Lady Thelma’s eyes were wide with horror. “Oh,” she said. “Why did you not tell Papa, Kate? He would have Lord Uppington thrown out of here and perhaps even have had him sent to jail.”
“I am afraid you do not understand the ways of the world,” Kate said. “The truth would not be accepted, you know, even if I bothered to state it. It just is not done to believe evil of a peer of the realm. One might believe him guilty of excesses of gambling or womanizing or such, but not of anything openly vicious or criminal. Lesser persons become liars when they suggest such a thing.” She did not add that a father trying to negotiate an advantageous match for his daughter would be even less likely to believe an unsavory truth about his future son-in-law.
“About your dismissal, Kate,” Lady Thelma said, seating herself sideways on the chair before the desk. “I cannot do anything to prevent it, you know. But it does not matter. Sidney and I are going to elope during the night of the ball. It seems the best time. We will not be missed until at least noon on the following day. There will be so much confusion and we will not be expected to rise much before then. You will come with us. I am afraid that we may not be able to continue paying your salary, Kate dear, as we will not have much money to live on without my dowry. But you may have a home with us for as long as you wish. Sidney agrees with me on that. And we will both give you a reference when you try to find other employment.”
“I truly wish you would not,” Kate said. “Elope, I mean. But the decision must be yours. And of course I will come with you to add some measure of respectability until you are married. But only until then, Lady Thelma. I am not destitute. I have a family who are fond of me and will gladly take me in.”
Lady Thelma wanted Kate to join a group of the young people on a drive to the harbor, but Kate declined. She no longer felt bound by her employment, and she was sure that Thelma stood in no danger from Lord Uppington, especially when they would be part of a larger group. She used as an excuse her unwillingness to be in company with the marquess, who was, surprisingly, to be one of the party. Kate had not thought he would wish to show his face beyond the confines of the house.
Kate watched the party leave from the drawing-room window. She wanted to be very sure that Lord Uppington was with them. She wondered about his face. Was it Sir Harry who had done it? It must be. No one else had known of her misfortune except Josh. Assuming, of course, that the punishment the marquess had taken was on her account. It must be, though. Why else would he have invented such vengeful lies that morning? She had been interested to note at luncheon that the official explanation of his pummeled appearance was somewhat different from the one he had given Lord Barton and Lady Thelma.
Would Sir Harry have done such a thing for her? Thinking of him as he usually appeared-bored, indolent, cynical—made such an idea seem ludicrous. But it must be so. She had seen startling evidence during the boating party that he was concerned for her safety and even prepared to defend her if necessary. And to comfort her! And yesterday afternoon, now that she could look back on it without the cloud of pain and exhaustion through which she had viewed events at the time, he had been quite different from his normal self.
“Where have you been?” he had asked as he hurried toward her across the terrace. As if he had been hurrying in search of her. And perhaps it really was so. He had said later, had he not, that the others had not returned from the walk to the hill? But he had been part of that group. And so had Lord Uppington.
Sir Harry had shown definite concern for her. He had looked at her hands. He had unbuttoned her dress—embarrassing memory—and looked at her back. And there had been almost none of his customary drawling and sneering except at the end. He had said something that had almost got her bristling—she could not remember what. He had been incredibly gentle. Audrey, later, had hurt her considerably when straightening out her fingers to tend her palms. Sir Harry had not. And good heavens, he had kissed her. Very briefly and dispassionately, it was true. But tenderly, almost as if he cared!
And he did care, she told herself with a frown of puzzlement. Perhaps he was a man who disliked to see his inferiors mistreated. She would not have expected it of such a seemingly toplofty man, but perhaps it was true. He had spoken to Josh as if he knew him. And Josh had grinned and nodded at him as if they were friends. She would have expected Sir Harry Tate to look upon Josh as he would an insect beneath his boot.
It was all very puzzling. Either she had misjudged the man dreadfully at the start or she was being misled now. But if he really had given Lord Uppington that beating, he must care. Good heavens, any man would have to be almost beside himself with fury to do that to another man’s face. She would not have thought Sir Harry capable of the energy to do half that damage. The strength, yes. Her early impression that he was a pampered aristocrat had been reversed some time ago. She had been against that body more than once, and there was nothing soft about its muscles, from broad shoulders to muscled thighs.
What a mystery the man was. Kate knew one thing about him, though. She had discovered it when his lips had met hers for the briefest of moments the day before, despite the confusion of her mind. She loved him. She was not in love with him. Not in the way she had fallen in love with Nicholas Seyton such a short time before. That had been all starry-eyed excitement and physical aching. She loved Sir Harry. And she was not quite sure what she meant by that. There was a great deal about him that infuriated her. And there was more that mystified her. But there was a strain of gentleness and honor and trustworthiness beneath all those obnoxious qualities. She could sense it. She was sure she was not wrong.
She was in love with him as well, of course. It seemed thoroughly fickle to fall in love with a man a mere two weeks after doing the same thing with someone else. But it had happened, for all that, and for all that she still felt a hurt kind of love for Nicholas. She wanted to go to bed with Sir Harry. Making love had been wonderful with Nicholas, with whom she had only been in love. She wanted to discover how much more glorious it would be with Sir Harry, whom she loved. And it would be good. She found his body and his touch every bit as exciting as she had found Nicholas’. In fact, physically, she found it somewhat difficult to distinguish the two men in her mind.
Kate sighed. How foolish she was! She liked to think of herself as a strong person and yet she seemed to have a gift for bringing pain upon herself. She had agreed to marry Giles, thinking that life with a dashing gentleman farmer would bring her independence and respect. She had found herself shackled to a self-indulgent spendthrift to whom she had not been a person at all. She had fallen in love with Nicholas Seyton, expecting adventure and a close physical relationship. He had abandoned her the day after she had allowed him to take possession of her body. And now she loved Sir Harry Tate, expecting . . . nothing really. There was nothing to expect. He had tried to protect her from seduction. He had fought for her honor. And he had a taste for docile, feminine, dark-haired beauties.
How disgusted he would be if he knew that his kindness to her had made her dream of a life in his arms and with his stimulating, if not always comforting, company. She must not love him. Life was painful enough at present without adding the hopelessness of an unrequited love. She was still recovering from Nicholas’ defection. She was still facing dismissal from her employment and the necessity of following a misguided girl to Scotland for a marriage over the anvil. There was all the uncertainty of the future, in which she would have to seek employment with only a recommendation from an eighteen-year-old girl to help her. And was she to carry with her too the memory of a man of so many dimensions that one felt one would never quite know him? Yes, unfortunately she was.
Kate realized suddenly that she had been staring down an empty driveway for several minutes. If she were going to accomplish the errand she had set herself for that afternoon, it would be as well to get busy. She had realized that morning, when she had recovered somewhat from her shock and pulled out again the letter from Lord Lindstrom, that trying to find out more definite information before communicating what she knew to Nicholas was almost impossible from where she was. The fact that she must leave within the next week made it quite impossible. The best she could do was to send him that letter and let him pursue the matter himself if he so chose.
That decision had raised another problem, though, one she felt foolish not to have foreseen. How was she to send the letter to Nicholas? Was she to address it to Mr. Nicholas Seyton, Shropshire, England? And expect it to reach him? Of course, she did not know his address. And how was she to find it? She could hardly ask Lord Barton for it, and she could think of no story that would explain to Mr. Dalrymple why she desired the information. The servants? Despite what Nicholas had said about them, Kate had never quite trusted any of them except the Pickerings. And they could not read. Was it likely that they would have the address she needed? She would ask, but she did not expect any success.
She had decided that she must go back to the Evanses’ cottage. Surely Nicholas would have left his direction with them. She was going to play it safe this afternoon even though she had seen Lord Uppington leave with her own eyes. She was going to take Audrey with her and have the gig prepared for them.
When they reached the lodge, Kate had the coachman wait while she ran inside. She stopped in her tracks when she knocked lightly on the open door and peered into the darkness within. Sir Harry was sitting there looking quite at home, his legs stretched out before him, a tankard of something on the table beside his elbow. His eyelids came down to half-cover his eyes, and his hand sought and found the ribbon of his quizzing glass when he saw Kate.
“Ah, Mrs. Mannering,” he said in such a heavy drawl that his behavior of the afternoon before suddenly seemed like a dream that had played her false, “have you come to sample Pickering’s excellent ale too?’
“I . . . I came to see Josh,” she said, “and to thank him for his assistance yesterday afternoon.”
“He is out back, missus,” Mrs. Pickering said, standing behind Sir Harry and bobbing a curtsy. She looked as if she had been crying, Kate noted in the half-light.
“Thank you,” she said, and turned to go.
“Are you planning to go any farther, Mrs. Mannering?” Sir Harry asked. “If so, perhaps I shall impose my company on you. I despise unnecessary exercise, but sometimes staying still is quite as tedious.” He yawned.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, “but I have Audrey with me in the gig and Jim to drive us. You need not feel obliged to exert yourself.”
“Ah,” he said with a dismissive gesture, “no trouble at all, ma’am. If we are to ride in the gig, the outing suddenly seems the more attractive. You run along and have your word with Josh. I shall entertain Audrey while she waits.”
Chapter 20
“My dear Mrs. Mannering,” Sir Harry said, climbing out of the gig in order to hand her in, “Audrey and I have already been from A to Z through all the possible topics of conversation and were about to start again. Jim has declined to be drawn in at all. I thought perhaps you had left us to our own devices and gone walking alone.”
“No,” she said, “I was merely talking to Josh. And I would apologize for keeping you waiting, but I did not invite you to come along, sir. On this occasion your boredom has been of your own choosing.” She placed a hand in his and stepped nimbly into the gig.
“Now, did I say I had been bored?” he asked. “Did I say that? Audrey? Jim? You malign me, ma’am, and before witnesses too.”
