The Wedding Affair (41 page)

“And yourself as well, for my father would have come after you with a whip.”

“He was amazingly understanding.”

Kate gasped. “
You told my father?
”

“It was the only way I could assure it didn’t happen again. He did not fault you in the least, Kate, but he made certain I never had another opportunity to give in to temptation.”

“I thought you avoided me because I didn’t know how to kiss.”

“You didn’t. But I liked teaching you—far too much to trust myself.”

“Daphne said…” She broke off, but when Andrew raised his head a fraction and looked at her, she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “When you stopped talking to me, she said it was because I had embarrassed you with my schoolgirl fantasies.”

“Daphne has always been a little witch. She spent that summer trying to flirt with me—so no wonder she took aim at you, if she realized where my dreams had led me.”

“But after that summer, you never came back to Halstead again, until now.”

“I didn’t dare hope you would still be here, Kate—and free. Are you as fond of me now as you were then?”

“Let me think,” she said. The rumble of his laughter caressed her body, and she felt him stirring inside her once more.

He dozed off as dawn approached, and Kate slipped away to return to her own room. But she didn’t sleep; she sat at her window and brushed her hair and watched the sun rise.

***

Two hours before Daphne’s wedding was to begin, Kate left the bridesmaids squabbling as they helped each other into their gowns and went in search of a box of rainbow-colored favors that Daphne insisted had been sent down from London.

She detoured to the breakfast room for coffee and watched in bemusement as the Earl of Townsend handed out his father-in-law’s headache remedy. She ran into Penny in the entrance hall, yawning as if she’d had no more sleep than Kate had. When Penny went off to greet her caller, Kate turned toward the morning room—perhaps the blasted box of favors would be there—only to hear Lady Stone’s raspy voice from the stairs.

“There you are, Miss Blakely.” Lady Stone ran an eye over Kate’s new lavender walking dress. “That will do well enough for a start, but you’ll need a complete wardrobe for London. It gives me an ague to see a young woman wearing the same three dresses over and over. I see Iris gave you her trick prayer book.”

Kate had picked up the book, along with her best kid gloves, simply because a prayer book seemed the right thing to carry to a wedding. She frowned. “Her
trick
prayer book?”

“I couldn’t mistake it. I’m the one who gave it to her years ago—when she was just about to make her come out. I wasn’t always the pillar of rectitude I am now.”

Lady Stone as an example of moral uprightness—now there was a picture, Kate thought. “A prayer book?”

“Don’t be dense, Miss Blakely.” Lady Stone reached for the satin bow at the side of the prayer book and tugged. “Look inside.”

At first glance the prayer book was perfectly ordinary. Kate flicked through a dozen pages and then turned one more and gasped. Only the margins were left, just enough to hold the shape of the book. The center of each page all the way to the back cover had been hollowed out to form a little box. In the opening lay a curled slip of paper. Kate unrolled it, and out tumbled a wad of bank notes.

“I don’t know what Iris used it for, but I found it very handy to pass illicit notes to a suitor.” Lady Stone’s tone was nostalgic. “My mother thought one young man quite spiritual because every time I dropped my prayer book, he would soon press it back into my hand.”

Kate read the letter.
“My dear Miss Blakely, I know you can use funds, but it feels too cold to offer to pay you for your work, so I make you a gift as a friend. You must count on my friendship wherever you go, and call on me when you have a need. Iris Somervale.”

Once more, Kate thought, she had misjudged the duchess. She must find an opportunity to thank her. Though not, of course, for everything—such as her night with Andrew, which had come about entirely because of the duchess’s invitation…

“Woolgathering?” Lady Stone asked crisply.

“I beg your pardon. When do you leave Halstead, ma’am? I ask so I can be ready to travel at your convenience.”

Lady Stone looked thoughtful. “I’d planned to leave for Dorset tomorrow.”

Perhaps I can have one more night with Andrew
, Kate thought. “I have only a few things to pack at the cottage. My one regret is that I shall be leaving Lady Reyne in confusion.” At least with the gift from the duchess, Olivia would be able to pay her rent on time after all.

“Oh, you needn’t worry about her,” Lady Stone said briskly. “It’s a good thing for you that Iris is happy this morning, by the way, for she was not pleased last night when you went missing before the ball was finished.”

Kate remembered how easily she had drowned the flicker of conscience as she’d watched the group of bridesmaids go by. “What Her Grace must think of me—she gave me a lovely gift, and then I didn’t carry out my responsibilities.” Even so, Kate could not find it in herself to regret her night with Andrew.

“Oh, it’s nothing. It was past time for the bridesmaids’ mothers to take a hand in looking after them—and so I told Iris.”

“Still, I… You need not fear that I will take advantage, ma’am. I will strive to give satisfaction always as your companion.”

“Must you be mealy-mouthed about it?” Lady Stone looked past Kate, her dark eyes beadier than usual. “Good morning, Carlisle. What brings you over to chat?”

Kate spun around. Andrew was only feet away, but she not felt him approaching.

“Miss Blakely.” His voice was low and hoarse. “What is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of
what
? You know I accepted a position with Lady Stone.”

“That was before…” He shot a look at Lady Stone. “That was last night. If you don’t mind, ma’am, I would like a private word with Miss Blakely.”

“Private? You could have fooled me,” Lady Stone said. “But I must go and see if Iris needs my advice about the wedding, so carry on.” She strolled off toward the morning room.

Kate’s face was burning. “Andrew, what are you doing? Embarrassing me like that in front of my new employer—”

“You’re acting as if nothing has changed!”

“But nothing has. Last night was…” She looked around and lowered her voice. “It was wonderful. But I had no plans or expectations beyond that, and neither should you.”

“Then you should have made your rules clear last night, Kate. Because you did not, I refuse to abide by them.” He caught her close, tipped her face up, and kissed her.

One of the bridesmaids, coming around the last bend of the staircase, gave a little shriek.

Kate tried to break free, but it was futile to push against Andrew’s strong arms. She took one look up into his determined face and said, “All right. We’ll go somewhere quiet to talk.”

He marched her across to the chilly little reception room and closed the door. “It is obvious now that I should not have let you bamboozle me into making love to you without a clear understanding of your intentions. But it’s too late to go back, so I’m asking now what I should have asked before I took you upstairs.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “What
did
last night mean to you, Kate?”

She was afraid to look at him, much less to tell him that making love with him had been the supreme joy of her life, a high point she would never reach again. “An adventure. You said there were all kinds of adventures, and—”

“Is that all?” He shook her just a little. “Is security so important to you that you’d rather rely on Lady Stone than take a chance with me?”

“I wasn’t offered the choice of taking a chance with you!”

“I asked you to come with me.”

Kate was aghast. “You were
serious
? You wanted me to go trailing across the ocean with you, helping to arrange your travel?”

“It sounded like fun. You and me, together… but when you said no, I began to think hard about my life, Kate, and about what I want. I want you, and I will do whatever it takes to have you.”

She felt suddenly tired. “And what will that be, Andrew? I suppose you could still marry the richest heiress, as long as she didn’t mind you having a mistress as well as a wife, but—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If security is so important to you, I will give up adventuring and buy some snug little corner of England to settle down in.”

Kate blinked. “Buy?” Her voice wobbled. “With what?”

Andrew took a deep breath. “Lord Winchester isn’t my employer or my patron. He’s my partner. When I travel to check his property—well, it’s my property too. And there’s a lot of it.”

“You lied about being a tutor?”

“I… let’s say I edited the truth. Simon warned me the bridesmaids were a rapacious lot, so it seemed sensible to keep the details under wraps.”

“You could have told me.”

“Then I wouldn’t have known if it was me you cared for, or the security that a whole lot of money represents.”

Kate sighed. “And I suppose you never can know now.”

He smiled. “But I do, Kate. You came to me last night thinking I was a penniless adventurer, relying on the good will of a patron for my next meal. You gave yourself to me thinking there was no future for us.”

She nodded.

“Marry me, Kate. Not to escape Lady Stone or the colonel or even the vicar, but because it will be an adventure, no matter where we live or what we do. Be my companion and my love and my wife?”

She had worked so hard to be cheerful, to be grateful, to appreciate the memories she could treasure and not dwell on the things she could not have. But suddenly it was all too much, and Kate gave a little sob and flung herself against him. He held her while she cried and kissed her tears away and whispered nonsense until the storm had passed and she could laugh again.

“I still don’t understand,” she said finally. “Money doesn’t come from nowhere, Andrew. You’re a younger son, so where did you get a stake to invest in things like pineapple plantations and—”

“Sugar mills and a factory that builds equipment to card wool.” He rubbed his jaw. “There’s a substance that’s used in the cloth industry to fix dyes and keep the cloth from fading. But it’s terribly expensive to import from South America, so when I found a substitute on my first trip into the new Louisiana Territory, every cloth manufacturer in England happily paid for a steady supply. In turn, I invested in other things, and…” He shrugged. “It just grew.”

“And you will really give all that up?”

“For you, Kate? Yes. Where would you like to settle down?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps we should look around for a while first. But before that…”

“Yes, my love?”

“Andrew, will you take me to Italy?”

He drew her closer and said against her lips, “Only if it’s for a honeymoon, my Kate.”

***

After Ivan Weiss was safely out of sight, Penelope and the earl walked farther into the garden, finding a little corner of a rose garden where they were disturbed only by the splashing of water drops in a stone basin. The earl sat on the edge of the fountain and drew Penelope down onto his knee. “Your father really doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

Penelope admitted, “I’ve never said anything like that to him before.”

“Even so, he doesn’t have the excuse I did for not understanding you. You were so meek and scared anytime I was within shouting distance that you barely spoke at all.” He kissed her slowly.

Penelope’s head was spinning by the time he let her go.

“Penny, after you made your incredible offer to sacrifice your jewels—”

“Not such a sacrifice. Amethysts and garnets all mixed in together—what was my father thinking when he bought that necklace?”

“Perhaps…” A frown flitted across the earl’s brow. “No, surely not. He can’t have predicted you would sell them. At any rate, your generosity made me realize I’ve been acting like a child where Stoneyford is concerned. I resented my father and grandfather for their mistakes, and I hated the position I’ve been put in. But I didn’t realize I was making no real sacrifice myself in an effort to fix things, any more than they had. I don’t need a stylish curricle or a stable full of high-steppers—”

“Yes, you do, Charles. You have a position to maintain so someday I can take all your daughters to London and marry them off well. It will be difficult enough for them to be known as the offspring of the very common Penny Wise, without having whispers circulating about their father, the very odd Earl of Townsend.”

He laughed. “You are anything but common, Penny. Sometimes… I must admit that sometimes you frightened me. You told me what you wanted in no uncertain terms, but at the same time you shivered whenever I approached you—as if you couldn’t bear to be near me. Then at the inn… you said
just once
you wanted to know what it meant to be a wife. I didn’t realize you were like a drug. I couldn’t stay away, but every time I broke my promise…”