Not that he missed Isabel’s tantrums. Nor did he miss having chaperones fly into the room and give notice ten minutes before an engagement was to begin. Good Lord, he did not miss those things at all.
But he did find that he’d grown rather … well, used to them. To having at least some noise about the house. Isabel had been a noisy baby, who’d grown into a rambunctious child. His life after the divorce had been filled with considerable upheaval, but one thing had always remained constant: Isabel, and her incredible capacity to fill a house, no matter how large, with her presence. How often had he railed at her to be quiet? How many nurses had he given the sack for failing to keep her that way?
And now that he’d finally gotten his wish—a quiet house—he found himself missing the screams, the bickering, the occasional explosions.
It was suddenly so quiet, he could hear the clock above the fire ticking. It actually ticked quite loudly. Perhaps there was something wrong with it. A clock shouldn’t tick so noisily.
And the rain. It was making quite a noise against the windowpanes. Surely they had to be experiencing some sort of hurricane, for the rain to be pounding down so heavily.
Isabel, he reflected, since her absence had brought her to mind, had been so delighted by his sudden reversal on the Geoffrey Saunders issue that she had almost—just almost—looked pretty. In one of the dozens of white ballgowns he’d purchased for her, she’d flitted into his room and thanked him, while Miss Mayhew waited by the door, holding on to her young charge’s wrap. A Miss Mayhew whom, Burke had noticed immediately, looked quite different from the Miss Mayhew with whom he’d shared such an … interesting conversation just an hour earlier. That Miss Mayhew had been fetching, but no more, in a plain white blouse and tartan skirt. This Miss Mayhew looked radiant in silk—grey silk, to be sure, but extremely well cut, and quite obviously designed with the intention of bringing out the wearer’s assets, which in Miss Mayhew’s case included an extremely narrow waist and a small though pert bosom.
The gown had not been at all indecently cut—in fact, it hadn’t allowed even a hint of decolletage—and yet, Burke realized, it didn’t really matter what a woman like Miss Mayhew covered her body with: men were always going to picture her naked. Well, men like himself, anyway.
Not, of course, that he had the slightest intention of ever again acting on his attraction to her. He had quite lost his head that afternoon at the Sledges’. It wouldn’t happen again. He couldn’t afford to allow it to happen again, not if he valued his newfound peace and quiet.
And yet, it had to be admitted that it did rather bother him, the thought of Miss Mayhew out and about in a silk dress—even a grey one. If Burke found her attractive in it, it was only natural that other men would, too.
Burke shook himself suddenly. What was he doing? Meditating on his daughter’s chaperone’s figure, rather than enjoying his evening alone!
Duncan was quite right: he was getting dotty in his old age.
Burke turned resolutely to the third page of the preface to the book he was reading. It was quite interesting, the preface. He’d have to remember to read the preface from now on. It had obviously been put into the book for the express purpose of being read. Why was he always skipping it?
Why was that bloody clock so loud? He’d used to think Isabel maddeningly loud, but now, well, now he knew what loud was. He’d have Mrs. Cleary send the clock out for cleaning upon the morrow. It was surely defective.
Chaperones, Burke knew quite well, didn’t dance at balls. They sat behind the mothers and the widows and the spinsters no one wanted and watched their charges, making sure no improper advances were made against them, and kept them from slipping off with their partners into a garden or upstairs bedroom. Burke had never heard of a chaperone dancing at any function to which she’d escorted a charge.
But it occurred to Burke that there was no real convention dictating that a gentleman couldn’t ask a chaperone to dance. Miss Mayhew was certainly young enough that she might not be taken for a chaperone at all. Supposing—just supposing—someone at this ball she and Isabel had gone off to happened to notice the fair-haired young woman in the grey silk dress?
And what if this someone took it into his wretched head to ask her to dance? It would be rude of Miss Mayhew to say no, when it was clear she was otherwise unengaged. But Burke had never taken offense at Katherine Mayhew’s rudeness to him—and she had been very rude to him, indeed. Why should any other man be different? Her rudeness, in fact, might be exactly what was so appealing about her.
Her rudeness and, he had to admit, that absurdly small, pink-lipped mouth.
She might, of course, tell the fellow that she could not possibly dance with him because she’d been employed by the Marquis of Wingate to chaperone his daughter. That was precisely what she was there to do, after all, not dance with whey-faced young men who happened to spy her from the ballroom floor. That would be quite the proper thing for her to do, Burke decided.
And Miss Mayhew was very proper. She had made sure that her bedroom door was open almost the entire time Burke had been in there with her, hadn’t she? There weren’t many women, Burke knew, who’d have bothered with such propriety. Especially when it involved a rich and titled fellow like himself. Many a woman, he knew from experience, would have quite thrown herself at him, under the same circumstances.
But not Miss Mayhew. Not at all. In fact ….
In fact, if he hadn’t known better, he might almost have suspected Miss Mayhew of harboring a dislike for him.
But that wasn’t possible. She had quite forgiven him his moment of weakness in Cyrus Sledge’s library. She had shook hands on the matter. Miss Mayhew’s handshake had been all that was warm and generous. She did not dislike him. Not a bit.
Except ….
Supposing the fellow wasn’t whey-faced? The fellow who asked her to dance, that is. Supposing he was some Italian count, debonair and charming, and Miss Mayhew, obviously no sophisticate—she had thought Burke some sort of flesh-peddler, hadn’t she, the first time she’d seen him—fell for him? It would be quite easy for a wealthy gentleman with an accent and a handsome face to win the affections of a girl like Miss Mayhew, if he went slowly enough. The girl must surely be looking for any opportunity to escape her slavish existence as a paid companion to spoiled society brats. Why, even now, this very second, some nefarious hanger-on might be trying to wheedle himself into Miss Mayhew’s good graces, promising her moonlight and grappa ….
Burke threw down his book and went to the hallway to call for Duncan to lay out his evening clothes.
It was ludicrous, he knew. He was being exactly what Isabel had called him, a silly old thing. Miss Mayhew was not about to run off with any count, Italian or otherwise.
But Burke knew enough about his own sex to know that it would not be for lack of trying. If Miss Mayhew escaped this or any other function without falling prey to some reprobate, it was only because she had slightly more sense than the average female. She had made it this far through life, it was true, without his help. But she had doubtlessly never traveled before in the circles she was about to enter. She could have no way of knowing just how unscrupulous the gentlemen of the beau monde could be when it came to a fresh new face. And since he was the one who was forcing her to enter this exalted sphere, it was his duty to protect her. A chaperon for the chaperone, so to speak.
He would, he told himself later, as he waited for his phaeton to be brought round, just pop in for a moment to take a peek at how she was faring. If she seemed to be doing all right, he would go to his club. He had tucked the copy of
Last of the Mohicans
into his coat pocket, just in case.
And if it looked as if she needed him, well, he would be there.
And he’d have the added advantage of checking to see whether her theory about Isabel and young Saunders was correct. On the whole, he decided, as his phaeton swung round, it was promising to be a most profitable evening.
Kate was perfectly aware of the gentleman staring in her direction. She had felt his gaze boring into her ever since she’d entered the ballroom.
But she refused—she absolutely refused—to imagine that it was Daniel Craven. No. Once in one night was entirely enough. She would not make a fool of herself a second time. It was bad enough that he’d haunted her dreams for so long, the mere thought of him seemed to turn her into a quivering mass of jelly. She simply could not go around thinking she was seeing him while she was awake, as well. Not unless she wanted to be pegged a madwoman.
The man who was staring at her, she decided, was probably just someone who thought he knew her. Well, she’d known it would happen. Try as she might to stay well away from the dance floor, she’d spotted at least a dozen faces she recognized. She’d managed to avoid them by ducking behind pillars and potted palms, but it was only, she knew, a matter of time before someone pulled aside the palm fronds, and cried, “Why, Kate Mayhew! Whatever are you doing here? Wasn’t your father the one who … ?”
Kate moved her seat a little nearer to the grey-haired dowager in front of her. Not because she fancied the old woman would deign to engage her in conversation—a mere chaperone? Perish the thought!—but because she hoped the woman’s towering coiffure might offer her camouflage.
Isabel, she was not happy to see, catching a glimpse of her charge through the assorted heads in front of her, was behaving as disgracefully as could be. She had been a perfect nightmare through dinner, hardly saying a word to the eligible—and quite good-looking—gentlemen on either side of her. Her heart, she’d explained to Kate later, had been too full to allow her to speak, she was that excited at the prospect of being allowed to see Mr. Saunders. Kate had pointed out that it was all well and good to look forward to seeing Mr. Saunders, but when there was a duke at one elbow and a baron at the other, she might at least deign to ask them how they were enjoying their pheasant.
And then when they’d arrived at the baroness’s, Isabel had quite literally thrown her wrap at Kate and made a mad dash for the ballroom, where she immediately latched onto a tall, fair-haired gentleman, whose side she had not left—not even once—for the entire evening. This gentleman, Kate supposed, was Geoffrey Saunders.
He was not unprepossessing, as young gentlemen went. Kate supposed he’d have to have some charms, or Isabel would not have been interested in him. She was not certain, but she thought she recognized him from her own season out—unless, of course, she was mistaking him for his elder brother, whom, she’d heard the dowager in front of her whisper, was rumored to have twenty thousand pounds a year.
The younger Mr. Saunders appeared to be about Kate’s own age, and was everything that was dashing, from his raffishly curled blond mane to the shiny sword he wore at his hip—an affectation, since he was not in the army, or at least was not in uniform. She could quite see how a young and inexperienced girl like Isabel might fall for a Geoffrey Saunders. Especially since, from what Kate could see, no other gentlemen seemed at all interested in her—unless, of course, her marked preference for Mr. Saunders had already driven everyone else away.
She was going to have to have a talk with Lady Isabel, Kate decided, the moment they were alone again. The girl simply could not continue to carry on in this manner. She was making a fool of herself in front of everyone. It wasn’t any wonder her father had forbidden her from seeing the young man, if this was an example of how she behaved around him. Why, even now she was playfully pulling at that ridiculous sword. And this was supposed to be the daughter of a marquis!
Well, the daughter of the most notorious marquis in London, she amended. Perhaps that was why no one, not even the dowager beside her, was lifting an eyebrow at Isabel’s scandalous behavior. They seemed to expect it from a girl whose own parents made such spectacles of themselves with their scandalous divorce.
“Well,” came a deep voice at her shoulder. “Are you planning on ignoring me all night, then, Kate?”
She turned quickly in her seat. “Freddy!”
He gave a gallant bow. “The very same. I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes. Why did you keep looking away? I know you saw me.”
Kate blushed. She couldn’t, of course, tell him the real reason—that she’d thought he was Daniel Craven. He’d only tease her some more. Then, realizing the dowager and her friends were paying close attention to their conversation, Kate got up, and taking the earl’s hand, let him guide her through the sea of mauve and silver skirts.
“I saw you,” Kate confessed, when they’d made it out of what she had scornfully called Spinsters’ Corner, when she’d been Isabel’s age. Little had she thought then that she might one day end up amongst their silver-haired ranks!
“That is,” Kate went on, “I knew someone was staring at me. But I never imagined it was you. What are you doing here, Freddy? I thought you despised this sort of thing.”
“You know I do,” he said, tugging irritably on his white gloves. “Mother made me come.”
Kate looked around nervously. “She’s here? Oh, Freddy, should we be seen together? You know how she feels about me.”
“Pish posh.” Freddy shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” Kate said, dryly. “She controls your purse strings, doesn’t she?”
“Only till I’m thirty,” Freddy said. “Then I can do what I like with Grandpapa’s money.”
“I don’t know what I’m worried about,” Kate said with a shrug. “It’s not as if she’d recognize me. I swear to you, Freddy, it’s exactly as I told you. I’ve run into a half-dozen girls I used to know and they honestly haven’t recognized me.”
Freddy looked at her skeptically. “Sorry, Kate. I think they recognized you, all right. Recognized you and just preferred not to become reacquainted. You haven’t changed a bit, you know. You’re still the prettiest girl in the room.”
“Oh, Freddy.” Kate gave him a good-natured shove. “Go on.” Then she let out a little shriek. “Good Lord,” she said, staring out across the dance floor. “Is that who I think it is? Emmaline St. Peters? Hasn’t she gotten herself a husband yet?”