by Pam Roller
His guests’ eyes, Alex noticed, followed her hands as she maneuvered the tip into the opening of the inkwell, held it over the bottle to catch any drips, and then wrote on the paper in slow, meticulous strokes. Too many times during the process she re-inked her quill.
They all waited in silence for her to finish. Even the servants at the sideboard seemed to hold their breaths.
Alex wished to God she could just voice her reply to his question. How any man would be able to put up with her lack of speech, he had no idea.
Katherine finally set down the pen and held out her paper to him. Without taking it, he leaned toward Elizabeth and read her words.
I wish to eat at your table.
“I disagree,” he replied with a surreptitious glance at the merchants. “’Tis better for you to—”
Katherine smacked her left hand on the table, cringed, and then stretched her right arm over Elizabeth’s plate, thrusting out the paper until it hovered inches from Alex face.
Elizabeth made a small, shocked sound and leaned back.
Alex snatched the paper from her hand, balled it up, and flung it onto the floor. Despite his effort to stay composed, his voice gained volume. “The answer is no. Millie,” he ordered the maid standing near the other servants, “Escort Lady Katherine back to her room.”
Katherine flashed a scathing look at him and stayed seated, and for a moment Alex felt an unexpected approval of her courage. He waited.
Her fingers inched toward the pen.
“I have given you my answer.” Ignoring the curious stares of the merchants, who clearly expected him to control his lovely but disobedient ward, Alex picked up his pewter wine goblet and took a slow sip. He watched the intelligent sparkle of challenge in her eyes and hid the delight that trickled through him. If she could only speak, what glittering discourse they would have!
He’d much rather see her furious like this than sad. No. What he would rather see was her naked and writhing with pleasure in his arms.
His goblet almost toppled in his hand at the thought.
But she narrowed her eyes. Pure insolence gleamed from them as, instead of picking up the pen, she held out her hands for the slate and chalk that Millie held.
Keeping her eyes lowered, Millie plucked the chalk from its holder and set it into Katherine’s hand.
Katherine clutched the chalk, sent a warning glance toward Alex, and battered it over the slate with long, hard strokes.
Each drawn out screech gouged reverberating ice into Alex’s ears and straight down to his feet. He gripped the edge of the table.
On his right, Robert breathed, “God Almighty.”
On his left, Elizabeth gave a small whimper. The merchants were rendered slack-jawed.
Katherine raised her chin and turned the slate toward Alex.
NO.
The word took up the entire surface.
Alex bristled and shot to his feet, his approval of her vivacity pooling like melting wax. She knew he hated the chalk’s sound. Why else did she think he had set up paper and pens all over the house? “By God, Katherine, you will do as I say,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Indeed,” Robert said under his breath.
She merely regarded both of them as one would two pesky flies.
How in hell could this stubborn female continue her impertinence? “Leave this table now.”
In answer, Katherine gave him a smug smile and, grasping her fork clumsily between her thumb and index finger, she took a narrow sliver of meat from the tray in front of her. She kept her eyes glued to his as she skated the morsel once over her pink tongue, and then delicately sucked it into her mouth.
Alex saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes. Even as the sensuality of her action caused heat to rush to his groin, he reacted to the molten steel that surged through his veins.
In one fluid movement, he was at her side with his hand like a talon on her shoulder. Something primal and hot spiraled through him at the feel of her silky skin under his fingers, but he ignored it. “Rise,” he commanded harshly, “or feel the cut of my whip on your bare back.”
She gasped. Under his hand she stiffened and trembled, and he felt like a louse. Her lavender scent caressed his senses and he fought the urge to gentle his grip on her soft shoulder and tell her he meant nothing by his threat. Useless now, his fingers slid off her shoulder when she stood.
Her face was frozen in a pleasant expression, but guarded uncertainty filled her eyes. Without looking at him, she left the room with Millie following close behind.
He wanted to follow and quietly explain the reasons behind his decision. With great effort, he returned to his seat.
“Interesting woman,” one of the merchants remarked as he lifted his goblet to his thin lips. “A bit too active for my tastes.”
The second man straightened his ill-fitting black wig. “I wonder if she is that much of a wildcat in bed,” he mused with a chuckle.
Robert asked, “Do you think she will ever understand your rules?”
“She understands that she will not dine at my table,” Alex answered. His two reasons were sitting at his table right now, discussing her body and behavior. Alex wanted to shield her without her thinking that he cared a whit about her, which he did not.
Elizabeth spoke in her hesitant murmur, “Pray do not be unkind to her.”
“I have made my decision, Elizabeth,” Alex warned with a smoldering look. “Do not question me further.” His cousin didn’t understand his intentions, and he saw no cause to explain them.
Elizabeth quaked under his gaze and murmured her assent.
As Alex led his guests toward the parlor after dinner, he was surprised to see Katherine, tight-lipped and pale, descending the stairs. He strolled over and waited until she had reached the bottom step. “Did you enjoy your solitude?”
The question was not meant to mock her, yet she apparently took it as such. Engaged by the fire flashing in her eyes, Alex almost missed the hand that shot up to slap him. He caught her wrist and noticed that she had removed her bandages. For the first time, he saw a pink scar that extended in a thick line across her palm.
Another injury! But this one was not new. “What—” he began, and then she stunned him by swinging around her other hand and cuffing his chin. Her face, set in determined resolve, nonetheless revealed the pain it must have taken to ball up her fist and strike the hard bone of his jaw. Behind him, he heard Robert’s guffaw and Elizabeth’s shocked intake of breath.
“What did I tell you?” one of the merchants muttered to the other with a smug nod. “Hellcat.”
Alex wanted to throw back his head and laugh—an odd sensation, since he had not truly laughed for at least four years—but instead, he adopted a frosty expression and spoke to Katherine with threatening calm. “You would take care not to give me grounds to put you out of this house, my lady.”
To his dismay, her eyes filled with tears. He took a quick breath and stepped back. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.
She swiped at the moisture with the back of her hand, thrust out her chin, and nodded.
Perplexity replaced his concern. “What?”
She pointed at the front door with a quick flick of her hand.
“You want to leave?”
He read her vehement nod just as clearly as if she had shouted the words. Yes. She wanted to leave. And right now.
Was she serious? Alex stared at her, then moved so close that his breath stirred the darling curls along her forehead. “You really are a dolt,” he said quietly so his guests wouldn’t hear. “Do you not know that if you walk out of here, you will be in danger? Do you not know what’s out there in the night? The things you will be made to do by men who do not care that you are a lady of high status?”
She was listening, but her eyes told him she wasn’t convinced.
He lowered his voice to a heated whisper. “You will become a filthy, begging whore within days. You will have to lie with many men in order to surviv
e. And within weeks, you will die of starvation or disease. Now just give the signal, Lady Katherine, and I will have my servant open the door.”
Her features now rigid, she shook her head in small, jerky movements.
Alex ran his gaze over her attentive face, the fast moving pulse point on her soft throat, the lovely tops of her breasts that swelled from her lacy bodice. She needed to stay here, under his protection.
Under him.
The unbidden thought made a sudden, powerful heat shoot through his loins and all at once, his arms itched to lock her within them. He felt his body calling to hers with a passion that rocked him to the core.
She was chipping away at his barriers. He would not allow it. “No,” he whispered savagely through tight lips. “You cannot do this.”
Wide-eyed, Katherine shook her head again. She thought he referred to her leaving, and he didn’t correct her.
“Still a burden, is she?” came a low, amused voice in his right ear. Alex glanced at Robert and then turned his attention back to Katherine, who, with irritation sparking in her eyes, ran that pink tongue over her lips.
The sight nearly undid him.
He had to turn away lest she see the physical proof of his attraction for her. He beckoned to the merchants and strolled toward the parlor, leaving her standing alone. To his guests, it seemed he had bypassed honoring her request without appearing like he gave a damn.
“She will be leaving soon,” he said to Robert. “I have procured a husband for her.” He looked back and saw her glaring after them with her hands on her hips.
“Ah. Will you bed her before you send her off? Or was virginity part of your contract—if she is a virgin?”
“It wasn’t mentioned,” Alex said, thinking that if she were willing, she’d be in his bed this very night, “but I doubt Wiltshire cares. His days of fornication are long over.” He absently rubbed his sore jaw.
Robert chuckled. “You might wish to gain her affection before she pummels you black and blue. Or give her the whip, as you warned.”
Distaste filled him. Had she been sent to Robert to do with as he pleased, Robert would have gladly dispensed punishment. “I will not beat her. And I am not interested in gaining her affection. Or any woman’s, for that matter.”
Robert hesitated at the door to the parlor. “Which brings me to the purpose of my visit, Alex. Your wife has been dead over a year now. Perhaps ’tis time to reconcile your grief.”
Alex steeled himself. “And I know you want your daughter to help me do that.”
Chapter Ten
In her bedchamber, Katherine studied her tender fingertips for a moment before lifting the quill with a loose grip.
The letter was succinct, albeit in a sloppy scrawl.
Lord Drayton,
I must relate to you my feelings. Your treatment of me is offensive and intolerable. I wish to be placed with another guardian, one who will not frighten me with punishment nor ban me to my bedchamber to eat.
I also wish to have a say in the matter of choosing my husband. You have been most rude in keeping me uninformed.
Signed, Katherine Seymour
There. After sprinkling fine sand over the ink to dry it, she folded the letter and sealed it with wax.
She waited for Millie to come and tell her that Lord Drayton summoned her. She would give him her letter and would not leave his study until he’d given her an answer.
To pass the time until he called for her, she read one of the books she had pilfered from Ellis’ collection. He would never miss them since he rarely read; the books were ornaments in his parlor to impress his wealthy guests.
Memories of her last parties in London surfaced in her mind and overtook her concentration of the pages. Memories of condescending looks and whispers behind fans. Averted eyes and exasperated brows. Ellis’ rigid smile signifying his embarrassed impatience over her clumsy efforts to keep up with conversation through her slate.
Lord Drayton, too, must be uncomfortable by her silent presence. Why else would he keep her from his table? He might have used the valid excuse of the presence of the soldiers this morning, but in the dining room sat two rather bland-looking men with several chins and wide bodies. No danger there. She was used to being ogled during parties, and had ignored their stares at her breasts.
The light gradually faded from the edges of the curtains, and no summons came. Her stomach rumbling with hunger, Katherine closed the book. She would go to the kitchen and get some bread and cheese from the pantry.
Someone knocked on the door.
At last. Katherine rose and picked up her letter.
But there stood only Elizabeth with folded hands and an uncertain gaze. “I wanted to see if you were all right.”
Katherine exhaled in exasperation and stepped back to allow Elizabeth access. How to respond? Yes, she was all right, and frustrated, and anxious.
And smarting with the realization that Lord Drayton didn’t care to see her again this night.
Elizabeth touched Katherine’s arm and her head lowered. “I am so sorry for my cousin’s actions.”
Katherine shrugged. It was all she could do.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and spoke in hushed tones, as if afraid of someone overhearing. “Please do not take offense at what I say. I know you are from London and perhaps things are different there. But out here—” she raised a slim hand and gestured around her—”ladies must do exactly as their guardians decree.”
And then literally cease to exist except to please the men who claimed them. The familiar rebellion rose in Katherine’s heart. She waved Elizabeth to a chair and then took a seat at the writing table.
Could there never be a loving meeting of the heart and mind of two people? Would she always have to yield to the whims of whatever man had power over her, of having the vitality crushed from her being?
It wasn’t London that was so different from the country; it was she who was different from many women who, seemingly without struggle, accepted their fate as property. She herself would be given to a stranger in a matter of weeks or even days, and would have no say in the matter.
Elizabeth sighed, shifted on the brown brocade seat, and looked around the room. “’Tis so sad in here. The colors....” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “He has changed over the last four years. He became a different person during Mary’s...infirmities.” She shrugged her delicate shoulders and looked at Katherine with apology in her gray eyes.
Katherine penned a note while she tapped one foot on the floor and prayed for patience. Although Elizabeth seemed to be more comfortable around her, she still maintained a maddeningly hesitant manner of speaking. And her penchant for taking blame for everything made Katherine want to shake her.
What was he like before?
Elizabeth read, and then studied a knothole embedded in the thick wood planks of the floor. “Happy,” she said. “Smiling and laughing. As he almost did downstairs, right after you—you struck him. Life comes into his eyes when he looks at you.”
Of course life came into his eyes—flashing fire at Katherine. Well, he’d had his chance to throw her out, but when she’d agreed, he had backed down. She leaned one elbow on the writing table and placed her chin on the heel of her hand.
Elizabeth continued. “He went through a terrible time during his marriage. He believes he caused his wife’s death and refuses even to discuss it.”
Katherine raised her chin off her hand. What did Elizabeth mean, caused his wife’s death? She picked up the quill. How did she die? What happened?
Elizabeth flinched at the question. “Many things happened. Mary wasn’t well. She-she said things about Alex that I did not believe. But I have only been living here since my mother died three months ago, so I do not know the truth. All I can tell you is that he is not the same man.” Elizabeth touched her bodice. “’Tis as if he died inside, in his heart. He shows little emotion except...except sometimes, he seems so sad.”
Katherine ridicule
d the sympathetic tug in her heart. Why should she waste compassion on him? Yet she nodded her understanding. She knew sadness.
“Please have patience with him,” Elizabeth said. “I think by his actions that he means only to protect you.”
I will try. But I dislike him so! It was not the absolute truth, but Elizabeth didn’t need to know otherwise.
As Katherine capped the inkwell, a ghost of a smile played on Elizabeth’s lips. “There are times that I dislike him, too.”
It gladdened Katherine that Elizabeth had at least a spark of pluck within her.
The next morning, after a lone breakfast in the dining room—Lord Drayton, wisely, had not sent the maid with another tray—Millie informed Katherine that he and Elizabeth were not home. Katherine decided to leave the letter in his study.
Millie stood fidgeting by the study door and spoke up in muted tones. “If I may be so bold, m’lady. Lord Drayton does not like anyone goin’ in there.”
Katherine looked pointedly at Millie and then at the door handle.
“M’lady, Lord Drayton—”
Katherine set her lips and opened the door herself.
She stepped inside, breathing in his masculine scent...warm and spicy with a hint of sandalwood, and none of the body stink that clung to some men.
The slanted top of the oak desk had been left open, and her gaze roved over the papers and ledgers that littered the surface. How was he ever able to get any work done? Her letter would be lost among this mess. She turned to the small table nearby. Its surface was not quite as cluttered.
Carefully, she stacked papers to leave room for her letter so he’d see it. Then, she couldn’t resist turning back to his desk and sliding into his chair, watching Millie slap a hand over her mouth in shock.
Engulfed by the oversized leather chair, Katherine caressed its smooth arms, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. His essence surrounded her, a comforting, cocooning sensation.