One Tempting Proposal

by Christy Carlyle

  Years of disappointing her father, years of twisting herself in knots to be the heir he’d always wished for, and then a fine young lady who would make him proud. Hattie dismissed all of it in a single breath.

  “I obeyed him. I idolized him.”

  Hattie choked out a dismissive laugh.

  “You defied him for four seasons!” They’d never been adversaries, and Kitty hated the bitterness in Hattie’s tone. “Don’t you see that you ruined my season by still being out yourself? You should have been married years ago, but you insisted on having your way. Thank goodness Wrexford offered for you. I feared you might ruin Violet’s first season too.”

  “Hattie, stop.” The shouted words echoed in the confines of the small space and Hattie’s mouth hung open. “This isn’t you. You’ve never said a cruel word to me in your life.” Or least she hadn’t until this miserable carriage ride.

  “I can’t defy him.” Her sister bowed her head, her voice weak and broken. “He’s given me everything I own.” She lifted an arm and tugged with the opposite hand at the cuff of her gown. “Every stitch of clothing, the food I eat. He provides all that I have.”

  Seeing Hattie struggle to find a dry patch on her handkerchief, Kitty produced one from the pocket of her own skirt. She waited for her sister to dab at her eyes and then reached up to embrace her again.

  “When you marry, your husband will be the one to provide your home and clothes. Perhaps you’ll feel as beholden to him as you do to Papa. Do you really want that man to be William Ponsonby?”

  “HOW LONG SHOULD we wait?” Pippa managed to withhold the question for longer than Seb expected, but the anxiety in her voice mirrored his own.

  “I’m sure they’ll appear soon.” He’d been standing outside the museum with Ollie and Pippa for the better part of half an hour.

  At first his sister didn’t seem to mind the wait. Having hidden a little pocket-­sized book in her skirt, she simply found an obliging bit of building to lean on and read. But then Ollie attempted to engage her in conversation, which seemed to work well until he said something that amused her enough to cause a burst of hearty laughter. She indulged her pleasure for only a moment before turning to glare at him and stepping away, as if she resented how much she enjoyed his company.

  “Do you think they’ve forgotten us and found a ­couple of worthier gentlemen to marry?” No matter the circumstances, Ollie found it easy to jest.

  Seb didn’t offer an answer. He spotted the grand Clayborne Clarence carriage rattling along behind nimbler hansom cabs. Before either he or Ollie could make their way down the steps to assist the ladies, Kat and Harriet emerged, wearing nearly identical day dresses covered in ruffles and layers, and matching frowns.

  He stepped forward to greet Kat, and she offered him a shaky smile but only met his gaze a moment before turning to glance at her sister and Ollie.

  Following her gaze, he found the two greeting each other with their usual cordiality, if a bit less exuberance.

  “Kat, let’s find a place to talk while the others explore the gallery.”

  Eyes locked on her sister’s face, Kat didn’t turn to look at him when she answered. “I think our little group should stay together this afternoon.” Finally she glanced up at him. “But, yes, we should find time to speak to one another privately.”

  She spoke without any particular warmth, as if they were mere acquaintances or friends and nothing more. But he wasn’t content with nothing more. They were lovers and he could no longer imagine the days of his life unfolding without Kat as the brightest, best part of each one.

  “Why don’t we all take a late luncheon at Wrexford House after the gallery?” The housekeeper wouldn’t be pleased and the cook might become apoplectic at the prospect of an impromptu meal with guests, but he needed to speak to Kat and settle matters between them.

  As they proceeded into the first room of paintings, its rich hunter green walls soothed his eyes and set off each piece of art. He counseled himself to be patient, to tell her about Archie when they were in a less public setting. Any questions about their evening together would need to wait.

  She clasped his arm as they followed the others, and he managed to hold his tongue by focusing on the pleasure of her touch, the sweetness of her scent.

  “Lily of the valley?”

  “What? Oh, yes, I suppose it is.” She’d never answered a query about her perfume with so little enthusiasm, and she didn’t appear to take interest in a single painting. All of her energy seemed reserved for watching her sister’s actions, and occasionally observing Pippa or Ollie.

  Seb detected nothing amiss in their behavior. Ollie and Harriet walked arm in arm, remarking on various paintings they stopped to ponder, and Pippa followed a few steps behind. Pippa’s occasional long glances at the ­couple were subtle enough. He didn’t think anyone observing them would notice. Not even Kat.

  He stopped in front of a painting of a family. The portrait was posed with the sitters staring out at the viewer, but the artist had captured the playful vibrant qualities of each. Seb could sense the children’s eagerness to move and parental pride in the eyes of the husband and wife. The contentment of the scene kindled a wistful pang, a shallow ache in his chest.

  Good grief, he was becoming a sentimental fool. For years he’d forced the notion of marriage and children from his mind. Focusing on his work, his studies—­endeavors at which he knew he could succeed—­had been easier than healing his heart.

  And now, because of the woman at his side, he looked at a painting of a merry family and could envision the same for himself. With Kat. Only with Kat could he imagine such a fate.

  “The matter you asked me about yesterday,” he began. “I have an answer now.”

  He had to clasp her arm tighter to get her attention.

  “The matter? Oh, that matter. What is the answer?” For the first time today he caught her notice, a look of interest and concern shadowing her features.

  “The allegation is untrue.” The same lightness he’d felt after Miss Perkins’s visit lifted in his chest now.

  “How can you be sure?” He’d expected to see his relief reflected in Kat’s eyes, but she seemed more dubious than pleased.

  “I obtained a document that would be difficult to refute. Ironically, it’s a matter of simple mathematics.”

  “He’s too young.” She’d turned her eyes to the happy family portrait before them and spoke in a near whisper. “I thought as much when I saw him in the park.”

  “By at least two years.”

  “That is good news, for everyone concerned.”

  Alecia wouldn’t agree. But for Archie’s sake and Naughton’s, and for his future, it was the best outcome. But he’d expected more than Kat’s tepid reaction. He frowned and turned so she might not see his frustration, but there was no need. Her eyes still trailed her sister’s every move.

  After tolerating a long silence between them, Seb stopped before the next painting, a rather bland landscape, but Kat tugged at their clasped arms as if she preferred to continue on. Harriet and Oliver were so far ahead, they’d almost turned a corner into the next room.

  “Should I guess or can I convince you to tell me?” Seb tried to keep his frustration from his tone.

  “Tell you what?”

  “You’ve never been this hawkish about chaperoning your sister.”

  She finally turned and looked at him, almost as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes and mouth softened, and she moved her hand to caress his arm where he held her. He thought she might grin and dipped his head to watch her mouth. He expected to see her lips curve up, but they began to tremble and turned down at the edges the moment he heard Harriet cry out, “No! I can’t explain. Please don’t ask me to.”

  Kat yanked her arm from his and rushed forward. By the time he reached her, she stood embracing a tearful Harri
et while Ollie lingered nearby twisting his hands and looking miserable. Pippa waited off to the side, looking equally distressed.

  Seb pushed in between Ollie and Kat and her sister.

  “Are you unwell, Lady Harriet?”

  Kat turned and whispered to him. “Might we have a moment, just Hattie and I?”

  Seb nodded and reached out both arms to herd Ollie and his sister forward. Ollie continued to look back, as attentive to Harriet’s movements as Kat had been, but he allowed himself to be led into the next gallery filled with sculptures.

  None of them asked Ollie for an explanation of the lady’s behavior. By his bewildered expression, it was clear he knew as little as they did.

  “She wouldn’t let me hold her hand.” Ollie looked up at Seb as if he might have answers. “She allowed me take her arm, but balked the moment I reached for her hand.”

  Kat’s distraction. Hattie’s chilly behavior. None of it made sense.

  Finally he saw her usher Harriet over to stand near Pippa, and then approached.

  She glanced at Ollie before turning her back on him.

  “Shall we proceed to Wrexford House for that luncheon you offered?” she asked pleasantly, as if the distress of Harriet’s outburst hadn’t rippled out to charge the air between them.

  When he hesitated, she clasped his hand and he felt her tremble. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, fix whatever had gone so wrong this afternoon.

  “Please, Sebastian. She needs a chance to speak with Oliver.”

  And he needed to speak with Kat. But Ollie’s interest in Harriet had led him to her in the first place. Whatever rift existed between the pair, he was as eager as she to see it mended.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE HOUSEKEEPER DIDN’T bat an eye when Seb requested an unexpected luncheon be laid out for six. Indeed, the staff introduced him to a part of the house he hadn’t even known existed, taking advantage of the warm spring day to prepare a table under the arbor in the house’s back garden.

  As they gathered in the drawing room and waited for the food to be carried out, Seb offered Kat his study or the family sitting room for Ollie and Harriet to speak alone.

  “Hattie says she’s not ready.” Kat tugged at the ribbon on the front of her skirt as she spoke quietly to him in the hall outside the drawing room, turning her head to watch her sister, who sat alone on the settee.

  Seeing the young woman without Ollie seemed odd. From the moment Seb met her, the two had been all but inseparable. He’d been so thrilled at the notion of Ollie finally settling down that he could easily imagine the two married, the children they’d have, the contentment he hoped they’d find together.

  Ollie stood at the room’s only window, his back to all of them, with Pippa by his side. With his shoulders hunched, Ollie appeared smaller, vulnerable, the boy he’d spent his school days defending. And Pippa looked bereft. Seb had never seen the helpless look his sister wore now, but he understood it. The desire to comfort when the wound itself was still a mystery. He wanted to lift the misery that had descended over all of them.

  “May we speak, Kat, alone?”

  He feared she’d refuse, rejecting the notion of focusing on anything but her sister and whatever was amiss between Hattie and Ollie, but she dipped her head in agreement and started toward his study.

  When he closed the door and turned to her, she stepped close and slid her hands under his suit jacket to wrap her arms around him, resting her head against his chest.

  Pleasure rushed him as he embraced her, ebbing up into desire so intense he feared he held her too tight.

  “Your heart’s racing.” The tenderness in Kat’s voice tightened his chest.

  “Yes, that’s what you do to me.”

  She lifted her head to gaze at him and a tear glittered at the edge of her lower lash.

  Comfort. She needed comfort. He stroked a circle across her back, the way his mother had soothed him as a child.

  She pulled away and lifted his other hand to her chest, above the ribbons and frills of her neckline, pressing his palm to her warm flesh. Her heartbeat thudded against his hand.

  “Mine too.”

  He held her gaze, fighting the urge to kiss her, ignoring the desire reflected back at him and focusing on the tear that still hadn’t fallen onto her cheek.

  “Will you tell me?” His question lost him her gaze. She turned her head, staring at the wallpaper, and bit the edge of her lower lip with her teeth.

  Perhaps she thought it a private matter between Harriet and Oliver, but they’d met over the hope of seeing the two wed. He wanted Ollie’s happiness as much as she cared for her sister’s.

  “Has she decided not to marry him?” He prayed Ollie’s changeable nature hadn’t cost him the love of a young woman who seemed to adore him. “Has Ollie disappointed her?”

  Kat snapped her to gaze at him and placed her hand on his chest. “No, not at all. And it isn’t so much about what Harriet wants as what my father does.”

  Of course. How could have he missed the obvious? Yet Clayborne had already given his consent. Why withdraw it now?

  “Do you recall Lord Ponsonby from your aunt’s ball?”

  “The one who eyed you as if he was starving and you were his next meal?”

  She winced and nodded, the movement setting the tear free to trail down her cheek.

  Realization hit with a sickening weight. “He wants Harriet to marry Ponsonby?”

  Kat pulled away from him and took two steps to sink into one of the chairs arranged near the fireplace.

  “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I asked you to lie to your family, your friends, and it was all for nothing.”

  Moving to kneel in front of her, he waited for Kat to meet his gaze.

  “No apologies, and no more lies. I want to marry you. If you’ll have me.”

  The moment stretched on endlessly and in the silence he could hear her father’s voice, the amusement in his tone as he informed Seb that his was the seventh request for Kat’s had in marriage. She’d turned down six other men, probably titled, perhaps wealthier, certainly more accomplished at social graces and polite conversation. One of them had certainly been Ponsonby.

  She pressed her hand against his cheek. “Sebastian, I . . . “

  Hurrying her made no sense. Why was he on bended knee when he could still see concern for her sister written all over her face?

  “Kat, you don’t have to say anything you don’t—­“

  Lifting her hand, she brushed a finger over his mouth to quiet him.

  “I love you.”

  The impact of the bullet from Alecia’s lover’s gun was nothing to the explosion that wreaked Seb’s body at those three words again from Kat. Relief melted the tension he’d been holding since they’d parted, and he hauled her into his arms, finding heaven in the sweetness of her lips, the eagerness with which opened for him to taste her.

  He lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. Beyond her poise and elegance, past the beauty that caught everyone’s notice, in Kat’s eyes he’d always read the truth of her feelings. Even when her expression didn’t match her gaze, he believed the emotion he read in her eyes.

  Now he saw love that matched her words, excitement echoing his own, and a shadow of worry he wanted to erase.

  “Yes,” she whispered in the inch of air between them.

  “Yes?” For a moment, he’d gotten lost in the pleasure of holding her, her now familiar lily of the valley scent, and the certainty that she returned his feelings.

  “You did ask me to marry you, I think.”

  He kissed her again, deeply but tenderly, as if this was the moment of their solemn vows and oaths. He was ready to bind himself to her tonight if given half the chance.

  She lifted her head, the happiness in her eyes diminished by the frown on her face. “Harriet still wis
hes to marry Oliver. She simply fears defying my father.”

  If he were in Ollie’s position, he’d start planning an elopement to Gretna Green, as the ­couple had once considered themselves.

  Seb opened his hand and she fit hers inside before they both clasped their fingers tight.

  “Let’s go see what we can do.”

  WITH HIS HAND in hers, Kitty believed they might truly be able to find a solution. Her father wouldn’t get his victory, but he didn’t always have to win. Surely Hattie’s contentment trumped his pride.

  Pippa rushed up as they exited the study. “Thank goodness you two have decided to come out. The table’s ready for us in the garden.”

  Returning to the drawing room, Sebastian’s sister gathered Hattie and Ollie, and then led all of them to the back garden.

  “Sit wherever you like,” Pippa announced when they reached the prettily laid table with pitchers of lemonade, a variety of cold meats and sandwiches, fruits, and an impressive array of sweets. A bee buzzed above the spread, but Kitty knew the little worker was more interested in the lovely roses climbing the trellis against the edge of the arbor than any of the food below.

  She glanced at her sister, hoping Hattie might take a place next to Ollie, but she immediately seated herself at the round table next to Pippa. Taking the chair on her sister’s other side, Kitty left the remaining spaces for Sebastian and Ollie.

  Sebastian sat next to her and reached out to give her hand a reassuring squeeze under the table. The joy of what they’d just shared, confessing her feelings and seeing every measure of it reflected in his eyes—­all of it dimmed the minute she sensed the tension in Hattie’s posture as she sat beside her.

  Amid the clink and clatter of silverware on porcelain, Kitty noted two conversations taking place, with Pippa in the middle. Hattie and Pippa seemed to be continuing an earlier chat about frightening books and haunted castles, but when the conversation waned, Pippa whispered now and then in Ollie’s direction, sometimes raising a fleeting grin on the young man’s face.