Wed at Leisure (8 page)

With his dishonorable attentions. When she was not trembling in remembrance of his touch, she was trembling with fury.

She dressed carefully for dinner, even though Lindley no longer seemed to be a suitor, had seemed to back off as soon as he thought there was the slightest competition for her affection. She dressed as if the clothing were a mask, or an entire person. As if her dress would flirt and dance and be merry even while her human form retreated.

When she entered, the drawing room was already humming with conversation. With that particular sound of society spreading some salacious tidbit, of pretending at being scandalized even as it thrived on the gossip.

“Miss Bianca . . . in a most compromising position with Mr. Dore!”

Kate stopped and turned to see who had spoken.

“Excuse me?” Henrietta said. “What did you just say?”

Miss Stanbury flushed. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Mansfield. I don’t know . . .”

“Lord Reginald,” Henrietta demanded.

“I am afraid that Miss Bianca and Luc, were . . . ah . . . I believe they are closeted with your husband now. I expect an engagement will be announced tonight.”

Bianca, engaged. To the tutor? Kate struggled to make sense of what she was hearing.

The conversation went on around her.

“The tutor?”

“He isn’t a tutor. Mr. Dore is really Viscount Asquith!”

“
Your
cousin, Mr. Bagley? Really?”

“Shocking!”

It was shocking and impossible. What was a viscount doing masquerading as Thomas’s tutor?

“But how much more if he had truly been a tutor?”

“Did they know?”

“What a strange event.”

“Scandalous!”

She looked about the room blindly, and then realized that others were looking at her. Her gaze stopped on Lindley, on the expression of amused interest on his face, as if this were all happening to some distant family, not to Kate. He met her eyes and his expression changed to something like pity.

Of course he would pity her.

Her sister had just caused a scandal. Kate couldn’t even understand it.

But already it was clear. People would look at her differently.

She slipped back out of the room.

P
eter caught one glimpse of her devastation before she was gone. By the time he reached the hall, there was no sight of her. Where would she have gone?

He walked through the house, peeking into the public rooms, through the guest quarters, then finally into the family wing, past the upstairs maid who looked curiously but did not stop him, busy as she was cleaning the rooms while their occupants were away. He could hear footsteps on the floor above and the sound of childish laughter. The youngest Mansfield, Thomas, likely. What did he think of his erstwhile tutor being revealed as a titled lord?

There was one closed door and behind it what sounded suspiciously like choked sobs. He knocked before he thought better of it.

After a moment’s silence, he heard Kate’s voice.

“Who’s there?”

A servant would have scratched lightly at the door, if not simply have entered. The rest of the family was below, ignoring that the entire balance of power at the park had been upset, likely beginning to celebrate, or pretending to celebrate, the engagement that had been thrust upon them, even as the rest of their guests decided whether to seize upon the hint of scandal or allow their hosts to continue the fiction of “All’s well that ends well.”

“Orland.”

Her footsteps were quick and when the door opened, he was met with her incredulous, tear-stained face.

“You! Can you not allow me
some
privacy?”

He shook his head at the idea. But, of course, Kate clung to the notion that he hated her, pursued her as a form of torment. “Catherine.”

She let out her breath in a shuddering sigh and looked away. “No? Charity, then? A way to assuage your guilt?” But her words lacked conviction. Did she see then, in his visage, what he had no words to say?

He reached out, cupped her cheek in his hand, and tilted her head back to face him. She stared. Then blinked, tears welling in her eyes. Her skin was achingly soft beneath his fingers and he moved his thumb to run the pad along the line of her lips. He knew he was taking a liberty, that the scandal of him being here, on the threshold of her bedroom, touching her so intimately, would rival or exceed that of her sister’s, but none of that mattered. He wanted to kiss her, and he would, here or in plain view of all the guests, propriety be dammed. No, propriety was not what stopped him.

“Why does it matter to you so much? Your sister. Marrying first.”

S
he could almost smell the damp earth by the river, hear the rushing of the water, feel the need to scream out those emotions the way she hadn’t since she was twelve. Speaking of weakness gave others power. Made her worry forever after how it would be used against her. And then he had. Perhaps not directly, but by agreeing to aid her sister to undermine Kate’s desires.

Now, here, his skin burning hers, he pressed for more. How could she explain when acknowledging the reason made her feel small and petty? And why should she?

But he was stroking her lip, slowly, almost idly, as if he barely knew what he did while he waited for her answer. But she knew. Where he touched, she tingled, and everywhere else seemed to melt away with delight at the sensation. She reached up and grasped his hand, intent on stopping its motion. But then, feeling the texture of his skin under hers, the fine hairs that tapered down to the back of his hands, her desire changed. She pressed her lips firmly against the thumb she had stilled, turning her prior passivity into a kiss.

She heard the sharp intake of his breath and understood what it meant, the truth of his words that she had denied. He did desire her. That much was no game. Could she then make him feel that same trembling heat? Was this what the other girls had talked about? Whispered and giggled about in the false privacy of retiring rooms?

She explored his skin, peeking at his expression even as she tentatively tasted him with the tip of her tongue.

His eyes closed. “By God, Kate,” he said on a groan that sent pleasure unfurling through her body. She licked again, reveling in the ability to seemingly make him as dizzy with desire as he had made her the day before. And then again. And then—

Then his hands were on her waist, his mouth on hers, and the world spun. She knew dimly that he was in her room, the door shut behind them. That this was improper and unwise. That his attention was anything but honorable. But what mattered more was the sensation of him kissing her, lips, teeth, tongue, everything making her feel a way she had never even imagined before.

From the man who knew her darkest places and yet still wanted her. She wanted this. Wanted to be wanted. Needed it.

Everyone else had abandoned her. As if doing her bidding were a substitute for love or proof of it.

Cool air bathed her face and she reached for his heat blindly. Until he slid a wet thumb across her cheek and she realized once again she was crying. In front of him. The emotions kept switching so fast, they exhausted her.

“Kate,” he said, and the gentleness of his tone made the tears come faster and the emotion more raw. She broke away from him to turn her face, to hide.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And you shouldn’t be alone.”

She whirled back around. “In my room? Certainly I should be.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, I mean, your sister was thoughtless.”

“She knew exactly what she was doing. It’s simply the way it is between us. And between you and me.” She waved her hand in the space between them as if what she meant to say were there, hanging between them. “Other than this . . . foolishness, I mean.”

“This foolishness . . .” He reached for her again. She moved away quickly. She couldn’t let him touch her. She’d dissolve if he did.

“What do you want from me?”

W
hat
did
he want from her? He’d followed her to her room with the intention of soothing her when she was clearly distressed. Instead, he’d kissed her. All he could think about was kissing her again. He had always admired her, known her to be beautiful, to be what
he
prized as beauty. Beneath the sharp, strong exterior that she presented to the world, he had glimpsed the softer, vulnerable woman. He rather thought he was the only man who ever had. Or perhaps that was some strange version of jealousy and possessiveness, to want to be the only one. And that was what he wanted.

To be her only one.

The man who took care of her, with whom she shared her innermost thoughts and feelings. With whom he could share his.

Not that he ever had.

The thought struck him so suddenly, he nearly reeled with the realization. Why should she entrust him with her heart when he had not shared even a sliver of his?

“My father never approved of anything I did. ‘A future duke must’ began all of his sentences. When I insisted on buying my commission, it was to see what life would be like as my own man, not simply the spoiled heir to a duchy.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“That day by the river, when you spoke of your mother—”

She raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“When we were children—”

“As if I remember—”

“I understood, because my father was the same.”

She swallowed hard, looked away as if trying to deny any connection. And of course she would. Because above all, Kate was strong. Despised weakness or perceived weakness.

“Kate, I never intended to hurt you. When I said my intentions were dishonorable, I did not mean that they were not honorable, as well.”

She cocked her head, squinting at him. “That’s rather convoluted and a bit of a paradox. How could they be both at the same time?”

“If I were strictly honorable, I wouldn’t be entertaining visions of you, touching you, here in your room only a hair’s breadth from giving in to the compulsion to kiss you. To do more than kiss you.”

“As you did four years ago?”

He frowned, trying to parse her meaning as if the parts could all add up to some coherent whole. But as they had never kissed before, it made no sense. He shook his head in silent question.

She flushed. “You don’t remember? Kissing me? I suppose you were three sheets to the wind, but I never imagined you didn’t actually remember.”

A sinking, anxious sensation gripped at his abdomen.
What had he done?

Four years ago was the year he had returned from Waterloo. The year his father had died and he’d given up his commission to take over the running of the estate, of his family. He’d allowed himself one week of indulgence, to dull the pain. He would never live up to his father’s standards but, because of the acrimony over Peter’s choice to be his own man, he would also never be able to say good-bye. He didn’t remember much of that week other than its end, awakening in a pile of vomit on the floor beside his bed, his valet and friend shaking his head at his new employer.

“What did I do?”

P
eter’s voice was low and dangerously soft, and Kate’s world was spinning. Not once had she ever imagined such a simple answer to a perplexing mystery. He had startled her that day, angry and passionate.

“You look like spring, Miss Mansfield. Catherine. Kate.” He’d finally settled on her pet name. “Like the promise of new life. The last time I saw you here you were twelve and hiding your tears. Are you hiding them today?”

She had shaken her head.
“Are you?”

“Yes, beneath as much rum as my body can manage. Come here, Kate.”

And despite the incident ten years earlier, despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken once since then, she had stepped closer. Found herself in a rum-scented embrace that was the opposite of unpleasant.

That had been her first kiss. And it had set an expectation for every one since.

But he had ignored her afterward and, on the few occasions their paths crossed, continued the contentious interchange she had begun years earlier when she’d run home to find her house in an uproar, the mother she had resented no longer alive. So, as usual, she had sought refuge in anger and disdain.

Her excuse had been pain. What was his?

“You kissed me. By the river.”

“Did I . . . did I force myself upon you?”

She blushed and looked away. “No.”

“I am sorry that I do not remember.”

“Not that you kissed me?”

“No. I could never be sorry for that. Perhaps only that we’ve wasted years of kissing.”

The warmth of his sudden embrace was her undoing and she turned in his arms, lifted her face to his.

“Why were you cruel to me then?” she whispered, her lips so close to his she could feel their heat. This she needed to understand. If he did not recall that kiss, if that had not been the source of his antipathy, then why the cutting remarks in London, the relentless glances that let her know she amused him, that let her know no matter her sophistication she would always be the childish Kate whom he had found crying by the river?

“Because . . . I was not strong nor man enough to admit that I admired you. To pursue you the way I should have. Because you seemed to hold me in disdain and that was my armor against caring too much.”

“Such a philosopher. You know yourself well.” She laughed. “And you say you know
me
well. The omniscient Peter.”

He threaded his hand through her hair and she was stunned at the sudden firm grip, at the way he closed the last breath of distance between them.

This kiss was nothing like the previous. It was hard and demanding and she wanted to give. To open up her lips to the onslaught of his, of his tongue, teeth, lips.

Then she wanted to take. And she clutched at him, too, hands grasping, stroking, reaching. She was ravenous and desperate to know him. But with her mouth.