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Still, she might have some of those clotted cream caramels she’d given Diana last time she’d visited, and she certainly wasn’t cross like Diana’s grandmother.
As she watched Mr Patmore step from his carriage, then help out the pretty lady who looked a bit cross today, followed by another older lady, she thought how nice and cosy the carriage would be to hide in. It both amused her to think of how cross Lady Hale would be as she’d no doubt be when she sent Betsy off in a fluster to look for her. Suddenly, it seemed a very good idea to leave the house and run across the lawn and jump in.
Diana was reasonably confident Mr Patmore wouldn’t be cross with her when he discovered her there after he returned to his townhouse only a few blocks away at the end of his visit. He was always nice to everyone.
Especially to her mama and to Diana.
“I’m sure I like Ladies Fenton and Quamby, but there are other people to visit,” Odette whispered to Jack as they waited upon the doorstep of Quamby House to be admitted. “Please, let us not stay long. Aunt Harriet, you don’t want to, do you?”
Jack wondered if Odette’s reluctance to be here had anything to do with Katherine. The thought made him uncomfortable. He’d tried so hard to deny his feelings for Katherine and, when that proved impossible, make himself immune to them. He hoped Odette was not aware of the frisson of intense emotion that swamped him each time his old friend was anywhere near.
“We’ll stay as long as necessary to be polite, and then you can remind me of your dressmaker’s appointment,” he told her, trying to summon warmth towards Odette when she smiled her gratitude and squeezed his arm, saying, “You are the most thoughtful man a wife could have, Jack.”
Last night, when Lady Fenton had invited a small group to join her and her sister for a morning tea this morning, there’d been no room to refuse. Jack had been both glad and otherwise. It was becoming increasingly harder to deny that his attraction to Katherine was becoming almost unbearable, not to mention difficult to hide.
Odette squeezed his hand as they heard footsteps in the lobby, and he returned the gesture. Odette’s father was dying, and she needed to know she could rely upon him.
“Miss Worthington and… Miss Worthington. Jack, welcome!” Lady Quamby greeted Jack, Odette and her chaperone. Jack was surprised to see that Lord Derry and Bertram Brightwell had been included in the morning tea when they were shown into the drawing room. Katherine was not among them.
Disappointment was quickly followed by forced relief, until the sound of Katherine’s voice in the passage made his pulse skitter and the blood scald the surface of his skin.
There she was standing in the doorway, no doubt looking as beautiful as he remembered though he forced himself not to jerk his head around at her entrance for fear he’d give himself away. Instead, he allowed Derry to be the first to move forward, the older gentleman taking Katherine by the hand in the most familiar of gestures before leading her to a chair.
“You look flustered, my dear. Is everything all right?” Derry enquired.
Jack would have liked to have asked Katherine the same thing. He didn’t think it was Derry’s excessive attentiveness that accounted for the flushed look on her face for she’d looked harried the moment she walked into the room.
Katherine glanced at the others and, seeing that only Derry was paying her any attention—Jack was pretending to listen to what Odette had to say—muttered, “Lady Hale has come to visit Diana unexpectedly, and my daughter is not behaving as an exacting grandmother would like.”
“Or her mother?” Derry enquired, patting Katherine’s hand consolingly.
Jack noticed Katherine pulled it away though not rudely.
Katherine lowered her eyes. “I don’t like her grandmother either so I can hardly blame her. I’ve asked Lady Hale to join us in a few minutes as Diana needs to be punished for yesterday’s naughtiness and do an arithmetic lesson instead of have a story. I thought a white lie that involved draconian measures would be more likely to have the desired effect.”
Jack was surprised at Lord Derry’s warning tone as he addressed Katherine. Several others had begun to talk, but Jack’s ears were attuned to the intimate discussion between his friend and her… He wasn’t sure what to call Lord Derry, who was saying gravely, “You know Freddy was quite particular in his final wishes that Diana spend more time with her grandmother. You don’t want her to decide she’ll take Diana on a more permanent basis.”
Katherine’s hand flew to her mouth. “She couldn’t. Diana’s my daughter.”
“But a father’s last wishes count for a great deal more than the desires of a mother in the eyes of the court.”
Jack wanted to shake Derry. What was the man playing at? Meanwhile, he was doing his best to attend to two conversations at once, and only realised how poor a job he was doing when Odette patted his knee and asked, patiently, “Jack, dearest, isn’t that right? We can’t stay very long today as—”
He was relieved when Lady Quamby interjected cheerfully, “I believe, Jack, that you are taking Odette to see your father in the country after this. You’ll stay for lunch, naturally. It’s three hours to Patmore Farm by carriage. I was expecting you’d stay fo
r proper refreshment. I thought that’s what we’d agreed.”
He felt Odette stiffen beside him at the same time he caught Katherine’s clear-eyed glance across the table. She was still upset, and his heart tumbled to his boots at the knowledge he could do nothing to help her; that he was, in fact, contributing in another way so greatly to her pain.
He forced himself to look away, his only consolation that Katherine’s decisions had been made by herself. She’d thrown herself into her marriage with Freddy Marwick incautiously, recklessly, when he’d advised her to show restraint.
But wasn’t that one of the things he loved about her? Her exuberance, her impetuosity.
There was little evidence of it now, though. The past seven years seemed to have quashed so much of that spirit, and Jack wondered sadly how much remained. Enough to extricate her from a marriage with Derry that she didn’t desire?
For there was Derry, now, murmuring words of comfort in her ear judging by the conciliatory pat upon her sleeve and frown of concern.
As Jack accepted Lady Quamby’s invitation, he heard Katherine’s steely rejoinder and was pleased at the fact she could still assert herself. “Diana will not be spending any more time with her grandmother than absolutely necessary, Derry. I don’t care what Lady Hale has been saying to you. Nor can I imagine why she would voice such sentiments to you.”
