Lord Devere's Ward (12 page)

“P’raps the shot merely seemed close because this district is excessively quiet,” Pauline said, a hopeful note in her voice. “It has nothing to do with us.

Cousin Kay, Whatever is wrong? You’re white as a sheet!”

Kate’s thoughts were in agitation. The fortuneteller had seemed so truthful when she stated danger was transitory. She had sounded as though there was nothing to fear. However, Kate knew that if she were killed, her funds would go to her last remaining relatives: Herbert and Osborn. As much as she loved them, the Penroses were not her family, despite the deception they practiced upon the whole of London society.

“Let’s get back home as soon as possible,” Kate said. “Driver! Spring ’em!”

Upon their return to the Penrose residence, Kate retired alone to the library to compose a letter to Quinn, entreating him to call upon her at his earliest convenience.

Anna entered as Kate struggled over her missive.

“Kay, whatever is the matter?”

Kate raised teary eyes from her task. Balls of crumpled stationery littered the desk. “Ma’am, this is my fault. I must leave your house at once.”

“Stuff and nonsense!”

“‘Tis true! Whyever else would anyone shoot at us were it not for me?” Kate snuffled into her handkerchief.

“No one shot at you. I spoke to St. Wills about the matter. The shot was far away, and had nothing to do with you at all.” Anna shook Kate firmly by the shoulders. “Now, I want you to take a bath, have some tea, and go to sleep early tonight. And there will be no more talk of leaving.”

* * *

Nevertheless, Kate’s message went out to Quinn, who was not in London. He had traveled to his Surrey home and attended races for several days.

After he had the pleasure of watching his horses win and place, he returned to London to yet another pleasure. His lovely ward desired his presence.

His heart beat faster as he read her note.

Bruton Street

My Lord Devere,

I pray you shall attend me

at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely, K.G.S.

He frowned. Katherine had never before written him a note to ask him for anything, least of all his company. He had an uncomfortable inkling that all was not right in his ward’s world, despite his efforts to cocoon her with the Penroses. Something had happened to overset her serenity.

After washing off the dust from the road, he walked the short distance from Berkeley Square to Bruton Street. At three o’clock in the afternoon, he did not know if he would find Kate at home.

Nevertheless, he felt in need of the walk.

He found the household quiet. An inquiry made of the butler revealed that the Penrose ladies were out; Lady Anna had promised to show Misses Louisa and Pauline the delights of the Burlington Arcade. Sir Pen was at White’s. Kate was alone in the house, but for the servants.

Quinn found her in the small back garden.

Bees buzzed in the perennial border of herbs and flowers. The fountain ran, with the cupid statue spitting water in a never-ending stream from the center of the fountain into the bowl. The tinkle and clatter of water was greatly calming. In contrast to the frantic tone of the note she’d sent, Kate’s face looked serene as she napped in a chaise longue beneath a vine-covered arbor, which partially shaded her from the afternoon sun.

Quinn stood over his ward, watching her rest.

Her chestnut hair, piled on top of her head, reflected reddish lights in the dappled sun admitted by the arbor. One curl had escaped, and lay on her neck. She did not wear a tucker for modesty on this warm spring day, and the bodice of her thin, pink muslin dress was cut fashionably low. He could see gentle curves inside the fabric puffed over her chest. Her bosom rose and fell with her breath. Her creamy skin glistened with a slight sheen of moisture. Although her face was shadowed, her mobile lips, parted slightly, were eminently kissable.

It would be such a simple thing to steal a kiss, just one kiss, from her rosy, open lips, slipping his tongue inside her mouth to meet secretly with hers, just one tender, sweet, lover’s kiss. And it would be just as simple and easy to free one of her lush breasts from its flimsy confinement, to weigh its heavy roundness in his hand; to taste the delicate peak, feel it harden and pucker beneath his lips—would it be sweet, like the strawberry it resembled, or would it be salty with her summer sweat?

She’d be hopelessly compromised.

They’d have to marry.

Quinn smiled. She’d be his, then, to explore, to touch, to probe, to feel and caress, to tease her legs apart and taste the very depths of her, and then to take her—

To take her.

All without a word or gesture of assent on the part of his ward.

His ward.

Quinn shook his head, then sat on the edge of the longue.

* * *

She stared at the fine double portrait of her parents which dominated the hall at Gillender House.

Her mother had been a graceful blonde lady, and the memory of her painful death did not surface in Katherine’s contemplations as she gazed at the picture, which had been painted shortly after Bennett had married Margaret. Dressed in a blush-pink morning gown, Margaret sat with her pug in her lap, addressing the viewer with a steady blue scrutiny.

Her husband stood at her side with his hand resting on her shoulder. Pictured in profile, Bennett looked down at his wife fondly.

By some strange magic, the portraits seemed to transform. Was it Kate who sat in the chair? Did the hand on her shoulder belong to the first Earl, Robert?

The faces and clothing of the individuals shifted and coalesced.

A redheaded man looked down at Kate as she sat in the wing chair, cradling her dog. He had a familiar visage with soulful brown eyes. She scented a spicy fragrance, cloves with a touch of citrus.

Her body, starting with her hand, tingled in an unfamiliar but pleasant fashion. A shadow seemed to cross her vision. Kate awoke with a start to find Quinn perched beside her on the edge of the longue, watching her as she slept. He had taken her hand, tickling her palm with his fingertips. The flesh at the apex of her thighs stirred with a liquid, coiling heat.

She jerked her hand out of Quinn’s. The slight smile on his face did not disappear, but broadened into his familiar devilish grin as the book she had been reading slipped from her lap and fell to the ground with a bang. Quinn picked it up.

“Petronius Arbiter? I am surprised, sweet Kate, that Petronius put you to sleep.”

Kate, irritated, frowned at Devere and snatched at the book. There was something immensely annoying about being watched as one slept. Did she drool, or twitch, or even (heaven forbid) snore?

“You seem to be unusually interested in my choice of reading material, my lord. Be advised I merely refresh my knowledge of Latin.” Quinn glanced at her. His expression was unreadable. “Be advised that your choice of reading material tends to border upon the salacious, my ward.

It is not unnatural for you to have an interest in, umm, such matters. Perhaps it is time for you to marry, and for some strong male to teach you what you wish to know.”

Kate gasped. “Ma-marry, my lord? I’m only seventeen.”

“You are six months away from your eighteenth birthday.” He cocked his head. His eyes mocked, or did they flirt? “Bryan St. Wills seems to be an eligible partí, and a good friend.”

“Bryan? He’s the merest child.”

“He must be at least twenty, sweet Kate. I assume from his deportment his birth and breeding are appropriate.”

She pressed her lips together and sought to disguise her discomfiture in idle chatter. “The St.

Wills are originally French nobility, I believe. Bryan’s father sold off the family properties just before the Revolution, and they came to England to settle.”

“Their true name?”

“Saint-Guillaume. My lord, I have no desire or intention to marry Bryan St. Wills. Recently he seems to have developed a tendre for Louisa.” Kate stretched, fumbling with her hair.

“Is that so?”

“It’ll amount to nothing. Louisa seems intent upon her boring baronet.” Kate sniffed.

“Willoughby Hawkes?”

“Yes. I fail to understand the attraction.” Kate jabbed a hairpin into her topknot, securing a stray ringlet. She realized, to her embarrassment, that the pose lifted her breasts inside the flimsy muslin.

Moreover, her guardian watched her as closely as a gentleman at a track observing the finish of a hotly contested race on which he’d wagered his entire fortune.

“I confess, I have never before heard Wicked Willy called dull.”

Quinn said nothing about her appearance. Had her imagination run riot? “Is that how he’s known, as Wicked Willy? Why so, my lord?”

“Er, nothing you need to worry about,” Quinn said hastily. “It’s just that, when a cove’s been on the loose for a time, he develops a reputation, so to speak.”

“And you, my lord? Have you not been, as you say, loose for a time?” Prompted by Sybilla’s gossip, Kate probed.

Quinn squirmed. “I am, I assure you, quite unexceptional.”

Kate raised her brows.

“But you, sweet Kate, what manner of man catches your eye?”

“Certainly not a frowny old man like your friend Wicked Willy. What care you, my lord?” Kate pushed some more.

“Quinn,” he corrected. “You are my ward and my charge and my obligation to see you are, er, disposed of properly.”

“Disposed of properly?” The rein on Kate’s temper loosed. She stood up, shaking out her skirts.

“My lord, I am not an item of yours to dispose. I am a person who has a life. Good day to you, Lord Devere.” She turned to go into the house. Her back was to Quinn, so he could not see her angry tears.

“I beg your pardon.”

“What?” she snapped.

“You requested my presence. I do not believe it was to discuss your marital prospects.” She kept her back turned. “I’ll join you in the drawing room in ten minutes, if you please.” She stalked into the house.

* * *

Kate was livid, not only at her guardian for his patronizing treatment, but also at herself. She’d become convinced through the gipsy’s maunderings that Quinn was her heart’s desire and could be her own for a snap of her fingers. She was infuriated to find Devere still perceived her as a precocious child, one who needed instruction from a cub like Bryan St.

Wills.

She stamped upstairs to her room, and, after ringing for Bettina, stared out the window at Bruton Street with sightless eyes. Perhaps Devere was right.

Perhaps the solution to all her problems was a quick marriage. Married, she would cease to be a target for Herbert or a drain on the Penroses’ generosity.

Marriage would also provide the stability Kate had lacked since her grandfather’s death.

She wanted to marry for love and had convinced herself that Quinn was her desire and her fate. It did not seem so. What manner of man would suggest marriage to another if he was sincerely attached?

Even if she married Devere, he might not change his rakish habits. She would be miserable in a loveless marriage. She loved, but she needed love, craved love’s return as much as she required air to breathe and food to eat.

Kate knew persons of her class rarely wed for love. The custom was for young noblewomen to marry suitable noblemen early and produce children.

She had heard rumors that, later in life, a woman might take a lover who would be more to her preference than her husband. There were many second sons and third daughters who did not resemble their fathers.

She hated the idea of such a sham. It clashed with her innate honesty and loyalty, and she refused to accept this future for herself. She resolved to wait, to look beyond Devere. She would be introduced to the ton in just a few months, and would have ample suitors from whom she could choose. She hoped she would have forgotten her tendre for the Earl by that time. Puppy love, nothing more! she told herself.

After having brushed her hair, rinsed her face, and arranged a tucker in her bodice, she entered the drawing room to face her guardian with a calm demeanor. Quinn surveyed her modest apparel and frowned. She reminded herself that she didn’t care.

His moods could be his own.

“My lord,” she said, seating herself in the wing chair. “There is the possibility that Lord Herbert’s designs on me have become something more than conjecture.”

Devere listened to her tale with a solemn mien as Jenks came in with the tea tray. Kate poured as she talked, then offered him the cook’s prized apple tarts.

She knew Quinn liked them as much as did Pauline.

When she finished her tale, he rubbed one side of his Roman nose and fiddled with his lorgnon. She stared at his long, restless fingers, and, despite her resolve, envisioned those elegant hands caressing her body the way they had stroked her palm. She bit her lip to destroy the distracting, useless, unaccustomed sensations, pleasurable feelings she had no words to describe. She only knew they threatened to devastate her fragile composure.

When he finally spoke, breaking the silence which had arisen, she was startled by the unusual timbre in his voice, a dark, serious note. Her good-natured guardian, however irritating, was rarely anything but jolly. “Well, Kate, ’tis a pretty problem you’ve brought to me. It is true that Lord Herbert is to be invested into his title this week, so he is in London.”

“Truly, sir? No one has mentioned it to me.” Quinn shrugged. “The information is available for all to read, in the
Times
and the
Morning Post
. But worry not, we’ll get to the bottom of this coil, you’ll see.” He had an odd brooding glint in his eyes as he stood up hurriedly.

Kate was surprised anew. “You’ll not finish your tea?”

“Ah, er, no. No, thank you, my lady. I have recollected an errand which must take place before the day is out.” Devere gripped the bell pull and shouted for his curricle before he remembered he had walked from Berkeley Square.

* * *