Destined to Last

by Alissa Johnson

  With any luck, the sea, and the peace and control it offered, would change that.

  Eventually, she would have to go inside Pallton House where the sounds of the waves would be too muted to be effective, but for now, she simply stood on the sandy beach and listened, quite content to be at a sleepy house party and equally content to hear nothing but the movement of water.

  Until a deep, familiar voice said, “Good afternoon, Lady Kate.”

  With her heart firmly lodged in her throat, she whirled about to discover Mr. Hunter standing not six feet behind her. From his relaxed stance and the tousled state of his dark hair, she gathered he’d been standing there for some time…watching her.

  “How long have you been standing there?” she demanded.

  “I am delighted to see you as well,” he replied, gripping his hands behind his back. “And my journey was quite pleasant, thank you for inquiring.”

  “I…” She didn’t bother to hide a wince. “I beg your pardon, that was very rude of me. It’s only…you surprised me. I hadn’t realized you were there…or here, I should say. That is, I hadn’t realized you’d accepted an invitation from Lord Brentworth. My mother and I only just arrived yesterday afternoon and—” And she was rambling, an irritating habit often set off by nerves. “You surprised me,” she concluded lamely.

  He angled his head to the side. “A welcome surprise, I hope?”

  She considered that and decided there was no point in answering dishonestly. “I’m not certain.”

  “An improvement over the outright no I would have received a week ago.” He straightened again, his dark eyes twinkling with humor. “Was it my waltzing abilities that softened you, or my charm?”

  “Apparently, it was your absence,” she drawled. “It allowed the memory of your arrogance to dim.”

  “Ah.”

  “Quite sharp in my mind now, though,” she informed him. Even sharper was that she found the slight disarray of his black hair distinctly appealing. The small flaw softened his otherwise impeccably polished appearance and made him seem more approachable. She supposed that meant it wasn’t a flaw at all, but rather an improvement. Or maybe it was just a simple matter of—

  “Delighted to know I’m in your thoughts.”

  She blinked at him. Good heavens, had she voiced her opinion of his hair aloud without realizing it? She didn’t think she had, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d made such an embarrassing error. Surely he’d been referring to her earlier comment. The one about his arrogance and—

  “Lady Kate?”

  She winced for the second time in as many minutes and wished she had spent the morning catching up on the rest an unfamiliar bed had kept from her the night before. She was much easier to distract when she was tired. “I beg your pardon. I was…distracted.”

  “By thoughts of me?”

  Yes. “Certainly not. I was thinking…” She lifted a hand to fiddle with the blue ribbons of her bonnet. “I was thinking…about the scenery. I like the sea best this time of day.”

  His lips curved up, and he took a small step toward her. “Your back is to the sea.”

  “I needn’t look at something to ponder it,” she replied, dropping her hand, and involuntarily taking a small step back. “Some of us are capable of abstract thought.”

  His smile turned just a little wicked, and his next step was just a little bigger. “That would explain how you managed to think of me in my absence.”

  She adamantly refused to back away again. Admittedly, that decision was bolstered by the knowledge she could only back up so far before stepping into the sea. Still, she felt it should count for something that, despite the way her heart raced and her mouth had gone dry, she managed to stay in place, tip her chin up, and say, “Did you come all the way to Pallton House just to ruffle my feathers, Mr. Hunter?”

  He laughed softly, and to what she was certain was her relief and not disappointment, he made no further move toward her. “No. As it happens, I’ve come on business.”

  “Oh? What sort of business?”

  “The financial kind, among others. Have you an interest in business?”

  None whatsoever, she just wanted to change the subject. But she was intrigued by the idea that he would ask if she was interested. Like rakes and debauchers, business—particularly that of a financial nature—was not something a gentleman offered to discuss with a woman.

  “Would you tell me of it if I said I was interested?” she inquired.

  His mouth turned down at the corners, as if he wasn’t quite certain why she’d asked. “Naturally, I would.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth turned up at the corners because she was surprised at his answer. “Well. Thank you.”

  “Do you want to hear of it?”

  “No,” she replied with a shrug. “But the offer is appreciated.”

  She studied him as he laughed, and wondered what it was about him that seemed so familiar to her. Was it his eyes? The shape of his face? She was certain it wasn’t the sound of his voice. She’d gotten the sense they’d met before the first time she’d seen him, and that had been prior to hearing him speak. Perhaps it was the way he smiled, or…Oh, she had no idea.

  “Have we met in the past?” she asked abruptly. Much too abruptly. She hadn’t meant to just blurt the question out, but there it was. And since it was too late to take it back, and because he was looking more than a little perplexed, she thought it might be best if she at least tried to clarify the question. “In the distant past, I mean. The first time we met, I felt as if we’d met before.”

  He shook his head. “The first time we met was at Haldon.”

  “You’re sure of it?”

  “Quite sure.” He leaned forward to speak in a tone that was both teasing and sly. “I’d have remembered meeting the likes of you, Lady Kate. Believe me.”

  “Oh, well…” She cleared her throat. “I’m sure it’s just my imagination, then.”

  “You’ve been imagining—?”

  “Oh, look, there’s Lizzy,” she cut in, her voice sounding unnaturally high even to her own ears. She pointed to where Lizzy was waving at her from the back lawn. “It would seem I’m needed for something. Do excuse me.”

  She moved to walk around him, only to have him fall into step beside her. “No need. I was headed in that direction, at any rate.”

  She glanced at him, wondering if he had come outside just for her. Pure vanity, she told herself. Just because the man enjoyed vexing her didn’t mean he sought her out for the opportunity to do so. Probably he’d been taking a walk along the beach for his own pleasure and happened to come across her. Then he’d enjoyed vexing her.

  Kate set the thought aside as Lizzy reached them and bobbed a curtsy at Mr. Hunter.

  “Lizzy.” He inclined his head politely, and Kate couldn’t help but notice that the teasing tone and wicked smile he so often employed in her presence was absent as he spoke to Lizzy. “I find you in good health, I trust?”

  Lizzy smiled at him, and in such a way that made Kate realize it wasn’t the first time Mr. Hunter had shown her such regard. “I’m perfectly hale. And you?”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  Good heavens, were they friends? How could she not know they were friends? Lizzy had mentioned in the past that Mr. Hunter was always well behaved in her company, but she’d never given any indication that the two of them had developed any sort of bond. Surely if Lizzy had formed a friendship with Mr. Hunter, she’d not have kept it to herself. Lizzy was incapable of keeping anything to herself. They weren’t friends, they were simply friendly. Weren’t they?

  Lizzy turned her attention from Mr. Hunter. “Your mother sent me to inform you it’s time for tea.”

  “Right. Thank you.” Kate took a step toward the house, realized the error in manners and turned round again. “Will you be joining us, Mr. Hunter?”

  “I will after a time. I promised Mr. Abbot I’d have a look at his new mare first.” He tipped his head toward
the side of the house where the stables were located. “But save me a seat, won’t you, Lady Kate?”

  Before she had a chance to respond to that, he bowed again and turned away.

  Kate watched him saunter off in the direction of the stables. “I don’t understand that man at all.”

  “Mr. Hunter?” Lizzy took her arm and led her toward the house. “What’s not to understand?”

  “Who he is. What he wants. Why he…” She trailed off and glanced at Lizzy. “Does he always show you such regard?”

  Lizzy stopped walking, her eyes widening considerably. “Beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean to imply anything untoward. I…” A horrible thought occurred to her. “I needn’t be implying anything untoward…need I?”

  Somehow, Lizzy managed to widen her eyes further, and even gape a little. “With Mr. Hunter? How could you think—?”

  “I’m sorry. I truly am.” The idea had come entirely unbidden, and she was equal parts ashamed and confused by it now. “It’s only…well, he was most polite to you just now.”

  Lizzy tipped her chin up a hair. “What’s wrong with that, then?”

  “Not a thing.” Oh dear, she wasn’t improving matters. “It’s only…he’s not polite in my company. I assumed he was equally forward with everyone.”

  Lizzy relaxed her stance. “Ah. He’s unpleasant toward you?”

  “No, not unpleasant. Not entirely. Just not quite so respectful. Are you…friends?”

  Lizzy’s expression changed to one of inquisitive amusement. “That would bother you some, wouldn’t it?”

  Kate felt her own chin tip up. “It would not.”

  Lizzy studied her a moment before nodding once in a supremely knowing sort of manner. “It would. And it’d not have a thing to do with my being a maid.”

  “I would not be bothered,” Kate insisted, and resumed their walk toward the house at something less than a ladylike pace.

  Lizzy fell into step beside her. “You would and—” She broke off with a laugh. “I feel as if we’re eight again.”

  Kate leapt at the chance to change the subject. “Shall I pull your hair until you admit I’m right?”

  “You never pulled my hair,” Lizzy replied with a snort.

  “No, but I recall you pulling mine once. Revenge is long overdue.”

  “I can’t believe your brother didn’t take a strap to me for that,” Lizzy commented with a dramatic wince.

  “Whit isn’t the sort to take a strap to anyone, least of all a child. And you were sent to bed without dinner, if I recall.”

  Lizzy smiled. “You tried to sneak me a bit of roast.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Kate murmured, remembering. She’d put the meat in a napkin, and the napkin up her sleeve. “Dreadful idea.”

  “The gravy did create something of a mess. Evie fared better with her buttered roll.”

  “Evie’s better at being sneaky. Where did she hide that, do you suppose?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “For the best, no doubt,” Kate commented as they pushed their way through a back door of the stone manor. It was also for the best that the topic of Lizzy’s relationship with Mr. Hunter had been dropped.

  Kate didn’t want to dwell on the knowledge she had experienced a moment of irrational discontent at the idea of Mr. Hunter being friends with Lizzy. And that the discontent had nothing to do with the notion that a gentleman was not supposed to count a member of staff amongst his friends.

  A silly rule, to Kate’s mind, but that unusual opinion stemmed from having been reared in the company of several outspoken and unusually democratic women. Had Mr. Hunter been also? Was that why he was so polite to Lizzy? He needn’t have been raised by women, of course. Men were just as capable of being democratic as women.

  Lost in her thoughts, and absently tapping her finger against her skirts to the beat of a lovely violin concerto that had begun in her mind once they were inside, she followed Lizzy toward the front of the house.

  Whatever Mr. Hunter’s political and social leanings, she still didn’t trust him. Because respectful to Lizzy or not, tousled hair or not, he was still a man of too much polish and charm who took pleasure in discomforting her. And if she didn’t trust him, then she shouldn’t trust her curiosity with him, nor her reaction to his dark gaze and…

  The concerto faltered, slowing in tempo. Something hard nudged her hip, and she looked down just in time to see a vase go toppling from a side table she’d just bumped into. She reached for it with both hands, but it was Lizzy who caught it.

  “Oh, dear,” Kate whispered as Lizzy calmly replaced the vase. “Oh, thank you, Lizzy.”

  “Nothing to it.”

  “There would have been a great deal to it if it had broken and Mother caught wind.” After a year of extensive deportment lessons had failed to curb the worst of Kate’s clumsiness, Lady Thurston had given up any hope that her only daughter might display the grace the only daughter of a countess really ought. But that wouldn’t stop her from lecturing over a host’s broken vase.

  “I do wish Lord Brentworth would keep his windows open,” Kate sighed.

  “So you can hear the waves?” Lizzy guessed. She was one of the few people who knew of the music that sometimes danced about in Kate’s head, and the only other person who knew of the sea’s ability to silence it. Given Lizzy’s loose tongue, it was something of a mystery as to how she’d managed to keep the secret for more than ten years.

  Kate nodded and sighed as they resumed their walk down the hall.

  Lizzy brushed at a bit of dust on her apron. “Well, we can keep the windows ajar in your room, anyway. And mine, as it’s connected. That should help—”

  “You needn’t keep yours open unless you want them open, Lizzy.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “It isn’t a matter of minding. It’s a matter of what you would prefer.”

  “I’d prefer you not knock anything over in either of our rooms,” Lizzy said dryly.

  Kate liked to think she would have come up with a very clever retort to that comment, but before she was given the opportunity to try, they reached the end of the hall leading to the foyer. The front door was open, and though a maid was blocking Kate’s view of whoever was on the other side, she caught the sound of a familiar and very unwelcome highpitched titter.

  Oh, no.

  She and Lizzy stopped in their tracks. The maid shifted and Kate saw a flash of elaborately coiffed blonde hair.

  Oh, no.

  The maid stepped aside and admitted one Miss Mary Jane Willory.

  Kate felt her jaw fall open at the sight. “Oh, no.”

  Next to her, Lizzy made a small noise in the back of her throat. If Kate hadn’t known better, she would have sworn it was a growl.

  Though she would feel a little ashamed for it later, instinct made her grab Lizzy’s arm and drag her back into the hall, out of sight of the front door.

  Mouth pressed into a grim line, she stared around the corner at the petite young woman turned out in an insufferably tidy gown of white. Kate scowled at the woman and the gown. Her lavender traveling gown had been wrinkled from hem to neck and sporting several large stains by the time she’d arrived at Pallton House. Not exactly the most pressing issue at present, but annoying nonetheless.

  Miss Willory moved aside to allow an elderly woman through the door behind her. Her chaperone, Kate imagined. A widowed aunt or distant spinster cousin or some other poor soul marked for punishment. Which was, again, not the most pressing issue.

  She shook her head in bafflement. “What on earth is Miss Willory doing here?”

  And why on earth did Miss Willory look so delighted about it? The woman was still tittering. Miss Willory was not the sort of young lady who tittered with delight to be attending Lord Brentworth’s house party, unless…Unless there was someone in attendance she very much wished to see.

  Oh, Kate dearly hoped that someone wished to see her back. And that the some
one was Baron Comrie from Edinburough. How much more pleasant would life be were Miss Willory to become Lady Comrie and spend the remainder of her days comfortably tucked away in Scotland. Kate had a difficult time imagining Miss Willory wanting to be tucked away in Scotland, but the woman did want wealth and a title, and after six seasons searching for them, and with people beginning to smirk a bit at her advancing age, she might just be—if Kate was very lucky—desperate enough to seize them from an unsuspecting Scotsman. Or maybe not, Kate mused, maybe she’d come with the hopes of luring the handsome young Mr. Potsbottom into her web and…No, no, Mr. Potsbottom had pockets to let, and if the rumors were true, the Willory family’s extravagant tastes had put them in their own financial straits. Miss Willory was in search of a fortune. It must be the baron.

  Lizzy plucked at her sleeve. “Lady Kate?”

  Kate craned her neck to watch as Miss Willory imperiously ordered the staff to take special care with her trunks. “What is it?”

  “We can’t stand here all day.”

  Kate turned her head. “Do you want to go out there?”

  “I’d rather eat slugs. A bucketful. But your mother is expecting you for tea.” With her head poking over Kate’s left shoulder, Lizzy pointed at a door on the other side of Miss Willory. “In that parlor.”

  Kate swallowed a groan. “Is there another way in, do you suppose?”

  “Through the window.”

  “I’d like to retain some pride, thank you.”

  “Bit late, if you ask me.”

  Kate grimaced. “I suppose we can’t dally here forever.”

  “Dallying,” Lizzy repeated. “Is that what we’re doing?”

  No, they were hiding, but Kate didn’t feel like admitting to that out loud. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Miss Willory, not in the least. But spending time in the woman’s company was, in fact, very much like eating slugs. Unlikely to cause harm, but unpleasant enough to justify taking extensive measures to avoid the experience.