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The pang recurred, stronger this time. Kate swallowed against a lump forming in her throat and put away the plate.
Kate’s mother had died when she was six years old. Every day of her life, her mother had brushed her hair, telling her in whispered tones that she was more special than anyone she knew. That she was lovely because her blood was finer than mere farming stock. That she would do better for herself someday than her mother had—no life as a servant for her, no life as a farmer’s wife—she must reach higher.
It made no sense.
Katherine turned to the little landscape that hung by the kitchen window, a scene of the seashore she had loved since she was a child. How she admired the brushstrokes which brought to life the beach, the large rocks, the waves that crested and sprayed around them, the birds flying above. Running the tip of her finger along the bottom of the wooden frame, she wished, for perhaps the thousandth time, that she might go there, to that beach. How she longed to know the scent of sea air, the cry of gulls, the crash of waves. The ocean called to her, and she liked to dream of how it might explain her mother’s fancies. Perhaps her father was no footman, but an admiral of the Royal Navy! Or a pirate, why not? Either would please her. Either would explain the deep sense of unease she felt with her life here on the farm. It did not fit her.
‘Kate, you must be sensible,’ Aunt Mary said, bringing her back to the present. ‘’Twas a good deed you did, saving the marquess and his horse, and none can gainsay it. But you mustn’t dwell on it.’
Kate chewed on her upper lip, preventing herself from making a snappish reply.
‘Your mother raised you to think you’re somehow highborn, and ’twas not a kindness she did you. You’re not better than the rest of us, and the sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be, mark my words.’
But I do not fit with the rest of you.
I should have to change myself somehow.
I should like to belong without having to change, but ’tis unlikely to ever be possible.
Kate sighed and gave her aunt a strained smile. ‘Of course, Aunt Mary. You are in the right, as always. I shall take your words to heart.’
But in her soul she knew that she would not.
James
James Rhodes, Marquess of Thorburn, was bored.
This was nothing new. In fact, it was the most commonplace occurrence of James’s life. No indeed, what was an unexpected reversal was for James to find that he wasnotbored. And that very thing had happened just the day before.
James could make no comment about this in the present company. He was seated on a stone bench, watching Lady Henrietta Winfrith roll a ball at a set of skittles set up in a paved allee. Around Lady Henrietta tittered her friends, various other ladies of theton.None of them would have any appreciation for the rescue of Merrylegs or the charms of a farmhouse tea.
‘Life is drudgery,’ he had said to his mother at dinner, just a week since.
‘Nonsense, James. ’Tis vulgar to say such things,’ the Dowager Marchioness of Thorburn had said as she speared a bit of fish on her fork.
James hid a sneer behind his napkin.
Mother fixed him with her steely gaze. ‘You’ve turned your back on the divine, James. Look no further for the source of your ennui. If you began to accompany me to church on Sundays, as I have requested many times—’
‘Mother—’
Lady Thorburn slammed down her fork so hard the table clattered.
James closed his eyes in a wince.
‘Do not interrupt.’
‘My apologies, Mother.’
‘Gallivanting about London, attending balls but never courting any young ladies—do you think me a fool, James? Do you fancy yourself so artful as to have deceived your own mother?’
‘I’m sure I can’t imagine what you mean.’
‘You are a rake, my son. I am well aware of it. Heaven forbid your dissolute ways lead the whole family to ruin—!’
‘Balderdash, Mother! And how, may I ask, am I on the verge of such a disastrous outcome?’
‘Another interruption!’ Mother was red in the face, her mouth pinched with displeasure.
