Читать книгу Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1 - Louise Allen, Christine Merrill - Страница 44

Katherine felt the hot blood rise in her cheeks and bit the inside of her lip. She was not going to be cowed by this terrifying old man.

‘Sir!’ At least she now knew what it took to break Nick’s control.

Her blushes under control, Katherine shot him a quelling look and sank into the chair the Duke had offered her, glad of the moment’s distraction to recover her poise. ‘I have no information on that subject, your Grace,’ she replied icily. ‘From the beginning this has been a marriage of convenience and one intended to be of short duration. Very short. You will, doubtless, wish to know with whom Nicholas has made this temporary contract; my name is Katherine Cunningham. My late father was Philip Cunningham of Ware, in Hertfordshire.’

‘I see. My son appears to have exercised a surprising degree of good judgement in his choice, however temporary. You are naturally most welcome to remain here for as long as it is convenient to you to do so, Katherine.’ He appeared as unsurprised by the news of the annulment as he was by that of the marriage. Katherine began to realise where Nick had learned his formidable self-mastery.

The Duke swung round to study his elder son. The sight did not appear to afford him any great pleasure. ‘So, Nicholas, you have decided to return after—what is it?—six years?’

‘You dismissed me. Sir.’ Released from the duke’s steely regard, Katherine relaxed enough to watch Nick. Under the circumstances he was maintaining an admirable composure. But it was news to her that he had been dismissed by his father; the impression she had received was that he had walked away after a disagreement. Her anger with him at having concealed his true identity began to wane and in its place returned the unwelcome, uncomfortable tug of love at her heartstrings. It must be so hard, so very hard, to come back to such a cold reception.

‘So I did. How amazing that for once you chose the path of obedience.’ The Duke sat in the chair opposite Katherine and studied his sons. ‘Robert, stop hovering and sit.’

Robert did as he was bid and, to Katherine’s surprise, Nick followed suit so that the four of them formed a circle. It was far from a cosy conversational group.

‘Now, let me see, why did I tell you to remove yourself?’ the Duke mused. ‘Ah, yes, the final straw, that highly unsuitable woman.’

Wide-eyed, Katherine looked at Nick. He stared back haughtily at his father and she was suddenly put in mind of two stags she had once seen in Richmond Park. The old stag, his head heavy with antlers, his muzzle white; the younger, with a less impressive spread, but all the stature and arrogance of powerful youth and the pair of them at a stand, eyeing each other for advantage.

‘You made little allowance for young love,’ Nick said eventually, his tone light, and the older man laughed shortly, a harsh note of grudging acknowledgment.

‘I did not, you have the right of it. And it seems I made little allowance for youthful pride. I expected to see you back within a month or two.’

Nick shifted in the chair, crossing his legs and making himself more comfortable and his father’s hard gaze sharpened. ‘Come here.’

‘Sir?’

‘Come here.’ Katherine froze, for she too had seen what that shift of position had revealed: the edge of the fading mark of the noose on Nick’s neck. She put up her hand to her own neck in an attempt to warn him, but he was watching his father, a frown between his eyes.

Slowly Nick uncrossed his legs and stood, then took the two steps which brought him before his father’s chair. The Duke rose and reached out long fingers to push aside the neckcloth around his son’s neck. ‘And what is this?’

‘You told me I was born to be hanged.’ Nick was rigid with some emotion that Katherine could only assume was anger at this chilly interrogation. ‘As always, sir, you were correct.’

‘And how did you escape?’ The Duke flicked back the ends of the neckcloth with fastidious fingers and resumed his chair.

Nick took his time to walk back to his own seat. ‘I was in Newgate, condemned to hang as a highwayman. Katherine saved me, at no little risk to her own life.’

‘Then we are in your debt, my dear.’ The old man twisted in his seat to look at Katherine. ‘Your timing appears to be exquisite—late enough to teach a sharp lesson, not so late that it is fatal. I am agog to hear this entire tale, it appears positively Gothick. However, I believe Heron will soon be announcing luncheon—if this event has not thrown the entire household into total disarray—and I am sure you will wish to retire to your room beforehand.’ He stretched out a hand to the bell pull and Katherine recognised the same long fingers that made Nick’s hands so graceful.

He regarded his elder son from under hooded lids. ‘No doubt Heron will be able to decide which is the most appropriate suite of rooms for Lady Seaton under the circumstances. If you will excuse me, my dear.’

The silence that was left when the door closed behind him appeared to fill the room. Katherine yearned to go and put her arms around Nick, but his very control told her that would be unwelcome. At least she now knew what her own title was. Lady Seaton, the Marchioness. This is a nightmare.

At last, when she felt on the point of screaming at the men to provoke some reaction, Robert said, ‘Hanged?’ His brother nodded. ‘As a highwayman?’

To Katherine’s relief a wry smile twisted Nick’s lips. ‘As the notorious Black Jack Standon, no less.’

An inelegant whistle escaped Robert. ‘You weren’t, were you?’

‘Certainly not. I was most elegantly entrapped by Black Jack and his doxy and haled off to Newgate where I had no means of proving who I am.’

‘But you look nothing like a highwayman,’ Robert protested. ‘I mean, I know your clothes are hardly what one might expect—’

‘They belong to my groom,’ Katherine interjected. ‘And Nick does look very like Mr Standon. Younger, but very like.’

‘How do you know?’ Robert swivelled in his chair to regard Katherine with fascination.

‘Because my wife took it upon herself to go to find him and to persuade him to show himself to the magistrate in the case.’

Robert’s eyes opened wide, making him look even younger than his years. ‘But why was Katherine not able to prove who you were without having to do that? As your wife—’

‘I married Nicholas—’

‘Kat!’

Katherine shot her husband a defiant look. He wanted to shield her and protect her and part of her loved him for it, but she was not going to pretend to her terrifying new family. ‘I married him in Newgate because I was—I am—heavily in debt.’

Robert whistled again. ‘Well, that’s not a problem for you any more. Nick’s as rich as Croesus; old Wilkinson, our man of affairs, has been squirreling his income away in all sorts of interesting ways ever since he left. Nick, for goodness’ sake, are you not going to tell me where you’ve been?’

Katherine cleared her throat. ‘Before this goes any further, let me make my position quite plain. I will have this marriage annulled and I will look after my own debts.’

Robert’s gaze flickered from one determined face to another and this time his whistle was silent. You’ve met your match with this one, Nick. It was a pity, he was rapidly becoming very attached to his new sister-in-law.

‘We will discuss this later,’ Nick began as the door opened and Heron entered.

‘My lord, I have taken the liberty of opening your old rooms and her ladyship’s woman is unpacking her ladyship’s things in the Lake Suite. I have ordered hot water sent up in case her ladyship would care to retire before luncheon, which will be in half an hour.’

Katherine got to her feet with a smile. ‘Thank you, Heron, if you would show me the way.’ Nick made as if to join her, but she smiled coolly at him. ‘I am sure you and Lord Robert have much to discuss, my lord.’

The door closed behind them, leaving Nick conscious of a strong desire to kick the furniture and very aware of his brother’s fascinated gaze.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘You want to annul the marriage?’ Robert sounded incredulous. ‘She is enchanting.’

‘No, I do not want to annul it, but Kat does and she’s as proud as they come and the most stubborn woman I have ever met. She married me in sheer desperation because of the mess her scapegrace brother had got her into and in the expectation that the debt would die with me. I had the devil’s own job getting her to agree to come here in my company.’ He dug his hands into the pockets of his coat and began to pace up and down the room. The emotions that were flooding through him were too complex to untangle, but most of them hurt damnably.

Robert’s uncritical affection he had always been assured of, but he should not have been surprised at his father’s chilly reception. Nor should he have been surprised at the feelings that had gripped him as the landscape had become more and more familiar. Affection, memory, pride and the dragging knowledge that one day all this would be his responsibility. All the acres, all the possessions, all the people inescapably his until the day he died. And then the shock of seeing his home again. The rush of water to his eyes had startled him; perhaps he loved the place more than he had ever realised.

And now he had one more responsibility to worry about—Kat. He remembered the way her eyes had widened and darkened with the dawning knowledge of what she was about to discover of the man she had married. Unconsciously he smiled at the picture of her as she stood in the Great Hall, chin up, back straight, making appropriate conversation with Heron, determined to let neither of them down.

‘I did not tell her who I am—she had no idea until Heron called me by my title,’ he confessed, unpleasantly aware that he was going to be expected to explain himself once Katherine had him alone.

‘No wonder she looks so coolly at you! Why do you want to stay married if she does not?’ Robert asked.

‘Because I owe her my life. I can never pay that debt.’ And because making love to her is rapidly becoming an obsession.

‘And you will persist whether she wants it or not?’

‘Whether she wants it or not,’ he agreed harshly.

A cough announced Heron’s reappearance. ‘My lord, I have asked Lord Robert’s man to lay out a suit of clothes for you from his lordship’s wardrobe. What you are wearing may, of course, be most suitable for travelling, but I fear his Grace will not look kindly upon a frieze coat at the luncheon table.’ He looked pointedly at the clock and both brothers made for the door with alacrity.

‘I remember all too well our father’s views on unpunctuality,’ Nick observed as they parted on the upper landing. ‘I have no wish to render today any more hideous by being three minutes late.’

Robert grinned and slapped him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Welcome home.’

Katherine stood and looked helplessly out across the parkland to the lake.

With her hands full of folded garments, Jenny was chattering happily as she moved between portmanteau and highboy drawers. ‘A Marchioness! Who’d have thought it? And I’ve just realised—that puts me top of all the female servants excepting the housekeeper. Oh, Miss Katherine, just when things looked so black, this is a miracle.’

‘Well, do not get too used to it, Jenny.’ Katherine tossed a fine linen hand towel on to the washstand and gave her appearance a distracted glance in the mirror. ‘We have no choice but to stay here until the annulment, but after that I must be earning my own way.’

‘But, Miss Katherine, the master’s a lord, the heir to a dukedom. You don’t need to worry about the debt—he must make more money than that in a week. And you lo—’ she caught Katherine’s eye, bit her lip and continued carefully ‘—you like him.’

‘You are talking nonsense.’ Katherine twitched at her hem. In a minute she was going to have to go downstairs, face the three men again. ‘Lord Seaton is heir to a dukedom. For that reason alone he must marry well.’

Jenny bristled in her defence. ‘You are well bred, a lady.’

‘Oh, Jenny, a duke is going to be looking for an heiress for his oldest son. He will expect a young lady of lineage and land, someone whose family has connections at Court and in society. Not, of course, that I would not be seeking the annulment in any case, however good my birth,’ she added hastily. Could the heir to a dukedom marry for love? Stop it, she scolded herself, He is not in love with you, that is an academic question.

Somewhere far below her a gong sounded, reverberated. Luncheon was obviously served. Now all I have to do is find the correct dining room in this labyrinth, sit through a meal with a terrifying duke and a man I love and from whom I must hide every tender feeling …

‘I must go. Jenny, have they looked after you? Do you know where to go and have you a chamber to sleep in? And what about John?’ she added distractedly as Jenny pushed her firmly out of the room.

‘I have a very nice room to myself, as befits my new station, and so has John, I believe. And I know the way to the servants’ hall. Now go, Miss Katherine, or you’ll keep the Duke waiting.’

She made her way downstairs slowly, taking the time to compose herself and wishing that for the last few years she had not been so out of society. Not that she would ever have been in a position to make conversation with dukes.

Heron was waiting in the hall and steered her towards, ‘The panelled dining room, my lady. It is the smallest of the dining rooms.’

‘Thank you, Heron.’ She was pleased with the calm way she smiled at him as he opened the door. It was, indeed, a small chamber; Katherine had been envisaging glossy yards of mahogany and having to attempt conversation around gleaming épergnes.

Her relief was abruptly terminated when she realised that the only other occupant was the Duke. His smile, unexpected, was all too reminiscent of Nick at his coolest and she felt her back stiffen as she returned it.

‘You are very prompt, my dear. You found your way with ease, I surmise. Are you comfortable in your suite? Ah, my sons are at your heels.’

Katherine avoided looking at any of the men as she nodded acknowledgement to the footman who pulled out a chair for her and took her place at the table.

‘Most comfortable, thank you, your Grace.’ Acutely conscious of the rigid footmen at the buffet, Katherine was profoundly grateful that he made no comment on the choice of rooms that Heron had assigned to her. Doubtless it would be all over the house in no time that the Marquis was not sharing his wife’s bed. She felt a flush of embarrassment, then thought of how much more Nick would feel it.

‘Has your journey taken you long?’ She pulled herself together and concentrated on making conversation. Naturally the Duke could not ask her where she had come from in front of the servants; he would be endeavouring to make this surprise arrival seem as normal as possible. She set herself to give him as much information as she could without appearing to.

‘We took several days over it, your Grace. Nicholas needed to rest, of course, as he has not been well.’ Katherine ignored the suppressed exclamation from her husband’s lips. ‘The weather in London was very clement when we left.’

‘And your family is well?’

‘My brother is travelling in France, your Grace. Since my parents’ deaths, he has little business, and no family other than myself, to keep him in this county. He left shortly after the wedding.’ Doubtless the Duke’s first recourse when he had returned to the library had been to the Peerage and the Landed Gentry. He would know by now that she had no relatives other than a brother and that their birth, while respectable, was as nothing compared to his.

The meal passed with a rigid formality, which left Katherine dreading dinner. Conversation was measured, general, and left her quivering with tension. The weather, the news of local events, the prospect of a touring company of players at Newcastle and the latest London on-dits served to fill the time unexceptionally. Katherine decided that if it went on much longer she would scream.

Cautiously she glanced at Nicholas while accepting a plate of bread and butter or passing the salt. He appeared calm and relaxed, but she could sense a suppressed emotion in him; doubtless he wanted to have the interview with his father for which he had been bracing himself and this mannered inaction was chafing his nerves as the shackles had chafed his wrists.

Finally the Duke sat back and regarded his family ranged on either side of him. ‘Nicholas, I would speak with you. Robert, perhaps Katherine would care to be shown around the house.’ It was an order, not a suggestion, and Katherine smiled politely.

‘Thank you, your Grace. That would be delightful if Lord Robert can spare the time.’

They all rose and Katherine found Nick at her elbow. He kept his face straight, but the message his eyes sent her was warmly reassuring. However, all he said was, ‘Do not let Robert bore you with every picture in the Long Gallery.’ He bent and kissed her cheek fleetingly and stood aside for her to precede the men from the room.

Nick found himself watching her straight back as she walked away with his brother. Elegance, pride, dignity—he found himself smiling just to watch her.

‘A charming young lady, and one who is disguising with great courage the fact that this household is entirely beyond anything she has experienced before,’ his father remarked drily. ‘Perhaps you can explain to me why you are so intent upon an annulment.’ He strolled towards his study without a backwards glance.

Nick unclenched his teeth, told himself firmly that this was only to be expected and followed.

‘So,’ the Duke continued, ‘I deduce that you did not marry your Clarissa—or was it Annabelle? The objects of your youthful affections are somewhat blurred in my mind after all this time.’ He tugged a cuff slightly. ‘The penalty of old age, no doubt.’

‘I believe you require little reassurance on your memory, Father. You are correct, there were enough young women for you to have easily forgotten Arabella. And, no, I did not marry her; despite the aspersions you cast upon her breeding and upbringing, she was shocked at my suggestion we should elope and for all I know has now married some worthy gentleman.’

‘But you took me at my word and left?’

‘Yes, sir. I understood it to be a command.’ He was damned if he was going to explain now how Arabella’s refusal to give up everything for him had hurt. He had been prepared to estrange himself from his family for her; now he could hardly conjure up the memory of her face. But at the time, to return home a rejected suitor was too hard for youthful pride to swallow.

‘Most dutiful.’ The sceptical expression on his father’s face showed that he had read the situation aright at the time and his next words confirmed it. ‘I expected you to return after a week or two.’

Nick did not rise to the implied question and to his surprise the older man continued. ‘I confess to being less than pleased with the news that my son and heir was keeping himself in London as a Captain Sharp.’

‘I never fuzzed the cards,’ Nick said flatly. ‘I did not need to—you taught me too well.’

‘Gratifying that something I endeavoured to educate you in remained with you. And after two years you disappeared. Why?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I was bored. I moved around the country for eighteen months, then I joined the army on a whim and found I liked it.’

‘Which regiment? Why did I not hear of this?’ The old man stared at him from under levelled brows. ‘What rank?’

‘Private,’ Nick replied, expecting an outburst.

‘A private? My God—’ the Duke threw back his head and gave a bark of laughter ‘—someone to teach you discipline at last.’

‘It certainly taught me self-control,’ Nick agreed pleasantly. The old devil, outflanking him as he so often did in the past!

‘And between that and your career as a highwayman?’

‘Nothing, sir. I was discharged after Waterloo.’ He saw the flash of some emotion in his father’s eyes and pressed on. ‘I returned to England and was on the road to London when I found myself in a country inn. I was drugged and, when I woke, found myself in the guise of the infamous local highwayman Black Jack Standon. I could not prove who I was, so I ended up in Newgate awaiting my execution.’

‘Why did you not send to me?’

‘I really am not sure.’ Nick thought back to those confusing first days after his capture. ‘Too proud, perhaps—and uncertain whether you would acknowledge me. Soon it was too late in any case.’

‘Not acknowledge you!’ The old man was on his feet, his face thunderous. Nick sprang to his and they confronted each other for a long moment before the Duke dropped heavily back into his chair. ‘Damn it, you are my heir, Nicholas.’

‘Robert would make a better one.’

‘He is a good man, too good in many ways—but you are the elder and, whatever your sins, I will do everything in my power to see you step into my shoes when the time comes.’

There seemed to be no answer to that, or at least none that did not carry the risk of giving his father an apoplexy.

‘So how did Katherine come to rescue you from the gallows?’ the Duke enquired finally.

‘Her brother, a spineless young pup, managed to gamble away the family assets, then tricked her into signing the papers for a loan. She found herself confronted with pressing creditors and her lawyer and brother persuaded her that marriage to a condemned man was her only escape from debtors’ prison.’

‘And she agreed? I find that hard to believe.’

‘Very reluctantly, that was obvious. And when I consider how I appeared when she saw me, I can only be astounded that her resolution held. Once she had heard my story, she made up her mind that I must be cleared and set about it. The entire story still makes my blood run cold, but to summarise, she sold the last thing of value she possessed, bearded the real highwayman in his den, convinced him to meet the magistrate in the case, persuaded the magistrate of my innocence and dragged him to London where they arrived, despite a carriage accident on the way, in time literally to cut me down from the gallows.’

‘A remarkable and courageous young lady,’ the Duke remarked. ‘I confess I am not quite clear why you wish to end your marriage to this paragon.’

‘I do not.’ Nick got to his feet and walked across to look out of the window on to the wide and somewhat old-fashioned parterre that the Duke insisted on preserving, despite the best endeavours of his landscape gardener. In the distance he could see Robert, who had Kat’s hand tucked into his elbow and was pointing out something in the view to her. She turned and laughed up into his face and Nick felt a sudden pang inside; she would not be amused when he was finally alone with her, he was quite convinced.

‘I owe her my life. I am honour bound to marry her. I am aware she has not a great name and brings nothing but a debt with her, but …’

‘But I entirely agree with you. The family can cope without the necessity for you to marry an heiress and the girl is obviously of respectable birth. The problem appears to lie in her quite understandable reluctance to marry you, a sentiment with which I can heartily sympathise. You are staring at me, Nicholas—do try for a little more decorum. Now I suggest you go and find her or you may discover that your brother has cut you out.’

Nicholas shut his mouth with a snap. ‘I believe that would be within the prohibited degrees of marriage, sir.’

‘Surely not, if your marriage is annulled?’ his father said gently. ‘Oh, and, Nicholas, if you intend to stay, I trust you intend to work. Witherspoon will be delighted to take you under his wing. He is always politely intimating that he wishes I would concern myself more about the estate.’

Nicholas bowed his head respectfully, managed a smile with tight lips and retreated. ‘Rolled up—cannon, cavalry and infantry too, the old devil.’ He laughed suddenly, unaware that the two footmen in the hall started nervously, believing the old Duke was about to appear. He let himself out on to the terrace and scanned the gardens for Kat and Robert. ‘Made me feel seventeen, never mind the twenty-two I was when I last saw him, damn him.’

He grinned. He had been braced for a rare scene; what he had experienced was his father’s remarkable ability to catch one wrong footed whatever the circumstances. But he liked Kat, that was a relief. Nicholas realised that a good part of his apprehension had been the expectation of having to protect Kat from his father’s opposition to the marriage.

He rounded the corner of the house into the rose garden, the grin still on his lips as he remembered his father’s neat attempt to make him jealous of Robert. Robert, for goodness’ sake! There they were, sitting in the far arbour, Kat with her hands in Robert’s, the pair of them gazing deep into each other’s eyes.

With a muffled oath Nick strode across the lawn.