Читать книгу The Lady Who Broke the Rules - Marguerite Kaye - Страница 10

Maer Hall, Staffordshire, 1816

‘Kate! So glad you could make it.’ Sarah Wedgwood pushed her way through the crowd to greet her friend. ‘I was afraid you were still in the Lake District.’

Lady Katherine Montague grimaced. ‘No, I returned a couple of weeks ago, just in time for my cousin Araminta’s wedding.’

‘I heard that your other cousin, Ross, ran off with a ladies’ maid,’ Sarah said sotto voce, eyes agog as she led Kate to a quiet corner of the room. ‘Surely that cannot be true?’

‘We don’t actually know what happened. When my Aunt Wilhelmina discovered that Ross’s intentions towards the girl were honourable, she rather lost the rag with the poor soul and sent her packing. Ross was furious —he headed hotfoot after her, and frankly we have no idea where they are now. Wherever it is, I do most sincerely hope they are married, for it seemed to me that Ross was quite besotted, and of course,’ Kate said with a mischievous smile, ‘to discover that her meddling has had the exact opposite effect of what she intended will make my dear aunt furious. She can talk of nothing but nourishing vipers in her bosom, and my father—actually, I’m not sure that Papa takes in anything much these days, since Edward and Jamie …’

Kate broke off, the familiar lump in her throat preventing her from continuing. Though it had been more than a year since Ned died at Waterloo, longer since Jamie had disappeared, the loss of her brothers still felt unreal. Both were buried in the distant lands where they fell. She wondered sometimes if that was it—with nothing to mark their passing, she could believe that they were still abroad, fighting. At times, she could wholly understand her father’s desire to live in the past. Though Jamie had always been too much the duke-in-waiting for her to do anything other than spar with him, she had loved Ned.

‘Sorry,’ she said to Sarah. ‘Things at home have become rather horribly complicated. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that your invitation for tonight was most welcome, though my aunt was furious at my accepting it. But I could not deny myself such an opportunity. Where is your guest of honour, I do not see him here?’

‘That is my fault, I fear,’ Josiah Wedgwood, son of the famous potter and the owner of Maer Hall, interrupted. ‘Mr Jackson was with me at the Etruria works, and I did not notice the time. He is changing for dinner, but he should not be long. How are you, Lady Katherine? It is very good to see you.’ Josiah bent low over Kate’s hand. ‘Our Mr Jackson made his fortune in American stoneware, you know, and we plan to do some business together, but I will not bore you with the details, my dear. Tell me how the duke does?’

‘Bearing up. He sends his regards,’ Kate said, a barefaced lie, for her ailing father was not even aware that she was here in Staffordshire, and would never have thought of sending his regards to a man he would consider to be a tradesman. ‘Never mind Papa, tell me about Mr Jackson. I cannot tell you how excited I am about meeting him. What is he like?’

‘See for yourself,’ Sarah replied, nudging her arm in a most unladylike manner. ‘Here he is now.’

As the double doors at the end of the Great Hall were closed by the Wedgwoods’ head footman, a ripple of excitement fluttered through the assembled guests. All eyes turned towards the man making his way down the room. Whispers, like the ruffle of a spring breeze playing on new leaves, rose to a murmur of anticipation. Silks rustled as the ladies of the company vied surreptitiously to be the first to greet him. Gentlemen edged closer to their host with the same intention.

The focus of all this attention seemed oblivious. He was tall, which was the first thing which struck Kate. And he was exceedingly well-built too, with muscles straining at the cloth of his coat, though he carried himself with the grace of a predator. There was about him something fierce, an aura of power, of sheer masculine force which should have repelled her but which Kate recognised, with a frisson of awareness, was actually fatally attractive. In every sense, Mr Jackson was different from any man she had ever met.

As his host stepped forward to greet him, Virgil Jackson resisted the urge to pull his coat more closely around him. A huge fire blazed at the end of the long gallery, but the heat it emitted radiated out to a distance of a few feet only, before disappearing into the chilly air. The copious renovations which Josiah had explained to him in detail during the tour of the hall the day before had not extended to this great gallery, which was part of the original Jacobean building. Despite the tapestries and hangings, a permanent breeze seemed to flutter around the cavernous space. The English didn’t seem to notice the cold, however. The ladies were all bare-shouldered, the rich silks and lace of their evening gowns low-cut, showing an expanse of bosom that in Boston would have been deemed shocking.

The starched collar of his shirt was chafing Virgil’s neck. The gathering, which his host had described to him earlier as ‘a few choice friends,’ seemed to consist of at least thirty people dressed in their finest. He smiled and made his bow to a stream of faces it was not worth his while remembering, relieved that he’d had the sense to visit a London tailor upon arriving in England.

Though he had nothing to be ashamed of in the quality of his Boston-made clothes, there was no denying that they were behind the times compared to English fashions. The dark blue superfine tailcoat he wore tonight was fitted so tightly across his shoulders and chest that it was frankly a struggle to put on, but the tailor had assured him that this was how it should be. His knitted grey pantaloons seemed indecently tight, and a far stretch from the formal black silk breeches and stockings worn on such an occasion back home, but the valet he’d hired—much against his own inclinations—had assured him that in the country evening dress was reserved for balls. The man had been right. He had been damned finicky, fussing over the perfect placing of a pearl pin in the cravat Virgil had been forced to allow him to tie after his own third attempt ended in a crumpled heap with the others, but he’d been right, and though it irked him that it should be so, Virgil was grateful for this small mercy. In attire, at least, he was the same as every other male guest in the room.

Of course, in virtually every other sense he was quite different. Virgil suppressed a sigh. He was grateful for the effort that Josiah and his wife had made to welcome him into their home, but with business concluded, he would much rather have avoided this soirée and the collection of influential people Josiah had invited for the sole purpose of demonstrating their support for what they perceived to be a shared cause. So many variations of that famous abolitionist medallion created by Josiah’s father were being brandished under his nose—the manacled slave cast in gold and silver worn as a bracelet, a necklace, a fob or a hair ornament—that he could be in no doubt of their goodwill. But the people of Old England were as ignorant of one salient fact as those in New England. It was one thing to cut the chains of slavery, quite another to be free. No one in this room knew that better than he.

He was the only black person at the gathering. Since leaving London, Virgil felt as if he was the only black man in England. Being so distinctively different nibbled away at the edges of his hard-earned confidence. He felt as if he were constantly teetering on the precipice of some irrecoverable faux pas, for though his success made him accustomed to mix with the highest of Boston society, and the people in this room were rather politicians and businessmen than aristocrats, the rules seemed to be quite different. It was disconcerting, though he was damned if he’d allow anyone to see he found it so!

‘Virgil, I would like you to meet our most esteemed neighbour and my sister Sarah’s dear friend.’

‘Surely not most esteemed, Josiah. That honour must go first to my father, and I have four older brothers who—I mean, two. I have just two older brothers now.’

The voice, slightly husky, lost its lightly ironic tone as the woman’s smile faded. Josiah patted her bare shoulder. She flinched and tightened her jaw in response. ‘Lady Katherine’s youngest brother died fighting for his country at Waterloo,’ Josiah said, oblivious of the fact that the sympathy he exuded was making his guest squirm, ‘and her eldest brother—the heir, you know—also died fighting in Spain. It is quite tragic.’

‘It is, however, of no interest to Mr Jackson, I am sure.’

Virgil, who had been about to offer his condolences, was rather taken aback by this brusque tone. Was she simply a very private person, or was she in some very English way slapping him down? Before he could make up his mind, a slim, gloved hand was held out towards him, confusing him even further, for ladies, whether old world or new, did not shake hands.

‘I am Lady Katherine Montague. How do you do?’

His first impression of her was that she was rather severe. His next, that she had a clever face, with a wide brow, sharp cheekbones and a decided chin. Her eyes were her best feature. Neither blue nor grey, fringed with curling lashes, they seemed to tilt up at the corners like a cat’s. Virgil took the proffered hand in his own, noting the way her gaze fell to the contrast of his dark skin on the white kid of her glove. ‘My lady,’ he said.

‘Lady Katherine is the daughter of the Duke of Rothermere,’ Josiah Wedgwood said. ‘Castonbury is the biggest estate in Derbyshire, and the Montagues are the oldest family in the county. You have heard of them, I’m sure. The duke …’ He broke off in response to a summons from his wife. ‘Ah, you will excuse me, I must go and see—dinner, you know. Virgil, if you will escort Lady Katherine?’

A forbidding duke’s daughter, who would cast her eagle aristocratic eye over his table manners. No doubt she expected him to eat with his fingers or, at the very least, use the wrong cutlery. As Josiah hurried over to join his wife, Virgil repressed another sigh. It was going to be a long night.

‘Are you enjoying your visit to the Midlands, Mr Jackson?’ Kate asked politely, wondering at the harassed look which flitted across his handsome face. ‘Josiah was telling me that you are to go into business together.’

‘Imported Wedgwood pottery will be subject to the new Protective Tariff which our government is introducing, putting it well beyond the means of your average American. We plan to introduce a new range, manufactured in my factories, which can fill a gap in the market for affordable luxury. Josiah’s people are working on the design at the moment.’

Virgil Jackson’s voice was a slow drawl, neither ironic nor lazy, certainly not languorous, but mesmerising. Though she was, like all the Montagues, above average height, Kate had to look up to meet his eyes. Almond-shaped and deep-set, they were an indefinable colour between tawny brown and gold. His hair was close-cropped, revealing a broad, intelligent brow. His lips were full, a sort of browny pink tone which she found herself wanting to touch. His skin was not really black, but closer to … bronze? Chestnut? Coffee? None of those did it justice. Bitter chocolate, maybe?

Realising that she had been silent far too long, Kate rushed into speech. ‘You will forgive me if I tell you that I find you far more interesting than tea sets,’ she blurted out. ‘I cannot tell you how thrilled I am at having the opportunity to meet you. I braved the wrath of my brother and my aunt to do so, you know, and my aunt is a most formidable woman.’

‘To brave an aunt and a brother, your desire to meet me must have been strong indeed. I’m flattered, Lady Katherine.’

His teeth gleamed an impossible white. She supposed it must be the contrast with his skin. Despite his smile, his expression had a shuttered look, as if he had seen too much. Or perhaps it was simply that the habit of always being on his guard was so ingrained as to be impossible to overcome. Virgil Jackson was not a man who would trust easily. Or at all, Kate thought. She wondered what there was in his history to have made him so.

The fullness of his lips were a stark contrast to the hard planes of his face. She had not seen such sensual lips on a man before. The thought made her colour rise. She was not in the habit of having such thoughts. ‘It is Kate, if you please—I hate Katherine. And as to being flattered—why, you must be perfectly well aware what an honour it is to meet you. Your achievements are little short of miraculous.’

All traces of his smile disappeared. ‘For a black slave, you mean?’

Kate flinched. ‘For any man, but perhaps especially for a black slave, though that is not how I would have put it.’ She met his hard look with a measuring one. ‘Every man and woman in this room is in awe of you.’

It was the truth, but he seemed quite unmoved by it. ‘As they would be a performing bear, I suspect,’ he replied.

Was he trying to intimidate her? On consideration, Kate thought the opposite. Unlikely as it seemed, given the kind of man he must be to have achieved so much, it appeared to her that he was actually trying not to be intimidated. ‘We are all staring, I know, and it is very rude of us, but I doubt any of us has ever met an African before, let alone one with such an impressive story to tell. Our fascination is surely quite natural. Is it so very different in Boston?’

Virgil Jackson shrugged. ‘Back home, it is not so much my colour as my success that makes people stare.’

‘Unless the ladies of Boston are blind one and all, I doubt very much it is that alone,’ Kate retorted. ‘You must be perfectly well aware that you are an exceptionally good-looking man. Why, even my friend Sarah is sending you languishing looks, and believe me, Sarah is not a woman who is prone to languishing.’

She was laughing, not at him, but in a way that seemed to include him in a private joke. Virgil couldn’t help smiling in return, even while he wondered whether her words contained a hint of the irony for which the English were so famous. ‘And yet I do not see you languishing, Lady Kate. I suppose you will tell me that you are the exception which proves the rule?’

‘I am afraid languishing, along with every other feminine wile, is anathema to my nature. Which is just as well, since I am hardly endowed with the feminine graces which make such wiles effective.’

The laughter faded from her eyes, which was a shame for it had quite transformed her, softening her expression, making her bottom lip look more kissable than prim. Even that white skin of hers above the creamy froth of lace on the décolleté of her gown had turned from winter snow to warm magnolia. Was she fishing for a compliment? Virgil studied the tiny frown which puckered her brows and decided most definitely not. ‘That is a very disparaging remark,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘Realistic, merely. My mirror tells me the limitations of my attractions whenever I look in it, Mr Jackson. I bear rather more resemblance to a greyhound than I would like.’

Her words were a challenge, but in the short space of this conversation Virgil already knew her well enough not to fall into the trap of flattery or polite contradiction. ‘Yes, I can see that,’ he said coolly, ‘there is about you a kind of sleek gracefulness in the way you carry yourself, and your bone structure, too, has that delicate, well-bred look.’

For a fraction of a second, she looked as if she would slap him, before she laughed again, a low, smoky sound, intimate and sensual. Once more he was struck by the transformation it wrought, as if a curtain had been thrown back, allowing him a very private glimpse of the person behind the severe facade. Why would such a privileged woman require such a disguise?

Before he could pursue this question, the butler announced dinner. Virgil offered his arm, and he and the duke’s daughter followed their hosts through a succession of chilly corridors to the dining room which was, thankfully, in the renovated part of the house. The petticoats of Lady Kate’s gown rustled seductively as she walked. The claret velvet of her dress lent a lustre to her skin, and brought out golden highlights in her brown hair. As Virgil held her chair out for her, catching an illicit glimpse of very feminine curves as he did so, the first stirrings of attraction took him by surprise. It had been so long, he hardly recognised them.

Lady Kate sat down, leaving the faintest trace of her scent in the air, flowery and elusive. Despite the relative heat of the dining room compared to the gallery, it was not particularly warm. Another quirk of the English, Virgil had discovered, to serve their food tepid—or perhaps it simply travelled so far from the kitchens that it could not help being cool. Warming dishes were a rarity here, though kitchens built in the most inconvenient place possible were sadly common. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asked abruptly, taking his place on Lady Kate’s right-hand side.

She took a sip of her wine. ‘A little. I forgot my wrap. It was my own fault. Polly, my maid, was offended by something the butler said to her, and for almost the entire dressing hour I had to listen to her wax lyrical about servants who were no better than they ought to be, who wouldn’t know a hard day’s graft if it bit them on the ankle, who lived a cosseted life wrapped in cotton, and who had no right at all to look down their noses at a working woman. My dresser used to be a working woman of a very particular kind, you see.’

Virgil replaced his glass on the table, slopping a drop of red wine onto the immaculate damask. His eyes narrowed. ‘You can’t mean you have a—a courtesan for your maid?’

‘Streetwalker. I don’t think Polly ever rose to anything so lofty as a courtesan,’ Kate replied candidly.

She was expecting him to be shocked, Virgil realised. There was a defiant look in those blue-grey eyes. He recognised it, and he liked it. She was no insipid English rose. ‘Did you take her on to annoy your aunt or your brother?’

‘Let us not forget my father, the duke. And no, I did not. Well, only partly,’ Kate admitted ruefully. ‘I took Polly as my maid because she used to work the streets around Covent Garden, and since her protector was rather eager for her to continue to do so, I thought it best to remove her from the city.’

‘And does she like being your maid, this reformed streetwalker—I take it she is reformed?’ Virgil asked, torn between amusement and shock.

‘Oh, I’m pretty certain of that. There is Mrs Taylor’s Gentlemen’s Parlour in Buxton, of course, but I really don’t think Polly is refined enough for Mrs Taylor, and besides, I feel sure that I would have heard if my maid had been practicing her arts so close at hand, for it is a mere two or three miles from Castonbury you know, and we are a very tight-knit community,’ Kate said, smiling once again. ‘Though Polly is an extremely loyal maid, she’s a little like a vicious dog, liable to savage anyone else who tries to pat her. Her taste in clothes, however, is exquisite. I can see from your face that you’re thinking I am one of those English eccentrics you have read about.’

‘I’m thinking that you are about as far from a typical Englishwoman as I am likely to meet,’ Virgil said bluntly.

‘I shall take that as a compliment. My father would agree with you, though he views my eccentricities in a rather less positive light. He would much prefer me to be what you call a typical Englishwoman, though to be fair, since I put myself beyond the pale, his efforts to make me conform have been rather half-hearted.’

Though she had not put the shutters up completely, she had definitely begun to retreat from him. There was an edge to her words. Virgil was intrigued, and a little at a loss. ‘You must have committed a heinous crime indeed,’ he said, careful to keep his tone light. ‘And here was I thinking myself privileged to have such a blue-blooded dinner companion. Should I have shunned you? No, I have that wrong—given you the cut direct?’

‘You are mocking me, but believe me, in what is termed the ton, I am very much a social pariah.’

She was turning a heavy silver knife over and over, not quite looking at him, not quite avoiding his eye. Hurt and determined not to show it, Virgil guessed. ‘Then that makes two of us,’ he said, covering the back of her hand with his. ‘I know all about being an outcast.’

Kate was not used to sympathy, even less used to understanding, but she was accustomed to insulating herself with her flippant tongue. ‘You are very kind, but I know perfectly well the circumstances are not the same at all.’ The words were out before she could consider their effect.

Rebuffed, Virgil snatched his hand back. ‘Temerity indeed, to compare myself to a duke’s daughter.’

‘I didn’t mean that!’ Kate exclaimed, aghast. ‘I merely meant that …’ But Virgil Jackson shrugged and looked the other way, and they were clearing the plates, and Kate’s other neighbour was patiently waiting to claim her attention. She was almost grateful for the interruption, despite the fact that the subject would inevitably be her family, and could not be anything other than painful, given the recent developments at Castonbury.

Sure enough Sir Merkland, an old hunting friend of her father’s, and one of the few who seemed either oblivious or uncaring of her tarnished reputation, asked after the duke with that mixture of morbid curiosity and smugness which the healthy reserve for the decrepit, especially when the decrepit person in question was overly proud of his superior rank. Kate abandoned her soup. The consommé was good, but the Wedgwoods’ chef was an amateur compared to the genius currently running the Castonbury kitchens. Not that Monsieur André was likely to remain with them for much longer, for her father’s taste, since the loss of his sons, ran largely to milk puddings and gruel.

She provided Sir Merkland with a much more optimistic account of her sire’s health than Papa’s frail appearance the day before merited, then listened with half an ear to the squire praise her sister Phaedra’s prowess on a horse, smiling and nodding with practiced skill as he proceeded on to one of his interminable hunting anecdotes. On her other side, Virgil Jackson was discussing American politics with the wife of one of Josiah’s business partners, patiently explaining the differences between the federal system and the British Parliament. That slow drawl of his was mesmerising.

The arrival of a haunch of beef and various side dishes distracted Sir Merkland, who was almost as dedicated a trencherman as he was a huntsman, tempting Kate into leaning a little closer to her right. Virgil Jackson was a very solid man. There was a presence about him, a very distinct aura of power which drew one into his orbit. He was certainly different, and undeniably the most innately charismatic man she’d ever met, and it was nothing to do with his colour either, she decided, taking the opportunity to study his profile while his attention was fixed elsewhere. There was just something about him.

She could not imagine him ever being subservient, which must have made him a rather unusual slave. Had he courted danger? She did not doubt it. Was the skin of that broad back covered in a fretwork of scars? She shuddered, for the answer to that question was almost certainly affirmative. What other scars were there, hidden deep inside that attractive exterior? For she did find him attractive, a fact which was somewhat confounding, given that she had been quite convinced that she was immune to such feelings. Was it that Virgil Jackson was in almost every way the antithesis of Anthony? Or was it, she wondered wryly, the fact that he was in every possible way ineligible, which tempted her wayward streak? Imagine Papa’s reaction if she introduced him to the family. Or better still, Aunt Wilhelmina’s. Oh, if only!

Finally released from his neighbour’s earnest interrogation, Virgil stared down with distaste at the slice of bloody beef on his plate and decided to confine himself to the accompaniments. He was hungry, but the food seemed more designed for display than satisfying a healthy appetite. The goose in the middle of the table looked good, but it was out of bounds. Why it was that he must serve himself only from those dishes within reach he did not know, but he had no wish to repeat the shocked silence which had greeted him at the last formal dinner, when he had asked his neighbour to pass the peas.

He helped himself disconsolately to some mushroom fritters. On his other side, Lady Kate was moving her food around without making any attempt to eat. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were unfocused, her attention obviously far from the dining room of Maer Hall. Her skirts brushed against his leg. He could smell her scent over the rich aroma of beef. The delicate diamond and ruby drops she wore in her ears drew attention to the slender line of her neck. At her nape, wispy tendrils of hair clung. Such a tender spot. What would it be like to breathe her in, to taste her? The muscles in his stomach clenched. It had been a long time since such thoughts had occupied him. Eleven years.

Lady Kate looked up, perhaps conscious of the intensity of his gaze. Their eyes snagged. A trickle of sweat ran down between Virgil’s shoulder blades. He couldn’t understand how he’d ever thought her severe. He couldn’t take his eyes off her plump lower lip. Moist. Pink. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked a little desperately.

Kate gazed down at her untouched plate and shook her head. Around them the scraping of china, the clatter of silver being dropped into the clearing baskets, made it clear that she’d been wool-gathering for some time. ‘You don’t like the beef, Mr Jackson,’ she said, looking at the slab of meat sitting untouched in front of him.

He grimaced. ‘Blood. You will call me heathenish, but it puts me off.’

‘Monsieur André, our very superior French chef at Castonbury, would call you heathenish. He thinks beef is overcooked if the animal’s heart has ceased to beat,’ Kate replied, ‘but I prefer it properly dead and what he would call burnt to a crisp. Not that I would dare say so to his face. Monsieur André has a very Gallic temperament and would likely beat me with his rolling pin.’

Virgil laughed. ‘I would like to see him try.’

‘I wish you could—come to Castonbury with me, that is,’ Kate said impulsively.

‘Well, I … That’s very nice of you, but—’

‘It’s not nice, it’s selfish. I have to leave first thing tomorrow, you see, and I haven’t had the chance to talk to you properly. There is so much I would love to discuss with you, I have so many questions, but there are matters—family matters—oh, why is it that family matters always arise at the most inconvenient of times?’

‘I wouldn’t know, since I have no family,’ Virgil said.

‘Lucky you!’ Kate exclaimed, then was immediately contrite. ‘Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry, I did not think. Have you indeed no family at all? Your parents—?’

‘I was separated from my mother as soon as I was weaned,’ Virgil said tersely.

‘So, too, was I. Mama was not much interested in any of her children, and as a female of course, I was …’ Kate broke off, covering her mouth in horror. ‘Do you mean you were sold?’

‘Family ties are very much discouraged in the plantations. It was—still is—common practice to separate mothers and children.’

‘And your father?’

Virgil shrugged. ‘I never knew him.’ He took a draught of claret. ‘As I said, family ties were discouraged. You should be grateful for yours, whatever your relationship with them.’

‘I am quite humbled.’

‘That was not my intention.’

‘You need not concern yourself. To be honest, what I meant was that I ought to be humbled. If you knew my family, you would understand why it’s very difficult to be grateful for them—some of them, at least.’

He liked that hint of wickedness in her smile. She was not only unconventional but irrepressible. It was a pity their acquaintance was doomed to be of such short duration, Virgil thought. ‘You are not, then, in the habit of doing as you ought?’

Her smile disappeared abruptly. ‘My aunt would tell you that I am rather in the habit of never doing so. Tell me, Mr Jackson, did Weston make that coat?’

He would have taken the change of subject for a deliberate snub had it come from anyone else, but he was pretty sure that a snub from Lady Kate would be much more direct. He had obviously quite inadvertently touched upon a sore point. ‘My tailor was Weston, though how you knew I have no idea.’

To Virgil’s relief, Lady Kate laughed. ‘My brothers go to Scott, being military men, so I knew it was not one of his, and I confess that I know only one other tailor. It was an educated guess, that’s all. You will have the Bostonian ladies sighing into their teacups at your style, Mr Jackson. Though perhaps you are interested in the sighs of just one particular lady?’

‘I am not married, and nor do I have any particular lady in my life,’ Virgil replied curtly. ‘As to my coat—I doubt it will see the light of day when I get home. It took that valet I hired several minutes to get me into it, and I feel as if every time I breathe the shoulders will burst at the seams. Back home, I dress for comfort.’

‘I’d like to hear more about back home,’ Kate said, telling herself that the fact that Mr Jackson was unattached was neither here nor there. ‘May I ask how long you expect business to keep you here in Staffordshire?’

‘Actually, I’m planning on heading north tomorrow while Josiah’s men work on the samples for our wares. We’ll meet up in London to conclude our business before I return to America, but I have other business in Glasgow to see to in the meantime, and there is a model village not far from that city which I have arranged to visit.’

‘Do you mean Mr Owen’s New Lanark?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘How I would love to see it. I am a great admirer of Mr Owen, I have read all his works, and in fact our own little school in Castonbury was established along similar lines—or at least that is what I would like to believe.’

‘Your school—you mean you have set up a village school?’

‘Do not look so astonished. Not all English ladies confine themselves to playing the pianoforte and painting watercolours for amusement, Mr Jackson. Some of us prefer to utilise our time to more effect,’ Kate said stiffly.

‘So you rescue streetwalkers and educate the village children. I did not mean to offend you, but you’ll admit it is something out of the common way, to meet a duke’s daughter who is a revolutionary.’

‘You are far too modest. Rare as we revolutionary aristocrats may be, a freed slave who has made himself into one of the richest men in New England must be rarer. I wish you would tell me more about how you became so.’

Virgil shook his head. ‘I am much more interested in your school. Do you teach there yourself?’

‘I help out when I can, but we have an excellent mistress in the form of Miss Thomson. I rescue governesses in addition to streetwalkers,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘Miss Thomson tries to follow the principles which Mr Owen set down, but to see them in practice would be so much better than reading about them. I wish I could visit New Lanark. How I envy you. Were you serious about establishing a similar place?’

‘Serious about testing its merits. Very serious about the school. Without education, it is not possible to make the most of freedom. I believe that education is power.’

‘With that I wholeheartedly agree. My own education did not amount to much, which goes some way to explaining why even setting up a simple school has taken an enormous amount of effort.’ Kate pulled a face. ‘That, and the fact that as a mere woman I am not considered worthy of having an opinion on the subject. Being female does rather shackle one.’

Virgil bit back a smile. ‘You don’t strike me as being someone constrained by her position in society.’

‘I know perfectly well that there is no real comparison between myself and a female slave,’ she replied, disconcerting him by reading his thoughts, ‘but it is nevertheless how I feel sometimes. Perception and reality are not always the same thing.’

‘That is most certainly true.’

How had he come by his education? Kate was about to ask when a footman leaned over her shoulder, a huge lemon syllabub trembling on the platter in his hands. She shook her head impatiently. Sir Merkland was clearing his throat. The change of course dictated a turn in the conversation. Port and cigars and business would detain the gentlemen until tea. She would be obliged to surrender her monopoly of Virgil Jackson to the other guests when she had barely scratched the surface of what she wanted to know about him.

‘You could do a lot worse than come to Castonbury with me,’ she said impulsively. ‘Then you could see our school for yourself and it would give you something to compare with Mr Owen’s. You know, the more I think about it, the more I am sure it is the perfect solution.’

‘To what?’ Virgil asked, confused by the sudden change in the conversation.

Kate had been thinking only of her desire to know him better, so his question threw her, for though of course it was because she wished to know him better, to say so would imply something much more personal. And though it was personal in a way, it was not that sort of personal because she wasn’t the type of female with whom men wished to be that sort of personal. ‘The solution of your travelling all the way to Scotland without having seen anything of our true English countryside,’ she said mendaciously. ‘Derbyshire is the most beautiful of the counties, and though I admit to being rather biased, Castonbury is one of the most beautiful houses.’

‘Are you serious?’

Determined, more like, now that the idea was in her head, but Kate thought better, at the last minute, of saying so, for Virgil Jackson looked like a man who would resist any attempt to force his will. ‘Perfectly,’ she said instead. ‘I would love to show you our school, and I would welcome your opinion on the plans I have to extend it.’

Virgil frowned. He was tempted. A school established on the Owen model would certainly merit a break in his journey, and he had not yet confirmed the precise dates of his visit with New Lanark’s proprietor. Besides, there could be no denying that a visit to a real stately pile held its own subversive pleasure. He shook his head reluctantly. ‘Much as I appreciate the honour, I very much doubt your family would be as welcoming as you,’ he said.

Which was, as far as her father and Aunt Wilhelmina were concerned, the truth, but that only made Kate more determined. Since those same two relatives had taken such pains to collaborate in her ruin, she would have no compunction in flaunting that ruin in their faces. ‘Actually, it is rather your birth than the colour of your skin which will concern my father. According to him, there are less than a dozen other families in the country with blood so blue as the Montagues. Though since he chooses to confine himself to his own quarters, his opinions do not particularly matter. My brother Giles is acting head of the family at present and he is not at all prejudiced.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Virgil said, ‘I do not think …’

She could see she was losing the battle, but Kate, now quite set on winning, switched tactics. ‘Are you afraid you will be put under the spyglass, Mr Jackson?’ She could see from the way he stilled, that she had hit home. ‘How can you expect to break down barriers if you do not face them?’

‘I hope, Lady Kate, that you are not thinking of using me as a weapon in some sort of private war. Are you perhaps eager to prove your reputation for being a revolutionary to your father and your aunt?’

He spoke softly, but there was an underlying air of menace which made Kate’s skin prickle. Virgil Jackson was obviously not a man who could be threatened. She threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I admit, there is a part of me which relishes the notion of introducing you to Aunt Wilhelmina, but I promise you, it is only a small part. What I really want is to get to know you better.’

Her frankness disarmed him. He was tempted. Who would not be, by such an argument put forward by such a— He could not think of a word to describe Lady Kate Montague. Not that her personal attractions had anything to do with his decision. ‘I will think about it,’ Virgil said.

‘With a view to saying yes?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ he repeated, telling himself he would, though he had already more than half decided.