The Deception (20 page)

“No.” He shook his head. “I want to see you.”

I gazed up into his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. His hair, which had grown longer while he was in France, framed his head like a silver helmet.

“I missed you,” I said. I couldn’t help it.

“Did you?” he murmured. And then his lips came down to mine.

I could taste the wine that he had been drinking. I buried my hands in his hair and held him to me. His mouth moved from my lips to my breast, and the treacherous sweetness began to spread through my loins. I whimpered with pleasure.

When we were together like this, I couldn’t hide from him what I felt. His weight pressed me down into the feather mattress and I felt myself open for him as a flower opens to the warmth of the sun. I stared up at the tapestry canopy over us and felt him enter me, and it was like sunlight pouring into me, hot, irresistible, life-restoring. The feather bed was soft beneath my back and I arched to meet him, his powerful thrusts filling my womb with wave after wave of stunning pleasure. I locked my arms around his neck and said his name, over and over, like an incantation, like a prayer.

* * * *

The following day, Caroline arrived. Looking at her, I had no further doubts that my uncle had been in love with her. She was twenty-six, a year younger than Adrian and six years older than Harry. She gave me a charming smile as she turned from greeting her brothers. “At last,” she said, “I have a sister!”

I had been nervous of meeting her, but her words disarmed me completely. I grinned and held out my hand. She ignored it and came to give me a kiss and a hug. She had Harry’s fine-boned, angelic face and was not very much taller than I. She turned to her elder brother and said, “I’m glad to see you have upheld the family tradition for good looks.”

“You have not yet greeted Miss Cranbourne, Caro,” Adrian said pleasantly, and as Caroline turned to speak to Louisa, Adrian introduced his brother-in-law to me.

Lord Ashley was in his mid-thirties, a pleasant-looking man with a humorous mouth and intelligent hazel eyes. He shook my hand and said, “I hope you will not be too put out by my family, Lady Greystone. We are a noisy lot, I’m afraid.”

He had to raise his voice to be heard, since the baby in the nurse’s arms was wailing and the toddler whom a nanny had in charge was announcing loudly that he was hungry. I said to Adrian’s brother-in-law, “Please call me Kate.” Then I beckoned to Mrs. Richards and said to the harried-looking nurse and nanny, “If you will go with Mrs. Richards, she will show you to the nursery and make sure you have all that you need.”

Both women gave me a grateful look and followed Mrs. Richards to the staircase.

“Thank you, Kate,” Caroline said. “They are tired.”

“There’s nothing wrong with their lungs, that’s for sure,” Harry said.

Lord Ashley said fervently, “I could use a glass of port, Adrian.”

“Did you all travel in the same chaise?” Adrian asked with amusement.

“Edward rode the entire way,” Caroline announced. “I cannot imagine why he should be in need of a glass of port. It is I who need sustenance.”

“Come into the drawing room,” I said, “and we will all have some refreshment.”

A bottle of port was brought for the gentlemen, and I ordered tea for the ladies. While the men ranged themselves in front of the fire, Caroline, Louisa, and I retired to the striped satin sofa.

“Tell me,” Caroline demanded as soon as she was seated, “what are you wearing to the Presentation?”

I described my dress to her as I poured the tea.

“Of course, you will wear the Greystone diamonds,” Caroline pronounced when I had finished.

Adrian had said nothing to me about the Greystone diamonds, but before I could stop her Caroline had called to her brother, “Adrian, don’t tell me you have not yet given Kate the diamonds?”

He was listening intently to something his brother-in-law was saying, and did not hear her. I thought that perhaps he did not want to hear her, and said firmly that I would rather not discuss the diamonds. Caroline ignored me, raised her voice, and repeated her question. His head finally swung in our direction and he answered, “The diamonds? They are at Rundle and Bridge’s being cleaned. Don’t worry, Caro. Kate will have them in time for her Presentation.”

“Good.” Caroline turned back to me. “You won’t be able to wear the tiara, because of the ostrich plumes, but the necklace and earrings and bracelets will look well.”

“It sounds like a great deal of jewelry,” I managed to say faintly.

“Every woman at the drawing room will be simply
hung
with jewelry, Kate,” Caroline assured me. “The idea is to look as laden as is humanly possible.” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps we can get the tiara on you, after all. We can fix the ostrich plumes around it.”

“Do you know, I am rather nervous about this Presentation,” I confessed to Adrian’s sister. “I have nightmares that I will trip on my dress or do something else that is horridly gauche.”

Caroline’s slate-blue eyes lit with laughter. “I felt the same way,” she confided. “Everyone does, I think.”

“Yes, but if I make a cake of myself it will reflect upon Greystone,” I said gloomily.

“I keep telling you that you have nothing to worry about, Kate,” Louisa said. She turned to Caroline. “Her curtsy is perfect. She could hold it for an hour if she had to. She will do beautifully.”

“I wish that it was over with!” I said.

“In a few days it will be.” Caroline smiled at me. “I have been looking forward to this season ever since Adrian wrote to ask me to present you,” she said. “We are going to have such fun, Kate. Wait and see!”

I looked at her lovely, sparkling face and thought once more about my uncle.

Chapter Fourteen

My presentation went off as smoothly as everyone had promised it would. Adrian and I, along with Caroline and Lord Ashley, were taken to St. James Palace in the Greystone carriage, which was decked with three footmen garbed in elaborate livery. I wore the obligatory ostrich-plume headdress along with the Greystone diamond tiara, three different kinds of skirts draped over a huge hoop, diamonds at my throat, in my ears, and on my wrists and fingers. The cost of the dress alone would probably have fed a village for an entire year. The diamonds would have fed all of Ireland.

Caroline and I left the men in the huge reception room and crammed ourselves into the presentation chamber anteroom along with about twenty other girls and matrons, all of whom were encased in hoops and hung with diamonds. Actually making my curtsy to the queen was almost an anticlimax. She was old and wrinkled and most unprepossessing. Caroline and I curtsied, she beckoned us forward, and for the next ten minutes she proceeded to ask us questions about Adrian!

The reception room was packed when we returned, but Adrian’s head topped even that sea of tall men and ostrich plumes. We had almost reached him when I saw that he was talking to a slender girl whose honey-colored hair was piled elegantly high under her waving plumes. My heart plunged. It was Lady Mary Weston.

Caroline must have felt me hesitate, because she turned to look at me. Then her eyes went back to her brother. “Who is that talking to Adrian?” she asked.

‘That is Lady Mary Weston,” I answered in what I hoped was an unemotional voice.

Caroline didn’t reply, but I saw that she recognized the name. We squeezed our hoops through the remaining crush until we reached Adrian. He greeted us with a smile. “The deed is done?” he asked.

“Kate was magnificent,” Caroline assured him.

“Kate is always magnificent,” he replied. I shot him a suspicious look, but his face was unreadable. He proceeded to introduce Lady Mary to us both.

Caroline smiled and made a polite reply.

I said soberly, “Lady Mary and I have met.”

“But not since you became Lady Greystone,” said the girl who had expected to achieve that title herself. “I have just been wishing Greystone happy; allow me to offer the same sentiments to you.”

Her expression was as serenely lovely as always, but she had paled a little when she saw me. “Thank you, Lady Mary,” I said.

“Where is Edward?” Caroline asked her brother.

“He was talking to someone about breeding cattle, I believe,” Adrian said.

Caroline groaned. “If Edward has found someone to talk to about breeding cattle, we will never get him out of here.”

“Are you ready to leave?” Adrian asked. “If you are, I’ll find him for you.”

“If we can leave without being rude, I’d like to,” I said. “The smell of all these different perfumes mingling together is not particularly appetizing.”

“Mmm,” my husband said. His eyes were scanning the room. “There he is.” He looked down at Lady Mary, excused himself, and pushed off into the crowd, which parted before him as it always did.

I saw the expression in Lady Mary’s eyes as she looked after him. If I had ever had any doubts about her feelings for Adrian, that one, naked look laid them to rest.

Damn,
I thought.
Damn. Damn. Damn.

A distinctly chilly, feminine voice said, “Mary, my dear, I have been looking for you.”

Lady Mary turned. “I am sorry, Mama,” she replied quietly. “Allow me to present Lady Ashley and Lady Greystone.”

If looks could kill, the Duchess of Wareham’s glare would have struck me through the heart. I looked back into her haughty, aquiline face and I grew a little pale. I am not accustomed to people looking at me like that.

As the duchess and her daughter moved off, Caroline murmured in my ear, “If I were you I wouldn’t stand in front of any open windows when the duchess is nearby.”

I tried to produce the smile she expected. Then Adrian returned with Edward, and we made our escape.

* * * *

The Presentation over, my second London Season officially began. It was very different from my first. Doors were opened to the Countess of Greystone that had remained firmly shut to Miss Cathleen Fitzgerald. I went from being a satellite on the outer reaches of the
ton
to being one of its stars.

I won’t deny that it was far more pleasant being part of the inner circle, but what I enjoyed the most about this time in London was being part of a family. Caroline was so kind to me that I soon began to feel that she really was my sister, and I adored her children. For an only child to find herself suddenly blessed with a brother, a sister, two nephews, and a cousin is a wonderful thing.

Of course, I also had a husband. Ironically, I would have been a happier wife if I had loved him less. I would not have felt such anguish that he did not love me back.

Sometimes I pretended. At night, lying in his arms, feeling his passion, I would pretend to myself that he loved me. He wanted me, that was certainly clear enough, and it wasn’t hard to make the leap in my mind from wanting to loving.

But the morning inevitably came, when the sun rose and the passion was spent. I wasn’t a green girl; I knew that men could want where they did not love. He was always beautifully courteous to me, always thoughtful and kind. But he kept me at a distance. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do to change it. The circumstances of our marriage were always vividly present to my mind. I had no right to ask for his love; I had no right to burden him with mine.

Hiding my feelings from him was the hardest thing I have ever done. Just seeing him walk into a room was enough to make me dizzy. It was easiest just to avoid him if I could, and I soon discovered that the intense social whirl of the Season made avoiding him fairly easy. In the
ton,
married women were not expected to make a couple with their husbands. Those times that Adrian actually escorted me, he was also escorting Caroline and Louisa, and often it was Edward, or even Harry, who accompanied us on our round of social engagements.

The only time Adrian and I were alone together outside the bedroom was on the mornings that we took the horses to the park. Adrian had sent to Greystone for Euclide, because he did not want to leave him unworked for weeks, and on these mornings we would leave the house at six o’clock to ride through the slowly wakening London streets to Hyde Park.

The park was always deserted at this hour, and the air smelled as fresh and sweet as it did in the country. The grass and the flower beds glistened with dew and the thrushes sang as if they were in Berkshire, not in London. The air had a nip to it, and we would let the horses warm up their muscles in a long, stretching, side-by-side canter.

I loved these mornings. It was the only time we were really easy together—two people who were happy in each other’s company because we were intent on a common goal. We had found a fairly flat grassy spot near the lake and we would work the horses there, me on Elsa and Adrian on Euclide.

To ride classical dressage requires total concentration by both horse and rider, and we worked quietly, only aware of the other so that we would not get in the way. It was a perfectly happy time. The warmth of the early-morning sun on my bare head, the peace that perfect communication with an animal can always bring, the steady rhythm of Elsa’s trot as she extended it, snapping out her forelegs with wonderful brilliance—I wanted to hold on to that time, to stretch it out and make it last forever.

On the way home we would discuss the session, how each horse had gone, what the problems were, how to correct them the next time we rode. At these times there was no distance between us, no sexual tension to muddy the clarity of our relationship. We passed ideas back and forth, feeding off the other’s insights, perfectly comfortable, perfectly in tune.

Then the house would loom before us, and grooms would take away the horses, and we would go back to being Lord and Lady Greystone. It was unutterably depressing.

Such was the situation in the Greystone household when Paddy returned from Ireland.

I had coaxed Harry into taking me to see Madame Tussaud’s wax-figure museum that morning, not because I was so anxious to see it but because I thought he had been unusually quiet recently and I wanted to see if there was anything wrong. I gave him plenty of opportunity to talk to me, but he was not forthcoming, and when we reached home again Walters informed me that Paddy had arrived. Caroline and Edward had taken little Ned to the Tower to see the royal menagerie, Louisa had gone to return a book to Hookham’s library, and Adrian was meeting with some government official or other, so Harry and I had Paddy to ourselves.