Promise Me Heaven (2 page)

Now, with a few vitriolic gibes and a lift of a dark, arched brow, this haughty, tousled wench threatened his much-vaunted composure. It was intolerable. And who the devil was she at any rate?

When she had first stuttered out her ridiculous demand to know where he lived, he had assumed she was attempting to pass herself off as his by-blow by one of his former mistresses. He was grimly amused she would have thought it could work. She was at the least twenty-one, which would have had him bedding wenches at—what? Twelve?

But it was another thing entirely to claim she was his half brother’s get. Philip did not now nor had ever had any of Thomas’s carnal proclivities and it angered him that she would paint his half brother with the same brush. She was regarding him with open dismay. He waited for her to speak, the notion that she would shortly demand he produce birth records to confirm his claim causing his lips to curve ruefully.

She appeared to come to a decision, one that did not make her happy, though she managed to summon up a sort of smile. She inclined her head as politely as though they were being introduced at some fashionable town house fete rather then on the moors of Devon, he half-naked and she with her long, burnished hair falling about her shoulders.

“Thomas Montrose, sir. I am Lady Catherine Sinclair.”

“Yes?” His tenuous hold on the situation dissolved further. Was he supposed to know who the hell Catherine Sinclair was?

“Your half brother, Philip, has these last years been married to my mother. Lady Ringtree.”

Philip’s wife! The beautiful and much-married Lady Ringtree. He had known she had children. Lots of children, if memory served correct. By lots of different fathers. That fact had not deterred his older brother, who had taken leave of his scholarly senses and proceeded to shock established society by marrying one of its brighter stars. And not with the discreet rectitude one might expect when the bride was embarking on her fifth trip down the aisle, but with all the bells and whistles. It had been an elaborate, sumptuous affair. And yes, Thomas did seem to remember several skinny girl children flitting about. This must be one of them.

“And what might I do for you, Lady Catherine?”

She drew in a deep breath. “I have come on an important mission, sir. I have brought something of value to you. Not only to yourself, but to the literary world at large. Indeed, its value is so great, I felt I could not entrust its keeping to just anyone and have brought it to you myself. I have found your brother’s opus.” Though she seemed to be trying to engender a tone of breathless awe, the words came out as if by rote, trailing off in an increasingly unconvincing tone.

“Yes?” he prompted, intrigued in spite of himself. This must be some ploy to appropriate money from him. Opus? Philip never wrote about anything but birds. Yes, the chit was undoubtedly going to ask him for funds. From the preamble he had no doubt the touch would extend into many figures. He acquiesced silently, if cynically. His sense of family was strong, and Philip was his closest living relative. Thomas loved him deeply and loyally, even if he, too, had looked askance at Philip’s chosen bride. If Philip’s adopted family was in dun territory, Thomas would rectify it.

“Yes, I have no doubt,” her voice lowered to a mumble, “I have acted for the best. I know my unannounced visit might seem a bit precipitous, but…” The gel was coloring up delightfully now.

Thomas watched her fade off into obvious embarrassment and found he would have to take pity on her. Perhaps asking for handouts on the merit of a trumped-up relationship and suspect manuscripts was as onerous to her as it appeared to be.

“This must be a matter of some import,” he said. “Being so, it deserves more than a discussion amidst a flock of sheep on an open moor.”

She gazed at him helplessly.

“See here, Lady Catherine. My ‘estate’ is just down this lane, over the next rise. A harridan shall greet you at the door. That is my housekeeper, Mrs. Medge. Ignore her. No, you’d better tell her you are expected, but you must also inform her promptly—before she even opens her mouth—that you are my, er, niece. She is very circumspect. To have a young woman appear on my doorstep will no doubt excite her most vulgar specu—”

“I
do
have a chaperone, sir. I am not blind to the proprieties of an unaccompanied—”

“Merely uninvited,” Thomas cut in. That bloody, haughty tone of hers had set his teeth on edge just in remembrance. “And who is this estimable individual?”

“My great-aunt Hecuba.”

“Hecuba?”

“Lady Hecuba Montaigne White.”

“Hundreds Hecuba?” An abrupt bark of incredulous laughter escaped him. Thirty years ago Lady Montaigne White, or “Hundreds Hecuba” as she was better known, had been the most notorious grande dame of a notably lax society. Her liaisons were legion; her escapades were recounted in scintillating detail by the boys at the school where he had boarded. Quite a chaperone this lovely little beggar had brought.

“While I do not understand the appellation, sir, I can surmise its reason. I look forward to your meeting with my great-aunt,” Cat said.

“No more than I, Lady Catherine. Her visit alone is worth any inconvenience. Why, the stories she must have to relay! I quite look forward to dinner. It may prove worth its cost.”

The moss-eyed beauty frowned before nodding and turning her horse’s head. Thomas could not quite make out the words she uttered as she trotted off, but it sounded oddly as though she were saying, “Catherine, you ass, you fool, you dolt…”

Chapter 2

T
hat
could not be Thomas Montrose! That huge behemoth. That monolithic male. Impossible.

Cat was no green girl. She had made her come-out four years ago and traveled in the more exalted circles. While her personal concourse with rogues was slight, she knew their attributes: a pale countenance, a bored mien, drawled bon mots, and studied ennui.

How could that man have garnered such a reputation? Thomas Montrose was the stuff of legends among the beau monde. His notoriety was nearly mythic. How often, when her friends had discovered her tangential relationship with him, had Cat watched their eyes grow round with titillation? More times than she could count.

There had to be some mistake. She could not—no, she simply could not—conceive of that much…
masculinity
lounging about a fashionable London drawing room. She could, however, easily imagine him stomping up to some poor woman and throwing her over his huge shoulder, grunting, “You be mine!”

Well perhaps he wouldn’t grunt, she amended fairly. He did have a lovely, deep, cultured voice. But nothing else about him was the least bit refined.

Well, she sighed, now she had met the legend. As she rounded the corner leading to the front of his house, her eyes widened with further disappointment.

Thomas Montrose’s “estate” was a small country house made of local stone; its mullioned windows were covered by encroaching ivy, its front door bare of decoration. A large, crumbling fieldstone stable stretched out behind, flanking one side of the house. A paddock of ill-repaired raw timber held a bellicose-looking ram and a few scrawny chickens. It looked impoverished. It looked like her home, like Bellingcourt, hardly the sumptuous den of iniquity Cat had imagined. It was unlikely there would be any French ladybirds in amongst the chickens, delivering smoldering come-hither glances at the ram.

A stableboy beshook himself from an afternoon nap to take her horse. Before Cat had even begun to mount the steps, the door swung open upon the grim visage of a middle-aged, tight-faced hornet of a woman. Presumably, this was Mrs. Medge. Cat picked up her skirts and approached the door.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded.

“I am Lady Catherine Sinclair. I am the guest of Thomas Montrose,” Cat replied with dignity.

“Master Montrose doesn’t have any ‘lady’ guests,” the termagant announced as she started to close the door.

“Stop!” The woman hesitated. Disappointment had been heaped on disappointment and just at the moment Cat was incapable of having to charm anyone, particularly not this dragon. “You know,” she said tightly, “this grows tiresome in the extreme. Have the Americans lately annexed Devon? Because this local custom of democracy is wearing. Or is it only Mr. Montrose who allows his servants a vote in whom will be allowed in his home? Let me make myself clear.” She fixed the woman with a glare. “I am Mr. Montrose’s… niece.”

“Ha!”

“I was invited.”

“Ha!”

On a sudden impulse, Cat slid her foot past Mrs. Medge’s skirts and gave the door a kick, sending it banging open. Calmly, she walked past the gaped-mouthed woman and into the house.

The entry was spotless. The flagstones shone with wax, and the unadorned walls, painted a silvery blue, were clear, light expanses. There were none of the dusty deer heads, antlers, or other dismembered pieces of animal anatomy Cat had half anticipated, and none of the field mud she had fully expected. It was a simple, clean, and well-maintained structure.

Cat looked back over her shoulder at the housekeeper. “I may be staying the night. You best have a room made up for me.”

“Oh, aye. A room,” Mrs. Medge said grimly, and then, under her breath, but loud enough to make sure Cat heard, “I thought he was through with all that whoring around.”

“Madame, I am not that kind of guest. I am, as I have gone to pains to inform you, Mr. Montrose’s niece.”

“Mr. Montrose doesn’t own a niece, ‘Lady’ Catherine,” Mrs. Medge declared triumphantly.

“Mr. Montrose will substantiate my claim.”
I hope
. “Would you really like to wager your undoubtedly superior knowledge of his family tree against his own?”

Mrs. Medge’s thin lips pursed before a wicked gleam suddenly kindled in her dark, raisin-like eye. “Shall I put you next to the master’s room?”

“No! All the proprieties shall, of course, be observed!”

“Like unchaperoned girls gallivanting about the countryside, dropping in out of the clear blue to stay with bachelor ‘relations’? Lah, proprieties have surely changed since I was in service in London.”

“I am not here alone, Mrs. Medge. My great-aunt, the dowager duchess Hecuba Montaigne White, will be chaperoning me,” Cat said with chilly formality.

Her bravado did not last long. Mrs. Medge’s mouth quivered open. She shook her head and began emitting a peculiar noise. It took Cat an instant to recognize it as laughter. Mrs. Medge’s face grew red, and her beady eyes pooled with water.

“Oh my, yes! Oh, this is too much!” She gasped for breath, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Hundreds Hecuba! A proper chaperone she’ll be!”

Catherine sputtered. “Mrs. Medge, my room, if you please.”

“But where is Lady Montaigne White? Don’t tell me she’s already found the stables… and the stable lads?”

Cat gritted her teeth. “My aunt will be arriving shortly. Now, my room, if you please.”

Mrs. Medge moved off, cackling to herself while Cat took stock of her not completely unexpected situation. Even here, in the far reaches of the Hampshire, her great-aunt’s history was still very much alive. Alive and capable of robbing her relations of that finishing touch of respectability. Well, thought Cat grimly, wait until Mrs. Medge meets the duchess.

It was Cat’s turn to smile.

The lower quarters of the house owed nothing to current trends in interior decor. There were no Continental, Oriental, or classical influences. The furnishings were simple. The two pictures hung on the walls were landscapes unlike any Cat had ever seen, painted in an entirely haphazard manner by some person named Turner.

Other than Mrs. Medge and a young girl scrubbing assiduously at a pair of andirons, there appeared to be no one else about. The small size of the house was further evinced by the paucity of its bedchambers, a mere six. Such a house did not offer separate wings for lady and gentlemen visitors. All the suites opened upon the same hall. Cat was ushered into a corner bedroom and left with the grudging promise of hot water. She wandered around, noting the same dearth of ornamentation that marked the rest of the house, until the young maid she had seen earlier appeared, lugging a basin of water.