The Romany Heiress (26 page)

She’d lived with Giles long enough to expect elegance
at every turn. But still, the townhouse was an opulent
show-piece that exceeded the elegance of the abbey. Each
room was a new discovery, done up in its own theme. The
drawing room was done in the Egyptian style, the dining
room done in the French style, all gilt and lightness.
Giles’s private office held pieces from the Far East.

The tour of the house was overwhelming. She was
relieved to open the doors to their private chambers and
find the decor in there greatly resembled the master chamber at the abbey. “Ah, we’re home,” she said, running a hand over the counterpane on the carved fourposter bed.

“That’s exactly how I feel when I enter this room. This
room is most like the abbey. There are no pretensions,
just comfort” Giles encircled her waist with his arm and
pulled her against him. “Will you be comfortable here?”

She leaned her back into him, feeling the warmth of
his body. “I am comfortable wherever you are”

“I will try and not be gone too often,” Giles offered,
but she could sense it was a halfhearted remark since
he could not possibly keep the promise.

She tried to assuage his worry. “I know. We talked
about this in the carriage. I understand you have obligations in parliament. That is why we are here. I will be
on my own many nights. I don’t expect you to shirk
your duties.”

“Isabella and Tristan are in town. I noticed they’d already left a card downstairs. Isabella will take you
around while Tristan and I are in session. You’ll have a
circle of friends and plenty of activities in no time if I
know Isabella”

Cate knew he meant to be reassuring, but the mention of Tristan and Isabella wasn’t all that comforting.
“I know you mean well, Giles. But you mustn’t force
them to befriend me if they don’t like me”

She hadn’t seen Isabella since the wedding, and she
wasn’t certain that Isabella was ready to forgive her for
the situation she’d placed Giles in. She knew Tristan
wasn’t. He’d been surprised by the announcement to wed, and he’d been firmly against Giles’s decision even
though he’d supplied the roses for the ceremony.

Giles hugged her in reassurance. “They will like you.
Once they see that we have grown an honest affection
for one another and that we’ve put the past behind us,
they will accept you on your own merit.”

Giles’s predictions proved to be true almost immediately. The next morning, Isabella took Cate shopping,
beginning the elaborate process of constructing a town
wardrobe. In the afternoon, she accompanied Isabella
to a ladies’ tea. That evening she and Isabella went to a
musicale hosted by one of Isabella’s friends while Tristan and Giles sat in parliament.

That became the pattern of their days. Giles was
busy although when he was home, Cate would sit in his
private office with him, quietly stitching or reading
while he read papers and proposed legislation.

“You must be looking forward to such a grand occasion as the Rosamund Ball tonight,” Giles said one day as
they spent a rare lunch together. “Everything you’ve attended so far has been small gatherings with Isabella.
She says you’ve taken well.”

“I daresay a ball and a musicale are two different
things.” Cate worried the fabric of her skirt, pleating it
between her fingers, anxiety evident on her face.

Giles rose and crossed the distance between them,
wanting to alleviate her anxiety. He knelt beside her
and stopped her fidgeting hands with his own. “They
aren’t that different.”

“Not to you. You were born to such things. How to conduct yourself is as commonplace to you as breathing.”
Cate sighed. “At a musicale, all I have to do is sit next to
Isabella, balance a plate of cake and a teacup on my lap
and smile while she does all the talking. I nod in the right
places, of course” She added the last with a bit of teasing.

Giles laughed. “You’ve done well. You’ll do well tonight. I’ll be there and I won’t let anything happen to
you” He’d said it in good humor but ballrooms were
nothing short of social battlefields.

“Is it so dire as all that? Will I truly need protection?”

“Of course not. But balls are bigger occasions than
musicales. Up until now, there has not been enough people in town for anyone to pull off a ball, but now that the
politicians have come flooding back in, more and more
families are arriving every day. The Rosamunds think
they have their two hundred.”

“Two hundred?” Cate’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Two hundred what?”

“Two hundred guests. The ton matrons have ruled
that one must invite at least two hundred guests for an
event to qualify as a ball.”

“I can’t imagine putting two hundred people in a
home the size of this one”

Giles tapped her on the nose. “That’s why they call it
a `crush.”’

She began laughing and after that Giles found he could
not pay attention to his papers. He gave up and spent the
afternoon answering Cate’s questions about balls and
how to go on. Society was a silly thing he discovered as he explained all its intricacies to his wife. No wonder
Tristan and Isabella preferred time in the country to town.
He was starting to feel the same way, especially when
Cate asked a question regarding form that he had no
ready answer for.

They laughed away the afternoon in companionable
camaraderie, her head resting in his lap as they lounged
on the settee. Giles thought he’d never spent a better
set of hours, as he ran a lazy hand through the black
spread of her hair falling over his leg.

He hoped he’d appeased her fears, although he could
not say they were unfounded. He’d laughed her concerns away but they were his concerns as well. What
would the ton think of his hasty marriage? Would anyone care enough to make a scandal out of it? To discover
the murky depths of DeBrett’s and Burke’s offered no
answer to who his bride was, only more mystery?

He hadn’t said anything to her, but he was worried.
With more people coming up to town all the time, it was
inevitable they would encounter guests from his house
party who recalled his cousin, Catherine Winthrop. He
and Cate maintained that identity. In public she was
called Catherine. Isabella had introduced her as Catherine. There was little harm in it, if she went by Catherine
or Cate. It was essentially the same name.

But those questions would come. He could explain
away her lack of placement in Debrett’s with the simple claim that she was too far removed for such notice.
There would only be trouble if someone saw the marriage certificate, but that was sealed in the parish records. Someone would have to want to find out and go hunting
for it.

He found that he didn’t care if anyone questioned her
origins but he did care very deeply if those questions
hurt her.

Tristan and Isabella called for them promptly at
7:00, having decided that it would be best if all four of
them arrived together. After all, Isabella had actively
behaved as Cate’s sponsor since her arrival in London,
and Giles and Tristan had a long-standing friendship.
For them to be together was only natural and shouldn’t
denote anything beyond their commonly acknowledged
friendship; only the Greshams and Giles knew that it
had been arranged as a stratagem to promote and, if
necessary, to protect Cate.

“Are you ready, old friend?” Tristan asked, watching
his wife mount the staircase to check on Cate.

Giles gave a somber nod. “Yes. She’s worried of
course. She’s afraid she’ll let me down. I could care
less” He turned to face Tristan. “I worry about her being hurt, by someone saying a cruel thing or making
insinuations.”

Tristan knitted his brow. “She’s lived on the outside
of society, suffered great verbal insult in her lifetime. I
doubt the barbs of our dragons could do her serious injury. Your wife is no shrinking violet.”

Giles chuckled a bit at that. Tristan was right. He’d
spent too long thinking of her as his wife, his responsibility, that he often forgot she was capable of looking after herself. “It’s hard for me to remember that sometimes. Still, it’s not the dragons I worry about. It’s the
questions that might be asked, and worse yet the answers that might be uncovered. I worry for her, I worry
for Spelthorne”

Tristan put a comforting hand on Giles’s shoulder.
“Let them ask their questions, Giles. We’ve done our
jobs well. If anyone comes looking, they won’t find the
answers” His eyes shifted to a point over Giles’s shoulder. “God, she’s beautiful.”

Giles turned. Their wives stood on the stairs, arm in
arm as they began their descent. It never occurred to
Giles that perhaps Tristan’s comment had referred to
Isabella, who was exquisitely turned out in her trademark copper silk. It was Cate who held all his attention.
The hours her maid had spent with her in preparation
for the evening had created a vision that was heretofore
unequaled in Giles’s opinion.

Dressed in an aquamarine gown of fine Norwich bombazine, she was the image of chic beauty. Everything
about the gown from the gored ankle-length skirts scalloped at the hem to show off the cream silk underskirt
beneath to the elegant drape of the Spanish slashing of
the sleeves, her attire was the first stare of fashion. No
one could gainsay the quality of her wardrobe. More
than that, she carried it off with ease.

Giles recognized immediately that it was not so much
the dress that transformed her, but that she’d transformed the dress. Her dark hair was an excellent foil for the aquamarine tones of the fabric, and in turn, the gown
showed off the sparkle of her green eyes to their best advantage.

In her wake, Isabella, who’d always been the standard against which Giles weighed other English beauties, seemed less extraordinary.

Giles handed his wife into the carriage, whispering
to her as she moved passed him, “You look wonderful.”

The line into the Rosamund’s mansion was long by
the time the carriage pulled up to let them out. Giles
had planned it that way. The longer the line, the more
likely that dancing would have started before they were
announced. People would be engaged in their dancing
and in their own social sets. They would already have
had plenty of time to look around and see who was
there and less likely to single him out.

Not that he minded being singled out. He was not a
coward and felt confident in holding his own with anyone. But he wanted to make the evening as enjoyable as
possible for Cate, who fairly bristled with tension beside him. He recognized that in part some of her nerves
were generated by excitement over attending a ton ball.
But part of them was also generated over her concern
about the unknown. How would she be received?

Giles squeezed her hand as they joined the queue of
guests with Tristan and Isabella. He bent his head to
find her ear. “Everything will be fine. There is this
world of theirs and there is the world we’ve created for ourselves. There is nothing they can say or do that can
penetrate what we’ve built between us, my love.”

Cate smile at Giles’s words. She wanted to believe
him. But she’d lived a cynical life too long to accept
that anything could be that easy. Still, she did her best
to enjoy the evening. There was plenty to enjoy.

After the receiving line, they made their way to the
ballroom and its lavish decorations. Cate had never
seen such floral luxury in the middle of winter. The
ballroom looked and smelled like a hothouse. Every
niche was filled with huge urns full of roses of varying
colors and wintergreens. Candles blazed from two one
hundred candle chandeliers hanging over the expanse
of the ballroom. At the far end in a balcony overlooking the ballroom, the five piece orchestra was already
playing.

“It’s fantastical,” she breathed.

“That’s exactly the right word for it,” Tristan grimaced, steering Isabella into a clear space as they moved
forward. “I can’t imagine what it took to force so many
roses into bloom this time of year.”

Isabella poked him with an elbow. “It’s still lovely to
look at. I like it. I am reminded that after a dreary winter spring can’t be far away”

The orchestra struck up a waltz. “Will you dance with
me, Catherine, while these two argue about the merits
of roses in winter?” Giles asked, careful to use the right
name.

Cate let him sweep her into the sea of dancers, ap preciating the firm hand he kept at the small of her
back. She let him set the tone and fell into rhythm with
him easily, having learned her lessons well since the
first time they’d danced together.

“One of the best aspects of being married is that now
I can dance with you as much as I wish,” Giles confided
as they took the high turn. “I am no longer limited to
two miserly dances a night.”

She gave a flirting smile. “I thought..” She paused
in mid-sentence. “Oh dear.”

She forced Giles to turn her so he could see too.
Swirling towards them in a cloud of figured periwinkle
satin was Lady FoxHaughton in the arms of a handsome
Norse god. There was no pretending she didn’t see them.

Giles met them with a polite nod as the two couples
twirled past each other. “It was bound to happen at some
point,” he said to Cate once the couples had cleared the
dance floor and they could rejoin Isabella and Tristan.

“Perhaps that’s all we’ll see of them,” Cate said
hopefully, although she didn’t believe it. That woman
had been far too possessive of Giles to simply give him
up. If she had been angry about his attentions to a shirttail relative in the fall, she’d be livid about his having
married the relative instead of making no attempt to
win back her favor.

“You’ve seen them, then?” Isabella was saying. “She
has a new amour now, Alistair Manley, an earl’s third
son.”

“He’s fairly young and just newly come to town. His
father has set him up as an MP for one of the rotten boroughs under his control,” Tristan put in, distaste for
the man’s acquisition of power evident in his tone.