by Mary Balogh
He told himself so quite frequently.
5
THREE YEARS LATER
M A R G A R E T and Katherine Huxtable did not spend a great deal of time in London. They preferred their quiet life at Warren Hall, their brother’s principal estate in Hampshire.
Margaret managed the household with as much capability as she had shown at their cottage in Throckbridge. Katherine worked with the vicar—and with Stephen’s blessing—to set up a school in the village near Warren Hall under the tutelage of a reputable schoolmaster. She even helped out with the youngest children there sometimes—just as she had at Throckbridge before their fortunes changed.
She was also being courted by Phillip Grainger, a neighbor not many years her senior. She had rejected two marriage offers from him during the past two and a half years and had told him firmly the second time that she liked him exceedingly well but could never think of him as more than a dear friend.
He had pulled a rueful face and assured her that if he could not have her as a wife, then he would have to settle for her friendship. But sometimes he looked at her with more ardor than a friend ought, and sometimes she wondered if she would accept him should he offer a third time. She was twenty- three years old, after all. Most women her age had fixed their choice long ago.
She no longer believed in romantic love.
Oh, yes, she did. She had not become a complete cynic. But she did not believe in it for herself. She had tried— and failed—so many times to fall in love that she had given up even trying. Yet she wanted to be married. She wanted to be settled in her own home. She wanted children of her own. She certainly did not want to be a dependent of Stephen’s all her life.
She could surely have a perfectly happy life with Phillip Grainger. Well, a contented life, anyway—and she suspected that contentment was much underrated. Per haps it lasted longer than the euphoric happiness of romantic love. She liked Mr. Grainger. He would be good to her and their children. But perhaps accepting an offer from him, feeling as she did—or did not— would be unfair to him.
Sometimes she and Margaret went to Rigby Abbey in Northamptonshire to visit their sister Vanessa. She and Elliott no longer lived at Finchley Park. They had moved almost two years ago, after the sudden death of Elliott’s grandfather, the Duke of Moreland. Elliott held the title now.
Their sister was a duchess.
They sadly missed her. They also missed Isabelle, their young niece, who had been born at Finchley Park. They had not yet seen their newborn nephew, Samuel, Viscount Lyngate.
It was partly to rectify that omission that they had decided to spend the last few weeks of the Season in London this particular year. The Duke of Moreland was in town for the parliamentary session, so of course Vanessa and the children were there too.
So was Stephen, who had just completed his studies and had gone straight to London after coming down from Oxford. He had urged his sisters to join him there to help him celebrate. He was almost twenty- one. Soon he would reach his majority and be fully independent of all guardianship. Soon Margaret would be free of the obligation she had taken on at their father’s death eleven years ago to see all her siblings safely to adulthood.
They had been settled at Merton House on Berkeley Square for just one day when Stephen went out to spend the evening with a group of friends. One of them was Constantine Huxtable, their second cousin, of whom Katherine was inordinately fond, though she did not see him often.
Stephen had promised before going out that he would bring Constantine to the house during the evening if the opportunity presented itself. He did not do so, of course—Katherine and Margaret had not really expected that he would. Stephen was an affectionate and generally attentive brother, but he was also a young man, and young men often forgot everything but the pursuit of their own pleasure when they got together with one another.
Margaret retired early, still tired after their journey to town the day before and a lengthy, busy visit with Vanessa and the children during the day. Katherine read for a while longer and was just on her way upstairs to her room when she heard the front door below being opened and then shut.
She could hear Stephen’s cheerful voice and the butler’s more sober tones in reply. She leaned over the banister to listen, though she could not see down into the hall. And then she heard a deeper voice— Constantine’s.
It was late. They had doubtless been drinking and probably intended to have another drink or two in the library. She ought not to go down. They would not be expecting her, and her appearance might embarrass them. Constantine was sure to be in town for a little while. She would see him tomorrow or the next day.
There was a burst of merry male laughter, more indecipherable chatter, and then silence. They had gone into the library and shut the door.
She would just say good night to Stephen, she decided suddenly, running lightly down the stairs, and greet Constantine before they started drinking again. She would stay only a moment.
The butler had already disappeared. Katherine tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. She smiled at Stephen, who was at the sideboard pouring liquor from one of the crystal decanters into a glass. He was still youthfully slim and graceful, and his blond hair was still as curly and unruly as ever. But he had developed during the last few years into a confident young man who was going to be devas-tatingly attractive to the ladies. Indeed, he probably already was.
“Stephen,” she said.
And then she turned eagerly to their second cousin, who was standing with his back to the fireplace.
“Constantine.” She hurried toward him, both hands outstretched. “Stephen was to have brought you here earlier to see Meg and me. I daresay he forgot to tell you. We have not seen you since well before Christmas. How are you?”
“Very well,” he said, taking both her hands in his and kissing her cheek. “I need not ask you the same question, Katherine. You are obviously blooming with good health and are as lovely as ever. More so, in fact. A lady’s beauty is supposed to fade with each passing year. Yours grows more vivid.”
He was laughing at her, and she laughed right back.
“Oh, goodness,” she said. “I did not come down to listen to such flatteries. I came merely to greet you. I will leave you now, you will be happy to hear. A lady knows when her presence will merely dampen…er, spirits.”
She turned her head to laugh at Stephen and realized for the first time that there was someone else in the room too. Another gentleman, who was standing beside the oak desk close to the bookshelves, an open book in his hands.
She looked fully at him and their eyes met.
Oh.
Her stomach felt as if it had dropped three feet straight down. Her knees suddenly felt like jelly.
His right eyebrow lifted slightly to half disappear beneath the lock of dark hair that had fallen over his brow His lips pursed. He inclined his head in a half- bow
“Oh, I say!” Stephen exclaimed. “My manners have certainly gone begging. I do apologize. Kate, do you know Lord Montford? My sister, Katherine Huxtable, Monty.”
“Miss Huxtable,” he said in that light, pleasant voice she remembered so well—a voice that somehow wrapped itself about her spine and caused an inward shudder. “My pleasure.”
Somehow she commanded her knees well enough to dip into a slight curtsy.
“My lord,” she said.
Constantine cleared his throat.
“Allow me to escort you back upstairs, Katherine,” he said, stepping forward and offering his arm. “Late though it is, I will pay my respects to Margaret if she is still up.”
“She is not,” Katherine told him. “And there is no need to escort me. I can find my way alone. Good night.”
She smiled brightly at him and at Stephen and hurried toward the door, ignoring Lord Montford. Even so, Constantine was there before her and opened it for her to pass through.
“Good night, Katherine,” he said. “I will call upon you and Ma
rgaret tomorrow, if I may”
“Night, Kate,” Stephen said cheerfully.
Constantine did not shut the library door until she was on the staircase. She lifted a hand and smiled at him and scurried upward.
It had been three years. And yet every one of those years had just fallen away It could have happened yesterday …
The shame of it.
The terrible humiliation.
The hatred—not all of it directed against him.
He had not changed one whit. He was as handsome and as elegant—and as mocking—as ever.
And just as dangerously attractive.
Thank heaven Meg had gone to bed already.
* * *
Not only had young Merton failed to inform Con that he was supposed to call on his female cousins during the evening, but he had also neglected even to tell him that they were in town. If he had done so, Jasper would have heard it too, and he would not have gone within a mile of Berkeley Square tonight or any other night.
But he had gone, so when Katherine Huxtable had come hurrying into Merton’s library, all warm smiles and dazzling beauty and flushed animation, Jasper had been taken completely by surprise.
And he had been caught like a rat in a trap.
Waiting for her to see him. To react. To swoon quite away. To have a fit of the vapors. Or of hysterics. To point accusingly at him and appeal to her male relatives for protection and revenge.
None of which had happened.
What shook him more than anything else, though, was that he instantly remembered every detail of that evening as if it had all been yesterday, when in reality it had been…how long ago? Two years? Three? Four?
A long time ago, anyway.
He was supposed to have forgotten all about it, was he not?
That was the only wager he had ever lost, before or since. Not that he had really lost it. He might have won it with ease with a week and a half to spare. He thought he had long forgotten the whole sorry episode, but if he had forgotten, then why had he been so thunderstruck when she walked into the library?
He noticed that Con hurried her out of the room as fast as he decently could. He had always wondered if Con had ever heard of that wager. Nothing had ever been said between them. He suspected that plenty would have been said, though—and done—if he had ever claimed victory.
Not that Con was anybody’s angel. Far from it. But for some unfathomable reason he seemed fond of his second cousins even though they—or Merton, at least—had taken the title and properties and fortune that would have been his if his father had only married his mother two days sooner than he had. Before Con’s birth, that was, instead of just after it, stranding him forever in the land of the illegitimate and unable- to-inherit. It was impossible to know how Con felt about not being Earl of Merton himself. He never spoke of it.
Perhaps secretly he hated Merton.
Jasper wondered after the evening was over if he should perhaps avoid the main entertainments for the rest of the Season, even the ones to which he had already sent acceptances, and confine his activities to the gentlemen’s clubs and Tattersall’s and Jackson’s boxing saloon and other safe places where he could be certain to meet only gentlemen.
But that would be a craven thing to do. Good Lord, when had he ever hidden from anyone? Was he now going to hide away from a woman whom he had once kissed and fondled and not possessed? He could scarcely believe the idea had even occurred to him.
And what the devil was she doing still unmarried? She must be well into her twenties by now And no one would ever convince him that she had not had legions of offers over the years. Con had been right about one thing even though he had been teasing her and deliberately flattering her. She was more beautiful now than she had been two years ago—or three or four or however the devil many years it had been. And she had been lovely enough even then, by Jove. She had lost that coltish look in the meanwhile, though she was still slender enough to cause a man to imagine spanning her waist with his two hands and drawing her…
Well. Dash it all.
He decided to honor the invitations he had already accepted, the next one being a grand ball given by the new Lady Parmeter, whose father was a wealthy cit and not a gentleman at all, and who had therefore been willing to invite anyone who was likely to attend.
Even him.
Not that anyone but the very highest sticklers ever pointedly excluded him, it was true, and those were fusty events that he would not have wanted to attend anyway.
Perhaps the Huxtable sisters would be too high in the instep to put in an appearance at the Parmeter ball. Or perhaps they had arrived in town too recently to have been invited at all.
The event was well attended as it turned out, a fact that was no doubt gratifying to Lady Parmeter. There was a crowd in the ballroom when he arrived somewhat late and looked about him after passing along the receiving line.
Almost the first persons he saw were the Misses Huxtable.
Of course.
There was somehow an inevitability to it all.
They ought to have been attracting no attention at all. Miss Huxtable herself was several years older than Katherine Huxtable—the Duchess of Moreland was their sister and between them in age, was she not?—and therefore ought to be dangerously close to being long in the tooth. Yet in reality she was as lovely as her sister, though she was much darker and more voluptuous of figure—more to his usual tastes, in fact.
They were both attracting a great deal of attention, and plenty of prospective dancing partners, a fact that must be somewhat disconcerting to the veritable army of very young ladies making their debuts and attempting to take the ton by storm and lead the most eligible bachelor off in leg shackles.
Jasper spent much of the evening in the card room, where he—and his money—were always welcome. He had little inclination to dance. Which was probably just as well. He still found that there were mothers who looked at him askance as if they thought he was about to lead their daughters to the middle of the dance floor and proceed to ravish them there.
Very often when he attended balls he spent the whole evening in the card room. He did not particularly enjoy dancing. Even less did he enjoy watching ladies and gentlemen of normal good sense mincing or cavorting about a floor trying to look elegant and graceful while at the same time attracting as much admiring attention as possible.
Tonight more than ever he had good reason to keep his nose well clear of the ballroom. But young Merton came looking for him just when he was finishing a hand and gathering in his winnings.
“Ah, there you are, Monty,” he said. “You ought to be dancing. There are so many beauties out there that my eyes are dazzled.”
He grinned cheerfully
“And I suppose they all want to dance with you,” Jasper said, getting to his feet and setting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Well,” Merton said sheepishly, “I am Merton, you know”
“Which fact will endear you to every female heart until you finally marry the owner of one of them,” Jasper said. “But those blond curls and that smile probably have something to do with it too.”
The boy looked like an angel, in fact. Fortunately, he possessed enough spirit and firmness of character to save him from appearing either weak or insipid. Jasper genuinely liked him. And the boy was new in town. It was no wonder if he was attracting far more than his share of female attention.
“Come and meet Meg,” Merton said. “My eldest sister. She did not come down to the library the other evening when Kate did.”
Ah. Now what? Hide himself in another game? Ac cept the inevitable? He accepted the inevitable, largely because he did not like that word hide.
“My pleasure,” he said with cheerful untruth, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.
The orchestra was taking a break. Had it not been, of course, Merton would not have been at liberty to come to the card room. He was much in demand as a dancing partner—and it was definitely not just because he was t
he Earl of Merton. One had only to look at the smitten, worshipful faces of the very young ladies as he passed to understand that.
It all made Jasper feel like a wizened grandfather at the grand age of twenty- eight. Though his own sudden appearance in the ballroom was not going unnoticed, of course. His lips twitched with amusement—until he recalled where they were going. And if he had entertained any faint hope that Katherine Huxtable would not be standing with her sister, it was soon dashed.
She saw him coming and raised her eyebrows —and her chin. She raised her fan too and wafted it with furious enough vigor to cool an army had there been one standing directly behind her.
“Meg,” Merton said with cheerful unawareness of anything untoward in the atmosphere about him, “here is Lord Montford. I promised to bring him along to introduce him. He is Con’s friend—and mine too. It is a pity Con could not be here tonight. This is my eldest sister, Monty. She was like a mother to me for years after our parents died—and a better mother no fellow could ever desire.”
He beamed affectionately at her as she curtsied.
“Lord Montford,” she said.
Her eyes were as blue as her sister’s. He had expected that they would be dark, to match her hair. She was indeed a rare beauty. They were a family of beauties, in fact—with the possible exception of the duchess, though she was no antidote either.
“Miss Huxtable?” He bowed. “Miss Katherine?”
She did not curtsy And she was going to shake her hand right off her wrist if she did not stop fanning her cheeks with such desperate intent.
He turned back to her sister.
“May I hope to lead you into the next set?” he asked. He supposed Merton might expect it of him, and the lady had not recoiled in horror at the sight of him. Either she knew nothing of his notoriety or she was made of stern stuff, like her sister.
“Oh,” she said, looking genuinely sorry, “I have already promised the set to the Marquess of Allingham, my lord. He asked me a while ago. But I am much obliged to you for your courtesy.”