Kate’s heart plummeted, even though his words assured her of her own safety. It was perfectly obvious to her why she was to remove her company from Thelma for a short while. The poor girl! Had Sidney Moreton already been rejected by the father? she wondered. But no matter. He would be rejected even if he had not yet found the opportunity to make his intentions clear to Lord Barton. And would Thelma be able to refuse the marquess? Kate doubted that the girl had the strength of will to stand up against the wishes of her father. She was doomed to marrying a toad.
Her marriage would be even worse than Kate’s own had been. At least Giles had not humiliated her by taking mistresses. He had used her to satisfy his bodily urges, and while she had been nauseated by his attentions, she would at least admit now that they were preferable to the knowledge that she was not in any way appealing to the man with whom she had seemed doomed to spend a lifetime.
Angela Lacey joined her in the corridor to the private apartments. She too was on her way to fetch a cloak. She smiled shyly at Kate, her cheeks bright with color.
“It is a lovely evening for a walk,” she said.
Kate smiled. So the girl liked Charles Dalrymple, did she? Kate did not blame her. Nicholas’ friend seemed a kindly man. How could he possibly have two such men for friends as Nicholas Seyton and Sir Harry Tate? Neither in any way worthy of him. The very thought of Nicholas was enough to give her the uncomfortable feeling that the bottom had fallen out of her stomach. She would not think of him. He did not deserve to be pined after. He had taken her for his own delight and gone on his way. Well, she had made love with him for her own delight too, and now she would go on her way.
She would spend the next half-hour matching wits with that thoroughly obnoxious Sir Harry Tate and see if she could score a point or two against him. She had a great deal to make up for. It quite made her blush with mortification to remember that she had actually cried in his presence that afternoon. She would have to make him suffer for having brought her to that.
Nicholas hesitated slightly when the Marquess of Uppington drew his partner to a halt at the stone fountain in order to examine its architecture. Angela Lacey and Charles Dalrymple were already strolling into the formal gardens, though the night was somewhat darker than they had expected. The sky was clear and the stars were bright, but the new moon gave only a minimum of light.
“Do you suppose we should also circumnavigate the fountain in order to admire the naked cherubs?” Sir Harry asked Kate in his most studied drawl. “Or would such a sight put you to the blush, ma’am?”
“Neither,” Kate said. “I wish to walk as far as the roses in the center of the gardens. Their smell from here is mixed with the perfume of other flowers, and I think nothing lovelier than the fragrance of a rose.”
Nicholas gave her a sidelong look. “I perceive this is the moment of the grand proposal,” he said. “Was it the fond papa or the misguided maiden herself who has warned you to keep your distance?”
Kate was thankful for the darkness, which hid her blush. “Lord Barton,” she said. And then, forgetting how pointless it was to talk so with such a man, “Poor Lady Thelma. I fear she will have no choice. And she will lead a dreadful life with that man.”
Sir Harry looked at her, cynical eyebrows raised above half-closed eyes. “She will be a marchioness,” he said. “A duchess at some time in the future. He has position, she wealth. Would you ladies not describe such a match as a marriage made in heaven? What more could she possibly want?”
“Respect, perhaps,” Kate snapped back. “Love. The assurance that she will be important to her husband.”
“My dear Mrs. Mannering,” he sighed, “you must be one of those women addicted to sentimental novels. This is the real world, ma’am. Lady Thelma will be of infinite importance to her husband. She will produce his heir.”
Kate would have removed her hand from his arm if the path had not been so dark. “Yes,” she said, realizing as she heard the word come from her mouth that she sounded nettled. She would certainly not win an argument if she lost her temper. “Yes, Sir Harry, you are a thoroughly predictable male. A woman to you is a machine, just like those in the new factories, but used for breeding. And is a wife to consider her life’s goal fulfilled if she can but have the good fortune to produce a male child?”
“I have angered you, my dear Mrs. Mannering,” Sir Harry said, sounding surprised. “But I see how it is. I should have been more sensitive to your feelings. You, of course, failed in your quest to become a fulfilled woman. You had no child, male or female, did you? And how long did you say you were married to Mr. Mannering?”
“Oh!” Kate withdrew her hand from his arm as if it were a red-hot bar of iron and stood still on the path, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You are impudent, sir. Quite insufferably ill-mannered. My marriage and my childless state are none of your concern. None whatsoever. I will not tolerate your sarcasms on a topic of which you know nothing. And I am not your dear Mrs. Mannering, sir.”
“Dear me.” Sir Harry was quite annoyingly unperturbed by her tirade. He also had stopped walking and stood facing her, his face a mask of boredom, one hand playing with the ribbon on his quizzing glass. “I did hit a tender spot, did I not? My apologies, ma’am. I had no intention of wounding. Shall we walk on? I see that Miss Lacey and Dalrymple are coming up behind us, having taken a different route. And I would hate them to think that we have stopped to embrace. I have more regard for both your reputation and my own.”
“Embrace you?” Kate said scornfully. “I would sooner kiss a frog, sir.” She pushed her arm almost vengefully through his.
“Well, my dear Kate,” he said, patting her hand lightly, “you need have no fear. I have no burning desire to kiss you, either.” Liar! Nicholas Seyton thought. “My tastes run to quieter, more feminine, dark-haired beauties. You must remember, of course, that frogs when kissed are reputed to turn into handsome princes.”
“But a handsome exterior does not guarantee a handsome character or a gentlemanly one,” Kate retorted.
“Now, somewhere in those nasty insinuations,” Sir Harry said. “I believe I detected a compliment. Thank you, my dear Kate.”
“I have told you,” she hissed through her teeth, aware that the other couple was approaching nearer, “that I am not your dear Kate.”
Sir Harry raised his quizzing glass to his eye as he looked down at her. “No,” he said, “I was told that you were not my dear Mrs. Mannering. I took your objection to mean that I was being invited to greater familiarity. Now I understand that it is the ‘dear’ to which you object. And you are quite right. Why is it that we always address people in letters as ‘dear,’ when often times we dislike or even despise the recipient? I shall never again insult you by claiming that you are in any way dear to me, ma’am. Will that please you?”
“Immensely, sir,” Kate said.
“It is a very good thing we have been blessed with noses, is it not?” Sir Harry said, turning his head so that the other couple was included in his comment. “There is precious little to see tonight, but Mrs. Mannering insists that the fragrance of the roses will be unadulterated once we reach the center of the gardens. Are we there, ma’am?”
“Yes. You see?” Kate said. “Six paths meet at this point, and there is the statue of the first Earl of Barton.”
“Staring commandingly to the south as if he had just conquered an army of twenty thousand infidels,” Sir Harry commented, raising his glass to his eye again.
“This whole house and park is every bit as magnificent as it is said to be,” Angela said, turning and gazing back at the huge dark outline of the south front of the Abbey. “Thelma and Adam are fortunate indeed to have it as their home. I feel sorry for that Mr. Seyton who felt obliged to leave here.”
Kate noticed Mr. Dalrymple pat the girl’s hand as it rested on his arm. “Nick loved it,” he said. “He knew every inch of the place and every detail of its history.”
