“You were very quiet this evening,” Kate told Alasdair that night as they sat on a sofa in the salon. The Swansons were leaving them discreetly alone for a few moments, her parents having gone back to their hotel.
“I didn’t grow up in your family,” he answered simply.
She flinched. “Right, right,” she murmured, lifting one shoulder. “Well, I told you how it was. I just didn’t know how it would be. I’m sorry. It’s not you.” She sighed. “They’ve already begun involving me. Mother says there’s no way she can get my brother Simon to go back to school this autumn, since he’s taken it into his head to go to the Continent, be a vagabond, and write a journal. Simon? Well, you’d have to know him. He was also going to be a balloonist, until he tried his wings by climbing to the top of the barn. He looked down, got dizzy, and fell like a stone. We were lucky all that broke was his wrist.”
They shared sympathetic grins, and she went on, “At least I talked him out of running away to join the gypsies. She says I’m the only one he’d listen to. It’s true. If he’d told me his plans for becoming an aerialist, I’d have been able to stop it, too. And ditto for my brother Lawrence. He’s begun making noises about courting the squire’s daughter, and my parents are panicked. He’s so rash. He’s only sixteen, and you’d have to know the squire’s daughter to know what a disaster that would be! And Mama says my brother Robin’s sulking because I haven’t come home yet, and Father insists no one else can name the new mare but me, since I’m so good at such things. But he reminds me I can’t till I see her.”
Alasdair took one of her hands in his. “And do you want to? Go home, that is?”
She looked at him helplessly. “I only want to be with you.”
They didn’t speak again for a while. Then it took all of Alasdair’s training and control to finally put her at arm’s length, away from him. He steadied his breathing and smoothed back his hair. Looking at her made him reach for her again. Her curls were mussed, her mouth looked as soundly kissed as it had been, her dress was delightfully askew.
“You can’t say such things to me,” he said in a thickened voice. “You should be able to, but I’m not myself when I’m with you. I hardly know myself when I’m with you,” he confessed, looking as exasperated with himself as he was genuinely puzzled by his reactions to her.
She straightened her gown, then fussed with her hair. He smiled to see how she set it to rights by rumpling it more artistically. It was just that kind of absurd thing that made his pulses beat and his heart grow foolishly fond. “You haven’t answered my question,” he said softly.
“You didn’t let me.” She ducked her head. “No, that’s a lie. I didn’t want to. The truth is that I adore them. But I cannot be without you.” She looked at him with defiance. “If it tears me in two, that’s how it has to be. I don’t say it makes me happy, it just about kills me. But I’ve made my choice, and they can only make me feel guilty and sad. I can’t and won’t go back on my decision. I’ve chosen you, because that’s the only way it can be for me.”
He leapt to his feet. “You can’t say things like that to me now,” he said in what might have been real indignation. “Not one more word! Not when it’s time for me to leave. I hear footmen shuffling at the door. I won’t embarrass myself again, I can’t, Kate. One more incident, and your family won’t trust me to so much as take you for a stroll before the wedding. And who can blame them? But thank you. For your decision, and your trust in me. It isn’t misplaced, I promise you.”
She got to her feet when he did. He took her hand and kissed it—and then dragged her into his arms.
“Oh, damnation,” he groaned against her cheek when he finally was able to find the discipline to say anything. She giggled into his ear. “Now I hear your aunt coughing at the door. Either she’s got consumption, or I’ve done it again.”
“Mr. Corbet!” Alasdair said, taking Kate’s father’s hand before he took a chair next to him in the reception room of the Corbets’ hotel. He was pleased to see they sat far away from others who were chatting, loitering, or having tea in the vast room. “So glad you could take the time to see me.”
John Corbet eyed Alasdair closely. “You said it was a matter of some importance.”
“So it is. Don’t get your hopes up,” Alasdair said. “I’m not about to tell you that I’m ending the engagement.”
John Corbet’s polite smile faded, he looked surprised.
“That’s just the point,” Alasdair went on doggedly, “and I want to get to that point with no delay. I’m going to marry Kate. She wants that as badly as I do. You and your lovely wife clearly do not.”
Alasdair fixed Kate’s father with a dark stare. “I can’t make you like me,” he said flatly. “I can’t even make you tolerate me. If you choose not to, that’s the way it will be. But I’m here to tell you it will be that way forever, or for so long as I live, and I come from a long-lived family. Baring accident, of course, I intend to be around to be the father of your grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, if I’m lucky. I can live with your dislike. But I don’t wish to live with Kate’s unhappiness about it. So I came to ask if you’d at least accept that I am here, and will remain so. And to beg you to hide your dislike, at least for her sake.”
Kate’s father sat still, his eyes on Alasdair. “Well,” he finally said, “there’s plain speaking.”
“Indeed.”
“We don’t dislike you,” the other man said slowly. “It’s just that we’re not best pleased at losing our little girl.”
“She’s not a girl, and you won’t lose her unless you force her to choose between families. Ours—for when we marry, we will be one—and yours. And I don’t ask you to be pleased. Only to accept the facts, and if you can bear to, to occasionally speak to me—at least in front of Kate. I can fully accept your ignoring me when she’s not around. It’s her happiness I’m here for. I hope that’s your goal, too. Whatever you’ve heard about me, let me assure you her tranquillity is my primary object. I won’t mistreat her. I’ll always take as much care of her feelings and person as you would. That’s exactly why I asked for this meeting, and why I’m here at all.”
John Corbet tilted his head, looking Alasdair full in the eye for the first time since they’d met. “Well, you’ve landed me a facer, haven’t you?” he asked roughly. “This is the lofty St. Erth I heard about. The arrogant fellow everyone wrote to me about. And yet unbending enough to ask for a favor? And in the process making me feel smaller?”
Alasdair’s expression remained calm, but he winced inwardly. He’d failed. He’d tried to scotch a problem by uncovering it, because he more than anyone knew the dangers of hidden feelings, how they could eat away at a person’s soul. The Corbets might only resent him now, but unchecked resentment always grew to be dislike, and worse. But bringing the thing out into the open hadn’t ended it, as he’d hoped. He’d have to see if there was anything retrievable. He started to speak, but the older man put up a hand to stop him.
“No, please don’t interrupt, Sir Alasdair. You’ve had your say, now hear mine.”
Alasdair sat quiet, bracing himself, reining in his temper.
“You’re right,” Kate’s father said.
Alasdair blinked.
“And if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t you, or your reputation,” her father went on. “Your birth is good, your fortune’s solid.” He cast an eye over how neatly Alasdair was dressed, and added, “You’re a good-looking fellow, neither a tulip nor a buck, but seem to be a sound and steady man. I heard about your reputation, and discounted it. My Kate’s got a good head on her shoulders. Which is why we wanted to keep her, I suppose. That’s all it is,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and looking glum.
“Her mother and I adore her. Yes, I suppose it is time she flew on her own. All her friends are married, what has she got at home but us? That’s enough for us, but for her? I expect we didn’t want to see it. Love’s a funny thing. Too much is as bad as too little. It
is possible to love too well, and that’s the plain truth.”
“I hope to discover if that’s so,” Alasdair murmured, his relief easy to see in the way he sat back in his chair.
“Oh, it is, it is,” John Corbet murmured. “Well. I can’t say this was pleasant, but it was for the best. I like a man who speaks his mind. Now, if you don’t mind, may we just sit a while and talk? I’d like to get to know more about you, if you’d permit?”
“I’d like that,” Alasdair said, and hesitated. “But as to your good wife?”
“That’s just it. She is good. Don’t worry, leave her to me. She’ll see the light, but if the messenger is to be killed for bringing it to her, let it be me. I’m used to it.” He chuckled. “So. Tell me, where do you two intend to live? In London or on your estate? I hope it’s the latter, because it’s closer to us. But you don’t look like a countryman, so I suppose it’s to be London.”
“My valet mightn’t like it, but I was once a countryman and intend to be so again. Only it’s not sheep or pigs I’d like to raise. I’ve an eye to horses.”
“Horses?” the other man asked eagerly. “Well, well. We do have something in common.”
They had the love of Kate, Alasdair thought, but didn’t say it. For the first time, he realized it must be a hard thing to give up someone you loved, just so she could be happier. But how could he know that? He’d never had a choice. The only two he’d ever loved had gone, first one and then the other, without any leave of his. That was what he’d spent his life trying to avenge.
“You don’t like Arabian stock?” John Corbet asked in disappointment.
“Oh. No, I always have,” Alasdair said, dragging his attention back to what was being said rather than what was going on his head. He buried his thoughts and hid his plans, even from himself, as he’d always done, and went on to pass the morning talking about horses.
Only four more weeks, Kate thought, and shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself, remembering how he’d held her in his arms tonight. She stood at her bedroom window looking out into the dark. She couldn’t have seen much even if there was light, except for a narrow alley and the wall of the house next door. But she wasn’t looking at anything that was there.
Apart from him for only two hours, and Lord, how she yearned for him! Yes, she loved talking to him, and, of course, she relished his wit, and how good it was to hear what he thought about what she did and said. But that was nothing to the way she felt when she looked at him. She got such strange reactions from just watching him do mundane things.
Just a chance glance at his chin tonight showed the first growth of his beard darkening the notch in his otherwise smooth-shaven chin. It sent a surge of warmth to her heart, and regions much lower than that. Even that was nothing to the dizzying feeling of possessive joy she’d felt when she’d looked at his hand on his wineglass. But the bottom dropped out of her stomach when he’d looked back, caught her mooning over him, and caressed her with his dark, equally avid stare.
And when he caressed her! Where he led, she followed. She’d been a prudent girl and was a sensible woman, but when he kissed her and touched her, he made her want to shuck out of her clothes and peel off her skin, anything to get closer to him. She couldn’t wait to marry him and join him in bed. She knew it was outrageous. She understood she was in a fever of desire. She didn’t care.
Oh, Alasdair! she thought, and hugged herself hard. How can I be so lucky? And so tormented by having to wait four weeks!
Only three weeks, Kate thought, as she paced by her window and saw the first stains of oncoming dawn light the sullen night sky. Three weeks until they were married! And it wouldn’t be a moment too soon. Things had gotten so strange and exciting and dangerous tonight, when they’d been alone in the garden after dinner. Such a tiny joke of a London garden, scarcely room for a bird to waltz with his beloved, Alasdair had joked. But it was dark, and the night was so soft, and he’d taken her in his arms, and there was room enough for everything they wanted to do.
His lips at her mouth, her neck, her breasts. Her hands on his chest, feeling the wild beating of his heart and the heat of his skin burning through his thin linen shirt. His hands on her, pushing up her skirt. The way she’d sucked in her breath when his hand caressed her thigh, her inner thigh, herself where only she’d touched herself before while bathing. She’d jerked and started to pull away, and he’d whispered, “No, wait, see, relax, and see, oh, Kate, yes, do you see?”
She hadn’t seen anything, but as he’d kept up she’d felt thrilling new spikes of pleasure, felt a thrumming in her body, a relaxing and yet a tensing of her whole self radiating out from there—there—there! She’d been shocked, delighted, weak, and trembling. He’d slowly withdrawn his hand from her flesh, and like a cold breeze blown through a newly opened window, loss had followed the warmth of pleasure. He must have known, he kept his other arm around her.
“There, Kate, it’s all right,” he’d said. “No one will know but us.”
She hadn’t been worried about that, she hadn’t thought of anyone but him and what else might lie in store. “But what about you?” she asked hopefully, “Shouldn’t there be more?”
“Oh yes”—he’d chuckled—“much more. My night will come, and then it will be all our days and nights.”
But not soon enough for her, she thought as she paced her bedchamber again, her sheer summer nightgown feeling like grit as it moved over her sensitized skin. She paced until the sun rose enough for her to stop so she could dress and go downstairs and wait for him.
“Two weeks,” he breathed into her hair. “We’ll be man and wife in two weeks,” Alasdair said, loosing his embrace and stepping away. “We can wait until then. So please, go sit over there and smile at me demurely, my dear rogue. It’s raining, we can’t go out. We’re not wed yet, so we have to sit here in this parlor, like lady and gentleman. It’s for the best, your brothers are the most vigilant chaperons, that must be why your parents finally brought them here. They wore me out in the park, and at the Tower, and on the Serpentine, I’m too weary for anything more this evening.” His smile belied that.
“They’re good lads,” he added, taking a seat opposite her.
“They’re mad about you. Thank you for having Leigh tell Simon about the poetry he studied at Oxford. Now he’s on fire to go.”
“I’m glad I could set one Corbet on fire without scandalizing everyone,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
She giggled at the absurdity of that, and he smiled back at her.
“So, two weeks remain. Is all in readiness now?” he asked.
“My mother and father are ready as they’ll ever be, but wistful. They’d have liked the ceremonies at home because London’s so thin of company. I reminded them that home would be even thinner of company now, and they conceded that. Don’t worry, it’s not because they’re opposed to you—just the reverse. They want to make the biggest stir. The boys are in ecstasies because you’re a ‘great gun.’ Lady Swanson doesn’t think things are in order yet, though. But she’d need two years to get the sort of reception she wants prepared. Lord Swanson is just pleased everything’s going forth. Chloe is complaining her gown won’t be ready. Frances keeps muttering about unseemly haste. Harriet’s in a dither about her new slippers and whether they really match her dress.” She frowned. “Sibyl’s trying to be brave, but I know she worries she’ll never see Leigh again after the wedding. Will she?”
Alasdair shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think his heart’s engaged, it’s just that his is a soft one. She’s too young anyway. Still, who knows what will come in time? But, Kate, are you ready?”
“If you don’t know, maybe we aren’t ready!” she yelped.
He laughed. And toyed with his quizzing glass, holding it by its ribbon, letting it swirl in increasingly smaller slow circles before him. “And all the guests have answered?” he asked softly, watching it spin. “Has everyone you’ve invited accepted, even on such short notice?”<
br />
“Almost all! It’s amazing. Even on such short notice!”
“Probably the same reason such crowds show up for hangings, to make sure the villain is well and truly turned off,” he commented. “So, all’s well. I’ve got very little family, and those that still breathe are coming. But yours…Everyone else has replied. But are the Scalbys coming?”
She frowned. “We didn’t get any answer from them.” She gazed at him worriedly. “Should we send round another invitation? Or should we let it be? Alasdair, can you truly bear to see them?
“I truly wish to,” he said honestly. Then paused, and added, “Let them see how well I’ve done. It’s the best revenge.”
“Well, then, I’d better have Father call on them. It’s his duty, and he can find out.” She hesitated. “You mean to confront them then? I know you must, but…”
“Kate,” he said softly, “trust me. I’ve no desire to ruin our day. I just wanted to know. Forewarned is forearmed. I can’t like seeing them on any day, and I don’t want them to do anything to ruin that one for me. But I want to be prepared for anything.” He caught up his quizzing glass and tucked it away. He looked at his watch. “We have another ten minutes before we’re interrupted. Come over here, wench, let’s see what trouble we can get into in that time.”
She went to him willingly, unwillingly to waste those precious minutes.
A week, Kate thought as she rode to the dressmakers for the final fitting of the dress she’d wear to her wedding. Just one week left, she realized, as the carriage wheels turned in time with her thoughts: too long, too long, too long.
26
The bride wore a gown the color of old pearls and had a soft rosy flush on her cheeks. She carried a bouquet of gardenias and wore a matching crown of them on her curls. The keenest-eyed gossip in church couldn’t deny Kate Corbet—now Lady St. Erth, was a slender, graceful sylph of a bride. The gentlemen couldn’t deny that she’d curves enough for any man’s delight. She made a charming bride, and if gossips were disappointed because they couldn’t see if a hasty marriage had been necessary, they had nothing to grumble about if they concentrated on the groom.
Edith Layton Page 29