The Engagement - Regency Brides 02 (3 page)

"Reacquainted, yes-but it seemed as though you two were almost in an embrace when I walked out here! Is your reputation not black enough?"

"What do you care of my reputation? It will be in tatters anyway after our plan is finished."

"But you will have the satisfaction of knowing vengeance has been served upon the Thornton family! Remember why we are doing this!" Theodora took a deep breath as if calming herself.

“You want to appear interested in Mr. Thornton so he will want to call on you once he has settled into Ravenhurst. He all but implied that was his intention, anyway! If you persist in coming on too strong, he will believe the rumors that have been spread about you!”

Theodoraʼs words cut her deeply, as her cousin knew they would. She didnʼt deserve what had been done to her. She didnʼt deserve to have her hopes and dreams dashed.

But does Thomas deserve to have his own life trampled upon,
either?
A voice whispered in her head.

“Perhaps he already does believe them,” Theodora said softy. Katherine looked up, her gaze going to the window through which her cousin was staring.

There she saw Thomas standing with Miss Claudia Baumgartner, an American girl who had just come to England to live with her grandfather, theʼ Marquis of Moreland. At first she had been considered an oddity—a rustic. But, according to local gossip, she had charmed her critics and won over more than one heart of the elite
ton.

Thomas Thornton appeared completely captivated by her.

Katherine swallowed and refused to examine the strange feeling coursing through her as she watched Thomas smile at the girl.

It felt a lot like ... jealousy.

“Donʼt just stand there, Kate!” Theodora charged, giving her a stern look. “Go in there! Charm the man!”

Exasperated, Katherine shook her head. “First Iʼm coming on too strong, and now you are throwing me at rum! He will think I am a lunatic if I seek rum out now. It has been only a couple of minutes since we met.”

Theodora shrugged her bony shoulders and tilted up her chin. “Do you want to have your revenge or not?”

Katherine sighed. “Of course, I do.”

“Youʼre correct, though, in saying you cannot just walk up to him.” Theodora tapped a long, thin finger on her pointy chin, then smiled.

Katherine was disturbed at the coldness radiating from that smile.

“Give me your gloves!” she demanded, holding out her hands expectantly.

“What?”

Theodora all but growled, “Give me your gloves! I have a plan!”

Katherine reluctantly did as she bade. “I donʼt understand why—“

“Because you are going to walk past Thornton and ʻaccidentallyʼ

drop your glove. Heʼll pick it up, drawing attention away from the little American and onto you,” she explained while straightening Katherineʼs gloves, then handing them back to her.

“Thatʼs the oldest trick in the book, Dora! Heʼll know right away it was no accident!”

“Itʼs the oldest trick because it works, Kate,” she explained as if she were talking to a child. “And it doesnʼt matter if he knows the truth or not. He will still be flattered you attempted such a ploy to grab his attention.”

Katherine felt as though every eye in the room were watching her walk toward Thomas and waiting for her to make a fool of herself She was mortified she was reduced to performing such tactics to draw a manʼs attention. Two years ago she had only to walk into a room and the gentlemen would be instantly at her side, competing for even a moment of her time.

How she longed for that life again.

Miss Baumgartner was staring up into Thomasʼs face, laughing at something he had just said, when she reached them. She had been hoping the glove trick would not be needed, that he would acknowledge her presence and be drawn to her side.

It was clearly not going to happen.

So, with a fortified breath and a glance about the room to make sure no one was looking, Katherine opened her hand, letting one of her long satin gloves drift to the ground at Thomasʼs feet.

She took one step, then two, and by the time she took the third, it dawned on her that he was not corning after her or calling out that sheʼd dropped her glove.

Nonchalantly, she stopped, and pretending to study the arrangement of flowers beside her, she carefully took a peek at where Thomas was standing.

There he was---still standing by Miss Baumgartner—still talking and smiling at the woman-completely ignorant of the fact her glove was lying at his feet.

Then it was under his feet as he moved a bit to take a glass of punch from a servant passing by.

Katherine wanted to cry. She peered past Thomas and saw Theodora glaring at her, then she truly wanted to cry.

With a resolve to go home no matter what her cousin said about it, Katherine turned quickly and took only one step before she crashed into the flower arrangement and the ceramic pedestal it sat upon.

The sound it made crashing into the marble floor was akin to the blast of a cannon. Now she had not only Thomasʼs attention, but everyone elseʼs as well.

“Are you all right?” Thomas asked as he put a steadying hand upon her back, his voice filled with concern.

Katherine glanced at him, then uneasily scanned the room at the curious and scandalized faces staring at her in fascination.

Is this what happens to those whose reputation is destroyed? Does
their dignity leave them as well?
She thought wildly.

“I believe I feel faint,” she lied and for the first time in her life fell into a pretend swoon.

Thomas, just as she knew he would, caught her perfectly, swept her into his arms and out of the Beckinghamsʼ ballroom.

~

“You can open your eyes now. We are quite alone,” Thomas whispered into Katherineʼs ear, as he stood in an empty corridor of Beckingham Hall, still holding the beautiful lady in his arms.

Her eyes came instantly open and gazed at him with unbelief.

“You knew?”

Thomas grinned as he reluctantly lowered her to the ground. I deduced you considered it the best possible action to take. And it worked. It got you out of the room and away from the curious stares of the
ton,”
he said with a shrug.

Katherine laughed. “Am I that transparent?”

Thomas grinned. “Not a bit. I would never have imagined you would have dropped a glove at my feet, or I would have noticed it when it happened!”

He saw Katherineʼs face turn red, and she opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. He continued, “I found it after your dance with the flower arrangement.”

Katherine covered her face with her hands. “That was possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done!”

Thomas stood staring at her for a moment, trying to sort out the feelings that were swirling around in his mind where this enchanting woman was concerned. Never could he remember being so captivated.

He put his hand in his pocket and closed it around the smooth silk of the glove heʼd scooped off the floor after her fall. He started to give it back to her, but for some reason unknown to him, he let it go.

“I would never call you stupid, my lady. Clever, smart, beautiful, and even enchanting maybe,” he teased as he pulled her hands away from her face.

Katherine glanced up at him, then quickly turned away with embarrassment. “I suppose you are wondering why I would do such a thing.”

“No,” Thomas stated firmly, causing her to bring her gaze back to his. “I prefer to find that answer when we return to Derbyshire.”

A myriad of emotions passed over her face, most of which Thomas could not decipher.

ʻWhat-are you saying, Mr. Thornton?” she asked carefully.

“I am asking if I might call on you the day after tomorrow.

Shall we say ten in the morning?”

The dread he saw in her eyes when that question left his lips had him truly baffled. But it disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. “Indeed, Sir. My family and I shall eagerly anticipate it,” she told him formally. “Now if youʼll excuse me, I must go find my cousin so we may leave.”

“Yes, of course,” he murmured as he watched her hasten away.

Thomas stood there for a moment, puzzled as to her quick change of mood. One moment she appeared to show genuine interest in him; the next, she became cold and proper!

It was a mystery he was determined to solve! They would have ample time at Rosehaven to get to know Katherine a little better and find out if possibly she was the right woman for him.

He then thought of his son, Ty, and wondered how she would respond to the toddler. That was also an important consideration in his quest for a wife.

A quest he now hoped and prayed would end with Lady Katherine Montbatten as his wife.

“I think perhaps I should tell you something Iʼm not sure you are going to like,” Katherine began as she stood before her parents in their elegantly furnished drawing room two days after the ball. The gentle candlelight shining through the crystal lamps about the room should have been soothing to her nerves, but until she finished this meeting, nothing would help. She had wanted to avoid telling them of Thomasʼs visit, but knowing he would probably want to speak to them, she had to prepare them.

“Do sit down, dear, while you tell us. It is giving my poor neck an ache having to look up at you,” her mother, Lady Montbatten, complained as she waved about a lace handkerchief she was rarely without.

Stifling a sigh because of her motherʼs frequent complaining, Katherine sat down on the blue velvet settee across from her parents. Still dreading to tell her parents the news, she took a moment to smooth the cream taffeta of her day dress.

“Well, spit it out, girl!” her fatherʼs loud voice boomed, causing her, her mother, and her sister, who was pretending to read a book, to jerk. His tall, large stature frightened those who didnʼt know him, but all his friends and family knew that underneath his austere gruffness, he was quite a marshmallow.

“Yes, well, I need to tell you someone will be coming to call here this morning,” Katherine started again, unable to blurt out the news as she wanted.

“Who, dear?” her mother asked when Katherine did not finish.

27

“A man, Mama. A man who will come to call on-me.”

A loud, thoroughly irate sigh came from the duke as he slapped his large hand on the delicate wooden arms of the chair, making her mother frown with disapproval. “Is this to be a game of charades or question and answer? Say what you must and cease shilly-shallying!”

“Thomas-Thornton-is-the-man!” she all but yelled in one quick breath. “There! It is said!”

“Dear, a proper lady does not raise her voice so-“

“Margaret, please! Did you not hear what she just told us?”

her father interrupted, his voice sounding stunned.

Her motherʼs eyes widened. “Thomas Thornton, did you say?” She fell back in her chair, waving her hand in front of her face in a frantic motion. “I do believe I might need ʻmy smelling salts. Lucinda, please ring for Amelia to bring them,” she ordered Katherineʼs little sister.

Lucinda, or “Lucy” as most everyone called her, showed her displeasure at having to leave the room by loudly plopping her book down on an end table and making a huffing noise. “I do not understand why I am always sent on one errand or another to do everyoneʼs bidding!” She whirled dramatically after opening the door, then paused. “Isnʼt that what we have servants for?” she cried and, without waiting for an answer, flounced out of the room in typical twelve-year-old fashion.

“That girl must be taken in hand! She has grown so very wild in the last year.” Her mother groaned, still in her semi-reclined condition. “We must see to finding her a new governess.”

“Yes, yes, all that can be dealt with later, but letʼs get back to the subject at hand,” Montbatten complained impatiently, still staring at his daughter. “How is it youʼve become acquainted with the Thorntons again, Daughter? I would have thought you would have found any connection with that family distasteful and even hurtful.”

If her father only knew the truth of how she had deliberately sought out Thomas Thornton, of how she planned to ruin his familyʼs name. “We met at the Beckingham ball, Papa, two nights ago. We were always friends, you know, before”she faltered, then continued-“before the incident.”

The duke continued to frown, and Katherine became distinctly uncomfortable under his penetrating gaze. “Are you saying you would welcome his suit if he should choose to pursue you?”

No!
she wanted to cry. She wanted nothing to do with anyone from the Thornton family. But she could not say that.

Minutes before sheʼd met with her parents, Theodora had reminded her—strongly-of her purpose, her mission.

“What would you say, Papa, if! Said yes?” she asked instead.

Katherine had expected her father to vehemently oppose any sort of match between Thomas and her. In fact, part of her secretly wished he would, so she wouldnʼt have to go through with the plan.

“Why, I think it is a marvelous turn of events!” Montbatten crowed, lifting his arms in a triumphal gesture. “I had despaired of your ever receiving another offer for your hand, and the fact it is Lord Kenswickʼs brother makes the whole affair work to our advantage!”

Katherine frowned. “Papa, he is just coming to call, not pledging his troth, and how would his pursuing me work to our advantage?”

“It will speak loudly to all the
ton
if the Earl of Kenswickʼs brother shows his favor to you; then all those rumors about you and the duel will be unfounded. Donʼt you see-if they were true and Kenswick did throw you over because of something you did, then his brother wouldnʼt speak to you, much less come to call!”

Katherine sat there stunned as her fatherʼs words sank into her. To think her reputation could be restored simply by being seen with Thomas Thornton. The need to ruin him and his family would no longer be necessary. All she would have to do was be seen with Thomas, making it clear she was not interested in marriage, and in a month or two, they could go their separate ways.

Her reputation would be restored, and there would no longer be a need for the plan.