his teeth.

  “What’s happened to you?”

  Lady Katherine Adderly was the simplest answer, but saying as much would only lead to more questions. A flurry of them, he suspected.

  Then, without him saying anything, Pippa’s brown eyes rounded and she reached out to squeeze his arm so hard he winced.

  “Oh my goodness! I can’t believe it, and yet I can see it written all over your face.” She held her breath a moment and then gushed, “You have fallen in love with her!”

  Falling didn’t seem the right word, though Pippa was usually the one to argue semantics. If anything, his feelings for Kat had buoyed him up, reviving him, giving him an eagerness for the future he hadn’t felt in years.
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br />   “I do plan to ask her to marry me.”

  Pippa crossed her arms and glowered as if was a fool. “Haven’t you already done that?”

  “You know our engagement was contrived. We’re past the point of falsehood now, and I’m finished with pretending.”

  He didn’t need his sister’s approval, but he wanted it. Though she was eight years his junior, he trusted Pippa’s judgment. At least with everything but her taste in men.

  Seb crossed his arms, mirroring her stance.

  “Are you waiting for my blessing?” she asked.

  He thought back to Pippa’s displeasure when he’d told her of his plan to feign an engagement to Kat. Observing their truce at the dinner table had given him hope, but the two women had few other opportunities to speak and come to know each other.

  Romance was never a topic he’d broached with Pippa. He’d never even spoken openly about recognizing she’d developed feelings for Ollie. It seemed more of a sisterly topic of conversation, though he suspected Pippa didn’t talk about matters of the heart with anyone.

  “What is it you see in her?” There was no judgment in her tone. She was testing his precepts, forcing him to defend his reasoning.

  Her judgment would have been easier than questions, and with her usual impatience, she gave him no time to answer before proceeding to her next ones.

  “I may have changed my views about Kitty, but tell me why you wish to marry her. As much as I hate to admit it, her odious father did have a point. You encountered only a handful of women at Cambridge and the season’s just begun. Why chose so quickly? Perhaps she’s simply the only woman with whom you’ve had reason to exchange more than a few polite words.”

  “Why do you love Ollie?”

  She took a step away from him and pressed her arms more firmly against her chest, turning her head down to study the carpet.

  He hadn’t meant to corner her or expose a truth that caused her pain, but her questions had come too fast and they’d implied too much doubt about his feelings for Kat not to spark frustration.

  “I’m sorry, Pippa.” He tipped back his head and sighed. “I’m happy to answer your questions, each and every one of them.”

  Stepping forward, he lowered his arms, eager to make peace with this sister.

  “But there’s more to choosing who we love than logic.” Mercy, he almost sounded fanciful.

  She finally turned her gaze on him in a pointed glare.

  “Then perhaps we should look to logic more often and avoid the pain of terrible choices.”

  He wasn’t sure if she referred to his misery with Alecia or her feelings for Ollie.

  “Kat is intelligent and believes in the vote for women.”

  Pippa’s raised eyebrow and the quiver of a grin at the edge of her mouth pleased him. He knew that bit of information about Kat would intrigue her.

  “While she’s aware of her beauty, she accepts it more as fact than conceit. She’s fiercely loyal to her sisters, and even to her father, who I’m not sure deserves it.” And I adore the way she thinks and makes lists, the way she moves, the way she looks at me, and her ever-­changing scents. If he said all that, Pippa truly would count him a besotted fool.

  “She’ll be an outstanding duchess.” The certainty struck him almost as an afterthought. If he’d set out to choose a woman who could take on the duties of the role with grace and equanimity, not even his aunt could have selected a lady as well suited as Kat.

  Pippa nodded and released her crossed arms to place a hand on each hip. “So she’s not bereft of charms and fine qualities. I’m glad to hear it. But aren’t you forgetting something?”

  In his current state of mind, he probably had.

  “What does she think of you? None of us could approve of a woman who did not appreciate all of your fine qualities.”

  He lifted a brow at that. “That’s a good deal of sentimentality from you, Pippa, for so early in the morning.”

  “Does she love you? Truly?”

  That spot in his chest that had twinged on and off all morning began to ache with a pulsating pain—­as if his heart hurt with every beat. Now who was being sentimental?

  But Pippa’s question drew him to a point he did not wish to ponder, that he’d avoided sifting all morning. He’d been too consumed with recalling the sight of Kat standing in the center of his study, her corset pulled loose, gilded in dim gaslight and a sunset glow.

  In the elaborate bedroom he already thought of as theirs, he’d confessed his love, and she’d said it too. But her admission seemed to change everything between them. Soon after he’d sensed her waver, and uncertainty rushed in to replace all the passion he’d seen in her eyes moments before.

  He couldn’t have mistaken the feelings between them. They were powerful and real and, for the first time in his life, felt in equal measure. Kat might be practiced at artifice—­polite smiles and inane drawing room conversation—­but surely those moments between them hadn’t been that. There’d been no one to see and assess, no one to pass judgments that might impact their social standing. Holding her, touching her, loving her—­that had been true. It had to be, because in those moments with Kat he’d been more alive than he’d felt in years.

  “Seb? Don’t you know whether she loves you or not?”

  She had said it, but perhaps the depth of her feeling did not match his own. Had he been so blinded by his own desires that he’d misread hers? What had caused the fear he’d glimpsed before she departed? He shouldn’t have let her leave in such distress. If she could find the courage to give herself to him, he should have found the courage to ask her, not only about the state of her heart, her fears and doubts, but whether she’d be his wife.

  More than anything else, he wanted Kat to be his wife. Seb had to ask her.

  “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  AS THE COOL satin slid against her skin, Kitty could think only of Sebastian’s warm fingertips as he stroked her. On her legs, her arms, her face, even at her core, her body held a memory of his touch, spots he’d explored, staking them out as his own with this hands, his mouth, his tongue. He said he never wanted another man to touch her that way. Neither did she. Ever.

  The dressmaker tugged at the fabric near her waist, adding a pin from those arrayed in the seam between her lips, snapping Kitty out of her erotic reverie.

  She breathed deep and finally glanced at herself in her long sitting room mirror. A bride stared back at her, garbed in the loveliest wedding dress she’d ever seen. Buttery satin fabric embroidered with dozens of lily of the valley flowers, and sparkling beads sewn in clusters to mark the center of each flower bell.

  “What will be the flower sewn on my dress?” Violet called out to Kitty from the sitting room sofa.

  She hadn’t even realized Vi had come into the room. Her youngest sister sat next to where Hattie’s rose-­embroidered dress had been carefully laid out after her morning fitting.

  “Which flower would you like?”

  When Violet didn’t answer, Kitty approached.

  “Careful, miss. It’s only pins holding much of that gown together,” the dressmaker’s assistant warned.

  “Just a moment, Vi, and I’ll join you there on the sofa.”

  Kitty waited while she was carefully divested of the skirt and bodice of the gown. Before departing, the modiste promised the completed dresses in five days, and Kitty calculated that with all the other arrangements in place, Hattie and Mr. Treadwell could easily marry within a fortnight.

  The question of her own wedding, if such a day might ever come, niggled at the back of her mind. She’d woken full of regrets, not for what she and Sebastian had shared, but for how she’d left him. He’d looked stunned as he saw her to the Wrexford House front door, and it was the last emotion she wished to leave him with after th
e intimacies they’d shared.

  She’d been a coward. A fool. And she’d tell him so today if she could find a moment alone during their outing to the gallery.

  After seeing the dressmaker and her assistant out, Kitty lowered herself onto the sofa next to her sister, resting an arm along the back, just touching the girl’s slim shoulders.

  Violet was at the age for pouting, it seemed. The girl spent whole parts of the day with her chin perched on her fisted hand as it was now, and a forlorn expression plumping her lower lip and drawing her tawny brows together.

  “What is it, Vi? You look as if someone’s eaten all your sticky toffee pudding.”

  “I’d want violets for my dress.”

  “Wonderful choice.” For their rich scent and vibrant purple shade, they were a flower Kitty admired.

  “It’s a boring choice. My name’s Violet. I like violets. You see? Terribly boring.” She was already sagging against the sofa but she leaned forward so that she could flounce back with a dramatic sigh.

  “Violets aren’t boring. They’re beautiful and have a lovely perfume.”

  “You never wear violet water. It’s boring. And if I’m boring, I’ll never find a gentleman who wants to marry me, let alone have a wedding dress with violet-­embroidered satin.” Somehow they’d gone from violets to perfume to Violet becoming an old maid. Kitty’s mind tripped over the holes in her sister’s logic, but pointing out the gaps would only lead to a row.

  She pressed her forefinger to her lower lip, thinking how best to reassure the girl without filling her head with fanciful nonsense. She focused on the facts. She’d worn violet perfume plenty of times. Occasionally, at least. And if she didn’t wear it often, it was simply because it was a rather common scent. Not boring. Just a bit . . . commonplace.

  And, anyway, a lady didn’t snare a husband because of the scent she wore. Few men had remarked on her perfumes before Sebastian, and none had ever asked her to tell them about the flowers that made up the scents.