Her cousin stirred himself enough to summon a worried frown. “You may be engaged to marry, but you aren’t wed yet. I don’t know about you staying on here without a chaperone.”
This made everyone else at the table laugh, though Lord Swanson frowned because he couldn’t understand why.
“Cousin,” Kate said, taking pity on his confusion, “I’ve been abducted. Gone from home in the company of strangers for a full day and everyone must know that by now. I doubt staying on here would make much difference to the gossips, and you, dear sir, are the best chaperone Society could want.”
“And she’s engaged to marry me,” Alasdair said softly, looking at her as though he couldn’t quite believe his good fortune, “so I’m afraid her reputation will be in tatters anyway.”
“Nonsense!” Lord Swanson exclaimed. “Marriage mends reputations. Well, what do you say, Kate? Mind,” he said, frowning again, “we’ll get a maid to stay with you, and no hopping out of your chamber on any excuse. And no wandering into any chambers neither,” he cautioned Alasdair. They knew how much he’d had to drink when he added, to Kate, “A man’s not the father of seven daughters without learning a thing or two. Surest way to snag a husband, but you’ve done that already, and it would only make me feel guiltier.”
“I’ll stay,” Kate said, “because I feel absolutely boneless, too! I could do with a good night’s rest. Though I think I’m still too excited to sleep!”
They decimated a tray of tarts, reduced the fruit and nut bowls to shambles, and finally, as another round of thunder rolled overhead, rose from the table and, after many groans and stretches, began to make their way to the guest bedchambers.
Kate hesitated at the door to the private parlor. “I’d like a word with you,” she told Alasdair, her eyes searching his, estimating his mood and sobriety.
But he was clearheaded, because his smile immediately faded. “Of course,” he answered, and to a frowning Lord Swanson, added, “Surely you’ll permit that, sir? There’s not much I can get up to in here now, what with servants coming in to clear every other moment. I promise I’ll hand her over to the care of a worthy maid as soon as we have a chance to speak. Come, my lord. I do have a sense of propriety. And we are an engaged couple now. Surely that gives us a chance to speak privately for a few moments?”
Reluctantly, Lord Swanson nodded. And yawned. “Very well. Good night, then. I’ll see you all at breakfast—I hope,” he added darkly, watching Leigh make his way up the stairs, singing a school song he said he’d got “stuck in his head,” and walking like a blind man on ice.
Alasdair smiled. “Don’t worry. Leigh’s the most amiable drunk I ever met. The only thing alcohol does to him is improve his mood. Don’t worry about his safety, or our plans. He can find his way in the dark with a blindfold and his ankles shackled together. He’ll be fine in the morning. He rises with the larks with a clear head. I don’t know how he does it.”
“And you?” Lord Swanson asked.
“Don’t worry about me, or Kate,” Alasdair said. “I’ve a hard head. Besides, I don’t drink to excess. It’s too dangerous a habit for a cautious man. Whatever else I am, my lord, believe that I’m that.”
“Cautious indeed!” Kate told Alasdair the moment her cousin had gone. She and Alasdair went to the fireside so they could speak privately as the Excelsior’s staff cleared the table. “How cautious can you be?” she whispered, “You got trapped into offering for me.”
“What nonsense is this?” he asked, smiling down at her.
“You never actually asked for my hand,” she said, her face as filled with worry now as her cousin’s had been when he heard she was going to stay in a room alone with Alasdair. “Don’t think I don’t know that. Such things are important. One can’t surmise a proposal, and that’s just what I did, because we had to when my cousin walked in, I know. But I am not a Lady Eleanora! We were both carried away, and happened to be caught when we were.”
She took a breath. “So,” she said a little grimly, “I wanted to tell you now that this doesn’t have to go much further.” She frowned. “Well, it has to go a little further or my cousin will suspect the truth. So, after we get back to London—give it a week, I think. Then we can announce that we found out we don’t suit.” She looked everywhere but at him as she hurried on: “That’s acceptable, people do that all the time, and their reputations remain intact. But before we do that, I can see that you meet my other cousins, the Scalbys, and do what you have to do. Then I can go home and you can…What are you doing?” she gasped.
Because the formidable Sir Alasdair had dropped to one knee in front of her. He captured the hand she’d been waving as she’d tried to explain herself. His hand was dry and warm, her cold one trembling in his. He raised it to his lips.
“My dear Miss Corbet,” he said, “I know that I am unworthy, but will you do me the exquisite honor of becoming my wife?”
The maidservant who had been clearing the table gasped, and Mrs. Babbage paused with an armful of dirty linen, gaping at them.
But Alasdair went on imperturbably: “I am a man of moderate means and small appeal, but I devoutly hope you’ll overlook that. My past doesn’t bear speaking of, so I won’t. But I’m not yet ancient, and have every hope for my future—but only if you share it with me.”
He was smiling, but his expression grew serious as he looked up into her eyes and added, “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, Kate. Believe me, this is not one of them. And I vow, here and now, that if there are any in the future, they’ll be just that—mistakes. Of time, or fortune, or nature. Because I’ll never do anything to hurt, embarrass or dismay you, not of my conscious will. That, I promise. I’ll earnestly try to be the best husband you could want. Because I know you deserve even more than that. So. Kate. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, Alasdair,” she whispered.
Mrs. Babbage smiled. Then, chivvying at her gaping maid, she hurried her out the door as Alasdair rose to his feet and took Kate in his arms. The door gently closed behind them. Only then did Alasdair lower his head to Kate’s. But he paused, his mouth an inch from hers.
“Your answer, please,” he said softly. “You’ll get no kisses from me, you wicked thing, unless I have your promise. I have a newborn reputation to consider, and it’s whole and good and chaste as an egg right now, so I don’t want to blemish it by trading kisses with an unprincipled hussy. So, Kate? No moans or sighs, or whatever, now. A simple yes will do.” He hesitated, and she saw the gravity in his eyes as he added, “A yes, because I don’t think I could survive a no—or at least, would want to—even if it might be the better choice for you.”
“Oh, Alasdair,” she said, with one of those sighs that he’d said he didn’t want. “Alasdair,” she added, with tears in her voice, “yes, of course, yes. Indeed, yes. I will, I want to, though I can hardly believe any of this.”
She gave herself up to his kiss and soon gave him one of those moans that he’d also specifically said he didn’t want. But since it was against his mouth as she squirmed in his arms trying to get even closer to him, and he himself groaned low in his throat at the fiery touch of her tongue on his, he didn’t mind at all.
23
The room was dimly lit, even for night. But it was a sultry summer’s night, so a fire in the hearth wasn’t necessary, and even the glow of a lamp would have made the room feel hotter. Even so, the curtains were drawn tight, closed against any breeze that might possibly be roving anywhere in London that night.
A man sat close to the empty hearth, staring into it, as though he needed it for warmth, and could see pictures in flames that weren’t there. The woman seated opposite him stared into the complete darkness at the edges of the room as though she could see moving shadows. Nothing moved except for the faint fluttering of the single candle in the room, set flickering by the slight motion of her hand as she idly plied her fan.
“We received an invitation in the post this morning,” she said into the stillness. “Un
expected. But then, perhaps not. The fellow seems willing to go to all lengths. Well, now, despite what I’d thought, it seems our old friend Sir Alasdair St. Erth has actually become betrothed to our—your—cousin Katherine Corbet. He rescued her from that abduction, and so many will say it’s because he wished to save her name—as if a man with a name like his could do that. But whatever they say, now the thing is official, it was in the papers, and they’re planning a party to celebrate. We’ve been invited. How amusing.”
The gentleman didn’t react.
She spoke again. “So, shall we go?” She laughed when he didn’t answer. “Precisely. I think not. But he’s planning to marry her. What do you think of that, Richard?”
At the sound of his name, the man turned his head a fraction. He grunted.
“Yes,” the woman answered. “Just so. What can one say? He has evidence, Richard. Evidence that will ruin us. So why doesn’t he simply produce it and have done? Why should he go to such lengths, eh?”
The man laughed. It was a broken, bitter sound, with no humor in it.
“Yes, quite,” his wife said. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps he loves her? That would be to our advantage, were it so. If he does, he could be managed; certainly he wouldn’t want to cast shame on her family. But he has no shame of his own, and so that’s a remote possibility. Unlikely, as well, as he also has no heart. Still, though we may pass up this kind invitation, we shall be expected to invite them here. We are known to be social, you know.
“Damn him to hell,” she added conversationally, though her thin hand clenched to a claw on the handle of her fan. “He is undoubtedly already headed there. He wants us to crawl. It’s not enough to disgrace us, which he doubtless will. He wants to see us crawl to him first. And then he will deny us. I imagine he’d find that amusing. I would, were I he. I expect his plan involves exposing us in front of the family,” she went on moodily. “Then he can cast off the girl, and his revenge will be complete. But, perhaps not. There may be an out for us. There might be a way, if he does care for the girl, there may yet be a way.”
The man waved a negligent hand at her, as though he was brushing away a gnat.
“No, I mean it,” she said. “It isn’t much of a hope, but it’s all we have left. With all his power, he’s only a man, and we know, God knows we know, he has his weaknesses. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this predicament, would we? So, what’s to do? Shall we invite him here? As he expects? As the world expects? After eluding him so well for so long, shall we at last be forced to have him here? So we can crawl on our bellies in our own sanctuary?”
Her husband growled. He turned a livid face to hers, started to utter something, but sputtered on another snarl and began coughing. His face turned red, then crimson.
His wife rose from her chair, took a glass from the table and held it to her husband’s lips. He drank so greedily some of the liquid spilled out of his mouth and down his chin. He sat back when there was nothing left, gasping, his coughing subsiding.
The woman picked up a bell and rang it. A footman hurried into the room.
“My husband is having one of his attacks,” she told him in a calm, cold voice, averting her face. “You know what to do. Get his man and his medicine.” When the footman hurried out, she went to the door, too. She looked back at her husband, coughing fitfully, but with less force. “We may not be quite dished. I will consider this carefully. We’ll speak of this again, Richard, when you’re better,” she said, and with a bitter smile, left him alone by the barren fireside.
24
“Mama would like the wedding to be at home,” Kate reported, after she skimmed the letter she’d just opened.
Alasdair sat back, listening in silence, his hand loosely circled around the cup of tea she’d poured for him. He watched her closely, taking pleasure watching the way her hands moved when she opened a letter, how her eyes widened when she read something that interested her, and how the sunlight teased gold from her curls.
He smiled at how inane a smitten man could be. The smile grew rueful as he realized there was nothing else he could do but admire her from afar, even if that “afar” was only three feet. He was showing the Swansons how good, how virtuous, how ordinary the wicked St. Erth could be, even when tempted by the tasty tidbit who was his fiancée. He had no choice. They’d been engaged for two weeks, and only now did the Swansons permit him to sit alone with her—at teatime, in the salon, and with the door ajar, he thought with amused resignation.
“And you?” he asked. “What would you like?”
“I’d like it if we’d been married at that inn instead of just compromised there.” She colored because of the look that flashed in his eyes.
He noted it. “Does my continuing interest in that ’compromise’ distress you?” he asked mildly. “I hope not. I thought you felt the same, and hope it’s only your notion of propriety that prevents you from admitting it. Believe me, I’d think it very proper if you did.”
“It’s not that…exactly. Well, maybe it is,” she admitted. “What I think of what we do—did—isn’t something I’m comfortable talking about yet.”
“You will be,” he promised. “I realize marriage entails decades of dealing with thousands of mundane things that will make up our lives. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that what compromised us is of greatest interest to me right now.” He saw her embarrassment and relented. “It’s not just the longing for pleasure, Kate. I find myself longing simply to lie with you in my arms, peacefully, talking about how good our life is. It will be. But this isn’t getting us anywhere. Warm talk over cold tea isn’t much use to a man in a heated condition. No”—he laughed, putting his hand over the cup—“I don’t want any more, thank you. What were you saying?”
It took her a minute to remember. She flourished the letter, frowning again. “Plans for our marriage. My cousins say we should wait until next spring, and they’re pushing for a fine wedding here, at St. George’s. Now here’s Mama telling me she’s thinking of a wedding in high summer! In our church at home. I don’t much care where we’re wed, do you? I thought not. But wherever we chose, that’s a year away, either way,” she said plaintively.
“Even if I didn’t mind that, which I do,” she added hastily, “what am I supposed to do until then? I don’t want to stay here with the Swansons, sweet as they are—and truly, Harriet, Frances, and Chloe are much nicer to me now. But if I go home, you’ll have to travel for days to see me, and I won’t see you even half as often as I do now—oh, this is impossible. Why should something so simple be getting so baroque!” she asked in frustration. “Why should there be so much time between the decision and the deed? I’m not some giddy young chit, so why don’t they trust my judgment? My parents, at least, used to. What’s come over them?”
“I believe they may be worried about what people may think came over you—literally,” he said wryly. Reaching over the table and taking her hand, he added, “Dear ninny mine, they want the guests at your wedding to see that the wedding isn’t strictly necessary. They want it to look like a consummation devoutly to be wished—instead of one that had to be hastily covered up.”
She stared at him, perplexed.
He sighed. “We two were away together overnight, at an inn. Even if we hadn’t been, there’s the matter of who you were away with. Dear Kate,” he said gently, to her dawning distress, “they want everyone to see you aren’t increasing. The Swansons believe a wedding nine months hence, with you still svelte, should be enough to do the trick. Your parents are more discreet. They don’t want the reason for the long engagement to be that obvious. And they might also want to give you enough time to change your mind.”
Now she glared. “Never!” she said. “Not my parents at least. They believe what I tell them. Besides, I’ve been judge, jury, and referee in our family long enough for them not only to believe in my good sense, but to depend on it utterly.” She paused, and added in a smaller voice, “That’s just the problem, and why there may be some
thing in what you say. I doubt they worry about you—not in the way you mean. I think, deep down, even old as I am, they aren’t ready to let me go to anyone.”
She slipped her hand from his and used her finger to skim the letter, running it across the crisscrossing lines. “They say things like…ah, here: ‘We sent you to London to have a good time, and hope you don’t think we were trying to be rid of you. We’ve always mocked parents desperate to pop their girls off, don’t you remember?’ And here: ’Dearest girl, you know how well we all rub on together here, never think we sent you to visit your cousins because we wanted to marry you off. You’re welcome to stay on here with us as you are, forever.’
“There,” she said with sad satisfaction, looking up at him again, resting her hand on top of his, as if to comfort him, “‘Forever,’ that’s the key word. You see? It isn’t you. You could be an archbishop for all they care.”
He chuckled, but she went on, “It’s me, and how much they need me. But much as I love them, I’d rather not stay home a year, missing you all the time, with nothing to do but dream of our marriage. What’s the purpose? So I can assemble some monstrous trousseau? I can buy linens after I’m married. So I can arrange for an extra armful of roses at the wedding, and wait for answers to invitations from relatives in the Antipodes? Nonsense. All that time at home will make it harder to leave my family. And they know it. They want to keep things just as they are. I’m useful to them. I don’t want to sound like an undutiful daughter, but the thing is that now I want to be useful to you.”
He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. She was touched, tingling, enchanted, so pleased with him that she forgot what she’d just been complaining about. But it was so comforting to have him sitting there beside her in the afternoon. So domestic, so fulfilling, and Lord, the man looked good in daylight. Night made him seem dramatic, like a great black cat on the stalk. The afternoon sun showed him to be just as virile, equally dangerous but a hundred times more accessible. She yearned to jump from her chair, fling herself into his arms, sit on his lap, and try to discover how long a person could kiss without breathing. Because he’d become as vital to her as breathing.
Edith Layton Page 27