Always a Temptress (16 page)

Of course she said nothing. She helped Kate into a lemon-yellow night rail and waited for Bea to brush out Kate’s thick mahogany hair before slipping her friend between the cool sheets on her tidy four-poster. Bivens forced the tisane down Kate’s throat and laid a cloth soaked in lavender over her forehead.

For any other woman, Grace would have closed the curtains to attract shadows. But it was an edict in Kate’s house that the curtains never closed and candles never went unlit. Kate always claimed that light was more healing for her than all the laudanum in the city. For the first time Grace wondered if that were the only reason.

“Finally,” Kate said in an unnervingly frail voice from beneath her scented cloth, “I am truly acting the part of a lady. Shall I regale you with my complaints and call the Regent’s doctor to physic me?”

Tidying up the room, Grace smiled. “That’s better,” she said briskly. “For a moment I was worried about you. Will you sleep?”

“Since the sun is up,” Kate answered. “Otherwise I would have you sit by my bed reading improving religious tracts to me.”

Bea snorted. “Heretic.”

“Indeed not,” Kate murmured. “I am a married woman again and must remember my place.”

“You are married to Harry,” Grace said. “Your place is where you make it.”

Kate lifted a corner of the cloth. “A passionate defense.”

Grace blushed. “I’ve known Harry since I was ten. I think of him as a brother.”

Down went the cloth. “I’ve known him for just about as long, and I think nothing of the kind.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re the one marrying him and not me.”

Kate offered a small smile. “I don’t believe I implied I thought of him that way, either.”

“He’s a good man,” Grace protested, unable to mistake her own defensiveness.

“And so he must be,” Kate answered, “to have earned your loyalty.”

Grace was sorely tempted to ask how Harry had forfeited Kate’s loyalty, since she knew exactly how strong that force was. After spending time with Kate, she also knew that Kate had been motivated by more than petty malice to have interfered with both of Harry’s engagements. There must have been a terrible falling-out between them.

It was as if Kate heard her. “The complaint between us is old,” she said. “Surely a childish thing. I
was
only fifteen.” She smiled then, a pale ghost of the notorious Kate Seaton grin. “I did pay him back, though. It was some of my best work.”

Grace looked to Bea, who shrugged. “Exactly what kind of work?”

Kate shrugged. “A well-considered word put in the correct ear that caused his two fiancées to reconsider their choice in husbands. Easily done.”

Grace shook her head. “Then too easily done, if that’s all it took.”

“And so I always thought. I don’t believe, however, Harry saw it that way.” She shrugged. “Ah, well. We have our entire lives to quibble over it.”

Grace heard the resignation in her friend’s voice and ached for her, for them both. If only Kate and Harry could find a way through the resentments they both hoarded. They were married; nothing would change that. But they could build a real marriage. Grace would have given every shilling she had, every acre of land to have that chance.

She’d had so little time to protect her own marriage. She’d worked so hard, even knowing that a man nicknamed The Perfection would never have chosen a great gawk of a girl like herself. And she thought he really had come to hold her in some esteem.

It hadn’t been enough to bridge the distance, though. When Diccan had had the chance to get out of the marriage, he’d taken it. And Grace had been left with bittersweet memories and an empty house she’d once thought to make her home. She didn’t want Kate and Harry to suffer the same fate.

Grace was startled to feel Bea lay a hand on her arm. She looked up to find Kate curled on her side like a child, already asleep. She had the most absurd impulse to drop a kiss on Kate’s forehead, which made her smile. Kate would box her ears if she tried. So she followed Bea’s lead and turned to leave.

As she moved, Grace made the mistake of looking out Kate’s window. She stopped on the spot, her heart suddenly thundering. There, back by the mews, she saw a man. A man she knew. He had spent days watching her house, just like this.

He was dressed differently. When he’d loitered outside her house, he’d been dressed as an aristocrat on the prowl, Stultz jackets and gleaming top hat. Today he was in a workman’s homespun with a slouch hat. It didn’t matter. She would recognize his jaunty posture and lanky frame anywhere. The last time he had stood outside a house she was in, she’d been poisoned.

She was just about to turn away when he straightened. Bowed with a flourish that made her think he’d seen her, too. Heart pounding, she ran for Harry.

Fortunately, Harry was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, straightening to attention.

She grabbed his arm. “Harry, there’s a man behind the mews watching the house. I recognized him. I don’t think he works for you.”

Harry didn’t hesitate. “Mudge!” he yelled, running toward the back of the house.

Mudge appeared out of nowhere, tossed Harry a pistol, and followed him out.

By the time Harry returned, Grace had settled a worried Bea into the Yellow Salon and was pouring tea. Harry came straight to them.

“Nothing,” he said. “You’re certain you recognized him.”

“And he, me,” Grace assured him. Setting down the Sèvres teapot, she looked up at him. “Kate really is in danger, isn’t she?”

Harry walked over to the drinks table to pour himself a whisky. “She really is. Which is why I need you to help us keep her inside this house where we can protect her. She can’t just go swanning around as if nothing’s wrong. She won’t listen to me, though.”

Grace couldn’t help a smile. “Your talents don’t really lie in diplomacy, Harry.”

He tossed off his drink and set it down. “Which is why you get to do it. I have places I must be.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Grace caught him wincing. An old hand at soldiers’ stoicism, she took a closer look and was chagrined that she’d missed how pale he was. “The only place you should be is bed, Harry. You look terrible. Which wound is it?”

He shot her a half grin. “Waterloo. I caught some shrapnel from a canister, and it tends to catch me unawares.”

She’d seen Harry like this before, and it worried her. “You’re not sleeping.”

He shook his head. “Don’t fret. I’ll be fine. As soon as this assignment is over, I’m going home to have my mother fatten me up.”

“Will she be happy about Kate?”

That brought Harry to a standstill. He looked out the window, as if seeing his family on the street. “I don’t know. She blames Kate for my army career.”

“Will she blame Kate when you head off again on your travels? You haven’t changed your mind, I assume.”

It had been a dream of Harry’s as long as she’d known him. She caught a quick flash of guilt in his eyes, a new uncertainty. Still, he shook his head. “No. I haven’t.”

As if in response, Bea suddenly stood. “Parlay,” she said.

Harry stared at Bea. “She wants to talk to you,” Grace said. “Might as well sit.”

He flashed Grace an impatient look, but he did just that, helping Bea back down onto the settee. It still took Bea a moment to form her ideas.

“China,” she finally said, her face screwed up with effort. “Bone…fine…china.”

Grace felt her heart melt. She could see the confusion on Harry’s face. “I think,” she said, “that what Lady Bea is trying to tell you is that Kate is more fragile than most people realize. She’s asking that you care gently for her.”

Harry looked insulted. “Well, of course I will.”

Bea just cocked her head, pursing her mouth in disbelief. And Harry, whom Grace had seen stand off a cavalry charge and infiltrate twenty miles behind enemy lines to rescue a fallen comrade, quailed before the gentle woman’s quiet skepticism.

Leaning forward, he put his hand over Bea’s. “No woman has ever suffered by my hand,” he assured the old woman. “Lady Kate is now my wife. I can assure you we’ll argue. But I will always protect her, and see to her best interests.”

Lady Bea nodded anxiously. “Queen Bess,” she said. “
Needs
…realm.”

It was Grace’s turn to frown. She had become quite proficient at interpreting Lady Bea. This one, though, was beyond her. Poor Harry was looking positively befuddled.

Lady Bea huffed, waving her hand to take in the room. “Domain.”

For some reason, that did the trick. Grace had a flash of the scars she had seen on Kate’s skin, of the broad swath she cut through a jaded society, the quiet hand she’d always had with a staff most society women would have shunned.

“I think Bea is asking you to give Kate a bit of room,” Grace said, her attention on the anxious old woman. “Kate’s marriage was…unfortunate.”

“From what I’ve seen,” Harry snapped, “I’d say it was an unmitigated nightmare.”

Then he
had
seen what Grace had on Kate’s skin.

“The public sees one face of Kate,” Grace told Harry thoughtfully. “You don’t see the private Kate. You don’t see what she’s built all on her own. The Duke of Murther drained every cent from Eastcourt. Kate has turned it back into a showplace. She has a multitude of schemes to help her people to become self-sustaining. As for her staff, you’ve seen them. Who else would hire them? But they would die for her.”

“All right,” Harry conceded. “She has my respect.”

“But you have complete control of her now, don’t you see? After what her life has been like, it will seem unbearable.”

He looked back and forth between Grace and Bea. “But there isn’t anything I can do. It’s the law.”

Bea huffed. “The devil quotes the Bible to his own purpose.”

Harry blinked in surprise. Grace smiled. No need to interpret that.

“I can’t in good conscience delegate matters of security,” Harry said. “As for my marriage, I can only promise my best.”

Again Bea searched his face. She must have found what she wanted, because finally she smiled.

Harry seemed to sigh. “I know this has been difficult for you, Lady Bea,” he said. “Which is why your singing meant so much to me. I’ll never forget such a gift.” Lifting her hand, he kissed it.

Bea flushed furiously. “Pandora’s box.”

Harry frowned over at Grace. “The container for all the world’s evils?”

Bea looked at Grace. Grace smiled. “It also held its hope, Harry.”

Harry looked almost as uncomfortable as Bea. “You will stay with us, won’t you?” he asked the old woman. “I can’t imagine how Kate could get on without you.”

Great tears welled in Bea’s eyes. “Gooseberry.”

Harry scowled. “You are not a gooseberry. You’re family.”

It took a minute, but finally she patted Harry’s hand. “Family.”

Giving Bea’s hand one last squeeze, he got to his feet. “And you, Grace? Could you stay for a bit to help keep Kate from chafing at her restrictions?”

Grace thought of the work she’d begun at her home in Longbridge, of the people she’d left in such a hurry. But then she thought of how silent that house was after the sun went down. How empty. And what Kate had done for her. “I’d be happy to.”

He nodded. “Thank you both. I imagine you’d like a bit of a rest yourselves. Just do me a favor. Promise none of you will leave this house until I get back. Tell Mudge if you spot your friend again. And no one but Finney answers the door.”

“Of course.” Grace helped Bea up. “What about you, Harry? What’s on your agenda?”

“Me?” His smile this time was dark. “I believe it is time to see a man about removing an offensive painting of my wife from his club.”

It didn’t take Mudge long to help Harry effect his change from army officer to man about town, trading the green uniform for blue jacket and pearl-gray trousers, with a silver waistcoat and single fob. After the special work he’d done for Wellington and Scovell on the Continent, Harry knew how important the correct disguise was.

He stepped out of his door fifteen minutes later, intent on leaving. Instead, somehow, his feet took him to the end of the hall and Kate’s double doors. She’d had such a bad few days. He just wanted to make sure she was all right.

The master suite stretched across the back of the house, two adjoining bedroom suites connected by a center sitting room. The good
and
bad news was that the sitting room and each bedroom had a door opening out onto the hallway. The first thing Harry did was to check to make sure the bedrooms, at least, were locked. Then he slipped into the sitting room to find Kate’s abigail sitting by the window working on some sewing.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, getting to her feet.

Harry motioned to the closed door into Kate’s bedroom. “How is she?”

Bivens, oddly enough, looked out the window. “Oh, asleep.”

Harry nodded. He still walked over to the adjoining door and turned the knob.

The door was locked.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

Bivens, a blowsy bit of blond tart Harry bet hadn’t started life as a servant, placed herself between him and the door. “Her Grace don’t like to be disturbed,” she said.

“You can’t lock her in,” he protested.

“I don’t. She locks me out.”

He looked around, as if answers lurked in the corners. “But that’s absurd. What if something happens to her? Surely there’s a way in.”

Bivens’s eyes strayed toward a small secretary in the corner.

“You have a key,” he said and held out his hand. “Hand it over. I need to make sure your mistress is all right.”

Bivens puffed her chest out like a broody hen. “Nothin’ happens to my lady what I don’t know about it.”

Harry didn’t even bother to answer her. He just kept his hand out until, with a huff of outrage, Bivens retrieved the key and handed it over. “She doesn’t know I have it,” she said. “I go in through the boudoir.” Pronounced
boo-DWIRE
.

So did Harry, passing right by the infamous mirror to get to the bedroom door.

It was the first time he’d been let into the holy of holies. He had to admit he was surprised. Every other room in Kate’s house was decorated in tasteful pastels. Even the boudoir had been done in pale blue and silver. But within the private sanctuary of Kate’s bedroom, a rose garden ran riot. The blush of sunset warmed chintz curtains and covers and chaise longue. The walls and rugs ran to soft, comfortable shades of leaf green and rose pink, red and white, with real roses overflowing a low bowl, scenting the air with their faint attar. A whimsical bower. More a young girl’s room than a siren’s.