Dangerous to Hold (20 page)

Fine. She would begin by dissecting the character of the boor who shared the coach with her. That he was an unprincipled rake had been established beyond question—Amy, Julia Bryce, Catalina, and now Catherine Courtnay, and these were only the women she knew about! She wasn’t the least bit sorry that she’d entrapped him into marriage. In fact, she was proud of herself. She had belled the cat, and now all women would know that he was only trifling with them. To be forewarned was to be forearmed. Then how could she explain how narrowly she had escaped succumbing to him? He was a practiced rake, and that’s where the danger lay, so practiced that he knew how to make a woman forget her own name.

Narrowing her eyes, she turned slightly to look at him. It wasn’t difficult to imagine Marcus as a soldier.
Such men unconsciously exuded an aura of command. Major Carruthers had told her he had a distinguished war record. She couldn’t fault him there. In Spain, he’d been an Observing Officer, riding deep into enemy territory to gather information. He’d been a spy, but a spy in uniform. The French regarded these spies as men of integrity, and because of this, no harm would have come to Marcus if he’d been captured.

It would have been different if the French had captured her or
El Grande.
They were the true spies, concealing their identities, carrying out their missions in stealth. Just thinking about
El Grande
made her throat ache. If only he’d been the old
El Grande
, he would have taken charge of this mission. He wouldn’t have allowed Marcus to call all the shots. He would have conceived his own plan, and
he
would be trying to draw Marcus into the open. Major Carruthers was all right in his way, but he was cautious.
El Grande
wasn’t reckless but he never shied away from a calculated risk.

And he was never careless, as she had been careless. She should have warned him that their departure for Wrotham had been delayed by a day. She’d known that
El Grande
didn’t spend all his days at the monastery, that he worked among the destitute of London. Then why hadn’t she warned him to stay out of sight for one more day?

She knew the answer. She’d become far too personally involved in this mission. It was something that had happened to her only once before—in Spain, with Captain Marcus Lytton.

Cards on the table, Catherine
, she told herself sternly. Admit it! In spite of everything, you’re attracted to that cad sitting next to you. You were jealous of Julia Bryce, jealous of Catalina, and that’s why you went off like a rocket, trying to make him jealous, too, when he walked in and found you with David and Tristram. And because you have been thinking like a woman and not like an agent, you put the whole mission in jeopardy. Even these long silences come from hurt pride. You’re an agent. Marcus is the prime suspect behind a series of murders. You have a job to do. Do it.

She let out a long sigh, then turned her head to look at him. “Marcus,” she said softly. When he looked up from the book he was reading, she went on, “I apologize. I’m behaving like a silly little schoolgirl.”

He tossed the book aside and smiled ruefully. “Are you, Cat?”

She was making the overture, just as he’d known she would, and already his mind was grappling with the logistics. He could lock the carriage doors and pull the blinds down, and then—

“I shouldn’t have asked you to give up other women when this isn’t a real marriage. After all, it’s been more than three years since you married Catalina. People change. I don’t think anyone will be shocked if you take a mistress. In fact, I think they may be shocked if you don’t.” There! She’d said it, though the words had almost choked her.

Marcus replied in a low, enraged tone. “Thank you, but I have more scruples than you. How dare you suggest that I treat my wife so shabbily?”

The woman in her rose to the surface. “You were going to make me your mistress, weren’t you? What’s the difference?”

“If you don’t understand it, I can’t explain it.”

“But—”

“No, Cat. We’re going to play this my way. You will hang on my every word, and I will be enthralled with you.”

“I don’t know if I’m that much of an actress.”

“Try,” advised Marcus. “As you wish.”

She stared out the window in stony silence, and Marcus picked up his book.

She heard the baying of the hounds before she saw the castle.

Marcus said, “There have been hounds at Wrotham since Norman times. First they were for hunting stag, but now they’re only for foxes. Penn has been restocking the
park with fallow deer, but they are off limits as yet, until the herd becomes established.”

As Marcus pointed, she looked out the window, following the progress of the hunt as riders and hounds went leaping over hedges and across fields. “Why are all these people wearing yellow coats?” she asked.

“That’s the Wrotham colors. And there is Wrotham,” said Marcus, and Catherine moved to the other side of the coach to take in the view.

It was a fortress, a massive, rugged presence looming over the country town which went by the same name.

“From here,” said Marcus, “it looks as if the town is built around the castle. But that’s deceiving. The castle is actually on the other side of Wrotham, and is much older than the town.”

“How old is it?”

“The original keep was granted to my ancestor, Robert FitzBrant, in 1153. Over the centuries, various lords of Wrotham added towers and battlements. Wrotham is not actually our principal residence—we’ve always looked on it merely as a hunting lodge.”

“And where is your principal residence?”

“Lytton, in Worcester. It’s only a manor house, but it’s more comfortable. Castles, as you’ll discover soon enough, tend to be drafty, uncomfortable places.”

She said no more, but fixed her eyes on the horizon, taking stock of the massive stone edifice that had stood sentinel over the valley for over six hundred years. Faced with the concrete evidence of Marcus’s enormous wealth, she felt a good deal subdued.

The town might not have been as old as the castle, but it wasn’t exactly modern either. It was Tudor and very similar to other towns and villages they’d passed on the way. Half-timbered wattle buildings with thatched roofs lined the cobbled streets.

“Wrotham parish church,” said Marcus at one point, indicating a Norman building on the north side of the town. “It’s worth a visit. My ancestors are buried there.”

Comparisons were odious, but she couldn’t help thinking of her own family. Her grandfather on her father’s side had once farmed a few acres in Hampshire. On
her mother’s side, her grandfather had been a vicar. Before that, her people had been soldiers. That’s all she knew.

“What are you thinking?” said Marcus. She spoke more tartly than she meant to. “Your ancestors and mine had one thing in common at least.”

“Which is?”

“They all ended up in church graveyards.”

The lines around his eyes crinkled, and he smiled, not one of his provocative smiles, but one that made her feel less nervous. “You’ll do just fine,” he said, and after a moment, she smiled too.

The approach to the castle took them through dense, leafless woodlands which gave way to fallow fields and well-tended farms. Marcus kept up a flow of anecdotes as they drove by various points of interest. They passed a country house which, as it turned out, wasn’t a country house but the Wrotham kennels and stables. Then, too soon for Catherine’s comfort, they were through the great stone gatehouse, with the Wrotham coat of arms above it, and soon after they pulled up at the front doors of the main building. As she alighted from the carriage, Catherine glanced at the small knot of people who had gathered on the stone steps. Instantly she picked out the lady she assumed was the dowager countess.

She’d expected Helen of Troy, a woman whose face had launched a thousand ships. The lady who came forward to greet her was certainly pleasant to look at, but she was no Helen of Troy. She had dark hair that was rapidly running to gray, a sweet face, and a figure that could only be described as stout.

As servants came forward to unload the baggage, Marcus said, “Helen, come and meet your new daughter-in-law.”

Shining brown eyes met Catherine’s. “Catalina,” said the dowager Countess of Wrotham, “I’ve waited for this moment for three long years,” and she embraced Catherine warmly.

Catherine found herself responding to that warmth and was horrified to find that her eyes were stinging. She didn’t feel like a woman or a British agent, but like a little
girl who wanted her mother because her heart was breaking. She disengaged from that embrace with the greatest reluctance.
This isn’t real
, she reminded herself,
I’m only pretending.

“Please,” she said, and her voice was hoarse, “call me Catherine. I want to be English. I want to learn English ways.”

“Oh, Marcus, she’s so lovely,” said the dowager, and she embraced him too.

“And this is Samantha,” said Marcus.

Catherine knew that Marcus’s sister was older than Tristram, but the young girl who smiled at her shyly as she curtsied looked as though she belonged in the schoolroom.

“And last but by no means least,” said the voice of the gentleman who was waiting to be introduced, “is the black sheep of the family. I’m Penniston, but everybody calls me Penn. How do you do, Catherine.”

This was Marcus’s other half brother—and his heir. If Samantha looked younger than her years, Penniston looked older. The resemblance to Marcus and Tristram was there, but lines of dissipation were carved deeply in his handsome face. He’d been drinking. She couldn’t smell the drink on him, but she remembered how it had been with her father. Penniston’s smile was just a shade too warm. His stance, his movements, were just a shade too relaxed.

“How do you do?” she said with a curtsy.

“Where are Tristram and David?” asked Marcus.

Penniston said, “They’re trying out the new Andalusians I bought from Colonel Herriot. But I’m warning you, Marcus, I don’t want David to have those. Strike any bargain with him you like, but the Andalusians stay at Wrotham.”

There was a moment of silence, then the dowager said quickly, “Have you had breakfast? I’ve given you and Catherine the lord’s chamber, Marcus, and moved my own things to the blue chamber. How was the drive?”

Catherine sensed undercurrents eddying below the surface and wondered if she was being fanciful.

With the dowager leading the way, they entered the Great Hall. It was a long, dark room, two stories high,
with bare stone walls hung with tapestries and stags’ heads. Every alcove, and there were many of those, seemed to be guarded by a ghostly knight in a suit of armor.

“My father,” said Marcus, “had two passions in life, hunting and his armory collection.”

In Catherine’s ear, Penn murmured, “He had another passion, but we don’t refer to it in polite society.”

“What was that?” Marcus asked the question without heat, but Catherine could feel those eddies rushing around like a treacherous whirlpool.

Penn flashed a smile. “I was pointing out Father’s portrait.” He nodded at the portrait that hung above the fireplace mantel and which dominated the room. The fifth earl, in hunting regalia, stood with one foot on the neck of a glassy-eyed stag his hounds had brought down. His sword was bloodied.

“They say,” said Penn, “that we sons are made in the image of our father.”

Catherine shuddered. “I hope not,” she said vehemently. Heads turned in her direction.

Marcus smoothed over the awkward moment. “Come on, Cat. The sooner we get settled, the sooner I’ll show you around the place.”

They separated at the bottom of the stairs. Catherine didn’t look back, but she was conscious of three pairs of eyes following her.

The moment she entered the lord’s bedchamber, the tension began to drain out of her. It was only now that she realized just how much she had been dreading this meeting with Marcus’s family.

Marcus waited until the footmen had deposited their boxes in the middle of the floor then, after dismissing them, he threw off his cloak and sprawled in a big old-fashioned armchair in front of the fire. Catherine removed her bonnet but kept on her pelisse. The room was enormous, and the fire had yet to take the chill off the air. She moved to the window and looked out. From there, it was impossible to tell that she was behind the walls of a medieval castle. Broad meadows fell away to stands of willow that grew thick on the banks of the river Avon. In
the near distance was the town of Wrotham. Poised above it, like a ball of dirty cotton, was a cloud of smoke that had spewed out of the multitude of chimney stacks.

Turning, she said, “Tell me why your family isn’t close. Is there a reason?”

“It’s not because of Helen,” he answered. “She’s no wicked stepmother.”

“I can see that. But the rest of you don’t seem very affectionate, though I think Tristram would be, if you gave him half a chance. Then there’s David. If I had a cousin and he lived in Ireland, I wouldn’t wait fifteen years to see him.”

“I suppose we’re no better or worse than other families of our class. We boys spend most of our time in boarding school, and only come home for the holidays. I also served six years as a soldier.”

“But what about when you were children … ?”

“I didn’t live here as a child. When my mother died, I went to live with my aunt. My father visited me sometimes. But the first time I met Helen and her brood was at my father’s funeral.”

“But that’s … sad.”

He looked at her curiously. “You don’t need to feel sorry for me. My aunt was like a mother to me. You were raised by an aunt, too, weren’t you?”

“Aunt Bea,” she said, with so much distaste that Marcus laughed, and after a moment, she laughed with him.

He said casually, “Your friend Emily told me that your aunt was very straitlaced.”

She shot him a sharp look. “Now don’t
you
get the wrong idea. I’m not at all like my aunt.”

“Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?”

She drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “It’s not because of my aunt that I refused your insulting offer. You are a married man, and even if you weren’t, I still wouldn’t become your mistress.”