Hope Tarr

by Untamed

  She looked up to find him smiling at her, a slow, lazy smile that set her pulse hammering. Despite the cold, shame heated her cheeks. Dear God, he must have fancied she was fishing! And perhaps she had been, if only just a little.

  “I can’t,” she said, the declaration coming out more sharply than she’d intended. Softening her tone, she added, “As you can see, this is my day to entertain callers.”

  “I’m a caller, am I not?”

  She couldn’t help smiling at that. “Not an official one. Had you waited until this afternoon to drop by, you might have been invited to stay for tea.”

  His eyes locked on hers. “I’m no all that fond of tepid tea or stale cakes—or empty conversation. And I loathe waiting.”

  Kate couldn’t blame him, especially about the waiting part. Still, she had a reputation as a shrew to uphold, and so far that morning she hadn’t been doing her part.

  “For the record, my tea is not tepid, but piping hot, and my cakes are freshly baked.”

  She almost added by her, but stopped short of giving herself away. Whatever rumors had made the rounds about her family’s finances, an earl’s daughter admitting to baking her own tea things would more than confirm them.

  “Come anyway.”

  She stepped back from the horse, ashamed by the depth of her longing. “I can’t.”

  She was tempted, she truly was. But she had an obligation to Beatrice to play hostess. If Bea was ever to land a suitable husband, they had to keep up the semblance of genteel living.

  He fixed his gaze on her, one of those long, lingering looks that made her feel as though she were standing before him in her shift—or nothing at all—rather than bundled into a sturdy winter coat. “Can’t or won’t?”

  One roan-colored brow hedged upward to almost reach the small white scar riding low on his forehead. She hadn’t noticed it the other night, but she did now. For a mad half moment, Kate badly wanted to reach up and press her lips against the blemish, to trace that tantalizing half moon with the very tip of her tongue and press his palm against her breast.

  Dear God, what is coming over me?

  Whatever was the matter with her, it was all the more reason she must not give in and go. “In this case, they are one and the same.” She heard the wavering in her voice and knew by the sudden gleam in his eyes he’d heard it, too.

  He shrugged, and Kate’s gaze riveted on how the breadth of his shoulders pulled at the broadcloth of his coat, stretching the fabric to its limit. Her heart gave another of those strange little flutters.

  “Why not let your callers leave their cards this once and instead come with me?” He leaned forward suddenly, so close that she could smell the spiciness of his shaving soap and feel the brush of cinnamon-spiced breath on her face. “I would have wagered you’re a woman who does exactly as she pleases. But then again, if you’re set on spending such a fine day indoors with a pack of old biddies, I canna stop you. I’ll just be on my way then.”

  The invisible devil perched on her left shoulder urged her to cast her cares to the wind and go with him, this once overruling the dutiful angel perched on her right. She reached around him and turned the door knocker down. “I can only come out for a few hours. I’ll need to be back by two o’clock at the latest.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And I’ll need to change. Give me ten minutes.”

  “Make it five. Buttercup is growing restless and so am I.”

  Almost to the door, she stopped and cast a grinning glance back at him over her shoulder. “Ten, and you will be waiting when I come out again.”

  She disappeared inside the house, leaving him standing at the curb with the two horses—and his guilt-burdened conscience. Luring her into kissing him in public would leave her irreparably compromised. Once she was, her choices were to accept his suit or live out her days as a social pariah. At least that was how he understood these matters to work. Looked at in that light, the wager was a godsend to his purpose, and yet if he had the choice to make again, he would refuse and let nature take a gentler course.

  He salved his conscience by reminding himself how rudely she had treated him the other night. Still, it was a pity he must make public sport of her. What sport passed between them in private once they were wed would be a horse of a different color.

  In the meantime, he would wait for her. Though he wasn’t patient by nature, he’d learned there were some things in life, treasures precious and rare, that made waiting worthwhile. The night before he’d made up his mind that Lady Katherine Lindsey was one of them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “’Tis a world to see

  How tame, when men and women are alone,

  A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.”

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, PETRUCHIO,

  The Taming of the Shrew

  n hour later, Kate and Rourke walked their horses around the sandy track of Hyde Park’s Rotten Row. Other than a few stragglers, they had the area to themselves. At the height of the season, the park would have been crammed with riders on horseback and ladies and gentlemen parading about in small, fashionable conveyances, but it was still February and most members of the ton remained rusticating on their country estates. The situation suited Kate. If she was going to fall upon her face in the dirt, she’d sooner not have her peers as witnesses.

  She hadn’t been on a horse since Princess, and then she’d rarely ridden sidesaddle. At first she’d worried her equestrian skills might have eroded, that she might not be able to keep her seat, but the mare showed herself to be docile and responsive to her somewhat rusty commands. They’d started out at a walk, building to a canter. Several circuits around the track, Kate’s confidence had returned sufficiently to try a gallop. After the first few circuits, she relaxed, feeling as though she were floating on clouds, of one mind with the mare.

  She ventured a glance over to Mr. O’Rourke. It struck her that he wasn’t wearing his spectacles today. She supposed he must only need them for reading or other close work. Mounted on the bay beside her, he looked dapper in a double-breasted driving coat of black-and-white wool houndstooth check and gabardine trousers. His riding boots, she couldn’t help but notice, were polished to a high gloss.

  So far, his behavior had been as perfectly correct as his clothing. He had shown himself to be both a gentleman in bearing and an obliging companion, content to let her set the gait and pace, solicitous of her comfort and safety but not fawningly so. Kate had spent more than half of her life serving as a keeper to her father and a mother to her little sister. In recent years, placating creditors and dodging would-be suitors angling for an earl’s daughter had consumed what little free time she’d had left. Before today, she’d forgotten how good it felt to release her responsibilities for a few hours and simply enjoy herself.

  “This is lovely,” she said for no particular reason. “I could almost fancy us in the country.”

  He turned to her, and Kate found herself pinned beneath the force of that breath-stealing emerald gaze. “You’re not much for London, are you?” Not precisely a question.

  She hesitated, weighing her words. “Like most places, it becomes tedious after a while. The same people, the same gossip, the same … Well, what you said earlier about stale cakes and empty conversation, I feel like that sometimes. As though the longer I’m here, surrounded by everyone gorging themselves on beautiful things and decadent pleasures, the emptier I become.” She stopped herself from saying more. Why was she telling him these things?

  “But you do like horses.” Not a question this time, either.

  He had the habit of framing declarative statements as questions—questions to which he apparently already knew the answers. She tried telling herself that was only a mannerism of speech, an artifact of his Scots dialect, but the gleam in his gaze and that canny, crooked half smile told her it was a great deal more. On some level, he was testing her.

  “I like them well enough.” Too much enthusiasm, Katherine. Tamp it do
wn before you give yourself away. “But it’s a great deal of bother to keep a horse in town.”

  Stabling a horse in London was, indeed, an expensive proposition. When her mother was alive, there’d been money for such luxuries, but not now. Even if they’d had the funds, she would have declined. After Princess, she hadn’t been able to risk falling in love with another horse.

  He fixed her with that unnervingly steady gaze. “The way you handle Buttercup, I would’ve wagered you were too mad about horses to find anything about them bothersome.”

  “I had a pony when I was a child, a frisky little filly I named Princess. I got her for my birthday when I was ten, and for a little over a year, she was my best friend.”

  She stopped herself. Once again she’d volunteered more than she should, a great deal more. Kate’s pride couldn’t risk him finding out just how poor her family was. Princess hadn’t been the last casualty of her father’s gaming. They’d only let the town house in Mayfair because Kate had calculated that to do so was less costly than keeping a grand house open year-round. Few people outside of Romney knew that the servants had been dismissed, the few unsold furnishings buried beneath Holland covers, and the house boarded up. Beyond the income from the harvest and rents—and Kate wasn’t certain what they’d do if this proved to be another bad year—they had no money to speak of, nor property to barter, sell off—or lose.

  “What happened to her?” Mr. O’Rourke’s deep timbre drew her back to the present.

  Throat thick, she looked away, cursing herself for having started down this path. “I … outgrew her.”

  As if sensing her need for a change of topic, he reached across and patted her mare’s neck. “Buttercup has more than passed any test I might have given her. She’s shown herself to be an ideal mount for a lady. Docile and sweet as honey, aren’t you, lass?”

  Kate snapped her head back around. “Is that how you fancy females—docile and sweet?” Dear Lord, whatever had possessed her to say such a thing aloud?

  Heat flooded her face. Any hope she’d had that he might let the remark pass died when he looked over at her. Green eyes brushed over her face, and then drifted lower to the vee of her throat not covered by her coat’s open collar.

  “That all depends on the particular female—and the manner of sport in question.”

  A blast of sexual heat hit her, stoking a heavy throbbing between her thighs. Suddenly Kate needed to feel terra firma beneath her own feet. “I think I need to walk for a while.”

  He nodded, and she led the horse over to the side of the track. Grabbing a fistful of mane, she slid her foot from the stirrup and started to dismount.

  Hands, warm and strong, braced about her waist. Mr. O’Rourke eased her down to the ground, his breath striking the side of her face.

  Shaky, she turned about to him. “Thank you, but you needn’t have bothered.”

  “It wasna a bother.”

  He kept hold of her waist a moment more before handing her the reins and stepping back. They walked in silence for a moment more, the horses following.

  At length, Kate asked, “Why did you ask me here?”

  It was an honest question. In her experience, men pursued a woman for one of two reasons: money or sex. Unlike her other suitors, Patrick O’Rourke couldn’t be after her supposed fortune. It was common knowledge he’d made a killing by buying up railway stock, purchasing a Scottish railway company several years before and then amalgamating smaller, vulnerable companies with his own. She was given to understand his company held the monopoly on lines traveling the northwest route from London to Waverly. Likely he was one of the wealthiest bachelors circulating about town, which went a long way in explaining why men like Dutton despised him so.

  Might he be angling to make her his mistress, then? But, no, rough though his manners were, surely even he was aware that one did not approach an earl’s daughter with that sort of proposal, even if she was almost seven-and-twenty and as good as on the shelf.

  If not to marry her for money or take her into keeping for sex, then what did he want with her?

  “I wanted to get to know you. I saw the knocker was up and thought I’d take a chance. Betimes, had I paid you a proper call, would you have come out?”

  “Probably not,” she admitted.

  “Why did you come?” How neatly he had turned the tables on her, and yet Kate found herself considering what answer she would give if she dared.

  Because my father’s house feels like a prison. Because before you came, I was lonely, lonelier than usual. Because after the other night, I desperately needed a morning off from being me—and a friend.

  Because there’s something about you unlike any other man I’ve known before that draws me like a moth to a flame, though I know in my head, if not my heart, that I should stay away—far away.

  Rather than admit such shameful truths aloud, she shrugged. “As you said, it’s too fine a day to spend indoors. I should be getting back, though.”

  She said the latter with a true sense of regret. Until now, she’d been having such a good time, she’d all but forgotten that Mrs. Billingsby and her son, Hamilton, were to drop by after two o’clock. Since the other night’s “spot of trouble,” she had her hopes on that young man coming up to scratch. Hamilton Billingsby was pleasant and presentable. He came from money, and Kate hoped his family might be willing to overlook Bea’s paltry dowry in exchange for marrying their son into one of England’s top-drawer families. Certainly Bea could do far worse for herself. If she became engaged, there would be no need to go to the trouble and expense of financing a come-out. But it was early days yet. There was no telling whether Bea and the young man would suit. As eager as Kate was to see her sister settled and herself free of familial obligation, she wouldn’t push Bea into a union that might make her miserable.

  His gaze, so rarely serious, turned so now. He scoured her face. “Have I gotten you in trouble, then, by whisking you away on your at-home day without so much as a by-your-leave?” His tone conveyed true concern. “If you’d asked me in to stay, I might have met your father and asked proper permission.”

  Ask permission of her father—that was rich. Her father had been still abed when she’d left. Assuming he’d risen, he would be having his beer and raw egg about now. Afterward he would go to his study and drink steadily throughout the day. Fortunately he never became loud or foul-mouthed or violent, as she was given to understand some men did. Mostly he stayed out of their way, especially on her at-home day when callers arrived. If it wasn’t for his proclivity for entering into deep play when he was in his cups, Kate could have resigned herself to leave him be.

  “Not yet, but the park will become more crowded as the day lengthens. It wouldn’t do for us to be found alone together without a chaperone. The gossips would have a field day.”

  It was no less than the truth. She didn’t give a jot what people thought of her, but she wouldn’t do anything to harm Bea’s chances.

  He snorted. “I hadn’t realized I was in need of a chaperone.” His eyes sparkled, though he kept a straight face. “That eager to have your wicked way with me, are you now? Mind you hold your gaze high and your thoughts pure, milady, for I’ve nay defense against your wiles.”

  Kate couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. Since meeting Patrick O’Rourke, she had done more smiling and laughing than she had in the past year.

  He touched his hand to her shoulder. “Ah, Katie, good it is to hear your laughter, to see your smile and know I had some part in bringing about that glow.”

  Kate sobered. She glanced down at his hand on her arm. Touching in public between the sexes was verboten. “You haven’t the right to call me familiar, and even if you did, my given name is Katherine. As matters stand, we scarcely know one another.” She shifted to the side, and he let his hand fall.

  His smile, however, stayed fixed in place. She couldn’t say why, but the lopsided curve of his full lips and bright flash of white teeth muddled her thoughts and s
ent her insides twisting with longing. “We could remedy that. Coarse though I am, you want me, Kate, you know you do.”

  Kate ran her gaze over him, feeling her heart pounding in that wild way it only ever did when he was near. “I wouldn’t wager on that were I you.”

  Her choice of words sent his smile slipping. “Oh, you want me a’right. Why else are your eyes bright as beads and your cheeks afire?”

  “If my face is pink, it’s because of the cold. And if my eyes are dark, it’s because I’m shocked—livid, in fact.”

  “Not so very shocked or livid as you might care to let on.” He reached down and cupped her cheek in the buttery kid leather of his gloved hand. “When was the last time you were kissed, milady? Really kissed?”

  She backed up, bumping into the horse. “That is none of your affair.”

  “And that isna an answer.” He slid his foot between hers, his leg tenting her skirt and pressing against the inside of her thigh. “I ken you’re a woman who wants for kissing. Some women don’t, mind, but you’re not one of those. Cold though you pretend to be, there’s a fire inside you that willna be banked nor denied. You don’t only want for kissing, milady. I’d say you’re fair near starved for it.”

  She jerked her chin and looked up at him. “Why you arrogant, insufferable, coarse … wretch … And I suppose you’re the man for the job?”

  “Mayhap I am. I fancy I know a thing or two about what a woman like you needs.”

  A woman like her! Dear God, was he suggesting she was on the shelf, past her prime? She hadn’t hesitated to proclaim the same any number of times, and yet for some unfathomable, illogical reason, hearing the confirmation uttered from the lips—the sensual, kissable lips—of the very attractive, if utterly unsuitable Mr. Patrick O’Rourke had her heart turning from featherlight to cannonball leaden and dropping hard and heavy to the tops of her booted feet.

  “Of course, there’s only one way to find out for sure.” He moved to cover her.