And that would be unbearable. He’d rather their relationship remain as it was—nonexistent—than ever approach her for more and be rejected. He’d rather she believe all of the erroneous gossip circulating about him, and hate him for it, than have her know the truth. The truth was ten times worse than anything the scandal sheets could produce.
He could only hope that none of his confused and bitter longing appeared on the surface. He’d never be able to hold his head up again if she discovered how . . . ridiculous she made him.
Then he heard a sound, like the pit-pat of dripping water, ripping him out of his black thoughts. He glanced down at the floor, then at the naked baby he held awkwardly in front of him. Amy was currently proving why nappies were so popular with the one-year-old set. She had just ruined a priceless Aubusson carpet.
And his boots were definitely not surviving this day.
Well.
So much for not looking ridiculous.
Chapter Three
In Which the Dowager Marchioness of Manwaring Betrays Her Knowledge of an Obscure English Marriage Law
Aldwych, London
An hour before Sebastian’s Hessians are murdered
KATHERINE, LADY MANWARING, always felt acutely uncomfortable in the presence of the opposite sex. And, God forbid, if an attractive man happened to fall within her radius, she was cast completely to sea. It had always been thus, from the first of her growth spurts at age eight. She’d towered over her peers, boys and girls alike, and had been their favorite object of derision.
None but a few men had ever caught up with her again. She was inconveniently tall, just an inch under six feet, a summit she’d attained by the age of seventeen. To make matters worse, her inconveniently tall body had all the variety in shape of a beanpole. She had no breasts to speak of, gangly limbs, and knobby knees. Even when she had been abruptly initiated into womanhood at the ripe old age of fifteen, she had remained painfully thin, her bosom as unspectacular as ever, no matter how many raspberry tarts she ate.
Her features offered her no solace either. She would never be considered beautiful. Calling her pretty was even painting it a bit brown, in her opinion. Her nose was just a trifle too proud (i.e., long) and her chin just a trifle too sharp (i.e., shrewish). She thought she had nice eyes—deep green, intelligent—but they were framed by pale blonde lashes and brows that made her seem perpetually wan. Her hair was also a source of frustration. It was abundant, thick, and straight, all the way to her waist, but it was the wrong color. More to the point, it had no color. It was almost white, it was so blonde.
Old women with wrinkles had white hair.
Her friend Elaine, Countess of Brinderley, had once described Katherine’s hair as “gossamer-like,” and her tall, awkward person as “willowy.” Elaine was just being kind, in the slightly condescending manner of someone secure in her own beauty. Katherine had smiled at the compliment but had certainly not believed it. She knew the truth. Euphemisms would not help her condition. She would always be the lone stalk of celery amid an ocean of English roses.
Besides being painfully shy, she was also rather wary of men. She hadn’t a lot of experience with them, and what experience she did have had not been pleasant—had, in fact, ruined her life before it had really begun. But somehow, on account of her height, perhaps, or the years of practice she had at revealing as little emotion as possible on her face, the opposite sex mistook her general timidity for aloofness and her mistrust for icy hauteur. When she had discovered that this was the prevailing male opinion of her, she was relieved, to be honest. She would rather have the world believe she was an ice queen than have it know the truth.
But lately, however, she had been acquiring male acquaintances all over the place and had even begun considering them friends. Her best friend’s husband, the Duke of Montford, was among this elite crowd. She even had a grudgingly cordial relationship with Montford’s dissolute friend and Elaine’s black sheep of a brother, the Viscount Marlowe. How that had happened, she had no idea.
Perhaps the most surprising of all was the conquest she’d made of Dr. Inigo Lucas, the sawbones who had attended her husband in his final illness.
Well, perhaps “conquest” was not the word she would use to describe her relationship to London’s preeminent figure in medicine. But it was the word Astrid had used to describe it, which was why, at the present moment, she could feel a nervous blush staining her usually colorless cheeks as she conversed with the doctor.
She was supposed to be a woman of sense and appropriate gravitas, which was why Dr. Lucas had agreed to help with their charity hospital in the first place. He had said he admired her dedication to helping London’s poverty-stricken. Now he was trying to discuss plans for the hospital’s administration, and all she could think about was how tall he was—mercifully several inches taller than she—and how distinguished his hair looked with the strands of gray at the temples. Even his moustache was a work of art.
It was all Astrid’s fault, of course. Katherine had not noticed how handsome Dr. Lucas was until her friend had pointed it out to her on the ride over to his office. And it did not help matters that the duchess was standing right next to her, nodding every now and then to something the doctor suggested while casting sly gazes in her direction at every opportunity.
To Katherine’s horror, Astrid had taken it upon herself to find her a new husband before her old husband was cold in the ground. Dr. Lucas was merely Astrid’s latest not-so-subtle candidate. The worst part of it was, now that Astrid had put the suggestion in her head, she was unable to let it go. Dr. Lucas was attractive and unattached, and for Astrid, that meant he was in want of a wife. Katherine could not believe this was the case, and she certainly didn’t believe Dr. Lucas was interested in her in any personal way. He wanted her patronage, her financial backing. He didn’t want her. It was absurd.
But, as she was prone to do, she had begun to overanalyze the situation while Dr. Lucas droned on about finding decent help for the hospital, oblivious to her torment. What if he thought she thought of him in that way?
Dear God, what if he thought she thought he thought of her in that way?
It was a muddle. A terrible muddle, and she blamed Astrid for her complete loss of composure. She shot her friend what she hoped was a chilly look while Dr. Lucas’s conversation was directed at the duchess.
But abruptly he turned back to her and said, “Do you not think so, my lady?”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but she decided to nod. Unfortunately, her mouth also started to work—rather like a banked fish struggling to breathe, she suspected—and a sound loosely resembling an assent sputtered forth.
Dr. Lucas studied her hard for a moment, as if trying to diagnose her affliction, and continued on.
She heard Astrid coughing into her handkerchief to disguise her giggles.
Katherine would have killed her friend, if she had (a) not been her friend, and (b) not been about to explode with her second child anyway.
Katherine forced herself to concentrate on the poor and downtrodden.
“I have been down to the property you’ve purchased in Aldwych,” Dr. Lucas was saying. “It is acceptable, though in a very rough neighborhood. I assume you’ve discussed the location with your husband?” he asked the duchess.
Astrid looked at the doctor half-amusedly, half-pityingly. “Are you suggesting he might not approve of my traipsing through the East End on errands of mercy?”
Dr. Lucas gave the duchess an arch look.
“You’re right, of course. He shall not approve,” Astrid said, smoothing her skirts over the prominent bump at her middle. “But he long ago came to the realization that it is easier to let me do as I please. Otherwise, he’d have a perpetual headache.”
Dr. Lucas turned to Katherine for confirmation. She managed an idiot grin—oh God, what was her problem? “It’s true. But the
duke also does as he pleases, and when this is in conflict with Her Grace’s agenda—as it often is—it is very difficult to predict the victor.”
Astrid harrumphed dramatically and crossed her arms. “I assure you, Dr. Lucas, that I intend to be quite hands-on with the affairs of our new venture.”
Dr. Lucas quirked his lips. “Indeed, Your Grace. I had not doubted that.”
“It is a cause quite dear to our hearts. Both of our hearts. Isn’t that so, Katherine?” the duchess insisted.
Katherine answered in the affirmative. Not even Astrid knew how much opening this hospital meant to her. Widowhood had offered a few rewards, chief among them living her life in the manner she wished. For once, she was not at the mercy of any man’s whims. Her father had kept her on a short, cruel leash after her dreadful lapse in judgment that fateful summer when she was fifteen, and her husband, while allowing her quite a bit more latitude as his marchioness, had a firm conception of how his wife should conduct herself. And opening a charity hospital for fallen women in the stews of London would not have fit into that conception.
She rather hoped the late marquess was turning over in his grave. And as for her father, the esteemed Earl of Carlisle, behaving in a manner that made him squirm was one of the few real enjoyments she had in life. Katherine was not as good a person as the world presumed. In fact, she suspected that she was not a very good person at all. She only had to recall the way she had engineered her sister Araminta’s elopement—with the sole purpose of vexing the earl, who would have had his faultless second daughter married to the Duke of Montford—to confirm her own bad opinion of herself.
Surprisingly, Araminta seemed quite content in her marriage to her poet-turned-vicar, but that was beside the point. Katherine had been so determined to cross the earl that, had Araminta been involved with a dockworker, she would have still facilitated the elopement. It spoke much toward Katherine’s contempt for her father, and also her less-than-sisterly regard for Araminta.
Oh, of course she loved her sister, but she didn’t like her. Araminta was spoiled and vain, and life with her had never been easy, though she had improved since her marriage to her vicar. And perhaps Katherine was jealous of Araminta on some deep level. Araminta had always been prettier and more popular, and their parents had not been subtle about playing favorites. Katherine had, from her earliest memory, never fit in with her family. They were all elegantly beautiful—and of appropriate height—and standing next to them always made her feel like an ostrich among swans.
Besides which, neither of her parents understood her, or indeed much of anything outside their wardrobe and social calendar. She supposed that was why it had been so easy for Johann Klemmer, with his smooth compliments and dogged attentions, to charm her into foolishness. The music teacher, for heaven’s sake, as trite a tale as the Czerny études he’d made her play. She’d hardly been original in her rebellion, but she had been a lonely, frustrated fifteen-year-old girl spoiling for a way to lash out against her father.
And had she ever succeeded.
Katherine refused to be bitter any longer. And she refused to dwell on the past. She had spent all of her adulthood living in a purgatory, and she would not live there any longer. She was as independent as any lady could be, considering, as Astrid put it, the “absurd paternalistic property laws” of their country, and she intended to make the most of it.
The doctor escorted them out to the duchess’s waiting barouche when their business was concluded. Astrid gave him a brilliant smile, and Katherine could all but see the devilish schemes her friend was hatching behind her mismatched eyes. All at her expense, no doubt.
As the doctor handed the duchess into the carriage, Astrid made her play. “You must come and take tea with us sometime, Dr. Lucas. I grow rather bored in that big house while my youngest sisters are visiting with Lady Benwick in the country. And now that my time grows near, Montford rarely lets me out of his sight without an armed guard.”
“Yet you managed to come here today,” Dr. Lucas said drolly.
Astrid rolled her eyes. “Not without a great deal of bother, I assure you. He only relented because Katherine is with me. He regards her greatly. As do I.”
Newcomb—the duke’s burly Liverpudlian driver, who, along with the blunderbuss under his seat, was the true reason why Montford had not locked his duchess up for the day—rolled his eyes at Astrid’s ridiculous reasoning.
“I shall have you over to tea,” the duchess continued, “or perhaps a dinner party. You’re a busy man, but surely you can spare us an evening?”
Dr. Lucas bowed. “I am honored.”
Astrid beamed at him. “Lovely. I shall arrange it. We must do our best to pave Lady Manwaring’s way back into society, now she is out of mourning.”
“It would be my pleasure to help the marchioness in any way I can,” he said. Then he did an extraordinary thing. Instead of helping Katherine up into the carriage, he bowed over her gloved hand and kissed it.
She was truly blushing now.
He smiled down at her—how grand it felt for a man to actually have to look down at her rather than up—and she read in his fine gray eyes something other than mere acquaintanceship.
Oh, dear.
She scrambled into the carriage as elegantly as she could under the circumstances, and did not let out her breath until Newcomb had them well away from the doctor.
Astrid regarded her with amusement. “Oh, that was fun, wasn’t it? And I think he really likes you, Katherine. He kissed your hand.”
“He kissed my glove. Really, this is most . . . most vexing! You made me act a complete dolt in front of the doctor. He probably thinks I have the wits of a peahen.”
“You were nervous. An auspicious sign. It means you must like him.” Astrid was smug.
“I do not like him . . . Well, of course I like him. He’s a true gentleman and a brilliant doctor. But my regard for him goes no further.”
“You could have fooled me,” Astrid said, giggling.
“It doesn’t! I was nervous because your attempts at matchmaking were so . . . so blatant, and I was worried that he would think that I thought . . . Oh God! What a tangle.”
“You like him.”
“I don’t!” she insisted. “And I have no intention of developing a . . . a tendre for him or any other man. I shall never remarry.”
Astrid fiddled with the ribbons of her reticule, looking even more devious than before. “One doesn’t necessarily need marriage to enjoy a man’s company.”
“Astrid!” Katherine exclaimed, shocked. “The things you suggest!”
“You are a widow. And widows are allowed certain . . . discreet pleasures. Or so I am told.”
Katherine could only gasp at her friend’s audacious suggestion. If Astrid knew how unwelcome the idea of forming an attachment with a man was to her, she would not have suggested such a thing. Katherine knew Astrid was well intentioned. Astrid thought everyone had a right to enjoy the same level of intimacy as she herself enjoyed with the duke—when they weren’t fighting like cats and dogs. But Katherine was not like other women. She did not crave a man’s embrace. It was, in fact, an abhorrent idea to her. The one indiscretion of her life had gained her nothing but pain—the sort of pain she’d feel in her heart for the rest of her life.
She had let Johann seduce her only to spite her parents, but she knew now she hadn’t truly desired or loved him. She’d been flattered by his attentions, and confused, and filled with such adolescent resentment and loneliness that she could have been swayed to any act that would raise her father’s ire.
And curious. What fifteen-year-old wasn’t about the subject of sex?
But she had paid dearly in the end for her education.
She had only ever once truly felt desire, however, and it had not been for Johann. It had been for a man who was perhaps the most inappropriate recipient o
f it in the entire kingdom. The feeling had been as strong as a tempest, blowing away all lingering traces of the fragile regard she’d once felt for Johann, despite his betrayal. All of Johann’s silky declarations and caresses and that final rather unspectacular deflowering had never come close to inspiring the same violent reactions in her body that one glimpse of Sebastian Sherbrook had caused.
Her only comfort—as well as her torture—had been that she was certain every other female who looked at Sebastian felt the exact same way. He was, after all, the Singlemost Beautiful Man in London, according to the Times.
She had little to do with her husband’s nephew. He was rather infamously estranged from Manwaring, and he had made it abundantly clear that he held her in contempt as well. Every time he looked at her with those piercing blue eyes, it was as if she felt her soul laid bare. As if he had known what no one could possibly know: that she was a fraud, that her marriage was an even bigger fraud. It was not at all reasonable that she should feel so hurt by his contempt. Sebastian Sherbrook’s good opinion meant very little, since he had done his best to become the most dissolute rakehell in the country. Why she should care what the devil thought of her was quite beyond her grasp.
But she did.
Katherine clasped her hands together and tried to turn her mind away from Sebastian. It was just because he was back in the country that her thoughts drifted toward him now. Though, if she were scrupulously honest with herself, her nights were not so Sherbrook-free. She dreamed of him sometimes, and she always came awake feeling as if she had a fever.
Virtuous Scoundrel (The Regency Romp Trilogy Book 2) Page 4