Indiscreet (13 page)

“I am sorry about that,” Mr. Adams said. “But it will not be within the week?”

“No.” She felt panic threaten again. A week. What would she do after that? Where would she go? There was nothing and
nowhere and no one. She drew a deep and silent breath and held it for a few moments before releasing it slowly.

By that time they were leaving. But they did not do so before Mr. Adams assured her that he would call on her again and that he would make all right for her.

Was he God? None of this could ever be put right. Some wounds could never be healed.

Lady Baird did what Catherine had done for Miss Downes earlier. She hesitated and then hugged Catherine in the open doorway.

“I could kill Rex,” she said. “I could kill him.”

They climbed into the carriage, which had waited for them, and drove away.

Catherine closed the door again and leaned back against it. Surely now, she thought, the events of the day were finally over. Surely now there would be peace.

If there could be peace in her life ever again.

•   •   •

LORD
Pelham and Mr. Gascoigne had gone to Dunbarton in Cornwall to visit the Earl of Haverford. They had been feeling footloose and unwilling to go either to London or to Stratton. They had burdened Viscount Rawleigh with their presence there only a few weeks ago. They tried to persuade him to go with them, though neither was very insistent when he refused. He had not been good company on the journey south from Derbyshire.

They had sensed that his black mood was not something he might be teased out of. And so they had talked on neutral topics,
laughed and conversed about people and events and issues that had no connection with Bodley or the couple of weeks they had just spent there.

Viscount Rawleigh was not quite sure why he did not go with them to visit Ken. It was probably just what he needed—a change of scenery, a chance to be with his three closest friends without other obligations and other affections intruding.

But he found that he wanted only to get home to Stratton, where he might be alone to lick his wounds. Not that he would admit even to himself that there were wounds to lick. Women like Catherine Winters he could live without. The woman was a tease, whether she knew it or not. She had lured him into behaving shabbily, and he hated to be in the wrong over anything or anyone.

At Stratton he would forget about her. He would be in familiar surroundings, and there was always plenty of work to be done during the spring—when he was at home during spring, that was. He had a perfectly able steward, of course.

Life, since he had sold his commission, sometimes seemed almost frighteningly empty and purposeless.

A letter from Bodley had preceded his return. It was addressed in Claude's firm hand and lay accusingly on a silver salver where his eyes fell on it almost as soon as he had crossed his threshold. Doubtless it was a remonstrance on behalf of Clarissa for having jilted Ellen Hudson. But there had been no jilting, he thought irritably. There had been no courtship, except in his sister-in-law's determined imagination. He found the girl a bore and she found
him a terror—hardly the basis for a courtship, not to mention marriage.

But Claude, of course, always gentle and fair, would be punctilious about putting forward Clarissa's views even if they did not coincide with his own.

Lord Rawleigh left the letter on the tray in the hall until he had retired to his own apartments, enjoying a hot and leisurely bath, dozed for half an hour on his bed, and dressed for dinner. He took the letter into the dining room with him and glanced at it irritably from time to time as he ate.

He would have expected Claude of all people to recognize his need to cut himself off from family and Bodley for a while. He did not need a letter to remind him. And good Lord, Claude must have written it and sent it almost as soon as he and Nat and Eden had disappeared down the driveway.

He pulled it toward him eventually when there was only a glass of port left in front of him on the table. Just let Claude try to convince him that he was honor bound to offer for the girl. Just let him try!

A few minutes later he crumpled the opened letter in one hand and held on to it while he closed his eyes tightly. He did not move for a long while. When a footman tiptoed nervously toward the table to clear away a few more dishes, the butler motioned him with one thumb and they both left the dining room.

God!

He could not think straight.

There was really nothing to think about.

But he sat for many long minutes trying to convince himself that there was if only he could set his mind in motion.

When he left the dining room, his butler was hovering outside, trying to look busy.

“I'll be leaving for London at first light tomorrow morning, Horrocks,” Lord Rawleigh said. “I'll be going from there straight to Derbyshire. See that everything is arranged, will you?”

“Yes, m'lord.” The man made his bow. His impassive expression registered no surprise that his master was returning whence he had come only a few hours before.

“I will be taking the carriage,” his lordship said as he strode in the direction of the staircase.

“Yes, m'lord.”

•   •   •

MORE
than a week had passed. She knew that she could not procrastinate for much longer. She had pretended that she was making plans, that she had written letters and was awaiting replies. She had pretended that there were alternatives to explore, a quite dizzying number of attractive options to choose among.

In reality there was nothing. During the long hours she was alone, she merely sat, staring ahead, knowing that in the end she must simply leave her cottage and leave Bodley-on-the-Water and go.

But go where?

She must just pick a place on a map and go there, she told herself. But that was impossible. What would she do when she reached the chosen place? She received a small quarterly allowance. There was very little of this quarter's money left. Not enough to take her very far by stage. And even if she spent it all to go as far as she could, there would be none left at the end of the journey. Nothing with which to start her new life.

She could get employment, she supposed. After all, thousands of other women must find themselves in similar case. She could teach; she could cook; she could be a companion. But how did one come by employment? Advertise? She would not know how to go about doing it. Visit an employment agency? She would have to go to a large center to find one. Go from door to door, knocking and asking?

She had no previous employment, no references. Mr. Adams would give her a reference, she thought. So would Lady Baird. But she could not bring herself to ask them. She had already invented for their ears the myth of the large and loving and welcoming family. She could not bring herself to admit that it was all a lie. She could not bring herself to apply to them for assistance.

She could stay, of course. Mr. Adams had told her so more than once since that Saturday visit. And if she stayed, the yearly lease on the cottage would continue to be paid and her allowance would continue to be sent regularly. Those were the conditions—she would be supported for as long as she stayed in the place she herself had chosen. Any move would have to be well justified.

She knew that a move under the circumstances would not be
seen as justifiable. She was to live quietly and respectably. She was to draw no attention to herself. She was to be, to all intents and purposes, dead. If she remained dead she would be supported.

If she left, she would be destitute.

But she could not stay. Miss Downes, bless her heart, had called each day and had even invited her to visit Mrs. Downes. But she had declined the invitation. She would not make life harder for her only friends in the village than it must already be. And Mr. Adams and Lady Baird or Lady Baird and her husband had called each day too. Sir Clayton and Lady Baird even took her walking on two occasions, Sir Clayton between the two ladies, one on each arm. Once they walked south of the village for a mile or so, Toby running joyfully ahead of them—poor dog, he had been missing his exercise. Once, at Lady Baird's insistence, they had walked the length of the village and stood on the bridge for a while admiring the view before strolling back again. The street had miraculously cleared of people ahead of them.

But it was no good. She could not stay. How could she live in a village where she could not venture out alone? How would she shop for food? How could she live in a place where she was shunned just as if she had the plague?

The Reverend Lovering knocked on her door one day and made her a stiff and formal and pompous apology for the erroneous conclusion he had jumped to on that fateful night. But it was obvious to Catherine that he did so only because he was afraid of losing the patronage of Mr. Adams and therefore the living of Bodley. He did not call again. Mrs. Lovering did not call at all.

Catherine did not go to church on Sunday. She had missed two weeks in a row.

She had to leave.

But she did not know how it was physically to be done. She did not know how she was to walk out of her door, shut it behind her, and walk away to an unknown destination and an unknown future.

And so she procrastinated.

Lady Baird, with her maid in tow, had called on her during the morning. So had Miss Downes, bringing a book of sermons that her father had always enjoyed and recommended to his daughter's consolation. Perhaps Mrs. Winters would be comforted by them?

There seemed no one left to call, then. But someone knocked on the door late in the afternoon. Perhaps Mr. Adams? He was an extremely kind gentleman, though he had not been able to work the miracle in the village that he had promised. Catherine's feelings for him had grown during the week from respect to something resembling affection.

For just the merest fraction of a second after she had opened the door, she thought it really was Mr. Adams. But of course it was not. She hastily tried to shut the door. But his forearm shot up and held it open. They stared at each other for several silent moments.

“What are
you
doing here?” she demanded at last. It was only at that moment that she realized Lady Baird was standing behind him.

“Pitting my strength against yours to hold the door open,” he
said in his usual bored, rather haughty tone. “It is a battle you cannot win, Catherine. Let us in?”

She looked from him to Lady Baird, who was biting her lip and looking unhappy.

Toby was frisking about, panting but not barking, enjoying the company of three of his favorite people.

Catherine let go of the door and turned to lead the way to the parlor. But Lady Baird's voice, just behind her, stopped her.

“No,” she said. “You are more comfortable in the kitchen, I know, Mrs. Winters. I shall make myself comfortable in here. You go into the kitchen with Rex.”

Catherine turned without a word.

She was standing staring down into the fire when she heard the kitchen door close quietly behind her.

“W
ELL
,
Catherine,” he said.

In just over a week she had changed. She appeared to have lost weight. She had certainly lost color. She looked gaunt.

Of course, it was worse even than Claude's letter had indicated. It was not just the gossip and Clarissa's spiteful visit—not that Claude had called his wife spiteful. Apparently Catherine had been ostracized by almost all the community and she had been banished from the church by the Reverend Lovering and even publicly denounced by him on that first Sunday. It was true that Claude had insisted on an apology to Catherine, but the harm had been done. Besides, forced apologies were not worth a great deal.

She was standing now before the fire, her back to him, shapely
and beautiful, and looking rather fragile. He hated being here. He hated this whole situation. He felt so damned guilty. Consequently, unfair as he knew he was being, he resented her. He almost hated her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, as she had asked him at the outer door.

He could have said that he was standing in her kitchen as he had said earlier that he was holding her door open. But the time for facetiousness had passed.

“The answer should be rather obvious,” he said. “I have come to do the honorable thing, Catherine. I have come to marry you.”

He was surprised to hear her laugh, though it was true there was little amusement in the sound.

“What a wonderful, romantic proposal,” she said. “Am I now supposed to rush into your arms and gaze at you with stars in my eyes?”

“Not unless you wish to,” he said curtly. “We can hardly pretend that this situation is to the liking of either of us. But it is there and we must deal with it. We will marry.”

She turned to face him then. She looked at him without saying anything for a few moments. There were faint blue circles under her eyes. The eyes themselves seemed darker, more brown than hazel. Her lips were almost as pale a color as her cheeks.

“You must put very little value on marriage,” she said at last, “if you can be prepared to enter into it with so little feeling.”

Good God! He could remember thinking only a couple of weeks or so ago that perhaps in a way he was even more romantic than Claude, who had married for love at the age of twenty.
He himself had almost tumbled into marriage a few years ago, of course, but since then he had given up any thought of marrying. He could marry only if he found the perfect love, he had decided, but the older he got, the more he realized that there was no such thing as perfect love.

Yet now he must marry because animal appetite had made him indiscreet and he had compromised this woman.

“Feelings hardly matter,” he said, “when one considers the circumstances, Catherine. I gather you have become the scarlet woman of Bodley-on-the-Water.”

She did not look scarlet. She had grown paler if that were possible.

“That is my problem,” she said. “And I have not given you leave to use my given name.”

He clucked his tongue. “Do try not to be ridiculous,” he said.

She swung back to face the fire and dipped her head. Despite annoyance and frustration and a reluctance to be where he was, doing what must be done, he found himself admiring the elegant arch of her neck. At least, he thought with unwilling resignation, he would have a beautiful wife.

Wife!
The very word in his mind was enough to bring on a wave of panic. But he should be used to the word by now and the idea that he was to be a married man. He had known it for almost a week.

“Go away,” she said. “I want nothing to do with you or your offer.”

It would serve her right if he took her at her word and never came back, he thought grimly. And yet he could not order her to
confront reality. Her face was evidence enough that she had already done that. He looked around the kitchen, which she had made so cozy. Only her dog was missing from the rocker—he was with Daphne in the parlor. He had destroyed all this for her.

“Claude and Daphne tell me that you are planning to go to relatives,” he said.

“Yes,” she said after a moment's silence.

“Who?” he asked. “Where? Your husband's family or your own?”

“That is none of your concern,” she said.

“As far as Claude knows,” he said, “none of them have ever visited you here and you have visited none of them. In—five years, is it? You must be a very close family for the bonds to have held through such a long separation. Are you quite sure they will be willing to take in a scarlet woman?”

“I am not that,” she said. “You know it. Besides, they love me.”

She must have suffered quite badly during the past week and a half. If there were a family, loving or otherwise, would she not have gone to them before now?

“There is no family, is there?” he asked.

She hunched her shoulders but did not answer him.

“If you leave here,” he said, “where will you go? What will you do?”

She would start all over again, he supposed, in another village, knowing no one. It would not be easy. He wondered why she had done it five years ago. Had there been some quarrel with her husband's family or her own? Or was she one of the unfortunates
who really had no family at all? And yet, surely there must have been some friends, of her own or of her husband's.

Catherine Winters, his future wife, was certainly something of a mystery.

She did not answer his question.

“You have no choice,” he said. “You will marry me, Catherine. As the Viscountess Rawleigh no one will dare ostracize you. If any do, they will have me to deal with.”

She was hugging herself with her arms. “I do have a choice,” she said.

He made a sound of impatience.

“You are right,” she said. “There is no family to go to. And if I leave here, I will lose— I will have no means with which to support myself.”

What the devil? He frowned.

“I will not marry you,” she said. “But I was offered employment not so long ago. I might take that now if the position is still open.”

“What position?” He should be glad that some solution seemed about to present itself, one that would leave him free. He should not be feeling this irritability.

“Mistress,” she said. “You offered me the position more than once.”

He stared at her back incredulously. “You will not marry me?” he said. “But you will be my mistress?”

“Yes.” Her voice was quite firm.

“Why?” For some reason he felt furiously angry.

“It would be a business arrangement,” she said. “It could be
ended at any time by either of us. I would just ask, please, that there be some settlement agreed upon if you are the one to end it—provided I have given good service, of course.”

Provided— Devil take it, she sounded as if she was applying for the position of housemaid or secretary. And he had offered to make her his
wife
!

She turned to face him again and looked him calmly in the eye. “I need employment,” she said. “Is your offer still good?”

His
sister
was across the narrow passageway, a mere few feet away, waiting for the official confirmation of his betrothal. His brother was waiting at Bodley for the same news. All of them were preparing to go into action as soon as this formality of an offer was over with, letting it be known that his relationship with Catherine Winters during his stay at Bodley had been a courtship, that his short absence had been for the purpose of traveling to London for a special license so that his nuptials would not have to be delayed one day longer than was necessary.

They were to be depicted as a couple deeply, perhaps not too cautiously in love. Head over ears.

And she was calmly offering herself as his mistress.

“Yes.” He strode toward her. “Yes, by God, it is.” He grabbed her none too gently by the waist—she surely had lost weight—and jerked her against him. He took her mouth rather savagely, thrusting his tongue deep inside, moving it in a deliberate simulation of copulation.

By God, if she was going to be his mistress, she would earn her keep. He was furious with her.

She was not impassive. She bent her body to his. Her arms
came about him, one about his waist, the other about his shoulders. She held her mouth wide for him. Her eyes were closed. But her temperature did not soar with his own. She was already a mistress, performing her duty.

Damn her!

“I will return tonight,” he said, looking down into her eyes without releasing his hold of her. “Be ready for me and get some rest before I come. You look as if you need it. We will discover how good you are and how quickly you learn.”

She did not flinch. He did not even realize that he had spoken deliberately to make her do so until she did not.

“I will be ready, my lord,” she said.

“
Rex
, damn you.” He
never
swore in the hearing of women.

“Tomorrow we will leave,” he said. “I will set you up in London with your own house and servants and carriage. You are going up in the world, Catherine Winters. You will like London.”

Something flickered in her eyes. “No,” she said. “Not London.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not London?” he said. “Where, then, pray?”

“Not London,” she said.

“I suppose,” he said, “you expect me to take you to Stratton Park and set you up in a cozy apartment there. It would be wonderfully convenient, I must confess, but a trifle scandalous, perhaps. I might find that I had put myself beyond the pale. Or perhaps you think to stay here? You would expect me to travel to Derbyshire every time I wish to bed you?”

For the first time her face had flushed. “I know what is expected of a mistress,” she said. “But not London, please.”

Was that fear he saw in her eyes for a moment? She lowered them immediately and dropped her arms rather awkwardly to her sides. He released her and crossed the room to look out the kitchen window at her back garden and the river beyond. He had expected this all to be accomplished within a couple of minutes at the longest. Daphne must be wondering what was taking so long.

“This will just not do, Catherine,” he said. “If I come here tonight, someone is bound to see me. I am sure your cottage has become a favorite focus for watchers. That is why I brought Daphne with me this afternoon. And the fact of my return will not have gone unnoticed. If you drive away with me tomorrow morning, many people will see. Your reputation will be gone without recall. That cannot be what you want.”

She laughed but said nothing.

“I cannot allow it,” he said. “I compromised you. I must make amends. No, I will not take you as my mistress. Only as my wife.”

There was silence behind him.

“Well?” he prompted at last, half turning to look at her.

She was standing where he had left her, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes closed.

“My choices have all been taken from me, have they not?” she said.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

And his own too. But he had known that his had all gone as soon as he had read Claude's letter. He was almost accustomed
to the fact by now. Almost, but not quite. He was to live the rest of his life in a loveless marriage. It was not a thought to be dwelled upon.

“That seems to have been settled at last, then,” he said briskly. “We will be married tomorrow. Here. By the Reverend Lovering. It will be necessary for the restoring of your reputation.”

Her eyes widened. “Tomorrow?” she said.

“I brought a special license with me,” he said. “I realized the necessity of marriage before I came here. It will be here tomorrow in the presence of my brother and sister. There is no one you wish to invite?”

She had paled again. “Your special license will be invalid,” she said.

What now? He frowned at her.

“You had to have my name on it?” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “Catherine Winters, widow. Catherine with a
C
. Correct?”

She looked down at her spread hands for a moment and then directly at him again. “I am not a widow,” she said. “I have never been married. And my last name is not Winters. It is Winsmore.” Her eyes watched his warily.

Good Lord!

She was a lady, very obviously. What the devil was a
single
lady doing living alone among virtual strangers? And masquerading under a false name and a false status.

A lady he was about to marry.

“Perhaps,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “you would care to tell me your story,
Miss Winsmore
.”

“No,” she said. “That is all you need to know. You may withdraw your marriage offer if you wish. I will not hold you to it. It was made, after all, to someone who does not exist.”

He stared at her for a few moments before striding to the door, jerking it open, and calling to his sister, who was talking to Toby—or herself.