Regency Debutantes (65 page)

Ravensmede drew a mocking smile at his grandmother. ‘Perhaps then you will agree to let me travel awhile inside the carriage, instead of banishing me to the road.’

‘The fresh air is good for you, boy,’ she said. ‘Besides, I thought you enjoyed riding.’

He raised an eyebrow and glanced across at Kathryn, before refilling all three glasses with claret.

Kathryn concentrated on watching the pale red liquid slosh against the glass. Within her chest her heart had kicked up to a canter. She ignored it, along with the peculiar battle of wills that seemed to be going on between Ravensmede and his grandmother. ‘May I suggest an early night, my lady. You must be very tired and tomorrow will be more fatiguing than today.’

For once the dowager appeared to be in agreement. With a shrewd expression she patted Kathryn’s hand. ‘Go on ahead, gel. I shall not be long. Just want to finish m’wine, then I’ll be up.’

Kathryn nodded and began to rise, but Nicholas was there before her. ‘I’ll escort Miss Marchant to her room.’

The blush in Kathryn’s cheeks intensified. The flurry of her heart hastened. One glance up into those green eyes that glowed so bright beneath the flickering flame of the candles and she froze, for there was everything of intimacy and possession in Nicholas’s gaze. It was as if a hand reached in and squeezed Kathryn’s heart. ‘Really, there is no need, my lord.’ She felt his fingers brush her arm, felt too the instinctive sway of her body towards his. ‘I—’

The dowager interrupted. ‘Kathryn is right, Nick. Besides, I want a word with you.’ She fixed a belligerent eye upon her grandson.

Kathryn’s eyes shuttered for the briefest moment. Every nerve in her body was vibrating and taut. What she had feared was about to pass. For Kathryn could not shake the unassailable conviction that Lady Maybury knew. As surely as they were sitting here within the little parlour, as surely as the attraction that flowed between Nicholas and herself, the dowager knew. Why else was the tension wound so tight between the three of them? Dread weighed heavy on her chest. She rose swiftly to her feet, unwilling for either Lady Maybury or Lord
Ravensmede to witness her fear. ‘Thank you, my lady.’ With every last scrap of dignity that Kathryn possessed she turned and, without a backward glance, walked quietly from the room.

‘Well?’ said the dowager.

‘Well?’ said her grandson.

‘Enough is enough, Nicholas. Don’t think to fob me off this time with some tale of “there’s nothing going on”. I’m not in m’dotage yet, and I’d have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to see what’s right in front of m’very nose.’

‘I have not compromised her, nor do I intend to,’ said Ravensmede.

‘You came damn near to doing so. If it ever gets out that she visited you alone in your bedchamber, then I can assure you that she’ll be well and truly ruined…and even I won’t be able to save her.’

Ravensmede was genuinely shocked. ‘You knew?’

‘Of course I knew. What do you take me for, some kind of gibbering idiot? You’ve been looking at her like you’re going to eat her. Why else do you think I’ve had to resort to guarding the gel night and day? Shouldn’t have to do it from m’own grandson.’

His fingers raked through his hair. ‘It’s not what you think.’

‘It’s everything that I think and more. Hell’s teeth, Nick, I thought you had some semblance of care for her. Couldn’t you have just kept your breeches on for once?’

‘They’ve never been off,’ he protested, and then he remembered that he had been wearing his nightshirt the day that Kathryn had come to his bedchamber.

A snowy white eyebrow raised and a faded green eye stared hard.

‘You’re much mistaken, Grandmama.’

‘Faugh! I know a seduction when I see one.’

‘Grandmama,’ He pushed the glass away.

‘You might not have a care for the gel, Nick, but I’ll be
damned if I just sit back and let you ruin her in a public inn of all places, and make a fool of me in the process.’ The faded eyes flashed their angry determination.

He lounged back in his chair. ‘Contrary to what you think, I care very much for Kathryn,’ he said quietly. ‘Do you honestly think I would seek to ruin the lady whom I mean to make my wife?’

Lady Maybury’s jaw gaped. ‘Did you say
wife?’

‘Most certainly so.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Evidently not.’

‘But…’ The dowager shook her head in disbelief, unable to finish what she had started. A silence grew between them, and then, at last, Lady Maybury asked, ‘Does Kathryn know of your intentions?’

Ravensmede’s mouth crooked. ‘For some strange reason I have been unable to find Miss Marchant alone these past weeks to ask her.’

‘Well, I wasn’t to know. I thought you were planning on bedding her!’ said his grandmother indignantly.

‘So you won’t be insisting on my riding tomorrow?’

‘Only if you behave yourself,’ said the dowager. ‘You aren’t home and dry yet. Better have a care until the ring’s on her finger.’

‘You’re taking the news remarkably well.’

‘I find myself resolved to the situation. She might be m’companion and without a penny to her name, but she’s got breeding; anyone with an eye in their head can see that. Besides, I like the gel. She’s good for you.’

Ravensmede set his napkin down on the table. ‘I’m glad we agree.’

‘However, there is Miss Paton to consider.’

‘Any possibility of an alliance between Miss Paton and me existed only in m’father’s head.’

‘Your father won’t agree.’

‘So much the better.’ He paused. ‘My father might protest, but he’ll be relieved that I’ve chosen to marry at all.’

‘If you say so, Nick. But the sooner you tell him about Kathryn the better.’

Ravensmede smiled, but gave no reply.

‘You know, of course, there’s bound to be gossip. It’s not every day one’s grandson marries one’s companion.’

‘There’s always gossip.’

‘Not about my family there isn’t!’ The dowager peered haughtily at him.

Ravensmede laughed. ‘The tabbies wouldn’t dare discuss my misdemeanours in your presence, Grandmama. They’re really rather afraid of you.’

‘I don’t know why!’ she snorted, but the glimmer of a smile touched to her lips. Then the smile faded. ‘If you marry her, you’ll find yourself related to Henry and Anna Marchant. You cannot alter the fact that they are her uncle and aunt.’

‘The Marchants have no part in Kathryn’s life now, nor will they do so in the future. I mean to see to that.’

‘Then, your mind’s made up.’

‘Yes, Grandmama, my mind’s made up.’

They looked at one another in silence for a moment.

‘To Kathryn, the future Viscountess of Ravensmede.’

Clink of glasses in a toast, and then the wine was drained, and the small private parlour stood empty.

T
he next morning, when it came time to depart, Ravensmede was in the process of escorting Kathryn and his grandmother out to the waiting carriage when they came face to face with a lady and gentleman known to them from London.

‘Mr and Mrs Parker.’ Ravensmede bowed politely.

Ernest Parker’s chubby cheeks took on a ruddy hue. ‘Lord Ravensmede, Lady Maybury. Arrived last night from town, travelling down for a brief sojourn in Brighthelmstone. Emily has a notion to try one of those bathing contraptions.’ His wife’s head nodded in the most peculiar manner and she seemed to be having difficulty in meeting the Viscount’s gaze.

‘We too have been enjoying the delights of Brighthelmstone.’ The dowager smiled. ‘May I introduce my companion, Miss Marchant.’ An elderly hand of surprising strength thrust Kathryn forward.

Emily Parker’s expression froze into one of horror. For one awkward minute there was silence. Then, without even so much as a glance in Kathryn’s direction, Mrs Parker grabbed her husband’s arm in a lock that would have crushed a smaller man, and announced, ‘Dear Lady Maybury, I’m afraid we really must leave. Please do excuse us.’ And with that she practically ran across the courtyard, dragging her husband in her wake.

Ernest Parker cast a silent appeal at Lord Ravensmede. ‘Your servant, sir,’ came the gruff utterance as he disappeared into the carriage.

‘Well, of all the most ninny-headed females, Emily Parker must take the biscuit!’ said Lady Maybury with a scowl. ‘Such an appalling lack of manners, I’m not surprised she’s not invited anywhere of consequence.’

Ravensmede cast a curious look at the Parkers’ carriage, but the door had been shut and the curtain closed across the window.

The dowager’s breast puffed dangerously towards high dudgeon. ‘How dare she slight m’companion. Kathryn’s got more breeding in her little toe than that creature shall ever have!’

‘My lady,’ cajoled Kathryn from the lady’s side, ‘I’m not in the least offended. No doubt it is still too early in the morning for Mrs Parker.’

Lady Maybury seemed marginally calmed by Kathryn’s words and allowed herself to be steered across the yard to the waiting carriage.

The landlord’s predictions concerning the weather proved to be true. The day was quite the foulest that the summer had seen. Blustery cold winds and one heavy rain shower after the other slowed their journey considerably. The roads were muddied and filled with expanding puddles, the sky grey and forbidding with rain.

In contrast to her behaviour of the past fortnight, Lady Maybury showed not the slightest objection to her grandson sitting within the carriage beside her and her companion. Indeed, she positively encouraged Lord Ravensmede’s presence, something of which Kathryn could only be glad on seeing the deterioration in the weather conditions. And rather than keeping a close scrutiny upon his person as she had taken to doing of late, the dowager was not five minutes into the journey when she fell asleep beneath her mound of travelling rugs. The snuffle of her snore competed with the rumble of the wheels and the pounding of the horses’ hooves.

Kathryn looked at Nicholas.

Nicholas looked at Kathryn sitting at Lady Maybury’s side.

He seeming to fill the whole of the carriage with his presence just by sitting on the seat opposite.

‘At last,’ he said.

Kathryn’s gaze flickered towards the dowager.

‘My grandmother is an extremely heavy sleeper.’

A tremor of panic fluttered through her.

Something of her feelings must have shown on her face, for Lord Ravensmede moved back to lounge against the squabs. ‘I only wish to speak to you.’ The smouldering intensity in his green eyes sent a shiver of anticipation from the top of her head down to the very tips of her toes. He did not look like he wanted to talk to her. Everything about his long lean body seemed poised to pull her into his arms and ravage her mouth with his. A lazy lop-sided smile spread across his face and he stretched out his legs so that his booted shins brushed against her skirt.

She waited.

‘When you came to my bedchamber in Brighthelmstone—’

‘Nicholas…’ Her throat was dry and his name little more than a whisper. Her eyes flicked nervously towards the sleeping form of the dowager. ‘We do not need to discuss this.’

‘I think that we do,’ he said.

She gave a little shake of her head, and a curl escaped down to drizzle against her cheek. ‘Things need not change.’

‘They already have.’

‘We could be friends just as we were before,’ she said, grasping at straws.

He sat upright and leaned forward, oblivious to the shake and heave of the carriage. ‘We both know that there is much more than friendship between us, Kathryn.’

The breaths came small and fast and shallow in her chest. Her gaze dropped to the floor. ‘There should not be.’

‘Should
does not enter into it. There is, and it’s clear that you cannot remain as my grandmother’s companion for much longer.’

She raised startled eyes to his. ‘I would not hurt Lady Maybury.’

‘Neither would I.’

‘Then why…’

‘You know why,’ he said and, reaching across, laid his hand over hers.

His touch was light yet possessive. He was right. Kathryn knew very well the answer to her question. He could not take his grandmother’s companion as his mistress.

The noise of hooves and wheels and rain and snores filled the minutes.

‘There is something that I want to ask you.’

Her heart lurched. She withdrew her hand from his, her fingers stumbling to the skirt of her travelling dress and gripping for dear life at the material. She knew what he was going to ask, had known it for quite some time. Now that the moment had come she feared that her courage had deserted her. It was one thing to be drawn into it while in the throes of passion; it was quite another to agree to it in the cold light of day. An arrangement. To suit them both. He desired her. She loved him. And for the sake of that love she would bear the shame that being his mistress would bring. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. For all that had passed between them, for all that she had tried to convince herself, she knew that if he asked her here, sitting in his travelling coach, with his grandmother asleep by her side, she would refuse him.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Do not say it.’

A curious expression flitted across his face. ‘But you don’t yet know yet what I mean to ask.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Even so, I would not have you ask it here, in front of Lady Maybury. That…that would not be right.’

A dark eyebrow arched in the familiar gesture that she had come to know and love, and he subjected her to a long knowing scrutiny. When at last he spoke there was a gentleness to his words. ‘I’ll warrant my question is not the one you expect it to be,
Kathryn. But…’ he captured her hand again in his and stroked his thumb against her skin ‘…if you would prefer I took a more conventional route with my proposal then so be it. I will wait until we reach London.’

She blushed and stared down at where their hands joined. ‘Thank you.’

The coach rumbled on. The rain continued to pour. The dowager’s snoring grew louder. Nicholas watched Kathryn. Kathryn watched the passing countryside…until they reached London.

The next morning was fine and warm, with no sign of the unseasonable weather of the previous day. Kathryn sat alone in the carriage, content with what she had found during her visit to young Maggie. The visit had distracted her thoughts from Nicholas and had been most enjoyable. The little girl’s pleasure at the doll made the selling of the last of Kathryn’s papa’s books worthwhile, and the tasty biscuits and cakes from the dowager had doubled both the child and her brothers’ pleasure. Beneath the warm golden sunlight Kathryn recalled the small hands pressed to hers and the laughter in those large pansy eyes. Maggie was a joyful delight for all her squeals and clambering.