Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (39 page)

Her silence may have had every appearance of a sulk, but Sir Chase appeared to understand the reason for it. ‘I know,’ he said, gentling her with his deep voice. ‘You had hoped to be free of me for a few days, at least, and now you find me here, too. Well, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. It’ll give you the chance to get used to me.’

‘Your understanding is at fault, sir,’ she said with as much composure as she could summon, the caress still luring her thoughts to one side. ‘I have no intention of getting used to you. In a place this size, it cannot be as difficult as all that to keep out of your way and, heaven knows, there are plenty of ladies who are more interested
in your whereabouts than I. Lady Dorna Elwick, for one.’

‘Thank you for the warning. I’ll bear it in mind.’ He turned to look over his arm. ‘Ah, I see the ladies are retiring already. I shall light you to the staircase.’

‘Thank you, but there is no need.’

Pretending not to have heard, he rose gracefully and offered her his hand, holding it rock-firm as she eased herself out of the deep squashy corner. She felt the steel in his arm and caught a perfume of something like pine trees after rain.

‘Sir Chase,’ she said, in an urgent whisper, ‘I hope you’ve not spoken to anyone about … well, you know … about this?’

He did not pretend to misunderstand her as she feared he might. ‘Early days,’ he replied, keeping hold of her hand. ‘The other guests will probably note my interest in you, but they’ll not take it too seriously, will they?’

‘Won’t they?’

His eyes laughed at her. ‘A man of
my
sort and a filly who shies at her fences? Oh, I don’t think so, Miss Chester. They might be interested to see if I can wean you from Rayne’s side, but that’s about all.’

‘What has Lady Dorna been telling you?’ she said, sharply.

‘That you and he were once … er …’

‘What?’

‘Er …
friends,
I think she said. Good friends.’

‘That’s all Lord Rayne and I ever were, Sir Chase. Good friends, as we are now.’ If it occurred to Caterina that she was giving away more than was strictly necessary, it was of far less importance than the preservation of an innocent friendship, and if Lady Dorna had implied
otherwise, that notion must be scotched. Lord Rayne had offered her protection from unwanted advances, but the two men had been, and still were, friends of long standing, and she would not trespass on that ground for no good reason. She had no wish to inflame Sir Chase’s jealousy, either. She had no wish to inflame any part of him, come to that.

‘Thank you for your honesty. That’s exactly what he said, too.’

‘You
asked
him?’

‘Naturally. I asked you, too, if you remember, but you gave me short shrift, little wildcat. So I asked Rayne himself.’

‘You had no business to do that.’

‘I had every business to do that. Granted, it will make no difference to any competition. I shall still win. But I like to know who the competition is, exactly. Rayne and I go back many years, and we’ve never had any qualms about trying to steal each other’s women. I just had to make quite sure, in this case.’

‘Really? And what’s so different about this case? No, don’t answer that. The others were not being obliged to pay someone else’s crippling debt, were they? That must have made things much easier for you.’

‘Yes, it probably did, but I’ve never been averse to challenges, and this one is worth more time and preparation than usual. This one, you see, is going to end in marriage, isn’t it?’

‘This one, sir, is going to end before it’s begun.’

They had reached the bottom of the large white staircase where footmen waited with candelabra to light the way. Sir Chase slowed her down with the lightest pressure on her hand, holding her a little apart from the others. ‘I think you will find, Miss Chester, that we have
already begun. Too late to turn back. You’re committed. We both are.’

‘And what happens at the other end, sir? You lose all interest, do you? Then I might as well be in remote Cornwall with the Earl of Loddon’s old mother.’

‘Well—’ he smiled at her cynicism ‘—I don’t have an old mother in any remote corner for you to join, so I shall have to insist on you joining me instead. But we’ll talk about the finer points another time, shall we?’

She could not say so, but she would rather have talked about the ‘finer points’ there and then, rather than later, if ‘joining him’ meant keeping him company at gambling parties or orgies with his rowdy rich friends. To say as much, though, would have betrayed an interest she had been striving to deny.

Perhaps he saw the doubts cloud her eyes, even in the dim corner of the Great Hall. ‘You need not worry about that side of things,’ he said. ‘You may be in for a few surprises, but not shocks. I have never thought it good practice to shock a lady more than once in a relationship. They don’t like it, do they?’

‘No, sir, they don’t.’

‘So on that encouraging note of agreement, shall we say good-night?’

‘Good night, Sir Chase.’

‘Good night, Miss Chester. Sleep well.’ Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles lightly before releasing her, and she knew without looking that her every step was being watched as she exchanged a kiss with her hostess and followed the footman up the stairs.

Sara caught up with her before she had reached the top, unable to contain her excitement. ‘He’s laid claim to you already, Cat,’ she whispered with more than a hint of drama. ‘Everyone can see it.’

‘That’s probably what he wants them to think,’ Caterina replied, a little more sharply than she intended. ‘And where was Seton when I needed him?’

In the peace of their medieval bedroom, she sank with relief into a plump gilded chair that looked strangely out of place against the linenfold panelling. The bed, a delicate white-and-gold four-poster large enough for a family, was hung with cream-and-green satin, the embroidered counterpane turned down to expose welcoming layers of cool white linen and soft green blankets.

Millie set to work on Sara’s fastenings, smiling at her chatter, respecting the elder sister’s brooding silence. Sara turned on her stool as a pair of silver slippers came tumbling towards the claw-footed leg. ‘Are you so very set against him, Cat?’ she said. ‘They say he’s wickedly experienced, and the men all seem rather to respect his opinions, and no one speaks ill of him, and Papa would not have listened to his offer if he’d disapproved, would he? Is there no chance you could bring yourself to like him just enough to marry him?’

‘Oh, Sara! For pity’s sake!’

‘What, dearest?’

‘Surely you don’t believe that liking a man is good enough reason to want to spend the rest of your life with him? I know most married couples lead separate lives once there’s an heir, but that’s not what I want. I thought you understood that, of all people.’

Sara slipped off the stool and came to kneel, naked, at her sister’s feet. ‘Forgive me … do forgive me, Cat. I’m being thoroughly selfish. Of course I understand.’ She placed her blonde head upon Caterina’s lap. ‘And you’re right, you must
not
accept him if you find him so abhorrent, as you obviously do. I could never ask you
to do that. Never. It’s just that … oh … I don’t know. I’m
so
in love, Cat. Seeing Mr Ensdale … Constantine … again, has made me see that we mean something special to each other, more than I feel for Titus. It’s like a glow, you know. Well, you probably do know, don’t you? You felt it for Lord Rayne, didn’t you? A lovely gentle feeling of wanting to be with him, to hold his hand, and I know he feels the same way about me, but I’ve told him—’ She stopped, retreating from the delicate subject of Caterina’s disasters.

But it was too late. ‘Told him what?’

‘That I’m not free to accept … well … any offers until … you know.’

‘Until your elder sister is riveted.’

‘Oh, Cat, that’s so unladylike. Where did you learn that expression?’ Sara lifted her head from the lap, fixing her sister with sorrowful eyes.

Holding a tunnel of white lawn across her arms, Millie stood behind her. ‘Ready, Miss Sara?’ she said.

Sara raised her arms and let the nightgown slip over her, wriggling it down to her knees. ‘Take no notice of me,’ she said from behind a row of pin-tucks. ‘If Papa has got it into his head that you must wed first, then nothing is going to change his mind, so we may as well accept it, mayn’t we? I dare say I could persuade Constantine to wait for me and I dare say you’ll find a man you can love one day.’ She sighed and got to her feet, pulling at the white folds.

‘Don’t give up,’ Caterina said, as Sara returned to the stool.

Smiling back good-naturedly, Sara allowed Millie to unpin her hair and to shake it loose over her shoulders like a golden cape and, with the light of several candles shining through the white gown, outlining the lovely
curves of her body, she reminded Caterina of what they were both missing with such intensity that it was all the latter could do not to cry out that she
would
accept him, if only to seal Sara’s happiness.

But Sara was not entirely correct in supposing that the genteel well-mannered affection she was feeling for the Honourable Constantine Ensdale was what her sister desired from a potential marriage partner. As Millie’s sweeping brushstrokes groomed the spun gold, Sara could not have known how her elder sister’s thoughts had veered towards the green-and-white bed where, in her fantasies, she lay in the arms of the one whose wicked experience would teach her how to unleash the passion he had recognised.

Unlike Sara, it was not a glow but a burning heat that consumed her. Nor was it the gentle need to hold his hand but a fiercely raging desire to hold his head and to delve into his thick unruly hair, to cover his face with kisses, to breathe in his scent of pines and to roll with him in a bed of ferns, crushing white wood-anemones beneath them. It was not a well-mannered longing Caterina felt, nor could she say whether she felt love in any of its forms. Nor was it what she had wanted from Lord Rayne, despite that distant infatuation. All she could say for sure was that, until her meeting with Sir Chase Boston, some relentless pagan fire had smouldered inside her ready to be fanned into flame by his insistence that she would belong to him. Even his lightest touch on her arm had scorched her. If she could not accept that a duty to her father was a good enough basis for a marriage, then how much better would it be to base it on her physical need to surrender? Could she ever face the fact that there would be other women? Did he feel anything like the passion with which he had credited
her? Would she be able to control her feelings while he continued to provoke her so? Had she any right to resist him, dashing her sister’s hopes of being with the man she wanted?

Slowly, dreamily, she began to loosen the cords that bound her hair, closing her eyes as she imagined, all too easily, that the softly disturbing sensations on her scalp were being made by his fingers as a prelude to lovemaking.

Conflicts continued to bedevil her as the sound of Sara’s regular breathing overtook their whispered forecast of the days ahead. There had been some talk, Sara had told her, of an excursion to the ruins of Old Sarum in the morning, which had caused Caterina immediately to wonder whether it was an outing likely to appeal to Sir Chase and, if it was, what she would propose doing instead. So essential did it become to resolve the issue, even before it had presented itself, that she slipped soundlessly out of bed and, pulling on her silk house robe, decided to go and speak to Lady Dorna about it. She was the one who would understand how important it was to have an excuse at her fingertips.

Pulling the door quietly behind her, she stepped out into the passageway dimly lit by a candle on a linen chest against the wall, but the distant creak of a floorboard made her hesitate. From the darkness at the end of the passage, a tall figure emerged, clothed in a floor-length dressing-gown, stepping warily like a man on ice.

She held her breath and pulled herself back into the thickness of the doorframe to watch as the shadowy shape bent to listen at one door before tapping it. Then, as if quite sure of his welcome, he opened it and slipped
inside before the narrow sliver of light was cut off, leaving the passage as deserted as before.

Of one thing Caterina was quite certain—the door was to Lady Dorna’s room. The rest, she thought, was only to have been expected for, although she’d not seen the man’s face, there was little doubt in her mind who would be keeping the merry widow warm for the next few hours. The awareness that she had actually seen the despicable man taking advantage of one offer while pestering
her
with his suit was an insult she would never forgive. The rake could not, it seemed, hold himself in check even for one night and, no matter how fervently others wished it, he was not the one she could ever give herself to.

With that resolution replaced firmly in her mind, confirming all her first impressions, she returned to her bed to spend hours of unhappy sleeplessness.

Refusing to lay any blame at Lady Dorna’s feet over her zealous diversion of Sir Chase’s interest, Caterina nevertheless felt a bitter disappointment in the dependability Lord Rayne had been quick to defend. If he meant that the horrid man could be depended on to jump into any willing woman’s bed then, yes, Sir Chase certainly fitted the description perfectly. Lady Inchall had been wary of reputations, but now Caterina had seen with her own eyes that his reputation had some substance after all, cheapening the fantasies she had concocted. Far from feeling a smugness at being proved correct, the hurt lay like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach for, until then, she had heard nothing but awe and admiration from the women, and envy from the men.

No, she could not blame Lady Dorna, for she had no
knowledge of Sir Chase’s offer of marriage, and if Caterina regretted the astonishing speed of the help she had provided, she could hardly quibble at it.

She could have told Lord Rayne what she had witnessed, but chose not to since it would surely cause tensions over the next few days. On the other hand, the two men had conferred about the triangular relationship, and it was this that she brought up as the two of them lingered on the way to the breakfast parlour.