Wed at Leisure (7 page)

Just as she always had in London.

T
he drawing room was filled with more than a dozen people, all chatting in the minutes before going in to dinner.

Peter was a bit shocked to see Luc as one of the party, albeit in the lowly position of impoverished tutor. He knew the Mansfields were famously informal when it came to their servants, an idiosyncrasy that many, including Peter’s late father, considered a sign of how recently the family had moved from trade into landed gentry. However, Luc was certainly risking much to play his game of pretend in front of so many people who might identify him. Even if he had been abroad for the last two years, surely he would be known. He was a viscount, after all, and viscounts, future earls, did not grow on trees.

But tonight that was not Peter’s problem. Tonight, all he wanted was a moment in which he could speak privately with Kate. In which he could make his apology for his insensitivity the day before. Ease the tension that had risen between them once more.

Over the last handful of days he had started to do what he had never expected, begun to like Kate Mansfield.

He maneuvered his way back to her side, sidestepping conversations to the best of his ability. He reached her just as dinner was announced. Just as he would be expected, as the male of highest rank, to lead her stepmother into dinner.

Lord Lindley was by her side, as well, with a rather territorial smile on his face, as if he already knew Kate was his.

“Good evening, Miss Mansfield. Lindley.”

“Your Grace,” Kate said with the thinnest of smiles, making it clear the apology would indeed be necessary. “It is always a pleasure to see you at Hopford.”

She made the word
pleasure
sound anything but.

“The
pleasure
, I assure you, is mine.” He lifted her gloved hand to his lips.

She stared at him, but her expression was politely blank. The girl who had been known for her unbridled emotions had learned to mask them.

“Are you a frequent visitor at Hopford, Your Grace?”

Peter turned to Lindley. The man was overall a good sort. Sharp. Always worth listening to, whether in Parliament or the club. If Kate had chosen him, she had chosen well.

For some reason, that irritated him. That and that slightly territorial smile that graced Lindley’s hawkish features.

“Not often enough.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You were here yesterday. I would think you quite tired of the Mansfields. We are all so demanding of attention.”

So she was angry. How would he let Kate know he was sorry with Lindley watching the exchange so carefully?

“I give attention where it is deserved.” And Kate was more than deserving of his attention. The red of her gown made her look like a fiery jewel.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Do you? Perhaps you should give more attention to our footman, James, as he has announced dinner.”

Peter laughed. “But James does not wear that shade of red nearly so well.”

She flushed and the pink of her cheeks made him want to drag her away and kiss her. Oddly, Kate’s sharp tongue no longer aggravated him. Instead . . . instead it was a strange delight. As if this verbal sparring were merely proof of their connection. As if he were not so alone.

The thought sobered him. A kiss was one thing. This last . . . no.

“Quite right, Kate.” He looked about the room. “Ah, there you are, Mrs. Mansfield!”

K
ate seethed through the night. In part because of Peter and in part because she was seething over him. It was a stupid, pointless endeavor and she had guests. She had a potential husband with whom to fall in love.

And so the next day, during a picnic on the lawn punctuated by games of sport and the like, she turned her focus to Lord Lindley. Where it should have always been. After all, the entire event had been concocted for his benefit. Well, for her benefit in finding a husband.

“It is enlightening to see you in your natural habitat. Rustic suits you, Miss Mansfield.”

It suited her because she’d taken pains to make it so. Her sprigged muslin dress set against the expanse of green lawn was designed to be restful to the eye. To make a man feel at home and thus begin to imagine a home . . . with her. Not that Kate’s theories on attraction had any proof other than her six proposals, but she was confident in her instincts.

Maybe that was why she took little pleasure in his intended compliment. Of course, she also knew he was interested. He would not have accepted her invitation and left society and Miss Hightower’s charms for a week if he were not.

“Miss Mansfield, as I said, I like to win.”

“Yes, you did say that.” She offered him a brilliant smile. The sort they had exchanged flirtatiously again and again in London and Brighton.

“And oftentimes I win simply by knowing when I am destined to lose.”

“I don’t take your meaning.”

“Orland. I am not blind and I do not wish to continue a fruitless pursuit.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly there is more between the duke and yourself.”

“That scene last night. You witnessed that? An old animosity. He likes to torment me.”

“Court you, more like.”

She laughed, aware too late that the sound was tinged with bitterness.

Despite his attention, Peter could have no interest in courting her. It wasn’t as if he were going to suddenly wake up one day and decide he cared for her. She remembered very well that day when she was seventeen and he had returned home from Waterloo. The whole town had considered him a hero. The dashing Earl of Bonhill who had gone to war. He may as well have been Wellington for all the acclaim he received. But he had been like no hero she had ever imagined. And a man who wished to court her would never have treated her the way he did then. She flushed with embarrassment as she pushed the memory far away. It was beyond embarrassing, even if no one else but the two of them would ever know. In fact, it continued to be embarrassing, because ever since then, Peter had been cruel. She had given him a chance to address that day, but he had said nothing.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” she said simply, deciding to forgo defending herself for a more offensive and thus stronger position. “But if he is, it can be of no interest to you.”

She waited for him to deny her words, to profess his admiration, his devotion.

“Miss Mansfield, Catherine, you must know . . .”

She turned back to him with a brilliant smile.

He floundered, was clearly on the verge, but unwilling to commit completely. Likely Camilla Hightower’s blond hair and gilded dowry remained in his thoughts.

“I hope I have set your mind at ease,” she said quickly, to avoid any awkwardness. “Come, shall we join the others?”

A
smile graced her face as they rejoined the picnic but inside she was seething again. If Lindley had proposed, she would have accepted. He was a viscount, handsome and wealthy. Charming and agile.

And that was also why she hadn’t prodded him further when, even though it was early in the week, she very well could have edged him into proposing. Peter was to blame for that, as well. For making her unwilling to commit. As if she cared for him. Wanted him.

And as if she’d conjured him, he was there, approaching her.

“Forgive me, Lindley, but might I beg a moment alone with Miss Mansfield?”

She glanced at Lindley, who raised an eyebrow, and then offered a rueful smile. As if this were confirmation of all his doubts. If there were no weighted history, then she would agree that what Lindley noted suggested courtship. But there was a history, layers of which he knew nothing. The flaw to his powers of observation.

“She is yours,” Lindley said, bowing slightly before walking away. She was mortified at the meaning behind those words.

“I could only dream.”

Mortified and furious. That was the final straw. She started walking, needing to move before she exploded. He was following her, of course. If Peter pretended for one more instant to be her suitor, she would scream. In fact, maybe she didn’t even need one more instant. She whirled around, forcing him to stop abruptly, nearly crashing into her. “Stop tormenting me. You don’t even like me!”

He didn’t speak, and when she looked up at his face, he had the faintest smile on his lips and a slight arch to his eyebrow. And he was close. So close she could feel the heat of his body and breathe in the scent of him. This wasn’t the Peter Colburn of her childhood, gangly and spotted, serious and overly aware that one day he would be a duke.

A duke. She was yelling at a duke to stop pretending to woo her. To stop impeding the courtship of the one man in whom she was actually interested and who had expressed a similar interest. A man who knew nothing of her than the image she chose to project to him.

Peter could never love her. After all, he knew her too well.

A familiar blackness blanketed her thoughts, a crippling self-loathing. “Contrary to what you believe, you do not know everything, Kate Mansfield.” He grasped her by the upper arm and she froze at the touch of his bare hand on her bare skin. He seemed equally stunned by the contact and she yanked her arm away, looking about, but they were out of sight of the rest of the party.

“I know enough. And you, you’re supposed to be the responsible brother. Have you taken lessons from your brother? Time to pull a prank on Catherine? Well, congratulations. You can go home and laugh yourself to sleep. Now leave me alone!”

But he didn’t let go. And she was too aware of the warmth of his skin, the pulse of his life, and the rapid beating of her heart. This was all too cruel.

“I have no wish to torment you.”

“Then go,” she hissed. “Let me enjoy the attentions of men with
honorable
intentions.”

He laughed.

“You find that amusing? That someone should wish to court me?”

“No,” he said, his voice lowering to a hushed sound that poured over her body like warm water. He leaned toward her, even as he pulled her closer, his other hand coming to rest on her neck so that she was entirely encircled in his arms, her head tilted back to look up at him. “But you are right, Kate. I do have less than honorable intentions.”

His words were all the confirmation that she needed and yet she didn’t try to pull away. Something about the intensity of his gaze, the heat of his body, his skin on hers, kept her motionless, breath held, keenly aware of the sliver of space that separated them. Of the moment four years earlier that they had been this close, the scent of him mixed with that of whisky. She wanted to lean forward, press herself against him, and the thought shocked her into action. She pushed against him, and he let go easily, as if surprised to find that he had still held her.

“You admit it. At least that is something.” She turned to hide the dampness at the corners of her eyes. Why did this hurt?

“What I admit”—she had the sense of him coming close and started to turn again, but then he was there, pressed against her back, hands on her shoulders, mouth at her ear—“is that I desire you.”

The words melted through her, awakening every inch of her skin. She was all too aware of him.

At the touch of his lips on her earlobe she shuddered with pleasure. She had been kissed before, yes, but always the hands or the lips, appropriate for the chaste flirtation of a girl during a London Season.

This was nothing like that. It was wicked.

P
eter stepped out from the shade of the oaks into the garish light of day with the feeling that he’d imbibed far too much. Of Kate. Of her scent, her soft skin beneath his hands, the taste of her on his lips.

She had trembled under his hands. He had no doubt she had felt it, too—the sharp sizzle of desire.

It had been the slightest contact, his lips on the lobe of her ear, his tongue studying the shape of it, the texture. His teeth . . .

It was the touch of lovers, an intimacy he hadn’t intended. But then she’d confronted him. And though it had taken his brother’s scheme to motivate him to action, if he had had no true interest in Kate, he would never have agreed. In fact, Reggie’s proposal had simply allowed him to entertain the feelings he’d suppressed for so long.

Despite what he had said to her, his attentions were honorable. He admired Kate. And as he had said, he desired her. Love? Perhaps that would come. Regardless, there was more than enough on which to base a marriage. Perhaps not the strategic match his father would have expected of him, but his father was no longer alive. And Peter was no longer striving for the old man’s fickle affection and respect.

The stakes had changed. This was no longer merely some exploratory pursuit. He wanted Kate and he would have her.

K
ate rejoined the party in a daze.
Dishonorable intentions
. Who would have thought those words would ever make her feel anything but fear? Instead, her body seemed to purr at the mere echo of them, as if they could conjure the touch of Peter’s lips on her skin.

She watched people move about and interact as if going through some dance, four people congregating here in one figure, then separating and congregating anew with another three elsewhere. She spotted Bianca in tête-à-tête with her friend Alice. And by the refreshments there was Mr. Dore and her father. Her father looked furious.

Curiosity pushed her toward them but then Graughton was there, taking her arm and insisting she join everyone at archery.

Only a half hour earlier she would have been happy to take up bow and arrow and pretend that the target was Peter. Now . . . now the target was merely a blurry mass in the distance.

The afternoon turned into evening in that same blur.

Everyone seemed out of sorts, as if they were all merely reflections of Kate’s internal turmoil. Bianca, her father, even Mr. Dore, the tutor. Lindley, too. Only Peter was a constant. Peter with his gray eyes everywhere she turned, meeting her gaze.