One Moonlit Night (Moonlight Square: A Prequel Novella) (10 page)

Oh damn,
he thought, trembling, as he finally reached the grim realization that something serious was happening to him where she was concerned.

He pushed those dangerous thoughts away and lay back down, but he couldn’t fall asleep again.

# # #

It was midmorning when he crossed Moonlight Square to call on her.

The maid who had been with her on the day he’d shared Katrina’s ice cream answered the door and told him the lady was out in the garden.

“Just go through the passage, sir,” she instructed, and while he did so, walking down the shady path between the elegant townhouses to knock on the quaint garden gate, the maid rushed out there, as well, playing chaperone again.

Thankfully, the lady’s maid was unobtrusive—unlike the several heads of Katrina’s younger sisters furtively peering out the window above, trying to spy on them.

“Hullo, neighbor,” he greeted her, his heart lifting at the sight of her tending a yellow-flowered bush of Scotch broom, garden snippers in hand. A wide-brimmed straw hat protected her face from the sun, and the gauzy ends of the flowered scarf tied around its crown billowed in the light morning breeze.

His gaze moved softly over her. She was as pretty as the primroses blooming in the border by her feet, but Gable did not say so. He did not wish to seem like some idiotic lovelorn swain as he leaned his elbows casually atop the waist-high gate.

“Why, hullo there!” she called back brightly. “Oh, come in, come in! You don’t have to stand out there!”

She rose from her knees, dusted off the apron she wore over her skirts, and came toward him with a broad smile. He accepted the invitation, letting himself into the family’s small but pleasant garden.

She propped her hands on her waist as he walked toward her. “What are you doing here?” she asked with a jaunty air, reaching down to snap a dead bloom off a red geranium in an urn nearby.

“Does a friend really need a reason to call?” he countered, still amused and yet wincing over that “friend” speech she had given him.

Usually, he was the one offering up such sentiments. It worked well as an apologetic
cheerio
to overzealous lovers of whom he had tired, or to those who were becoming too attached.

The funny thing was, Katrina had actually meant the words just the way she had said them. He liked that about her. She was frank and unpretentious. But there was one mystery… How was it that she seemed to grow more beautiful every time they met?

“So what’s all this, then?” he inquired to get the conversation going, since, admittedly, there was a little awkwardness between them.

She glanced around at the garden. “It’s such a fine day, I thought I would do little puttering out here.”

He smiled. “Having fun?”

“Loads. I’m taking a break from wedding duties. It’s a madhouse in there.” When she glanced toward her house, she must have caught sight of her sisters eavesdropping, for she frowned at the window.

When Gable glanced up, the little heads had disappeared.

Katrina shook off her obvious vexation at the spies and looked back at him. “We’ve been working round the clock on wedding business,” she said. “My sisters and I have been writing our fingers off with the invitations. You’ll receive one, too.”

He furrowed his brow. “I don’t even know your sister.”

“Ahem, but my father and yours are political allies, remember?” she asked pertly.

He snorted. “Right. How could I forget?”

She shrugged. “A wedding is political in some ways.”

He gave her a long-suffering look. “You have just described my entire week.”

She flashed a smile and gestured at the pleasant wooden bench under a trellis dripping with purple blooms of wisteria. “Shall we sit?”

They did, while her maid took up her prim post on the backstairs across the garden from them, keeping them discreetly in view.

She needn’t have worried; Gable was on his best behavior. He flipped the tails of his light brown coat out behind him and sat down beside Katrina.

“Did I mention I’m to be the maid of honor?” she remarked as she drew off her thick gardening gloves.

He looked askance at her. “Does that bother you?”

“No. Why would it? Oh…because of my own status?” She paused, mulling the question, then shrugged. “I suppose it hurts a little. But I’m not letting it bother me. It’s my sister’s happiness that counts. She and her intended are very much in love. As it should be,” she added with a meaningful glance.

Gable just looked at her.

“Well? How goes the search?”

He let out a sigh. “Abysmal. Have you by chance changed your mind yet?”

“You retracted the offer, remember? To protect me from your wicked ways.”

“I’ll retract my retraction.”

“You’re still wicked, though.”

“Depends on who you compare me to.” He stretched his legs out before him and looked at his boots. “This isn’t very nice of you, you know. I accept
you
for who you are. Why can’t you do the same for me? I still think it would work out quite nicely for us, if you could.”

“Ah, I see. That way, you get everything you want, while I’m leg-shackled to a philanderer? That hardly seems fair.”

“You could have an affair with Lord Hayworth to spite me. I’m jesting!” he protested, even as she smacked him in the thigh with her gardening gloves.

“That’s not funny!”

“Ow!” he said, laughing.

“It didn’t hurt.” She tried to scowl at him. “How’s your arm?”

“Much better, thanks. Actually, that’s why I came to see you. Somehow I forgot to tell you the most important thing about the duel. That I took your advice and apologized.”

“I had heard that,” she admitted with a begrudging smile. “’Twas very sensible of you.”

“Well, I think it saved my life, so I owe you.”

“You could buy me an ice cream sometime.”

He smiled at her.

She smiled back, studying him. “What made you change your mind about apologizing to him?”

He pondered this. “Guilt. Pity. Remorse. A craven desire not to die.”

“Well, I’m proud of you,” she declared, though he wasn’t sure for what. Then she paused. “I heard you met my friend Felicity—Miss Carvel. I heartily approve,” she added. “She is the best of women.”

He thought he detected the barest hint of jealousy in her voice, despite her praise for her friend.

Gable shrugged. “Even if she is, I’m not going anywhere near the girl. I have no desire to end up in another duel,” he said with a shudder.

“How’s that?” she asked in surprise.

“Friend of mine seems to have a prior claim of some sort.”

“Really?” she exclaimed, and when he nodded in amusement, she narrowed her eyes. “Hmm. This friend wouldn’t happen to be the Duke of Netherford, would it?”

“Aha, do you know something about it?” he asked in conspiratorial humor.

“Not a thing. But I’ve noticed they do react strangely to each other.”

“I know!” He sat up straighter from his lazy pose. “You should’ve seen the look he gave me when I danced with her. You’d better not say anything to Miss Carvel about it, though.”

“I don’t dare. She’s a little intimidating. Very prim and proper.”

“She is a bit starchy, isn’t she?” he agreed. “Of course, Netherford could make short work of that.”

She giggled as she met his knowing glance.

“So here we are,” Gable said quietly after a moment of sitting in companionable silence. He looked over at her. “I’ve missed you.”

She looked sharply at him, as though startled by the admission, then she hesitated, nodding. “I’ve missed you, too.”

They gazed at each other for a long moment.

“So where does that leave us?” she whispered.

“That is entirely up to you,” he answered just as softly. “I still want to marry you.”
More than ever.
“But please decide soon. I have less two and a half weeks left.”

“Surely your father isn’t really going to hold you to this arbitrary time limit.”

“You don’t know my father,” he said. “The bills he brings up in Parliament are just a shadow of the innumerable laws that filled my childhood. Making the rules is what the Earl of Sefton does, dear. Believe me, it burns me to have to dance to his tune yet again. But then, I don’t fancy penury.” He glanced earnestly at her. “Please reconsider.”

He could see she was weakening as she held his gaze for a heartbeat longer.

But then she sighed, looked away, and shook her head. “My lord, we’ve already discussed this. Frankly, it doesn’t sound to me like you’ve even given these girls a chance. Not that I think it’s wise to marry anyone for money, mind you, or even for a castle—yes, I know everybody does it, unless they get
really
lucky, like my sister. But if you want my advice, since it saved you last time, there you have it: Get to know these young ladies a bit better before you cast them all aside. Dig a little deeper.”

“You don’t understand, Katrina. If I start courting any one of them in earnest, next thing you know, there will be expectations. I don’t want to do to some poor girl what Cecil Cooper did to you.”

“Oh,” she muttered. “Good point.”

He rested his arm on the back of the bench and studied her, sensing progress. “You can see I’m out of my depth here. If you don’t want me for yourself, won’t you at least help me look? It could be fun,” he said. “And your advice has already saved my life once, as you noted.”

She looked at him incredulously. “You want me to help you pick a wife?”

“Why not? You could help me research…? Well, it’s not as if you care who I marry!”

She scoffed and looked away. “That’s not true and you know it.”

“It seems true.”

She turned to him again, looking vexed. “You think this is easy for me?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No! You’re very hard to say no to, actually,” she said.

“Then say yes,” he suggested in a murmur.

She gave him a subtle warning look and turned away, though the very air was charged between them.

He kept thinking of his dream, running his hands all over her body, making her gasp and heave with pleasure.

“You can change your mind, you know,” he coaxed her. “That’s what women
do
.”

“I am not most women,” she said in a tone as prickly as the nearby rosebushes, rich with leaves but not yet ready to bloom. “If you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I have. But I still don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do. You are merely being obtuse.”

Now he was getting vexed, too. He sat up straight again. “I see. So the single life makes you so very happy?”

“It makes you happy, doesn’t it?” she retorted.

The question took him off guard. Because the answer that sprang immediately to mind was not the one he would’ve expected only last week or the week before.

It dawned on him as they stared at each other, mutually irked, that all this time, all his conquests and peccadilloes had merely been a way to drown out the loneliness.

The bone-chilling realization quite routed him as the unsettling reality sank in. He looked away, shook his head, and rose. “Well, dear one, I don’t wish to overstay my welcome.” He turned around and sketched a bow. “Enjoy your day.”

“Gable.”

He turned with an inquiring look, his mask of mild-mannered savoir faire back firmly in place.

“Are you angry at me now?” she asked softly.

He succumbed to a rueful half-smile. “Never. But I do seem to get more than I bargained for whenever I see you, my fair neighbor.”

“Here. Take this for your pains.” She reached into the roomy pocket of her white work apron and handed him a delicate little sprig of forget-me-nots that she had clipped. “I was going to make a wee bouquet for my room, but you take it for your boutonniere. The blue will match your eyes. Get it into water soon,” she added.

He took it from her with a wistful half-smile and tucked it into his buttonhole, a glimmer of roguery in his eyes. “I’d really rather have another kiss.”

A startled laugh burst from her rosy lips. “Not from me!” she shot back as her cheeks turned pink.

“Your loss,” he murmured with a smile, holding her gaze a moment longer in intimate remembrance of their kiss that enchanting night at the gazebo.

She seemed to be remembering it, too. He thrilled to the attraction that thrummed between them as she licked her lips unconsciously. The wave of desire passing behind her eyes hinted that at least she was tempted on that point. Well, of course, Gable thought wryly. That part had always been his forte.

He wondered, in a moment’s fleeting cynical vanity, if perhaps she had taken his suggestion and asked one of his worldly ex-lovers what he was like in bed.

But on second thought, no. The virginal Katrina would be too embarrassed to ask anybody any such thing.

That’s not why she wouldn’t ask them, you idiot,
his better sense muttered in the back of his mind, sounding rather exasperated with him.
She wouldn’t ask because she wouldn’t want to
know
about your escapades with other women.