Sally James (9 page)

'Who was it? That country bumpkin I saw you with earlier?' Adam asked curtly.

'You saw me?' Kate asked, amazed.

 'Twice. Who is he?'

'But - if you saw me, why didn't you say something?' Kate demanded, bewildered.

‘Why? Did you wish to greet me?'

'I didn’t wish to greet your - companions!' she said furiously.

'In the plural?' Adam asked silkily, and his grip on her hands tightened.

'No,' Kate raged. 'Just the one. Your mistress!'

Then she bit her lip. Why on earth had she said that? What did she care how Adam amused himself. It was probably pique because the beauty had not, at their only meeting, got her name right. Such a stupid, petty reason for disliking someone. Or could it be that the girl was so incredibly lovely, and she was jealous?

Before Kate could explore these disturbing thoughts Adam spoke. His tone was harsh and contemptuous.

'Before you condemn other people for their supposed behaviour you need both to make certain of your facts, and to be sure that your own actions are above reproach.'

'I've done nothing wrong!'

'Apart from getting castaway - '

'That's a monstrous lie! I am not in the least drunk!' she shot back, struggling to break his grip on her.

'You were staggering all over the place, and only stayed on your feet because that bumpkin was almost carrying you! I've never before seen such a deplorable exhibition by a lady of supposed quality!'

Kate's face flamed and she was grateful for the concealing darkness. She knew there was a grain of truth in his accusations. She had not been completely sober, and while Martin had not been carrying her, she had been grateful of his support for her unsteady steps.

'He was not carrying me,' she said fiercely. 'And I was not in the least tipsy.'

'Then your action in accompanying him to a secluded spot like this, designed for seduction, was even more reprehensible.'

She could hardly explain she'd wanted to escape from him, from his notice.

'I just wanted to sit down.'

'You'd soon have been lying down if I hadn't followed you, with that oaf on top of you,' he added in biting tones.

'I would not! How dare you say that to me!'

'I dare because I found you struggling with him. Didn't you enjoy his kisses? Had you bitten off more than you could manage? Did you really imagine that, once you'd inflamed a man by such blatant encouragement, he'd meekly stop when you decided you'd had enough?'

Kate shivered. Adam must have felt it because his grasp slackened, and he put one arm round her shoulders.

'Poor Kate, didn't you enjoy it?' he asked. Suddenly his mood changed and he chuckled.

She shuddered, recalling that loathsome kiss, and suddenly found herself in Adam's arms.

'Let me go!' she said, her voice rising in panic.

'You needn't fear I have any desire to seduce you,' Adam said soothingly. 'I simply intend to give you a lesson on how to distinguish between a crude attempt at seduction, and the attentions of a more skilled lover.'

Before she could reply his lips descended on hers, warm and firm and dry, not slack and wet like Martin's had been. She tensed, but he was holding her pressed close against him, and she hadn't the strength to push him off. Besides, his arms felt even stronger than Martin's, and she knew with fatalistic certainty that she stood no chance whatsoever of fighting free.

When he did no more than hold her still, and gently explore her lips with his own, she gradually relaxed. One part of her mind still raged at being forced into this undignified position, but another acknowledged that the sensation was pleasant, remarkably so. She began to feel a stirring deep inside her of the same frisson of longing she had felt when Adam had thought she was a milkmaid, been so furious with her, and kissed her so roughly.

Then his lips became more insistent, and as she parted hers to protest she felt his tongue trace the outline of her lips, delicate and inviting, not rough and crude as Martin's embrace had been. She gasped in surprise, and then had no more time for anything but obedient submission to the delectable sensations his exploring tongue evoked. Hesitantly, without conscious volition, the tip of her tongue wavered to meet his, and all her senses leapt with the tingling shock of the contact.

Abruptly Adam released her. She felt cold and abandoned, coming down to stark reality slowly and reluctantly.

'That is how you ought to be kissed,' Adam said, and his voice was icily cool. 'When you make love to a man next time, remember how kisses ought to be exchanged.'

Distraught, furious and embarrassed, Kate turned and blundered out of the pavilion. By good fortune she found the path and ran along it without falling, until she came to a lighted alley where people were still strolling along.

Conscious of her rather dishevelled state, Kate slowed to a walk. She began to go towards the centre of the Gardens, unthinkingly making her way back to the supper booth. Then she stopped, so suddenly that a couple behind her almost cannoned into her.

How could she return to face Martin? She did not even want to see him again. Yet if she did not return to him, what could she do? She had no money, she could not hire a carriage to take her home. She wouldn't seek out Adam, who had presumably returned to his mistress. Then she thought of Darcy Limmering, and she gave a gasp of relief. He had been at Vauxhall that evening, and if she were fortunate he might still be there and stay with her to protect her from any more unwelcome advances. They were related by marriage, surely he would help her.

Cautiously keeping a watch for Martin, Kate went slowly back to the supper booths. To her relief their own was empty, but in the one opposite Darcy was still sitting with the other people, fewer of them by now, but presumably some of them had gone home. To her secret relief the women in the low cut gowns all appeared to have left.

Kate stepped up to the low balustrade in the front of the booth and paused, wondering how to attract Darcy's attention. He was sitting near the back, at a small table, casting dice with another man. As she hesitated one of the men near the front, who seemed rather the worse for drink, his cravat askew and stained with wine, as were his pantaloons, saw her.

'Well, my pretty, and why haven't you been snatched up? Has no one any taste tonight? All the better for me. It's my lucky night, despite the way the cards fell. Come in, my dear, and join me in a drink while we discuss terms.'

Kate stared at him, frowning as she only half comprehended his words and innuendoes. 'I wish to speak with Mr Limmering,' she said as haughtily as she could, and the man gave a good natured guffaw of laughter.

'He's no good for you, lass. You want a lusty man like me. Darcy's only fit for tossing the ivories, not tossing on your ivory skin!'

Kate flushed and was about to retort angrily when Darcy, his attention attracted by the loud laughter of Kate's tormentor, looked round.

'Kate!' he exclaimed. 'What the devil are you doing here? Are you alone?'

'I came with friends,' Kate said tightly, uncomfortably aware of the sniggers and whispers of the other men in the booth. 'Please can't we talk somewhere else?'

'Go on, Darcy, take her home,' one of them cried.

'She's itching for you, man,' another declared.

'Come somewhere else, Darcy darling,' a third mimicked in a falsetto voice.

'Shut up, you clowns. This isn't a ladybird.'

He seized his cloak and vaulted over the low wall. The others made disbelieving noises, and Kate blushed at the crude suggestions which floated after them as Darcy took her arm and guided her away.

'What awful men!' she exclaimed before they were out of earshot.

'Oh, er, friends of a sort, but castaway,' Darcy explained in some embarrassment. 'How do you come to be here?'

She explained about Martin, but for some reason glossed over Adam's behaviour, saying merely that they had been disturbed and Martin had disappeared.

'But I'm afraid to be on my own. Please will you stay with me until Chloe and Luke come back to the booth?'

He was asking more questions when to her relief Chloe hailed her, and she was able to thank Darcy and join them. A few minutes later Martin arrived, saying curtly that the carriage was waiting, and by pretending she was tired Kate managed to get to Grosvenor Square without having to make any conversation.

She avoided Chloe the following day, knowing her friend would be curious about Martin's abruptness and her own silence, and not knowing how to explain it.  Then all thoughts of Vauxhall were banished.

Miss Byford came into her bedroom early the next morning to tell her that the Earl had died peacefully during the night.

She wept a little, for she had come to respect if not love him. The next few days passed in a whirl of activity as arrangements for the funeral were made, and a dressmaker appeared to make mourning clothes for Kate and Miss Byford.

The funeral took place early one morning and afterwards the men returned to the house. Adam brought with him Mr Hulme, an elderly lawyer. He remained after the others, friends of the late Earl, had paid their respects to the new one and departed.

'H'm, well, my lord, ladies, I have now to perform the task of acquainting you with his late lordship's testamentary dispositions,' Mr Hulme announced, rustling several stiff sheets of paper.

He proceeded to read out a long list of minor bequests to servants and friends. Kate was growing restless, for she knew almost none of these people apart from a few of the servants at the Grosvenor Square house. Feeling greedy and guilty, she was nevertheless wondering whether her grandfather had left her anything, and if so how much, when she jumped slightly to hear her name mentioned.

'I will explain in simple terms, Miss Byford,' Mr Hulme was saying. 'The residue of the estate, apart from the two houses and their land in Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire, and this house in London, which with the contents and the rents of the estates go absolutely to the fifth Earl, will be divided equally between the fifth Earl and Miss Byford, with the proviso that your share, Miss Byford, is to be placed in a trust to be administered by myself and his lordship, until you marry. It will provide you with an income of about ten thousand pounds a year. Although furthermore, should you refuse to marry as the late Earl wished, everything is to revert to the fifth Earl.'

'That is new!' Adam exclaimed.

'It was as his late lordship directed me only three days ago,' Mr Hulme replied, 'and perfectly correct.'

Kate was speechless. She had expected at most a legacy of a few hundred pounds. This was incredible. She could not begin to imagine what she would do with such a huge sum.

Miss Byford spoke into the silence. 'What does that mean about Kate marrying as her grandfather wished?' she asked sharply. 'He did not express any such wish.'

'I am afraid he did, Miss Byford,' Adam responded drily. 'He made me swear on the Bible that I would myself marry Kate.'

Chapter Eight

'It will, of course, have to be a quiet wedding in the country because of our mourning,' Adam went on. 'Let me see, it's October now. I suggest after Christmas.'

'That's ridiculous!' Kate burst out after a few moments of stupefaction.

'I agree,' Adam said sharply, 'but it was what Great-Uncle George wanted, for us to marry as soon as the conventions allowed.'

'I didn't mean the time, I meant the whole notion of my being compelled to marry you! I won't be forced into it!'

'I gave him my promise.'

'But I did not!' Kate retorted. ‘I gave no such promise, nor would I have been weak enough to give such a ridiculous pledge. I don't want to marry you.'

'What does a child like you know about marriage?' he demanded.

'Enough to be absolutely sure I'd never marry anyone as - as arrogant as you! Or someone who - who - ' she paused and blushed. She could hardly accuse him of kissing her, even when he'd thought she was just a milkmaid, in front of his mother, her aunt, and the lawyer. And at Vauxhall he'd known perfectly well who she was.

Adam eyed her sardonically and she knew he was perfectly well aware of what she'd almost said.

'You'd prefer a country bumpkin?' he asked, and suddenly grinned. 'Kate, you were there, you saw how urgently your grandfather begged me to promise,' he went on gently. 'Don't you care about his dying wish?'

'But - but I didn't know what it was he was so concerned about,' Kate exclaimed.

'You didn't tell me you'd promised,' Mrs Rhydd put in, dismayed. 'You just said he'd suggested it.'

'I didn't care to distress you then.'

'But it was extorted from you under duress, Adam,' Mrs Rhydd said urgently. 'No one could possibly expect you to keep such a foolish promise, made as it was. And if Kate has no wish to marry you, you can't force her,' she added with a fleeting smile at Kate.

'I expect to keep my word, Mama,' Adam said curtly. 'I knew what I was doing, I was not simply humouring him.'

'But I made no promise,' Kate repeated angrily. 'I have no wish to marry you, and indeed I will not. You cannot force me to, whatever foolish notions you may have yourself.'

'I think you should reflect carefully, Miss Byford,' Mr Hulme put in, 'for under the terms of the will if you do not agree to such a marriage you lose your inheritance, and it would revert to his lordship.'

'That is monstrous!' Kate exclaimed. 'If he does not choose to marry me, he loses nothing, indeed he gains my share of my grandfather's money. And if he does marry me he gains it anyway!'

'So you see that I have complete freedom of choice, with no financial penalties,' Adam said brusquely, stressing the word financial so that Kate looked swiftly across at him, her brows drawn tightly together.

'There are the terms of the marriage settlement his lordship suggested, my lord,' Mr Hulme said quickly. 'Miss Byford, as your wife, would have a considerable sum settled on her for her sole use.'

'Indeed, but they do not affect the real issue, which is that I gave my word. Let us discuss that for the moment.'