Really, the only person at 21 Park Lane about whom Kate had any misgivings whatsoever was her employer … and that was only because she saw him so very rarely. For a man who—according to his own daughter—loved nothing more than a good book, it seemed to Kate as if Lord Wingate was never at home to enjoy one. Kate had been forced to spend much of her time during Isabel’s illness trolling her father’s library for material with which to amuse her, and never once had she encountered him there. She had seen him a good deal oftener before Isabel’s illness, when she’d looked out from Spinsters’ Corner, and glimpsed him in the crowd, one eye invariably on his daughter, and the other inevitably turned in her direction.
Which she hadn’t minded. She hadn’t minded it a bit. Truth be told, running into Daniel Craven the way she had that first night had thoroughly unnerved her. She could not say why, precisely. The rational part of her mind told her that Daniel could in no way have had any part in the tragic deaths of her parents. But another, deeper part of her insisted that he had. It was a thought she routinely pushed down, but it had a tendency to rise now and then … especially in her dreams, which, since seeing him again, had tended more and more often to revolve around the fire.
She had thought herself done with nightmares. They had haunted her almost every night for the first year after her parents’ deaths. But after seven years, they had ceased almost completely. Until, that is, she’d thought she’d seen Daniel Craven on Park Lane … and then actually had seen him, across a ballroom.
Now the nightmares returned, not with any regularity, but more than just occasionally. And in them, she was once again trying frantically to reach her parents, trying to cross that burning hallway, and once again, something—someone—pulled her back. In her dreams, she never saw who that someone was.
Waking, however, she knew. The name Daniel Craven, Daniel Craven, Daniel Craven, echoed through her head every morning like church bells, ringing out the time.
Fortunately, after that first night, she did not see him again. She looked for him—she would always look for him, now that she knew he was back in England. But fortunately, it appeared he was not invited to many of the same parties as the daughter of the Marquis of Wingate. Which suited Kate just fine. Though she had not, she felt, handled their first interview at all well, she did not feel anxious to prove herself in another. The farther Daniel Craven stayed from her, the happier she felt
This was not the way she felt, however, about another gentleman who seemed to be avoiding her. She knew perfectly well that she ought to have kept her mouth shut over Freddy’s soprano, but somehow, one night, it had simply slipped out. They had been standing about, watching Isabel whirl across the ballroom on the arm of a boy who was not Geoffrey Saunders—which had consequently caused Mr. Saunders, who was standing close by, to complain, “I don’t understand it She promised me all her dances, first thing when she arrived this evening, and then every time I look, some other bloke’s got her.”
Pleased to see the young man so discomfited, Kate had remarked, lifting a glass of champagne from the tray a footman offered her, ” ‘A woman is always a fickle, unstable thing.’ ”
Freddy had flicked an amused glance in her direction. “Surely not the Bible, Kate?”
“Good Lord, no.” She took a sip. “That was Virgil.”
“I say, Kate,” Freddy said, moving closer to her. “There’s Traherne, over there by that potted palm, lookin’ right at you. What’s he doin’ here, I wonder? I wouldn’t think this was his sort of thing. Is he here to spy on you, d’you think?”
Kate said, with a shrug, “I rather fancied it was you he was staring daggers at. After all, you’re the one who’s always dragging his daughter off to turn a reel, aren’t you?”
“Only because you won’t turn one with me,” Freddy said, wounded. Then, as if it had only just occurred to him: “I say, Kate. Did he say anything to you about me that night he caught the two of us dancin’?”
“About you manhandling me, you mean?” Kate asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry about that. Don’t know what came over me. I was caught up in the moment, and all. I don’t suppose I’ve a head for dancin’.”
“No,” Kate said. “His lordship didn’t say anything about your manhandling me.”
Nor had Kate said anything to Freddy about Daniel Graven being back in town. Freddy hadn’t noticed him that evening at the ball, having become embroiled in another heated argument over horses with the young Mr. Saunders. Which was, Kate figured, just as well: Freddy had been one of the many people who’d believed her insistence that she’d seen Daniel Craven the night of the fire a symptom of the smoke inhalation she’d suffered, a sort of a hallucination. Her practically fainting at the sight of the man seven years later would only have confirmed Freddy’s belief that her antipathy for Daniel Craven was ill-founded. After all, what had he done at the ball, but greet her with perfect civility? And she’d gone and fainted.
Instead, she said, mischievously, “Lord Wingate did, however, wonder what you were doing there, and ventured that she must have been busy that night.”
Freddy stared down at her. “That who must have been busy that night? My mother, you mean?”
“Certainly not.” She took another sip of her champagne. “Your Viennese soprano, of course.”
Freddy’s jaw had dropped. He’d shot a look in the marquis’s direction that, had he noticed it, might have caused Lord Wingate some little discomfort.
“That devil,” Freddy had said quite vehemently, beneath his breath. Then, to Kate, he’d said, “Listen to me, Katie. She means nothing, I swear it. She was just a way to … Well, it isn’t as if you’ve been giving me any encouragement and … and …” Freddy had darted a murderous look in the marquis’s direction. “I’ll kill him,” she’d heard him murmur. “I swear I will.”
To which Kate had responded by striking him lightly on the arm with her fan.
“Oh, Freddy, stop it. I’m delighted to hear that you don’t spend every moment you’re away from me pining for my company. It’s a blow to my ego, I’ll admit—and I’m disappointed you never told me about her, since I thought we shared everything with one another”—well, not quite everything, she’d amended guiltily to herself—”but I suppose I’ll live.”
Freddy had been much too appalled to say another word. And his effrontery over what she’d considered merely light-hearted bantering must have been extreme, since Kate heard mighty little from him after that. He seemed to avoid all of the functions at which he thought she might be in attendance, and he certainly never came calling for her of a Sunday, her only day off.
Kate, surprised, supposed the soprano had meant rather more to Freddy than he’d let on.
And, strangely, even though his daughter was ill—a trifling illness, surely, but an aggravating one, nonetheless—Lord Wingate was rather scarce himself, and from his own home, no less. Oh, he peered in first thing after breakfast, to see how Isabel had fared during the night, and occasionally looked in at the end of an evening out, but nothing more than that. Kate supposed he had found a replacement for Mrs. Woodhart, with whom, she understood from Isabel—who knew far more than was good for her about her father’s romantic life—he’d split. But this idea Isabel dismissed with much disgust. He had not found a replacement for Mrs. Woodhart, and would not, if he knew what was good for him. It was time he married, and the sooner the better, according to Isabel, since Geoffrey Saunders was bound to propose any day.
But the likelihood of the marquis marrying, however fondly his daughter might wish it, was viewed with a good deal of skepticism by the rest of the household. He had been heard more than once to disparage the entire idea of marriage, and usually, upon any servant announcing an intention to form such a union, tried to counsel them out of it. If the hapless individual refused to abandon his or her quest for the altar, the marquis was known to sigh sadly and hand over a gold crown, with his sincere wishes that said individual find happiness, in such a tone that suggested such happiness was extremely rare.
And, Kate eventually learned from his lordship’s valet, the marquis had most recently been spending all of his time not in pursuit of a new mistress, but down at his club. Or at least, that was where Duncan was frequently sent with deliveries of fresh shirts.
Not that Kate had taken to listening to kitchen gossip. Only it seemed that whenever his lordship’s name was mentioned, she could not help but listen. Mrs. Cleary’s story, for example, of a time when it had snowed so hard one Christmas Eve at Wingate Abbey that the housekeeper—a Catholic—had resigned herself to forgoing mass, for fear of slipping on the way. Imagine her surprise when she’d awakened Christmas morning to the sound of scraping, and looked out her window to see the master of the house—he had given his staff the day off—shoveling a path for her through the deep white stuff.
“And wouldn’t take a thank-you,” Mrs. Cleary had informed Kate, over tea one evening, after a sniffling Isabel had fallen into a restless sleep. “Wouldn’t hear a word of it. And him not even a churchgoer! But he was always like that, since he was a wee little one, Master Burke. Always putting others ahead of himself, but doing it on the sly, like, so you would never know it, unless you caught him at it. I’ve heard there’s some as put his lordship down as having a violent temper.” Here the old woman’s voice dipped conspiratorially, “And I’ll not lie to you. He’s got the devil’s own. But only when he’s vexed, miss. Only when he’s vexed. The rest of the time, he is the best of men. The best.”
Kate might have thought Mrs. Cleary was exaggerating a little, as elderly ladies—particularly housekeepers—were wont to do, especially when speaking of their employers, except that she heard similar stories from all of Lord Wingate’s other servants, as well. Isabel’s father, it seemed, was generous to a fault, kind beyond all comparison, and generally perceived to be exactly what Mrs. Cleary had insisted he was: the best of men.
Except, of course, for his temper, which all agreed was extremely volatile. Kate was advised to steer a wide berth around any subjects that might engender the master’s wrath, and was even offered a list of those subjects, which included, among other things, matrimony and flannel.
Though Kate memorized the list, she thought it highly unlikely that an opportunity for bringing up any of these offensive subjects was going to rear itself, since she now saw so little of him. In fact, she’d lived in his home for nearly a month before she happened actually to sit down to a meal with him, and that had been a distinctly uncomfortable affair at which the marquis, who had clearly been expecting to enjoy his breakfast in solitary perusal of the newspaper, had attempted to find a subject upon which they might converse with one another, and failed, finally leaving the table with a hasty excuse.
Kate would, of course, not have been a woman if this had not irked her. It was obvious to her that Lord Wingate was avoiding her, just as it had been obvious to her before that he’d been following her. Strangely, his avoiding her dismayed her a good deal more than his following her ever had. She did not flatter herself that Lord Wingate was in love with her, despite what had happened in the Sledges’ library, but she had thought that he rather liked her, at least a little.
But that, apparently, had been a false impression, his lordship having proved that his time was better spent elsewhere.
Other men, however, were not so fickle with their affections. Mr. Geoffrey Saunders had remained a constant admirer, as Brigitte now proved, by taking away the offensive sugared peaches, and revealing, instead, a letter upon a silver salver.
“Perhaps,” Brigitte said, her French accent very thick. “Perhaps this will make her ladyship smile, then. It came just now, in the post. Another love letter, I think.”
Isabel groaned, her eyes closed. “Oh, how my head pounds! I haven’t the strength to read it. Put it on the table with the others, Miss Mayhew, would you?”
Kate put aside the book she’d been reading aloud—
Our Mutual Friend
, by Mr. Dickens,
Pride and Prejudice
having been finally disposed of the day before—stood up, and removed the letter from the silver salver the maid held out to her. Recognizing the handwriting on the envelope, Kate said airily, “Oh, look, another from Mr. Saunders.”
Isabel sat up with as much energy as if someone had suggested her bedclothes were aflame.
“From Geoffrey?” she cried. “Is it really? Oh, give it here, Miss Mayhew! Please give it here!”
Kate surrendered the letter, and Isabel fell upon it with savage eagerness.
“Oh,” she cried, reading happily. “Oh, he misses me, Miss Mayhew! He says he is pining for me.”
Kate said, “As he ought.”
“But supposing he does a harm to himself, for missing me so much? He says here he might. He says he can’t promise he won’t. Oh, mayn’t I answer this one, Miss Mayhew?” Isabel looked up pleadingly. “Please mayn’t I answer this one?”
“I don’t know.” Kate furrowed her brow, pretending to think. “How many is that this week?”
“Four, Miss Mayhew! Surely I may answer him after four letters begging to know why I haven’t sent a reply to any of his others, and threatening to do himself a harm if I don’t reply to this one.”
Kate sighed. “I suppose,” she said, “you may send him a brief note, explaining that you are ill, and—” Then, seeing that Isabel was scrambling out of bed and toward her writing desk, Kate broke off, and cried, instead, “Where do you think you’re going, my lady? Get back beneath those blankets. You heard what the doctor said.”
“How can I care what the doctor says,” Isabel wailed, struggling against Kate’s detaining hands, “when my darling Geoffrey is pining for me?”
“You’ll care a good deal,” Kate said tartly, “if you catch something worse than a cold, and are kept from him that much longer. Think what a harm he’ll do to himself then.”
Isabel stopped struggling immediately. “Oh,” she said, sinking back against the pillows. “You are right, Miss Mayhew. Darling Miss Mayhew, where would I be without you? For you are always right.”
Kate, tugging at her sleeves—which Isabel had frightfully wrinkled in her frantic struggle to get out of bed—said, “I am always right. It would help if you’d remember that, my lady. Now stay put, and I’ll go and fetch some stationery. And at your peril you spill ink on the sheets again.”