“No,” she said. No, she would not have gone back. She had made a firm decision on that. But who knew? If there was to have been a child of her body and the choice had been between making it a bastard or giving it his name, perhaps she would have chosen the latter course.
“Has there been anyone?” he asked her. “Any man who has shown interest in you? Any man you have been interested in?”
“That is no concern of yours,” she said.
“It is.” His eyes looked directly back into hers. Aunt Martha was right, she thought irrelevantly. His eyes were purely blue. “You would not be able to marry him, Katherine, without offering a difficult explanation first and perhaps being rejected as a result. And I would be the one responsible for that.”
“You make too much of it,” she said “I have no wish to marry.”
“You say I have no feelings,” he said. “The same cannot be said of you. You have eyes that are more expressive than you would wish them to be with me, I do not doubt. Your voice tells me that you are happy as you are. But in your eyes there is a great sadness.”
“Because you have come here and disturbed my peace,” she said. “Because you have brought back memories that I would prefer never to remember.”
“I do not trust what your voice tells me,” he said. “I trust your eyes. Ah, you lower them too late. Until your eyes can assure me that you want neither me nor the things that only I can offer you, I will be living at Ty Mawr, Katherine, and meeting you and speaking with you as often as possible. And you cannot go away from here, can you? You are in perpetual exile here—unless you allow me to take you away as my bride.”
She kept her eyes lowered. And she suddenly wondered why she did not simply accept him, why she had not accepted him five years ago when her mind had been pulsing with terror at the prospect of being whipped as the first punishment for refusing him. But she knew why she had not accepted him. She had known at the time and she knew now, though she had not rationalized it in her mind for a long time.
“Your aunts are approaching,” he said. “You will come to dinner tomorrow evening.”
It was not a question. She did not answer.
And then she could feel nothing but shock as he took her right hand in both of his and raised it to his lips, drawing back her leather glove so that his lips touched the bare skin on the back of her hand. It felt as if her stomach performed a complete somersault, though she knew from a single experience of the past that it was not really her stomach that was responding to his touch but her womb.
Her aunts had come up to them, Aunt Martha looking like the proverbial cat that had swallowed the proverbial canary, and even Aunt Hetty looking remarkably pleased with herself. And the marquess was making himself agreeable to them and issuing the invitation to dinner. Her aunts accepted it with alacrity, of course.
And then he was gone. Her aunts contained themselves only until they were all inside the house before expressing their gratification—at the invitation and at the satisfactory progress of the courtship.
“Well, Kate,” Aunt Hetty said, “you told him you would rather be dead than married to him, and yet he walked you home this morning and stood talking with you. What do you say now about the constancy of his feelings?”
“And he kissed your hand, dear,” Aunt Martha added. “There is no more romantic gesture, I have always thought, than a gentleman’s kissing a lady’s hand.”
Kate could still feel the imprint of his lips against the back of her hand and the desire for him throbbing deep in her womb. She could find no answer for either of them. She fled upstairs instead. She seemed to be doing rather too much fleeing upstairs lately.
He had invited the Reverend and Mrs. Morris to dinner, along with the Llewellyns and the Pritchards, with their grown-up son, and Mr. Jenkins, who had recently retired from his position as choirmaster at one of the Welsh cathedrals—one with an unpronounceable name. And the Misses Worsley were invited too, of course. There would be even numbers, with Katherine. She would come. He did not doubt that she had believed him when he had threatened to go and fetch her if she did not come.
She was wearing a rose-pink gown that he remembered. She would be mortified if she realized that, he thought. It was woefully out of fashion now, but it looked new. He guessed that she had not worn it above once or twice in five years. Or perhaps not at all, before tonight. Her hair had been dressed higher than usual and two strands had been curled and allowed to fall loose over her temples, almost to her shoulders.
It seemed that everyone looked at her appreciatively, including Mr. Dafydd Pritchard, who must be a year or two her junior. The Marquess of Ashendon found himself wanting to punch the unoffending young man in the mouth.
After dinner he organized two tables of cards in the drawing room. Fortunately Miss Martha Worsley and Mr. Jenkins were deep in conversation about the relative merits of trained choirboys and spontaneous congregational singing, and Katherine sat quietly listening. The marquess was not forced to make up a third table.
“I noticed a harpsichord in your aunts’ parlor, Miss Buchanan,” he said, coming to stand beside her chair and touching his fingertips lightly to her shoulder, careful to keep them on the silk of her dress and not on the bare flesh close to it. “Do you play?”
He knew that she played. She had been an accomplished pianist and she had had a sweet singing voice. He had been careful now to ask in her aunt’s hearing so that she would not be able to deny her skill.
“A little,” she said, her eyes straying to the pianoforte.
“Rather more than a little, my lord,” Miss Martha Worsley said, breaking off her conversation with Mr. Jenkins for a moment. “Kate is very modest.”
“Then you will play for us?” He tightened his hand a little on her shoulder.
She rose to her feet without another word and crossed to the instrument. She stood looking down at it for a while and rubbed her forefinger over one key.
“It is a long time since I played a pianoforte,” she said, her voice wistful.
He took a pile of music out of the bench and allowed her to make her choice. Then he stood behind her, listening to her play and watching a strand of hair that had pulled loose from her chignon curl invitingly on her neck. He wanted to lift it with one finger and set his mouth on the place where it now lay.
She had not lost her touch or her absorption in her playing. She seemed to forget about him for half an hour and even seemed unaware when he moved closer to turn the pages.
