by Regina Scott
Which was only slightly better than “Mine!”
Her uncle glanced up as they entered the library. Still in his comfortable banyan rather than a formal coat, he was seated at the desk across the back of the room, his steward standing beside him. Sir Thomas set aside some papers he’d been perusing to frown at Kitty as she approached.
“Something wrong, girl?” he asked.
“No, Uncle,” she assured him. “That is . . .” Oh, this would never do. She was supposed to be delighted by her circumstances, deeply in love. She straightened and looked her uncle in the eyes, widening her lips in a smile. “Mr. Adair has asked me to marry him, and I accepted.”
“I hope you will forgive me for making off with your greatest treasure, sir,” Quentin added.
Kitty nearly cringed. Did Quentin realize Sir Thomas had always referred to Eugenia as his greatest treasure? Surely Quentin hadn’t meant to remind her uncle of their painful past.
Her uncle leaned back in his seat and clasped his fingers over his belly. “That depends, my boy. Can you provide for Kitty? Protect her from life’s difficulties?”
Now he decided to play the doting relative? She had expected delirious laughter at her announcement.
“I can, sir,” Quentin assured him. “Though we’ve had some trouble with shipping, I believe the plantation will continue to be solvent.”
Something flickered behind her uncle’s eyes, but he merely nodded. “And you, Katherine? Does this match please you?”
And he cared about her preferences as well? She could not believe the miracle. Still, she glanced at Quentin. His smile warmed his dark eyes, set her stomach to fluttering. His approval truly felt as if it had nothing to do with their ruse.
“Yes, Uncle,” she said. “I find it pleases me very much.”
Quentin brought her hand to his lips for a kiss, and she nearly swooned.
Her. The woman who’d single-handedly foiled no less than five attempts to elope, four mangled proposals of ill intent, and the worst first kiss in history.
Oh, this man was dangerous.
“In that case,” Sir Thomas said, “I’ll thank you to go about your chaperone duties with your cousin while I have a few words with your intended.”
Quentin saw Kitty pale. Her gaze darted to his again, and her teeth worried her lower lip. And such nice lips she had, too—full, warm, with a responsiveness that had shaken him. In fact, he hadn’t expected to react to her kiss. But with her looking as if he’d just be sentenced to the gallows, she could well give away their game, and just when he had the old fox right where he wanted him. He laid a hand on her arm.
“It’s all right, Kitty,” he told her, keeping his smile in place. “Perhaps you should tell your cousin our good news. I’ll join you shortly.”
She eyed him a moment longer, as if she very much doubted he knew what he was letting himself in for. Then she leaned closer and murmured, “Don’t allow him to bully you.” Straightening with a nod to her uncle, she left them alone with the steward, who quickly buried himself in reviewing the papers.
“I know what you’re doing, boy,” Sir Thomas said.
He had no clue. Quentin kept his smile in place. “Settling down at last, sir.”
Sir Thomas barked a laugh. “Oh, you’re a cool one, I’ll give you that. But you must see that if you were trying to get back at me for our disagreement years ago, you picked the wrong girl. Kitty means nothing to me.”
And why? Quentin had asked his father about Kitty at breakfast that morning. His father’s face had sagged.
“Tragic, that,” his father had said. “I remember her as such a happy girl. And then that terrible accident sapped the life from her, and Sir Thomas’s manipulations didn’t help.”
“Manipulations?” Quentin had pressed.
His father had sighed. “She’s served as unpaid chaperone for all his girls, and my valet tells me that any gentleman who shows interest in her is immediately sent packing.”
So, Kitty had had suitors, though she might not have realized it. Was her uncle thwarting her plans to find a position elsewhere as well? Quentin wouldn’t put it past the fellow.
“If Kitty truly means nothing to you, then that is your loss, Sir Thomas,” he said now.
Sir Thomas frowned at him. “You can’t make me believe you are serious. Not about Kitty. She’s long in the tooth and has a vinegar tongue. Why, if I thought someone would take her off my hands, I’d have sold her years ago.” He laughed again, and his steward had the good grace to keep his head down.
Something hot burned Quentin’s gut. “Yes, you’ve had good fortune in getting rid of those who trouble you, even suitors who might have deprived you of a devoted chaperone.”
Sir Thomas raised a fat finger. “Now, see here, boy. Don’t think you can take such a tone with me.”
Quentin straightened to his full height. “And don’t think I’ll bow to you again. I will not hear Kitty disparaged. She’s clever and witty and isn’t afraid to stand up for what she believes. A man could do far worse than marry her.”
Sir Thomas shook his head. “You’re as hot-headed and idealistic as you were ten years ago. Go on, then. Marry Kitty. But don’t think that alters my opinion of you. You were a vain upstart then, reaching for things above his station. I thought you’d changed.”
“Oh, I have, Sir Thomas,” Quentin promised him. “The boy who was sent to Jamaica is not the man who returned. Keep that in mind before you try to cross me.”
At last the steward’s head came up, even as Sir Thomas’s eyes narrowed. Quentin could only curse his impetuous nature. He should have kept silent, pretended to be a lapdog. Yet how could he stand by and see a fine woman pilloried by her uncle’s crude opinion?
“Cross you, boy?” Sir Thomas said, his voice silky. “Who said anything about crossing you?”
Quentin spread his hands. “A figure of speech. Forgive me, Sir Thomas. I want only peace between our families. Perhaps my engagement to Kitty will accomplish that.”
And keep Sir Thomas oblivious to his true plans.
Chapter Six
“Miss Katherine?”
Kitty yanked her ear off the library door to meet their butler’s incredulous look. She hadn’t been able to hear much anyway, just a word or two when Uncle or Quentin raised his voice. The fact that Sir Thomas had laughed at least twice could only concern her. Her uncle generally laughed when he knew he’d won.
“Yes, Ramsey?” she asked as if it were perfectly normal for her to be found eavesdropping on her uncle. “Was there something you needed?”
It turned out Lucy had somehow managed to misdirect the bags for the newcomers, requiring Kitty to set things to rights. A brief conversation with the butler sufficed.
“And may I say, Miss Katherine,” he added as they finished, his usually stern face melting into something kind, “that the entire staff wishes you the best. You will be missed.”
She should not be surprised by how fast rumors flew at the grange. “Congratulations may be premature,” Kitty warned him.
He mistook her meaning. “Mr. Adair has come home a new man. Even Sir Thomas will see the wisdom of your choice, miss.”
She wasn’t so sure. Something about her uncle’s reaction didn’t sit right. She couldn’t bring herself to believe he had any concern for her future, other than to keep her working as he willed. Every part of Sir Thomas’s life did him credit—his daughters, his lavish home, his estate and investments on the Exchange. She’d seen him put down dogs that didn’t breed true, turn out tenants who couldn’t work because of illness or injury. He should at least be thoroughly miffed that, by marrying Quentin, she deprived him of a nursemaid for his cousin and any other needy member of the Chapworth family.
She knew he had no reason for concern. That future still awaited her if she didn’t find something better. Quentin had no more intention of making a place for her in his life now than he had ten years ago.
But what if he changed his mind?
What if Quentin came to value her character? What if he fell in love with her?
No, not that. The rosy dream popped to be replaced by the petulant face of Mr. Cadberry, who insisted that the new room she had given him was far too small for his needs. It took only a quiet word with Bollers to have Mr. Cadberry’s things moved to a room approximately the same size, but with a commanding view of the west fields and the advantage of having once been used by some minor state official the fellow found admirable.
No, she could not imagine Quentin falling in love with her now. Handsome, wealthy men did not chase after spinsters with no family or fortune to recommend them.
But perhaps they might marry one with sufficient aplomb to do them credit.
She was still mulling over the matter when she glanced in the withdrawing room to find Lucy arranging flowers in a silver epergne.
“Should you not be with your guests, dearest?” Kitty asked, venturing closer to the piano, where her cousin stood poised in the sunlight from the nearby window. The gardener had brought in a bouquet of flowers, which lay on paper before her cousin. “I believe Mr. Cadberry and Mr. Danvers are expecting you at archery shortly.”
“I just wanted a moment to myself,” Lucy admitted, laying a white rose into the graceful epergne and pausing as if to admire the reflection of the flower in the silver. “I don’t know how you do this, Kitty. I have no more than greeted everyone, and I’m exhausted.”
Kitty set about sorting the long stems from the short, the buds from the greenery. “I have had more practice than you. And you’ll do better in your own establishment, Lucy. You care about how things are done.”
“Not as much as you do,” Lucy protested. She threaded several ferns around the rose. “Menus, schedules, activities—I don’t know how you keep them all straight.”
“Perhaps I like a certain organization.” Kitty handed her some ruby-colored dahlias to complement the rose. “There is peace to be had in a job well done.”
“I suppose so,” Lucy said with a smile.
Kitty cleared her throat. “Lucy, there is something you must know. Mr. Adair has asked me to marry him.”
“What!” Lucy jerked as a thorn found home. Sucking her finger, she dropped the rose into the vase. “Is that what you want?” she murmured around the digit. “A home of your own? A husband?”
Kitty frowned at her shock. “Most women of our acquaintance strive for no less. Did you think me immune?”
“Well, yes,” Lucy confessed, lowering her hand. “You have been the keeper of propriety for as long as I can remember. I thought you liked the role.”
The keeper of propriety. Was that the sum total of her accomplishments? Would her family and friends remember her as no more than the spinster aunt who enforced the rules of engagement?
A pox on that!
She eyed her cousin. “It seems I fell into the role, Lucy. But I am finding it does not suit the woman I wish to be.”
“And who do you wish to be?” Lucy asked, blinking blue eyes.
A dangerous question. Kitty might wish all she liked. No friendly fairy stood by to grant her desires. And her place in Society gave her little chance of making those dreams reality on her own.
“Someone daring, someone bold,” she mused. “Someone suited to marry a man like Quentin Adair.”
“But he already offered for you,” Lucy said. “Surely he highly esteems you.”
“Perhaps,” Kitty allowed. “But greater esteem is never to be eschewed.” She looked to her cousin, put a hand on her arm. “No, Lucy, I must be my best self, my truest self, in manner, in conversation, in dress, if I am to win his heart. And for that I need your help.”
“Anything,” Lucy promised.
Kitty seized her hand. “Come upstairs with me, quickly, before the rest assemble for tea. We have a great deal of work to do if we are to dress this mutton as lamb.”
Upstairs, Quentin bent over the billiards table in Sir Thomas’s expansive game room. He’d come out of the library to find that Kitty and her cousin had disappeared. A helpful footman had directed him here, where several of the male guests were taking turns at smacking brightly colored balls about the field of green.
He hadn’t had much call to play, but the rules were simple enough, and he’d never had trouble excelling at sports. Now he made sure not to win by too much and to put it down to having had excellent teachers. Sir Thomas had enough against him already. No need to fan the flames by annoying the man’s guests.
Though he would have felt more comfortable if Sir Thomas had been alongside. At least that way, Quentin could keep a closer eye on him. He had thought the fellow would surely spend time with his guests, but he had yet to leave the sanctuary of his library. Was he merely being a conscientious manager of his holdings, or was he up to something?
“I understand you are lately returned from the West Indies,” a narrow-faced gentleman who had been introduced as Willingham said as Quentin moved the score bead farther along its prescribed path on the wooden rod.
“My family owns a sugar plantation there,” Quentin acknowledged, reaching for the white cube and chalking the tip of his cue.
“Frightful place,” Mr. Danvers put in, fanning himself with one hand as if he felt the tropical heat even then. “Pestilent, pitiful, and so far from Society.”
“I did not miss Society as much as I had feared,” Quentin told him, leaning on his cue. “There is much to be said for a slower pace, a quieter life.”
“How very prosaic of you,” Willingham drawled before bending to take his turn.
A noise sounded in the corridor. Quentin heard Kitty’s voice before he saw her.
“And look here, Lucy,” she called from the doorway. “I told you we would find the gentlemen in some sporting pursuit. How goes the field, sirs? Have you chased Mr. Adair back across the Atlantic yet?”
The others immediately demurred, dropping their sticks to go assure Miss Chapworth the younger of their devotion. For a moment, Quentin could not catch a glimpse of Kitty.
Then the crowds parted, and he blinked like a man struck by the sun’s brilliance.
Gone was the practical gray gown she’d worn earlier. Instead, she had donned a dress he suspected she’d borrowed from her cousin, for it was a pretty pink with ribbons sewn in triple rows along the graceful hem, sleeves, and neck. The small bodice called attention to her womanly curves, the gathered neckline her creamy skin.
Her auburn hair had been curled so that tendrils caressed her cheeks and made Quentin think about doing the same. Her look as she met his gaze around the gabble of gentlemen was amused, but by their attentions or his staring, he couldn’t say.
All he knew was that he must be at her side. He shoved his way into the center of the group. “Gentlemen, please. You have no opportunity to stake your claim. Miss Chapworth has already agreed to be my bride.”
Mr. Willingham immediately petitioned Lucy, begging her to say it wasn’t so while Mr. Danvers looked on with a knowing grin.
“I fear he’s correct,” Lucy said with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “My cousin Kitty is going to marry Mr. Adair.”
Willingham’s surprise would have been comical if it hadn’t been an insult to Kitty.
And to Quentin.
Murmuring an apology, the butler came forward just then and pulled Kitty aside. Her sunny look clouded as he spoke to her. Now, what was that all about?
As Mr. Danvers and Mr. Willingham questioned Lucy about the arrangements for that afternoon, Kitty returned to Quentin’s sid
e. “Forgive me, but I must take care of an urgent matter for my uncle.”
He couldn’t help perking up. “A business matter?”
“Not really.” Her sigh made the ribbons on her bosom flutter in the most enchanting way. Quentin forced his eyes to her face.
“You see,” she said, “Sir Thomas hired a hermit to live out on the grounds. It seems he is remiss in his duties, and my uncle is threatening retribution.”
He had cause to know how drastic a form that retribution could take. “What duties could a hermit have?”
“In this case, to sit by his shack and look picturesque.” She sighed again, and this time he had to adjust his cravat to keep from looking at those ribbons. “Unfortunately, he likes to talk to people, and he’s been calling our guests over to chat.”
“A loquacious hermit,” he marveled. “And this is cause for concern?”
“Concern, indeed,” Kitty told him. “My uncle, like me, prefers life to follow a prescribed pattern. When it doesn’t, we grow petulant. Besides, Uncle has an ongoing rivalry with Sir Winston Mallery, the magistrate. You remember him?”
Quentin nodded. “Bulldog of a fellow who prefers his hounds to Society. He’s offered to buy Father out several times.”
“Your lands do lie between the grange and Mallery Manor,” she acknowledged. “And Sir Winston’s hermit is the model of decorum, according to the ladies of the area. So I’m off to instruct a hermit on the duties of his post.”
Quentin shook his head. “You do much to keep Sir Thomas content.”
“As much as possible. We’ve both seen what happens when he is discontent.”
Quentin caught her arm as she stepped away. “Has he ever raised a hand to you?”
She lifted a brow. “No one can hear us, Quentin. You don’t have to pretend it’s any concern of yours.”
And yet it did concern him. He couldn’t like the idea of anyone undergoing the beating he’d endured. He’d burned the whips of the plantation overseers when he’d reached Jamaica. The thought of anyone striking Kitty made his blood heat, his hands fist. Look how he’d reacted when Sir Thomas had merely disparaged her.