The Rebel Bride (8 page)

Kate looked at her father with blank surprise. Whatever could he be thinking of? The gardens? The mangy roses? They were a mess, beautiful to her but overgrown and wild. Surely the earl would feel abused were he forced to walk amid the tangled vines and rosebushes.

Julien rose, placed his glass on a table, and said with no humor whatsoever in his voice, “I would enjoy seeing the gardens, Miss Brandon, if you would not mind.”

Kate rose somewhat unsteadily, nearly knocking over the small table beside her. She could almost hear her father cursing her for her clumsiness. She raised a pale face to the earl and replied in a small voice, “I would be delighted, my lord. Please come with me.”

Sir Oliver also rose and extended his hand to the earl. “If your lordship would deign to take dinner with us, say tomorrow evening, I would count it a great honor. We can seal our new coming together, if you like.”

A slight smile hovered on Julien’s lips as he shook Sir Oliver’s hand. “The honor is mine, sir. A new beginning it is, sir.”

“Then I bid you good afternoon, my lord.” With those words Sir Oliver darted a sideways glance at his daughter, then removed himself from the drawing room, nearly lightheaded, he was so pleased with himself. It was all he could do not to rub his hands together.

Kate frowned after her father, gave her head a tiny, perplexed shake, and walked to the side door beside the windows. As she opened the door, she said over her shoulder, “The gardens are wretched. I cannot imagine why my father would wish you to see them. Truly, you
don’t have to risk your beautiful Hessians if you don’t wish to.”

Julien smiled at her naïveté and declined to comment. It had been quite some time since he had been treated to such blatant tactics as Sir Oliver’s.

“L
ead the way, ma’am,” he said.

Kate said nothing more as they walked through the overgrown, ill-kept bushes and brambles. She finally drew to a halt and seated herself on a stone bench that stood in the middle of what must have been at one time a lovely rose bower. Her mother had loved the roses and had taught her daughter to tend them along with her. But when she died, something had died in Kate too, and she’d grown to hate touching the now-straggling wild roses.

She was certainly no gardener, Julien thought. He sat down beside her and gazed at her lovely profile. He very much liked the straight, proud nose and her firm chin. Tendrils of soft hair blew gently against her cheek, and he felt a fleeting urge to smooth them away, to touch her cheek, to feel her soft, warm skin under his fingertips. He felt other urges as well, but held himself well in control.

She turned to him suddenly, and he saw the dimples deepening and readied himself to be charmed, which he was indeed when she said in a wondering voice, “However did you manage to turn him so sweet? I have never seen anything like it in all my life. He unbent so far, I feared he would fall at your feet.”

Julien arched an elegant brow and said in his father’s haughtiest voice, “My dear Miss Brandon, would you accord any less treatment to the great earl of March?”

She gave a crow of laughter, the dimples he found so endearing making her whole face alight with amusement.

“Great? Surely it is more infamous than great. But
you know, truly, my lord, he was positively toad-eating you. I found it intimidating. Actually, I didn’t like it at all. I also thought for a moment that you were perhaps mocking us, but then I realized that couldn’t be so.”

“Perhaps I was mocking your father, just a bit, but never you, Katharine, never you.”

“I should cosh you were you ever to try it.”

“Ah, then you tempt me to be outrageous just to see what you would do.”

She just shook her head, her dimples still in full force. She continued with undisguised wonder in her voice. “And dinner tomorrow evening—Cook will be in such a flutter of nerves. I shall probably have to spend the greater part of my day tomorrow polishing silver so our noble neighbor will not be disgusted.”

“I trust you will do a good job, for I will have you know that I am very aware of what is owed to me and won’t lower myself to eat if the silver does not sparkle.”

“You are quite horrid, and I haven’t laughed so much in a very long time. I thank you, my lord.”

He grinned at her, trying not to look at her mouth, trying not to imagine what she would taste like, how she would feel to his tongue, how she would shiver when he kissed her and began to caress her. Good God, he had to stop this or he would drive himself mad.

Quite at her ease now, she said, “Have your guests left?”

“Yes, Hugh and Sir Percy departed just after lunch to return to London.”

“Why did you not go with them?” she asked, utterly without guile.

Julien was jolted for a moment, for he hadn’t expected her to be so completely ignorant of the intent of his visit. He pulled himself together and managed to say smoothly enough, “I do have quite an estate here, and there are matters which require my attention.”

He added in an easy voice, “It is also possible that I wish to further my acquaintance with Katharine Brandon. You know her, that pert chit who thinks she’s such a great and skilled angler?”

“That she is, my lord. Still, I can’t imagine why you’d want to waste your time with her. That girl is nothing but a graceless provincial, quite unworthy of the attention of the great earl of March.”

“Don’t ever say that again.” His voice was so harsh that she jumped. She couldn’t imagine why he was so incensed by the simple truth. With disarming candor, she said, “One should never be blind to what one really is. I don’t see why it should anger you, my lord. After all, it is I who am the subject of my own stricture, not you.”

Julien found that he was losing rather than gaining headway. She relieved him of the burden of finding suitable words to express his feelings by smoothly changing the topic.

“Harry will be sorry to have missed you. He thought you a great gun, you know. Well, perhaps not all that great, and now we’re getting into that
infamous
area again. He did think you might be arrogant and conceited, but, of course, he didn’t have the benefit of fishing with you.” She chuckled. “Harry was afraid that you would expose me and thus kindle Father’s wrath. And I must say, I did find myself rather on tenterhooks when Father asked me where I had met you. Thank you, my lord, for your kindness.”

She smiled, reaching out her hand to lay it lightly on his arm.

Julien took her hand in his and pressed her fingers. He looked into those incredible green eyes, and saw only openness and, yes, trust. She didn’t yet understand, nor did it appear to him that she felt anything for him but friendship. It rankled a bit. For all her independent ways, for all her outrageous hoydenish behavior, she was innocent of the ways of the world and even more innocent of the ways of men. He curbed his impatience, realizing that he would have to give her time.

He rose and helped Kate to stand. “I must be going now. I’ve kept you overlong as it is.”

“Well, you haven’t really, but perhaps it is best if you leave. I never know how Sir Oliver will react.” He said nothing to that, afraid that if he did, it would come out
harsh and angry and serve only to upset her. He was extraordinarily pleased when she looked up at him, all her disappointment in her eyes, just like a child who was going to lose a coveted treat.

“I have the best of ideas. Will you ride with me tomorrow morning, Miss Brandon?”

“Miss Brandon? Surely, my lord, you can call me by my first name now. After all, we have shared a very personal attachment—we have shared fishing poles.” She laughed when he grinned down at her, then she frowned. Seeing that he waited for an answer, she hurriedly said, “Oh, yes, I would very much like that. It is only that I must have my father’s permission. Sometimes he isn’t all that one would expect or prefer.”

“Don’t fear on that score. Sir Oliver won’t mind.” Mind, ha! The damned bastard would probably kick his heels in the air.

“How true. I had forgot how you have quite won him over. But sometimes he changes his mind. I never know, but I will ask him.”

“He won’t say no this time, I promise you.”

As the remnants of the frown still furrowed her forehead, he asked, “What else troubles you, Kate?”

The frown vanished, and she turned laughing eyes to his face. “It will be such a bore. Oh, it has nothing to do with you, my lord. It is just that I will have to wear a riding habit and not my breeches.”

“I am most honored that you’re willing to make that sacrifice, ma’am.”

“Ah, I’m not all that willing, but I must, for you will come to Brandon Hall and my father will be there, and, I assure you, he would be quite upset upon seeing me in breeches. But the problem is that my riding habit is much outdated and quite tight. I do but pray that I will not pop my buttons.”

Julien laughed aloud and in an unthinking swift movement brought his hand up and cupped her chin. She made no resistance whatsoever, merely looked up at him, her eyes shining with innocent humor.

“You are an outrageous chit, Katharine.” He drew her
arm stiffly through his, and looking straight ahead, walked back to the hall.

Kate awoke slowly from a dreamless sleep. She stretched luxuriously under a mound of covers, savoring the warmth of the August sun upon her face. Her body felt light, and as she turned to look at the clock on the table beside her bed, as she had each morning for the past week, her lips curved into a smile of anticipation. She would be riding with the earl in but two hours.

She slipped quickly out of bed, wincing slightly as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. Hurriedly she stripped off her nightgown and bathed in the basin of cold water, scrubbing and splashing the water over her body until her skin tingled. She shivered and looked at the empty grate with displeasure. It was a chilly summer, and she wished that her father would break his rule, just once. As far back as she could remember, he hadn’t allowed fires in the bedrooms until after the first snow.

She was tugging on her stockings when a light knock sounded, and a moment later Lilly peered in. She said with an arch expression, “Squire Bleddoes is downstairs and wishes to see you.”

“Good Lord, whatever can that wretched man want at this hour? Oh, Lilly, can’t you tell him that I’ve come down with the plague, remind him how very virulent it is? He is very sensible and quite terrified of catching any illness at all. Perhaps it will send him directly back to his doting mama.”

“He is probably here for the usual reasons, my lady,” Lilly said, eyeing her mistress.

“Well, I suppose that means you won’t lie for me. Ah, well, then I will see Robert, curse him for his rude timing. Do help me into my riding clothes, Lilly. The earl will arrive in little more than an hour, and I want to be ready.”

Lilly’s face took on a look at the mention of the earl, a rapturous expression fit to rival that of an actress on Drury Lane.

“Oh, Miss Kate, whatever will you do if the two men meet? I would swoon, I would.”

“Don’t be a goose, Lilly,” Kate said sharply. “That expression you’re wearing is really quite professional.”

She sat herself at her dressing table and began vigorously brushing her hair. In the mirror she saw that Lilly was still in blissful contemplation over this imaginary scene. She put down her hairbrush and said matter-of-factly, “Lilly, let me be serious. The earl honors us with his friendship. That is all. Indeed, he probably simply has more time on his hands than he’s used to, and thus he wants for diversion. We are the diversion. As for Robert Bleddoes, well, you know as well as I do that the idiotic man expects all females to swoon at his feet. Why he must continually pester me, and with no encouragement, is more than I can fathom, curse his hide.”

She turned back to her mirror and continued brushing the tangles from her hair. She’d not been exactly forthcoming with Lilly, but it was none of her maid’s affair in any case.

Lilly shot her mistress an incredulous look. If only she knew the servants’ gossip. It was plain as a pikestaff that the earl was smitten with Miss Katharine Brandon, daughter of a mere baronet—and a daughter also despised by her father. Why, he had called at Brandon Hall no fewer than four times during the past week. Everyone knew it, save, it seemed to Lilly, her mistress. As for Squire Bleddoes, that pompous windbag, Lilly would be quite content to see him routed. Quite a nuisance he’d become, presenting himself at the hall on only the flimsiest of pretexts.

Kate harbored very close to the same opinion of Robert Bleddoes as her maid did. She’d met him by accident nearly six months before, when she’d ridden a far greater distance than she had intended. She thought him at first to be a rather overserious young man but quite unexceptionable. She soon realized that his prosaic opinions, invariably uttered with monotonous precision, masked a feeling of vast self-importance that made her grit her teeth and talk herself out of smacking his face. After his
first visit to Brandon Hall, she was convinced that he was a total bore.

She said as much to her father and stared at him with disbelief when he rounded on her in fury. “You discourage him, my girl, and you’ll feel my walking stick on your back.” He added with such blatant derision that she flinched, “You think yourself so puffed up, my little lady. Let me tell you, if Bleddoes offers for you, it will be much more than you deserve. That any man would want you is more than I can imagine.”

Mindful of Sir Oliver’s warning, she didn’t openly discourage Robert. She forced herself to learn tolerance and tried to treat him as kindly as she treated Flip, the pug. She’d played a dangerous game the past three months, holding Robert off as best she could with soft, vague words, and skirting the issue of marriage whenever Sir Oliver tried to broach it.

Sir Oliver, happily not aware that Robert had declared himself on several occasions, blamed her for her failure to bring the squire up to scratch. He commented to her sourly one evening at dinner, “I might have known that you couldn’t attract a man. You are a witless, unnatural girl.”

Kate didn’t think of herself as being witless or unnatural, but she remained wisely silent. She kept her head down and concentrated on forking a lone pea that lay in the center of her plate.

It occurred to her now, as she handed Lilly a ribbon with which to secure her hair, that Sir Oliver hadn’t mentioned Robert Bleddoes for the past week. She tapped her fingers on the tabletop. No, it was true, there had been no mention of the squire since the earl of March had come to call. She went pale at this realization. Dear God, Sir Oliver couldn’t possibly think the earl was interested in her.

Kate rose somewhat unsteadily and raised her arms for Lilly to slip the riding skirt over her head.

“Draw a deep breath, Miss Kate. The buttons won’t meet elsewise.”

Kate sucked in her breath and felt the buttons dig into her skin through the thin material of her chemise.

Her jacket followed, but as it didn’t meet over her breasts, she was forced to leave it open, revealing a well-worn white blouse.