Читать книгу Regency Vows - Kasey Michaels, Alison DeLaine - Страница 30
ОглавлениеKATHERINE WAS LOSING the battle.
She pushed past Dobbs after the awful evening at the theater and charged toward the staircase as quickly as her enormous skirts would allow, dragging in panicked breaths, keeping her hood pulled low so no one would see her tears.
Marriage!
Once you’re safely wed, I hope you might consider joining me for some more interesting entertainment than the theater.
Never mind the Duke of Winston’s disgusting proposition. He assumed she would marry. Expected her to marry.
And what had Captain Warre been doing meanwhile? She could have sworn one or two of the visitors to her box had been in his first. He’d done no better the night before at Vauxhall, going off on a turn with some young girl...which, of course, there was no reason why he shouldn’t. No reason at all.
She gulped for breath against fresh tears, hurrying up the stairs. Marriage. It was out of the question. Dunscore was hers, and they would not take it from her that way. When she reached the landing, that giant portrait enticed her with its promise.
One day, Katie, you will be mistress here, and the very waves will tremble at your footsteps.
The waves did tremble at her feet, and she hadn’t needed Dunscore to make it so. Hadn’t needed the Lords, or committees or marriage to make it so.
Upstairs in her room, she stood impatiently while her maid unfastened her gown and stays and took down her hair. Katherine dismissed her quickly and finished the rest herself, putting on her own nightgown and sitting wearily with her brush, staring at her reflection in the glass.
If the bill passed, Holliswell would benefit. But if she married, then one of their own would reap Dunscore’s reward. Was that their logic?
Her throat tightened, and a trenchant longing crept out of hiding.
When I pass away, Papa, I shall be buried right here in Dunscore’s courtyard.
Good heavens, Katie. Nobody wants to play ninepins on a person’s grave. Damned macabre of you. Impractical, too.
This couldn’t happen. This grief—it was all in the past, and it would not resurface.
She got up and paced to the fireplace. What was rightfully hers had been taken a long time ago. There was no reason to feel so deeply for it now. Growing attached to places, to people, could only lead to heartache. Hadn’t she learned that well enough?
Come, Papa—you must come see what the rain has done. Dunscore’s walls are glistening in the sunset like they’re made of jewels!
He had indulged her that time, letting her take his hand and lead him outside and show him how the battlements shone like fiery diamonds against dark stormclouds to the east.
A sudden urge gripped her to dash off a note to Captain Warre asking for reassurance, and she clenched her fists to keep from rushing to the writing desk. Using Captain Warre for his influence—that was the plan. Not relying on him. Not leaning on him in her moments of weakness.
Her fingernails bit into her palms.
Stupid, stupid female that she was. Even now, she could feel his arms around her as if they still stood in the shadows of that arbor. She could feel his strength.
His cannons had once nearly killed her, but now he worked for her security.
He’d lied to her aboard her own ship, but now she knew him to be driven by honor.
Slowly her hands went slack. She turned away from the fire and paced a few feet, briskly, and stopped. Tried to pretend she still held him responsible for her fate. That she hadn’t forgiven him entirely in that single moment, standing in Lord Deal’s ballroom with a confectionery ship bearing down on them full sail.
He was pigheaded, yes. Driven to bend anything and everyone to his will, including her. He may have been many things, but devil take him, he wasn’t to blame.
And she could not let him know, because his sense of guilt was the only thing keeping him on her side.
* * *
“A DUEL!” KATHERINE practically barked the word, then wished she hadn’t as a couple enjoying a morning stroll in the park looked over to gawk. “Impossible,” she whispered to Phil and Honoria as the sunshine struggled through high clouds. “It can’t be true.” What could possess him to do something so irrational?
The possible answers slid hotly through her like a sip of hard liquor.
“It is absolutely true,” Honoria said. “Lady Poole sent me a note just this morning. She heard it from Lord Poole, who heard it from someone who heard it from Lord Vincroft himself, who, of course, was there.”
A duel. For her honor. Deep inside, the idea of it lured her like a shimmering pearl. “Captain Warre is far too pragmatic for such nonsense,” she told them.
Honoria and Phil exchanged a look.
She needed him to be pragmatic. Because yesterday a set of intricate toy ships had arrived, and for the first time since they’d arrived in London, Anne’s face had lit with excitement. And Katherine had imagined, not for the first time, what it would be like if Captain Warre was always there to lift Anne in his arms and make her think of happy things.
If not for the scare Anne had given them that morning, Katherine would have been the one in his arms.
And it would have led to disaster, because she didn’t want to be in his arms. He made her volatile. His fiery kisses, his murderous flashes of outrage—they needed to stop. She couldn’t have him acting as though he was...as though he was...
“A man in the grip of passion,” Phil said, “is anything but pragmatic.” She slid her twinkling, damnable eyes toward Katherine. “I daresay you chained his heart as well as his hands when you shackled him to your bed.”
“Shackled him to your bed!” Honoria stopped short, all curiosity. “La, do tell!”
She was going to kill Philomena. “Phil exaggerates,” she managed calmly. “It was a simple precaution. He was a stranger, and one cannot be too careful at sea.”
Phil gave Honoria a look. “A very...aroused stranger, shall we say.”
“Aha! I knew you were not his greatest misfortune, Katherine. Forgive me— Oh, now I see what he meant by combative. Do stop looking at me like that.”
“Without knowing his identity,” Katherine explained impatiently, “we had no idea what he was capable of.”
“I see.” But still Honoria’s eyes danced with other imaginings, and Phil’s expression was positively triumphant.
Things were spiraling out of control very quickly. “I shall have Madame Bouchard design a space in my skirts this afternoon for my cutlass,” Katherine snapped. “If anyone is to duel on my behalf, it shall be me.”
“A splendid idea,” Phil said. “Men like Winston and Wenthurst might not be led so slavishly by their anatomies if they feared their precious organs might be lopped off.” She laughed in that sultry way of hers. “By now I’m sure all the ton knows you threatened to cut off Winston’s cock in his sleep.”
“Which was fabulous, but unwise given that he will chair the committee,” Honoria said, and then laughed. “La, how it must have shocked Winston to have his proposition so violently rebuffed!”
“It wasn’t that proposition that offended me,” Katherine told them. “It was his assumption that I would soon be accepting a different kind of proposition.” A couple rode past on horseback and waved a greeting to Honoria. Katherine lowered her voice. “What is everyone thinking of with all this talk of my marriage? Can they possibly be serious?”
Phil waved the idea away. “Dearest, it’s only natural for men to think of marriage when there is a propertied woman to be had. You mustn’t let it upset you. They cannot force you into wedlock.”
Honoria frowned. “They could, indeed, if they make it clear the bill will move forward if she doesn’t marry.”
“They could at that,” Phil agreed.
“But will they?” Katherine’s question shot too loudly into the air.
Honoria took Katherine’s arm. “Tell me, suppose a man did show honorable intentions—a tolerable man, naturally. Would you be interested?”
“Certainly not.”
“A handsome man, of course. Strong. Of good breeding and titled, naturally. Honorable, steadfast, loyal—”
“Someone has been reading too many novels!” Phil laughed.
“Oh, hush. Your Pennington was such a man, Philomena.” Phil fell silent, and Honoria tightened her grip on Katherine’s arm. “In all seriousness, Katherine. If marriage does become your only option—”
“It can’t.”
“—have you not considered that perhaps it would solve everything?”
She wasn’t a fool—the well-bred, titled man Honoria spoke of was her own brother. “Find me a man who obeys orders instantly, who will never question my authority even in his own private thoughts, and I shall consider it.”
“Ha!” Honoria exclaimed. “If I find such a man, rest assured I shall keep him entirely for myself. Oh! Look there.” Honoria grabbed Katherine’s arm and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Isn’t that Miss Holliswell? Who is she talking to?”
Katherine looked in the direction Honoria’s nose pointed, still contemplating the too-real possibility that the price for Dunscore would be her freedom.
“It looks like Viscount Edrington,” Phil said, and made a noise. “Most foppish bore in London.”
“Oh, dear,” Honoria said. “Look how she’s in earnest. Poor girl—such a timid thing. How could Nicholas harbor affection for her?” After another moment she said, “Do you think she could be afraid of him?”
“Of Edrington?” As they watched, Miss Holliswell glanced over her shoulder and shifted a little. A prim young woman who could only be Miss Holliswell’s maid waited nearby, wringing her hands.
“You don’t suppose he has a tendresse for her,” Honoria said doubtfully. “How are we supposed to discover anything when she carries no fan?”
“I should hope she doesn’t have a tendresse, for both their sakes,” Phil said. “The last Viscount Edrington drained the estate nearly dry. He hasn’t nearly enough income to satisfy her father’s expectations.”
“La, look at that! She tried to walk away, but he followed her. Should we go rescue her, do you think? It’s obvious she’s being accosted.”
At that moment, Katherine spotted Captain Warre and his brother striding purposefully toward Miss Holliswell and Lord Edrington. “I don’t think we’ll need to,” she said. “Look.”
The men hadn’t seen them, and the reason why was clear: Nicholas Warre had his entire attention focused on Miss Holliswell. As they watched, he broke away from Captain Warre and strode toward her and the viscount. Captain Warre’s thunderous expression was visible even from this distance.
“Good heavens, the poor girl is liable to faint dead away,” Honoria said. Just then, Captain Warre spotted them. Honoria waved. “Come—let’s go find out what’s going on.”
Katherine would have preferred not to, but yet another pair of men was strolling in their direction, so she followed Honoria and Phil. They met Captain Warre—whose heart she had absolutely not chained—beneath a tree.
“I know nothing more than that Nick had heard Miss Holliswell was in the park when I arrived,” he told them irritably, “and that if I wanted to speak to him, I had to come along.”
“Oh, what do you suppose he’s saying?” Honoria asked with frustration.
Whatever Nicholas Warre said to Viscount Edrington, it had the effect of causing the viscount to bow, mount his horse and ride away.
“Well, pooh,” Honoria said.
Phil’s lips twitched mischievously. “He could at least have challenged Edrington to a duel.”
Honoria’s eyes danced in Captain Warre’s direction. “Duels are all the rage these days, are they not?”
Katherine glared at her.
“Oh, look,” Phil exclaimed now, taking Honoria’s arm. “There’s Lady Pollard. Honoria, were you not just saying this very morning that you wished to speak with her about her pair of greyhounds?”
“Indeed!” Honoria said. “And there she is, with both of them on leads. What a remarkable coincidence! Quickly—we must catch her before they run off with her.”
They scurried off toward Lady Pollard and the two greyhounds Honoria had likely been unaware of until this moment, leaving Katherine alone with Captain Warre, who still scowled at his brother.
A duel. She looked at his profile, chiseled like the most perfect statue carved by the greatest master, and her blood pulsed a little faster. It was easy to imagine the way his eyes would have turned stony when he threatened those men at the theater, the way his voice would have iced over.
A flutter took wing in her belly.
“Illegal activity is beyond the scope of anything that might repay the debt you owe me,” she informed him.
“Sometimes I forget how quickly news spreads in London.”
“Do not call a man out on my behalf again.”
Now he turned and leveled those green eyes at her. “Rest assured, it was a momentary lapse of judgment.”
A tiny, irrational disappointment grabbed her. “As were the boats,” she said, when she should have thanked him. “I’ll not have Anne relying on you, only to have you forget all about her after your debt is repaid.”
Anger lit those eyes. “I would never abandon Anne.”
You’re my princess, Katie. Father had used to say that, too, but it was a lie. She hadn’t been a princess—just a naive young girl like every other naive young girl, nothing more nor less special than the rest, expendable in the end when something more fun came along.
“Do not back yourself into a corner, Captain. It is inevitable. You and I have an acquaintance by necessity—one that, by the grace of God, may end very soon.” Before she—not Anne—became the one in danger of relying on him.
