Further Than Passion (26 page)

"Good." He nodded, and Kate's ire flared anew.

They'd
discussed
her, had they? They'd parleyed and nattered about her as if she were a prized cow off to slaughter, or an African slave in bondage.

"I'll be excited to hear all about it," she c
h
ided. "I'm absolutely on pins and needles."

235

"It's for the best, Kate," he insisted.

"Oh, I'm sure it is," she bitterly retorted.

"And I hope you'll return the money you took."

"What?"

'To avoid a scandal, Regina has agreed to replace the funds in your sister's trust, but I'd like to prevail upon you to restore them of your own accord."

Regina was alleging that she'd pilfered Selena's trust? How could Marcus imply that she would behave so despicably? She couldn't steal from her own sister! She was so lacking in a criminal state of mind, that if such a dastardly deed had occurred to her, she'd have had no idea how to implement it!

She stared him down.

He was cool and composed, imperturbable, and the love she'd had for him instantly metamorphosed into a white-hot hatred so intense that it nearly blew her down with its severity.

"I'd give it back," she sarcastically declared, "but she has so much, while I have so little. Why should I?"

Distraught over her flip response, he gaped at her, unable to fathom how he could have failed to detect her felonious disposition. She yearned to shake him, to slap away his smug, calculated expression, to hit him and hit him, over and over again, until he fell to the floor in a bloody heap.

Regina clucked and tutted over Kate's remark. "Honestly, Kate," she scolded, "I expected better from you."

"Did you?" Kate rejoined. "Did you really?
"
She trembled with such malevolence and hostility that Regina flinched and shifted out of range.

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Cheryl Holt

Regina gestured to Marcus. "Tell her the rest
."

Kate waited, then waited some more, but he couldn't spit it out. He blushed, embarrassed by whatever he was about to recount.

"Well?" Kate queried, and still, he couldn't answer.

Regina butted in. "Your affair with him has been exposed."

- "So?" Kate sneered. "As you're neither my mother nor my guardian and I am fully of age, I don't see how it's any of your business."

"You live in my home"—
R
egina sputtered with rag
e
—"you eat the food at my table, and you maintain it's not my
business
if you act like a harlot?" She scowled to Marcus. "Before she met you, she was an innocent. She had no background to help her defend against male duplicity."

"I'm aware of that fact," he assented uneasily.

"You've had innumerable experiences with seduction, haven't you, Stamford?"

"I suppose."

"Don't be so modest. Kate is hardly the first you've debauched. You enjoy quite a reputation as a libertine and scoundrel."

"I've never been a saint," he admitted.

"It's well known that you regularly lure women into every manner of dissolution. Why ... you practically regard it as a challenge to corrupt them."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"A man will pretend fondness, won't he, Stamford, in order to coax a female to immorality?"

"It happens all the time."

"You're no different from any other, are you?"

"Probably not," he allowed.

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"I'm positive Kate assumes you're in love with her. Wouldn't you suspect the same?"

"It's possible."

"Have you ever loved her?"

He glanced down. "No."

"Do you love her now?"

"No," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.

"She likely presumes that you have honorable intentions toward her. She might even imagine that you'd marry her. Would you?"

"It would be the worst folly ever."

Regina paused, letting his disavowal fester, ensuring that the momentous impact was sufficiently devastating. Kate had never been more humiliated. She wanted to die, wanted to curl up in a ball and cease to be.

"Did you hear him, Kate?" Regina ultimately asked. "He doesn't love you. He
never
loved you."

"Yes, I heard him, Regina."

She'd always understood that Marcus was isolated and solitary, that he deliberately kept himself separate from others, but she'd never recognized him to be cruel. Why would he feel the need to participate in her crucifixion?

When had he become Regina's puppet? Why had he acquiesced in such brutality? He'd drowned whatever spark of affection she'd harbored for him. Must he grind her into the rug until there was nothing le
ft
of the person she once was?

"I believe we've gotten her attention," Regina snarled to Marcus, "so tell her the rest of it, or I will!"

He continued to study the floor. "I'm marrying Melanie, Kate. One week from today. It's been arranged."

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Cheryl Holt

There was no more horrid, or more painful, comment he could have made, and though she struggled to sustain her equanimity, she couldn't stop the single tear that plopped down her cheek.

"Like gravitates to like, Kate," Regina crowed. "How foolish of you to reach so far above your station."

Kate felt as if the death knell had sounded, his words killing any soft portion of her that had ever existed.

She glared at him, begging him to look at her, but he wouldn't. Was he mortified? Sorry? She snorted with disgust. Most likely, he was simply dreading the hideous encounter and desperate for it to be over, yet she dawdled, pathetically wishing that he'd smile at her a final time.

"Will that be all?" she quietly inquired.

"Yes," Regina replied, "that will be all. Proceed to my bedchamber and wait for me. I'll be up in a few minutes."

Numb and ill, Kate trudged to the door and was about to exit when Marcus called to her back.

"Kate!" he implored, her name wrenched from his lips.

She halted and frowned at him over her shoulder. "What?"

  
"I hope you'll be happy in your new situation
.
I really do. Good luck, and all the best to you."

She had no idea about what he was talking. He appeared sincere, yet terribly sad. It almost seemed as if he was regretting what he'd just done, but why would he?

As Regina had so bluntly indicated, he'd merely drifted to his own kind. He inhabited a sphere that used to be hers, but it wasn't any longer, and he'd picked

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someone of his own class, someone appropriate and fitting to be the wife of an earl.

Why should she be surprised? Why should she be crushed? Why should she feel as if her broken heart might quit beating?

"Go to hell,
Lord
Stamford."

She spun on her heel and walked out.

17

Regina burst into her bedchamber, her rage so intense that not even her sense of triumph could dampen her dark surge of anger.

Kate was lucky they were in town and surrounded by so many others. If they'd been in the country, if they'd been alone, Regina might have been driven to commit murder.

Kate was perched on a chair, her meager belongings packed, her portmanteau at her feet. She'd donned her cloak and was ready to depart. Pale as a marble statue, she looked icy, frozen, detached from reality, and so mentally distant that Regina wondered if her mind hadn't snapped.

Melanie hovered beside her, flitting around like an irritating gnat.

"What's Kate done, Mother?" Melanie inquired. "She won't tell me."

Regina ignored the question and retrieved her walking stick from the wardrobe; then she went to Kate, halting in front of her.

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"Stand up," she ordered, and Kate rose, exuding a belligerence and lack of remorse that enraged Regina further. "Apprise Melanie of your perfidy. I would have her learn of this betrayal from your own treacherous lips."

"I've been having an affair with Lord Stamford. I'm being sent home."

"What do you mean?" Melanie queried.

Melanie was too naive to grasp the implications, so Regina explained, "She's been sneaking into his bed at night, entertaining him as a prostitute would."

Melanie gasped. "Deny it, Kate."

Kate was mutinously silent, so Regina continued. "We've been in a dither over why Stamford wouldn't court you, but he was occupied, slaking his manly lust with her. She has the morals of an alley cat, just like her mother."

Melanie bristled. "After all our kindnesses toward you!"

"She fancied him to be in love with her. With
her!
Can you believe it?"

"Don't say so, Mother. I can't bear it."

"He liked her more than you; he wanted her more than you. Her! The daughter of a whore."

"How dare you!" Melanie seethed.

"Harlot!" Regina hissed.

She raised her cane and cracked it across Kate's face. Kate hadn't expected the blow, so she was unprepared. The rod smacked against bone, and she crumpled to the floor, a whimpering ball of shocked agony.

Regina brought it down, over and over, whipping it across Kate's shoulders, buttocks, and legs, reveling in how each strike landed with precision. To her credit,

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Cheryl Holt

Kate didn't resist the beating, but stoically accepted the punishment as her due. Regina kept on, until her arm was tired, until she was perspiring from the effort. In disgust, she stepped away and tossed the cane on the rug. Kate remained huddled on the floor, too stunned to move.

"You can't stop now," Melanie complained. "She has to pay for how badly she's behaved."

"She'll
pay
forever," Regina sneered.

"What will happen to her?"

"She's about to disappear, so she won't be back to plague us."

"Are you positive?"

"Trust me: She shan't return." Regina straightened her hair, her gown. "I don't want your brother to know about this. He can't have a chance to intervene. Don't tell him."

"As if I would," Melanie huffed. "Get her out of here. I'm sickened by the sight of her."

Regina fetched her coat and hat as she advised Melanie, "I've come to an agreement with Stamford."

"About what?"

"He's decided to have you, after all. The wedding is a week from today. In London."

Melanie was astonished and alarmed. "You can't be serious."

"I was never more so."

"When will he propose?"

"Propose?"

"Yes. When will he ask for my hand?"

Girl
s
—
w
ith their foolish, romantic notions! "He's a busy man. He doesn't have time for such folderol."

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"But I’ve been planning on it!" she griped. "I've selected the dress I'll wear for the occasion and everything. I'll just die if he doesn't!"

After so many trying hours, Regina was in no mood for Melanie's whining. She pulled herself up to her full height. "You'll marry him, and you'll be happy about it."

Defiantly, Melanie contended, "If he doesn't propose, I won't go through with it. You'll never make me. Never in a thousand years!"

Regina was still roiling from the thrashing she'd administered, and briefly, she considered using the cane on Melanie. Where had the child located the nerve to be so rebellious?

"We'll see
,”
Regina threatened, but took no action. In her current state, she couldn't predict of what she might be capable.

She spun away and grabbed Kate by the arm, hauling her to her feet. She was battered and bruised, a cut oozing on her cheek, and she sucked in a tortured breath.

Good! Perhaps her ribs were broken.

"We're leaving the house," Regina notified her. "Will you walk out on your own, or shall I drag you like the rubbish you are?"

“I’ll
walk," Kate mumbled.

"We'll utilize the rear stairs. You'll acknowledge no one; you'll talk to no one. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

Regina started out, aggravated by Kate's slow and unsteady strides. She lugged her along, wanting only to be finished with the entire sordid business.