by Joan Wolf
Catriona sat as if turned to stone. Both ladies had completely forgotten her presence.
“I understand also that he has given Lettice Moreham her conge.” Mrs. Moreham was a very lovely young widow with whom Edmund had enjoyed a discreet affair over the last few years. Catriona had seen her at the theater one night and had noticed the brilliant smile she bestowed on Edmund.
“It is time he settled down,” her great-grandmother was saying. “He will be thirty next year.”
“I know. I pointed that interesting fact out to him quite recently.”
“Oh? And what did he say?”
“Very little. Edmund has always been adept at keeping himself to himself. But he knows his duty. I think he will offer for Lady Sophia.”
Catriona made a small, abrupt movement, and both ladies started and stared at her.
“Kate!” said Lady Dawley. “I had quite forgotten you were there.”
Catriona swallowed. Her throat felt dry. “I’m finished now,” she said a little hoarsely. “May I go upstairs?”
“Of course, child. And thank you,” said the duchess kindly.
Catriona walked very steadily to the door and up the stairs to her room. It was not until she reached the safety of this haven that her agitation broke out. She threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow.,
“He can’t,” she whispered fiercely into the soft feathers. “He can’t marry her! She’s dull and boring and stupid.”
But other aspects of Lady Sophia’s person and character were eminently desirable. Catriona could not deny that she was very beautiful. And she was well bred—not a bastard. And well-behaved—not a hoyden. She was elegant and would know how to be a duchess. “She’d spoil everything,” Catriona said out loud vehemently. “He can’t marry her!”
* * * *
The overheard conversation about Edmund’s possible nuptials opened Catriona’s eyes to a great number of things she had not previously noticed. She herself was perfectly content as she was; she had always assumed Edmund felt the same.
For the first time she considered her cousin as a man and not simply as her Edmund. Childlike, she had always seen him solely in relation to herself. Now she began to look at him as other people must look.
To other people he was His Grace, the Duke of Burford. The face he showed to her was not the face he showed to society at large. Seen in society, he had an austere elegance and cool manner that was quietly, awesomely, impressive. He was deferred to by all their hostesses, and every dance with him appeared to be regarded by his partner as a personal triumph. “Can you doubt Edmund’s ability to attach a woman?” his aunt had asked, and Catriona could not. And aside from his sovereign personal charms, he was one of the richest men in the kingdom. His wife would have one of the best positions in all Britain. These were not considerations that would hold any weight with Catriona, but she had been in London long enough to realize that they weighed very heavily indeed with the world.
* * * *
The Marquis of Hampton invited Catriona to dance at a particularly crowded ball one evening a few days later, and disregarding the expressed orders of her cousin, she accepted. She remembered the amusing, cynical gossip he had regaled her with on the one other occasion she had danced with him and thought he was the man she needed at the moment.
As they took the floor he murmured to her, “This is a pleasant surprise. You have put me off so many times, Miss MacIan.”
“I know.” Catriona looked at him candidly. “My cousin says you are a rake.”
He gave her a sleepy, seductive smile. He was really quite handsome. “Perhaps I need someone like yourself to reform me,” he murmured. Catriona laughed with real amusement. “What is so funny?” he inquired. “Do you think I am such a hardened case?”
“It’s not that at all,” she replied merrily. “It’s just that usually I’m the one who needs reforming.”
He raised a very defined dark eyebrow. “Really?”
“I’m afraid so,” she returned before the movements of the dance swept them apart.
It was a quadrille, and Catriona did not have an opportunity to ask the marquis her question after all. When the dance was over, he put a hand on her elbow. “Why don’t you let me show you the conservatory?” he murmured in her ear.
“All right,” answered Catriona instantly and let him escort her out of the ballroom and down the long hall of Chester House.
Chapter Twelve
Neither Catriona nor the marquis had any interest in the conservatory and accorded it a very perfunctory glance.
“I want to know something,” Catriona said, turning to him as they stood under a potted palm tree, “and you were the only person I could think of who might tell me.”
“Oh?” He gazed down at her in speculation. She was wearing a pale-green dress that caught exactly the shade of her eyes. She looked up at him from under the shelter of half-lowered lashes, a little unsure of his reaction. It was a look of quite unconscious provocation.
“Yes,” she said. “Who Is Lettice Moreham?”
The marquis’s eyes had narrowed as he gazed at Catriona but now they widened again in real surprise. “Lettice Moreham?” he echoed.
“Yes. My aunt said that my cousin Edmund had given her her congé. What does that mean?”
There was a little pause, and then he reached out and captured her hands. “It means, my little siren,” he said softly, “that your estimable cousin and the lovely Mrs. Moreham were enjoying an affair and that he has broken it off”
Catriona’s lips parted and her eyes widened. “I thought perhaps that was it,” she breathed.
The marquis drew her closer to him, and then his hands dropped hers and went to circle her waist. “Now that you have your information, you must pay up,” he murmured and bent his head.
Lord Hampton’s kiss was very different from Frank’s and George’s and instinctively Catriona knew that this was the way it should be done. She closed her eyes and put her hands on his shoulders. This was what Edmund did with Lettice Moreham, she thought. Her body was pressed against the marquis’s, and under the demanding pressure of his mouth her lips parted. Did Edmund do this? she thought with a little thrill of shocked surprise. Her head was pressed back against the marquis’s arm, and his other hand came up and lightly cupped her breast. Catriona jumped like a scalded cat and pulled away from him.
“That’s more than kissing!” she accused from a safer distance.
His eyes were slits, and he was breathing hard. He reached for her again. “God,” he said. “I wish you’d let me teach you ...”
“No, thank you,” she said decidedly. She had moved quite out of his reach now. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, either, but it seemed only fair. I think we had better go back. Lady Dawley will be looking for me.”
“Catriona,” came Edmund’s voice from the doorway. “Come here.” She knew that tone and moved instantly to obey him. “Go to your aunt,” he said when she reached his side. She cast a brief glance at his face, said nothing, but lifted her skirt and ran.
She was sitting demurely with Lady Dawley when the duke came back into the ballroom. Edmund did not come over to her, nor did he speak to her during the rest of the evening. When they arrived home, he said, “I want to see you, Catriona, before you go to bed.”
Margaret, to whom Catriona had hastily confided her escapade, gave her a look of mixed terror and sympathy before she fled upstairs, followed more slowly by Lady Dawley. Catriona trailed after Edmund to the library. He did not ask her to sit but demanded, almost as soon as the door was closed behind him, “Did you deliberately disobey me and go off to the conservatory with Hampton?”
Catriona bit her lip. “Yes, Edmund.”
“God damn it,” he almost shouted, “don’t you know what kind of man he is? It isn’t safe for a young girl to be alone with a man of his stamp.”
He was really very angry; he rarely swore. “But Edmund,” she said in a small voice, “what could he
possibly do to me? We were in the conservatory!”
He stared at her, his gray eyes unreadable. “Did he kiss you?” he asked.
Catriona hesitated. She could lie successfully to most of the people she knew, but not, unfortunately, to Edmund. She looked at the carpet. “Yes,” she whispered.
He moved, and when she looked up it was to find him sitting in a chair, staring into the dying fire. His usual look of impeccable worldly elegance was quite gone. His black hair was faintly disheveled, his immaculately tied cravat loosened as if he had tugged at it. She stared for a minute at his profile. She knew the look of him so well, the set of his shoulders and collarbone, the sweep of lashes against the hard line of his cheek, the beautiful, sensitive hands, the shape of his fingernails.... Had he touched Lettice Moreham’s breast as Lord Hampton had touched hers?
She felt her stomach suddenly clench. She balled her hands into fists to keep from reaching out toward him. His face blurred before her eyes. He looked up and misread the expression on her face.
“Don’t look so frightened, Catriona,” he said wearily. Then, with an attempt at humor, “I’m not going to beat you.”
Her heart was hammering so hard that she was certain he must hear it. “I—” she began and then stopped. She had no idea what to say.
“I know Hampton is attractive to women,” he was going on carefully, “but he will only hurt you, Catriona. He is not the marrying kind.”
“I—I only wanted to ask him a question,” she said a little wildly. “I don’t think he’s attractive at all.”
“Oh?” She had not sat down, and now he rose and faced her. “What question?”
She stared straight ahead into his cravat. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and she knew a wild desire to throw herself at him, to beg him to hold and comfort her as he had in the past. For a brief second she wanted desperately for him to be to her as he always had.
“Catriona?” he said, and she looked up and saw the beautiful, chiseled line of his mouth.
The old Catriona would have told him what her question had been but the new, awakened Catriona merely shook her head. He repeated her name, his voice becoming edged with impatience. Then the door opened.
“For goodness sake, Edmund,” said the duchess, “let this child go to bed. It’s too late and too cold to be keeping her up. You can scold her in the morning.”
There was a pause, and then Edmund said, “That won’t be necessary, Grandmama. I have said all I mean to say on the subject. Good night, Catriona.”
“Good night, Edmund,” she got out. “I’m sorry.” She left the room under the protection of her great-grandmother.
But once she got to her own room there was no protection from her thoughts. Something had happened to her in the library that she could not ignore. For the first time her feelings for Edmund had clarified themselves, and she understood what they were.
He had always been the center of her emotional life. All her accomplishments had been achieved in an effort to please him. A month in London had been enough to show her that she was far better educated than other young girls fof her age, far better read. She had no illusions about her own genius. It was because of Edmund that she understood Burke’s political theory and could talk to Lord Morton, that she understood Descartes’ reasoning and could so astonish Mr. Hardy. It was because of Edmund that she knew of the great achievements of Newton and Herschel. It was because of Edmund that she spoke fluent French and played the piano well. Throughout all the years of her education his had been the intelligence that prodded her, the wit that delighted her, the approval that rewarded her for her efforts.
She had always known she loved him. Now for the first time she understood the nature of that love. And she understood also that it was not a love that could be reciprocated. In his eyes she was a little sister to whom he would always offer his protection and his affection. That other aspect of love, the one she had discovered as she stared tonight at the line of his cheek, his mouth, his hands, did not enter into his feelings for her.
She was his little cousin, Diccon’s daughter. And even if by some wild chance of fate he had come to look at her as a woman, there could be no future for them together. She was not good enough for him. She was a bastard. And he, she knew with all the instincts of her deeply passionate heart, he was the only man she would ever love.
It was a very long night for Catriona, the most painful night of her entire young life. By the time the first light of dawn came seeping into her room she had come to the bitter conclusion that she must marry. Edmund expected her to marry; that was why he had brought her to London at such cost. She was not there, as she had previously thought, solely to be a companion to Margaret. She was there to find a husband and settle her future for good. She could not spend the rest of her life at Evesham Castle.
Catriona did not cry. The pain was too great for tears to be a relief. Her duty as she saw it now was to make things easy for Edmund. He must never suspect how she felt about him. She would be pleasant and obedient and marry whomever he chose. It was the only honorable path open to her.
Chapter Thirteen
If popularity on the dance floor was anything to judge by, Catriona was having a very successful season. The real test of success, however, was a marriage offer, and so far there had been none forthcoming. The Earl of Wareham was certainly taken by Catriona, but, as Lady Dawley confided to her mother, there was little hope of his ever coming up to scratch.
“Eugenia Wareham won’t allow it,” said Lady Dawley definitely. “Let’s be frank, Mama. If the people involved are high-born enough, illegitimacy may be overlooked. But that is not the case with Kate. Diccon was the cousin of a duke, but he himself was only a plain gentleman with a comfortable property and income. And who was Kate’s mother? A Highland girl. No, Mama. We can have no hope of Wareham.”
“Perhaps the young man will have a different idea,” replied the duchess. “In my experience young men do not always follow their mother’s wishes.”
“In this case he will,” said Lady Dawley. “Wareham is a very amiable young man, but he thinks a great deal of his position. Don’t try to persuade yourself that he doesn’t.”
The duchess sighed. “What about Mr. Hardy?”
“He is a possibility,” Lady Dawley acknowledged. “His family is good, but not noble. And he has plenty of money. He may think a connection with Burford would outweigh all the disadvantages of such a union.”
The duchess stared at her daughter for perhaps ten seconds, then said flatly, “I would rather see Kate married to Prank Winthrop. Or to her cousin George, for that matter. I was not in favor of bringing her to London and I am beginning to think it was a very great mistake.”
Lady Dawley frowned. “What do you mean, Mama? She has taken far better than I ever dreamed possible.”
The duchess rose. “I mean that Kate has the most loving heart in the world, and it distresses me unutterably to hear her discussed as if she were a piece of goods put up to market.”
“Come, Mama,” said Lady Dawley impatiently. “I don’t say that affection is not an important part of marriage. But considerations of station, fortune, and property are important as well.”
“Edmund should not have brought Kate to London,” repeated the duchess before she turned to go upstairs to her room.
Catriona had come to the same conclusion as her grandmother. For the first time since she had made her appearance in society she was aware of the insecurity of her own status. She had known before of course that she was unacceptable to some people, but it had not mattered to her. In fact, it had been a protection. She didn’t want anyone to marry her. She had been shielded by her false assumption that when the season was over, she and Edmund would go back to Evesham and resume their old life. It was not overhearing herself called a bastard that had so upset her at her first Almack’s assembly; it had been the sight of Edmund dancing with the beautiful Lady Sophia Heatherstone.
But now it seemed t
hat she would have to marry. She thought about all the men she had met in London and came to the conclusion that the one she liked best was the Marquis of Hampton. Edmund, unfortunately, didn’t like him, and she had thought to marry whomever Edmund chose for her. However, as the days went by, the round of parties and balls and drives in the park that she had originally found so entertaining began to lose its flavor for her. The young men who danced with her and drove her in the park were very pleasant, but she found them all a trifle dull. The marquis, she thought, would not be dull at least. And being so disreputable himself, he might not mind her own status. Edmund had said he was not the marrying kind, but perhaps, Catriona thought a little daringly, perhaps she might make him change his mind.
She saw him for the first time after the Chesters’ ball at the theater. She was sitting in a box with Edmund, Lady Dawley, the duchess, Margaret, Margaret’s Mr. Halley, and her own escort, Mr. Hardy, waiting for the curtain to go up. Catriona listened to Lady Dawley’s light chatter with only half an ear, conscious only of the blissful torture of Edmund’s presence close behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know where he was. She could feel him in every nerve of her body. She knew now why she had always been so acutely conscious of his presence, why in the largest of crowds she had always known unerringly where he was. He said something to Mr. Hardy in a low voice, and Catriona bit her lip. She gazed around the theater desperately, trying to beat down her feelings, and caught the eye of Lord Hampton in the opposite box. He raised a hand to her, and Catriona, with her back safely to Edmund, smiled at him.
During the intermission she went for a stroll with Mr. Hardy, Meg, and Mr. Halley, and they met, quite by chance, the Marquis of Hampton. They all stood chatting for a minute, and then the marquis said to Catriona in a low voice, “I am afraid I have been warned off, Miss MacIan, otherwise I would have called on you.”