“Take my pleasure and spoil yours?” he asked. She could feel rather than see his frown. The mask hid his expression. “Have I been imagining things? Have you not been enjoying this as I have? Have you not been feeling the same desire as I?”
“Of course I have,” she said. “And you want to spoil it all by taking me to bed?”
There was a short silence. “Has bed never been pleasurable for you, Katherine?” he asked softly.
“Of course not,” she said. “It is only for men, though I cannot imagine why. It is disgusting.”
“Did your husband never pleasure you?” he asked. “Did he never touch you and caress you until you were as ready as he? Did he never take you slowly so that you could have pleasure too?”
“Heaven forbid!” Kate said with a shudder. He could not do it fast enough for me.”
“Poor Katherine,” he said, bending his head and kissing her gently on the cheek. He took one lock of her hair in his hand. When had she lost the neat bun at her neck? she wondered. “I wish I had the freedom and the leisure to teach you the depths of your own passion. You were halfway there a minute ago and did not know it; But enough.” He straightened up and released the lock of hair. His manner became noticeably more brisk. “We must get you home and to bed—alone—as soon as possible if you are to be good for anything tomorrow. I shall go and saddle my horse. You may wait here.”
“I can walk,” Kate said. Why was she feeling so dreadfully empty and depressed?
“Katherine Mannering,” he said firmly, “this time I shall play the heavy-handed male and brook no argument. Turn around and let me help you with those buttons. They seem to be causing you a great deal of trouble.”
It was only as they were riding toward Barton Abbey later, Kate’s bonneted head resting on Nicholas’ shoulder, that she remembered her other reason for wishing to talk to him that night.
“The earl is searching for something,” she said abruptly.
“What?” he asked. “And where?”
“In the library,” she said. “He is searching through all the books, shaking them as if he expected something to fall out.”
“What makes you think this has anything to do with me?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she admitted. “But it does seem peculiar. I thought perhaps I would offer to help him. I can pretend I think he wishes to clean or organize the books.”
“Katherine, listen to me,” he said after a short pause. “You are not to involve yourself further in my affairs. I am grateful for your warning of this evening. I do not believe the danger is as acute as you believe, but it is as well to be warned. But no more. You must make no effort to find out more. If by pure chance you do find something that seems of life-or-death importance, you must tell Barret, the head groom—do you know him? Or write a note and send it with Josh, though I always think it wiser to commit as little as possible to writing. But you must not come to me yourself ever again.”
“You did not enjoy kissing me?” Kate asked.
He squeezed her shoulder and laughed softly. “Katherine Mannering, you know very well how much I enjoyed kissing you,” he said. “That is not the point at all. The point is that this thing might possibly get ugly, and I do not wish you to be involved in any way. Besides, there are all sorts of things you do not know about me. I am not at all an eligible suitor for you.”
“Suitor?” she said. “I am not looking for a suitor. I am never going to marry again. If I did, I would have to allow . . .”
“. . . that humiliating physical exercise that brings pleasure only to the husband,” he completed for her when she did not do so for herself. “You must stay away from me, Katherine. Promise me. You must promise.”
“No,” she said into his shirt front. “I cannot promise because then I should be bound. But I will not come again, for all that. I will not come where I am not wanted.”
He made an impatient clucking noise. He looked down at her as if he were about to say something, but he maintained his silence and they rode on without another word. This time he took her through a side gate and across the park until they were close to the house.
“That is the door you came out of?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the west side of the house. “Go, then. I shall stay here until I am sure you are safely inside. If by chance the door has been bolted, do not panic. I know ways of getting inside this house. I was a boy here, remember.” He grinned at her in the darkness before dismounting and lifting her to the ground. He did not immediately relinquish his hold of her waist. “Thank you for coming tonight, Katherine. You are an incredibly brave lady. And very kind. This must be good-bye. It must be. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with my liking or not liking to kiss you. You are very beautiful and very desirable.” He kissed her briefly and hard on the lips.
Kate said nothing. She turned and sped across the grass that lay between the small copse of trees where he hid with his horse, whisked herself inside the door without taking the precaution of looking around it first, and ran a little more cautiously up to her room.
She stood for a long time, her back against the door, her hands behind her still clasping the knob, her eyes tight shut. She would not cry. She never cried. Ever. Not even that time when Giles had turned her facedown on the bed and beaten her until she bit the inside of her mouth raw, because she had tried to ease her way out from beneath him while he was snoring heavily on top of her. She would not cry. No man could ever treat her badly enough that she would cry. She would never give any man that satisfaction, even if he were not present to witness the tears. She would not cry for a man who had wanted to ruin her pleasure by taking her to bed and doing “that” to her. Or for a man who did not want to see her again because she had had the temerity to tell him how selfish his desire was.
The wind had got at her eyes. She had noticed how windy it was. And they had been riding into it. It was the wind. Kate brushed fiercely at the tears the wind had caused, which were now spilling over and down her cheeks.
Chapter 6
Nicholas did not immediately ride away after the side door closed behind Kate. He continued to gaze with dull pain at the home he could no longer enter. He could see along the southern front with its long windows and massive stone pilasters, the stone balustrade and statues on the roof, the twin curved marble stairways like a horseshoe connecting the terrace and the double front doors and the large hall beyond. He could both see and hear the fountain opposite the entryway at the head of the formal gardens.
Nicholas sighed. It was the only home he had ever known, and that fact alone would explain his love of it. But there was far more than that. He had always consciously appreciated the magnificence of the architecture and the furnishings and art treasures within. He had never taken his surroundings for granted. He had studied his home as if it were a history book, and he knew it in minute detail. He could conduct a guided tour of the park and the house with his eyes bandaged and his hands bound behind his back.
And perhaps he would never be inside the house again. Perhaps he would always view it like this, if at all, a trespasser at night. Yet he was becoming more and more convinced that it was all rightfully his. In the more than twenty-four hours since he had bungled his kidnapping scheme, he had been able to formulate no new plan to force information from the only man who seemed able to help him discover the secrets of his past. There was only one very slim chance. And he was not even sure that that would help him a great deal. However, it seemed to be the only possibility. He must leave in the morning as early as possible to find out if there really was any chance. He must call on Dalrymple.
