“I really have no notion,” he said, sounding utterly bored.
Kate swallowed. “Is this why you wished to meet me this evening?” she asked. “So that you could give me a setdown? You might have saved your time, sir. I really do not care that much”—she snapped her fingers in the air—“for your opinion. What I choose to do is entirely my own concern. I have not allowed any man to control or criticize my actions since my husband died. And I have no intention of ever again allowing any man such control.”
“You like theatrics, don’t you, Kate?” Sir Harry said on a sigh. “You should have been an actress, my dear. You would have had all the mindless young bucks of London sighing at your feet. I am not so easily convinced. You are probably just longing for some firm-minded gentleman to take you over his knee and teach you how to behave. Unfortunately, my dear, you are talking to the wrong man. I like my women naturally quiet and dignified. I have no interest in exerting myself to wallop a female who has never been taught how to go on.”
“Well!” Kate pulled her hand from his arm and stood still. She drew in a deep and loud breath. “The idea! The conceit! You are all alike after all. You men are all alike. You think you are perfection itself. You know all there is to know about life and manners and morals. And you think that women are mindless, rebellious little pets to be teased and patted and cuffed into good behavior. We are to be like performing dogs, doing our master’s will and sitting adoring at his feet when he has no use for us, tongue hanging out, panting in ecstasy. Well, poppycock to that, sir. Here is a woman who is also a person, and I don’t care what you think I should be. I am very happy with me, thank you kindly, and that is all that matters.”
His hand was playing with the ribbon of his quizzing glass. He looked bored, Kate noticed with growing fury.
“Control yourself, ma’am,” he said with annoying calm. “I have already said I have no interest in changing you. Tell me, what do you plan to do when you leave here tomorrow?”
“Why?” Kate asked rudely. “What concern is it of yours, sir, what I plan to do? I plan to stay well away from you for the rest of my life. That should please both of us.”
He inclined his head. “It sounds like an admirable scheme,” he agreed. “It is not like to pay the bills, though.”
“Since I have no intention of calling upon you to pay any of my bills,” she said, “how I pay them is none of your problem, sir.”'
He sighed. “And how thankful I am to hear it,” he said. “I imagine that you must be an expensive creature, Kate, with all these dresses you possess—and in two different colors too.”
The anger went out of Kate like a whoosh of air. She stared at him, hurt beyond bearing. She had so few dresses, and none very becoming or fashionable. She had chosen the prettiest. She had gone to great pains to look her best for him, and she had been pleased when she looked at herself in the mirror. And now he was looking at her scathingly, making fun of her clothes with that hateful tone of sarcasm she had always despised. How could she so have lowered herself as to seek to please this man? It said terrible things for the emptiness and loneliness of her life that she had fancied herself in love with him.
“My appearance too is my concern alone, sir,” she said with cold dignity. “If you do not like the way I look, I am sure I do not care. But I cannot think why you sought out my company. I will bid you good night.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “You are prickly tonight, my dear Mrs. Mannering. Tell me what your plans are for the future.”
“I must seek employment in order to finance my expensive living style,” she said bitterly. “Perhaps I will even be extravagant enough to add a third color to my wardrobe if I can earn a high enough salary. And I am not your dear Mrs. Mannering.”
“Will you be journeying to London?” he asked. “Where will you live while you search for new employment?”
“That is not your concern, sir,” she said. “But if you have plans to be in London too, you need not fear that we will move in the same social circles. You will not be seeing me again.”
“A matter of great satisfaction to you, I perceive,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I find your manner obnoxious, sir. And I find I am tired. I shall bid you good night.”
Sir Harry bowed and said nothing. He stood and watched her make her way through the trees back to the lawn at the side of the house. Her shoulders were straight; she walked purposefully. But when she was out in the open, her steps became more hurried. She was running by the time she reached the side door.
Well, and was he satisfied now? Nicholas asked himself. He had not intended that quarrel to happen. Although he had told himself for the past several hours that he should hold her at arm’s length, not allow any intimacy to develop between them, he had believed in his heart that when he saw her he would not be able to resist letting down his guard. He had wanted this hour or so in the park to be a time to remember, perhaps for the rest of his life.
How had it started anyway? His mention of her rash behavior of the afternoon probably. He had not meant to sound coldly disapproving. In truth, he had laughed heartily when he first heard the story, and felt greater admiration for Katherine than he had felt even when she refused to show fear at his kidnapping her. It was only after he had had time to think it over that he had realized how rash her revenge had been. He had merely wanted to express that this evening, to show her that he was concerned for her safety.
When she had become angry, he had found suddenly that being Sir Harry came almost naturally to him. He had meant to tease, had not realized until it was too late that he really had angered and even hurt her. And yet perhaps some part of him had quite deliberately destroyed the atmosphere of closeness that might have characterized their evening together. Some sensible part of his brain had been telling him all along that this was the way it should be. She would leave now hating him, quite happy never to see him again. And that was the way it should be. It was purely selfish to want her to love him and to miss him when she left.
But no, he decided, he could not leave matters quite like this. She was upset. He had hurt her with his remarks about her clothes. He really had not meant to. He had thought she would see his comment as a joke. But she had been angry. It is sometimes hard to see the funny side of a remark when one is boiling with fury. He must apologize. He must wish her well. And somehow he must persuade her to tell him where she was going to be staying. He would see her in the morning before she left. Fortunately most of the residents of the Abbey would probably be still in bed. He would perhaps have a private moment with her.
Nicholas sighed. A private moment. It was so inadequate. He could be with her now, the whole night ahead of them if they needed it, if only he had not given in to the temptation to goad her into anger. And he was becoming more and more pessimistic of ever being able to claim her for his own. The waiting had gone on for so many days that he almost despaired of his plan to lure Clive Seyton into leading him to his mother. Somehow the plan no longer seemed so likely to succeed. Almost five-and-twenty years had passed. A quarter of a century.
With lagging steps Nicholas followed Kate across the lawn and through the side entrance to the house. There seemed nothing better to do than go to sleep.
Kate closed her door fast behind her and threw her shawl in the general direction of the bed. She went straight through to her dressing room, tugging at the pins that held her hair in the style she had been so pleased with an hour since. She shook her head vigorously, took a brush from her dressing table, and began to drag it mercilessly through the waves and knots.
How could he! Oh, how could he? And how could she? What was it in the last few days that had blinded her to just how insufferable he was? Always so cynical and so scornful. Always so ready with an insult. Always treading on her feelings just as if he believed she had none. Always so ready to tell her how little she appealed to him. How could she possibly have convinced herself that she loved such a man? She seemed to have an alarming tendency to fall for the wrong men. First Nicholas. Now Sir Harry.
Why in heaven’s name had he invited her to meet him this evening? Just so that he could insult her and sneer at her? It was just as well that she would never see him again. He would probably make much of the loose morals of a woman who would agree to meet a man late at night in the garden without any sort of chaperonage. She would never hear the end of it.
And to think she had sat for half an hour and more for Audrey to do something pretty with her hair. And picked her dress with such care. And been so flushed and starry-eyed. She had made a pretty fool of herself. Probably that story would be all over the house by tomorrow, to rival the account of Lord Uppington’s humiliation. Wouldn’t they all laugh! The poor love-starved widow tripping out to the garden dressed for all the world as if she were going to the ball, just in order to meet a man who had never made any secret of the fact that he despised her.
But she did not care, Kate told herself, slamming the brush down on the dressing table again. Let them talk. Let them laugh their heads off. She did not care. She would not be here anyway. She would never have to face any one of them again. And what she did not know would not hurt her.
