Suzanne Robinson (17 page)

He leaned against the stone wall. “When I was five or
six, Father let me ride by myself for the first time. Not far, not for long, but I was proud. As soon as I got off that pony, I ran to Mother’s room to tell her. She wouldn’t listen.” Alexis ran his hand over the cold stone that supported him. “She was angry, you see. Angry because Father had taken time away from her to teach me how to ride. She said he should have left it to the grooms. She said no father should play games with his son or teach him things best left to servants. Too much familiarity, she said. And the older I got, the less she seemed to be able to tolerate me. That’s how it is with our kind, isn’t it, Fulke? We live our lives trying not to be familiar.”

“You know I don’t agree. That’s not how it was when I had charge of you.”

Alexis pulled himself upright and smiled at his cousin. “No, you were good to me, even when I didn’t want you to be. What I don’t understand is why you can’t be good to Hannah.”

“I am.”

“Dear God, I think you mean that. You should give women a chance, Fulke. They make this world worth living in. I’m off. There’s a lady waiting for me.”

This time Fulke didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he called out as Alexis strode into the sunlight.

“Miss Grey is no more suitable than Carolina Beechwith.”

“Go to hell, Fulke.”

It took almost an hour to get to the Beechwith house outside Heppleton. Ezra Beechwith was an immortal old county man with enough wealth to buy a young and lovely wife, but not enough sense to know he shouldn’t buy one. Ezra had interests in the city that took him to London constantly. Alexis suspected that Ezra’s absences were the
result of a deliberate blindness to his wife’s unmentionable needs and the method by which she chose to satisfy them.

The Beechwiths lived at Lonsdale Hall, a baroque manor surrounded by yews. The house was deserted except for Carolina’s maid. The girl ushered him down a white-plastered vaulted hall and into the state bedroom. Carolina had a penchant for sinning in grandeur.

The room was made black and gold by the absence of any light save that given off from the fireplace. Carolina was waiting for him at the foot of the crimson damask state bed. One hand clutched a bed curtain while the other was held out to him.

He heard the door click shut behind him. Knowing he was going to seem as fickle as an heiress with her pick of suitors, he hesitated just inside the room. Carolina said his name, but he kept himself busy by disposing of his hat, gloves, and riding crop.

Carolina waited, unfortunately, and he was forced to go to her. He bowed as she held out her hand again, and so he wasn’t prepared when she grasped his clothing and started tearing it away. He saw her mouth aiming at his.

“Wai—mmmmph!”

Before he knew it, she had backed him up until his legs hit the side of the bed. He fell backward with her on top of him.

“Blast you, Carolina, wait.”

Further complaints were impossible because Carolina savaged his mouth. As she unbuttoned his jacket, he tried to sit up, but she pressed him back down on the bed. She tore his shirt open and sank her teeth into the flesh of his shoulder, and he went rigid. He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled free of her teeth.

“Stop it.”

She paid him no mind. Digging her nails into his skin, she began to suck on his mouth, then tried to eat his neck.
He got his arms beneath him, ready to shove. “Damn and blast you, Carolina, wait. Ow!”

“Sorry.” She kissed the wound on his neck.

He turned his head away from her questing mouth and his arms fell to his sides. Biting his lip, he stared at the shadows cast by the fire, trying to think of a polite way to get this woman off him. At the same time, he wondered how long he would have to wait to have Katie Ann.

A pair of lips sucked at his. He tore himself away and wriggled out from under Carolina. When he was free, kneeling on the bed next to the confused woman, he pounded the mattress with his fist.

“Bloody hell!” Why shouldn’t he enjoy himself after what Kate had done to him? He didn’t need to keep thinking about her. Was it the crimson damask? Did it remind him of her hair? God, he had wanted it to be her touching him. It was the war, he decided. His ordeal had given him brain fever.

Carolina knelt beside him and traced his lips with her finger. “My lord, it isn’t me who is the savage, but you.”

He stiffened, gazing up at the canopy. “What?”

“You called me a little savage.”

“Everlasting Hades.”

He shot up off the bed and retreated to the fireplace. There he puzzled furiously over nothing. Carolina anxiously chirped questions at him for a full minute before he noticed that she was tugging at his hand.

He grasped her by both arms. “I’m sorry. It’s—I’m worried about the men at the Dower House. It’s not a good day for me.”

“You worry too much, Alexis. You try to take care of too many people. No wonder you’re distraught.”

Rubbing his brow, he groaned. “The people I have to put up with are beyond your imagining.” He lifted his head, scowling. “But I haven’t changed that much. I won’t. Sh—they can’t make me.”

He grasped Carolina’s arm. “Come to the house party.”

“But your mother …”

Carolina was continually in fear of being put out of Society if her indiscretions were discovered.

“My mother notices only what is convenient for her to notice. She knows better than to cut you. Please, Carolina.” He kissed her forehead, her nose, her throat. “Come to me, be with me.”

As he intended, Carolina was unable to do anything but obey his wishes.

She’d almost made love to Alexis de Granville in a Clocktower. Over two hours had passed, and Kate still couldn’t believe she’d done it. Almost done it. Partially done it. After he’d escorted her to the library, she’d tried to write her letter to Mr. Poggs. Impossible. Now all she wanted was to be free of the ornate stateliness of the castle and avoid anyone related to Alexis. With this aim, she hustled along corridors and through rooms until she found the way to the conservatory. From there she peered outside at the formal gardens of Richfield. Seeing no one, she let herself out and ran.

I don’t believe I did that. I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it. Mama would be so shocked.

Kate stopped to catch her breath beside a topiary peacock. All around her low hedges formed geometric patterns filled with rose bushes. She was too visible out here. Lifting her skirts and petticoats, she flew toward the shelter of the trees that surrounded the castle. There a marble bench was set beneath a giant cedar of Lebanon. She sank down on it and pounded her fist on the marble.

“I don’t believe it.”
Pound.
“I don’t.”
Pound.
“I don’t, don’t, don’t.”
Pound, pound, pound.

Kate wrapped her arms around herself and started
rocking back and forth. How was she to have known that being touched by him wouldn’t be like being groped by smelly prospectors? It wasn’t fair. He’d changed. He’d changed from a snake to a beautiful incubus, and lured her into feeling things she’d only known about from her talks with Patience. Knowing a thing in one’s head and feeling it with one’s body were not the same. Patience had forgotten to explain the difference to her. It was Patience’s fault that Kate had allowed that charming sensualist to take Liberties.

Liberties must not be allowed. That was a rule. Mama said men don’t respect girls who allowed Liberties. Although … Alexis hadn’t been disrespectful to her at all afterward. He had treated her with deference and gentleness, as though he feared she might take fright. The man was a puzzle, and she didn’t know how she was going to face him again. He’d touched her intimately, and she was going to have to meet him, dine with him, speak to him.

“Miss Grey.”

Kate sighed and glanced up. Coming toward her from the garden was Hannah Sinclair. She carried a basket half filled with early roses, and a dainty pair of scissors hung from a ribbon around her wrist. Her delicate face was composed, her lips pursed in a decorous smile. They exchanged greetings, and Kate made room for Hannah on the bench. Hannah was full of excitement about tomorrow’s arrival of guests for the house party. The Duke of So-and-So was coming, and a German princeling, and Lord and Lady Something were expected. Kate listened while she sniffed at a rose. She touched a blush-peach petal with the tip of her finger.

“Lady Hannah, you’re a married woman.”

Hannah paused in her list of guests and nodded.

“Do gentlemen fall in love like women do?”

Hannah looked down at the basket in her lap. “I don’t think so, Miss Grey.”

“Oh.”

Kate’s disappointment must have shown, for Hannah patted her arm.

“A gentleman’s chief interest and goals lie in the world, my dear. In achievements and duties, like those of Lord Fulke in the government, or Lord Alexis in the cavalry. While a woman’s existence is for home and children.”

“But there must be love.”

“Well, my dear …” Hannah blushed and fiddled with the roses in her basket. “That sort of thing is to be endured as a duty. Surely your mother has told you.” Her voice sank to a nearly soundless whisper. “A duty, for the sake of children. God has not blessed me, but I hope He will soon.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Kate said. Her confusion was growing. “God made women as well as men, and if we feel pleasure, surely it’s because the Lord meant us to.”

“Miss Grey!”

“You can’t tell me all the millions of babies in the world were conceived by women doing their duty with teeth gritted and bodies numb.”

For once Hannah’s voice rose above a breathy murmur. “Please.”

“Don’t have a hissy, I’m shutting up.”

Kate rose. She clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels. Hannah set her basket aside and pulled a useless lace handkerchief from her pocket. She dabbed at her upper lip while watching Kate with apprehension.

“Lady Hannah, would you like to see the new fashion magazine Mother just got?”

“Oh … mmmm … yes.”

Kate linked arms with Hannah and they started walking toward the castle.

“And while we’re looking,” Kate said, “would you
mind helping me with my dress for the party tomorrow night? I’m not good at fashion, you know. And I want to look especially nice. More than nice.”

“You want to look a beauty,” Hannah said. Her eyes lit with the gleam of challenge.

“Do you think that’s possible?” Kate asked.

“Of course.”

They went to Kate’s rooms and dug out every dress Kate owned. Sophia joined them, and for once Kate enjoyed fussing with clothes. It wasn’t that she didn’t like clothes. It was just that fashion dictated that Ladies wear too much of everything. Lace, for example. Hannah wore lace at her neck, on her sleeves, at her hem. Her handkerchief was lace, her cap was lace, her shoes were trimmed with lace. And the ribbons. What wasn’t covered with lace dripped with ribbons. Even her cap had ribbons that spilled down her back and ran down the sides. Hannah’s voice never reached above a whisper, but her clothing was visual noise. And Kate had to admit that her own mother was just as bad.

They finally chose a dress for the party, and Hannah commandeered it, saying it needed a bit of lace at the neckline. She left to find a seamstress as Sophia fetched from her own room a box of jewels and another containing ribbons and bows.

Kate sat in front of a mirror while her mother held the fripperies up to her face and neck. Sophia hummed a nursery tune as she worked. Kate looked at her mother’s smiling face in the mirror.

“You’re happy again, aren’t you, Mama?”

Sophia paused with a bow in her hand. “Yes, Katie. Although I miss your father when I’m not busy. But all these goings-on distract me.”

“But it’s more than distraction.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Sophia’s eyes grew misty. “In
America I never belonged. Everyone thought I was cold and a snob. But they didn’t see how difficult it was for me. Americans are so open, Kate. Even your father’s decorous Virginia family were much too … too free. I’d never been among people who spoke their minds so openly. And California was worse. You don’t remember how terrible it was at first. No real civilization. No churches, few books, no schools. Almost no women to talk to. And what few women were there knew nothing of England or what it’s like here. I gave up so much to be with your father.”

“What did you give up, Mama?”

“Oh, all this.” Sophia swept her hand around to indicate the castle. “I was so young. I didn’t know how much I loved Society. The house parties and balls, the calls, the hunts. I’d grown up with them, and when I no longer had them, I realized what I’d given up.”

Kate sighed as her mother held a string of pearls to her neck. “You’re so good at having fun. You can stay up until two in the morning and not fall asleep. You even enjoy calls. I bet Papa is smiling at you in heaven right now.”

“Your father never had much patience with Society.”

“Papa was the most sensible man I’ve ever known,” Kate said. “Unlike some men of my acquaintance, who want humbling.”

“Now I understand this sudden interest in dresses.”

Kate lowered her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“My little girl is going to be a belle, as they say in Virginia.” Sophia squeezed Kate’s shoulders. “Just wait until tomorrow night. Mind, though, you’ll have to refrain from being too clever. As lovely as you are, you still can’t make a gentleman feel ignorant and expect his admiration.”

Kate picked up a bow and stuck it on the top of her head like a crown. “I won’t say a sensible thing the whole evening.”

• • •

As it turned out, Kate didn’t have to worry about saying anything too intelligent. She was so pinched by the corset her mother made her wear, she could only talk in short, breathy sentences. She had balked when presented with a crinoline, though. Remembering Ophelia’s trials, she refused to wear it. Mama was placated by the substitution of several stiff petticoats.

Such discomforts topped off hours of strain. Guests had been arriving all day, until every chamber from the Queen Anne Bedroom to the Yellow Boudoir was filled. Juliana introduced Kate to each guest, and Kate promptly forgot the person’s name. As the evening wore on, however, she had occasion to remember a few of them.