“Oh, Lord Wingate.” The baroness laid a hand upon his arm, as if sensing he was not lending her his full attention. “Allow me to tell you about Headley’s inheritance. He’s got three thousand pounds a year from my poor late father. Now, I know that isn’t much, but the baron intends to settle a certain amount upon him just as soon as Headley chooses a sensible bride. And your daughter, of course, being eminently sensible ….”
Was it possible that she had been telling the truth that night, when she’d insisted Bishop was merely a friend of the family? It didn’t seem to him that Katherine Mayhew was the type of woman who would ever stoop to lying. And yet it was perfectly incredible, her claim that her parents—who could only have been tradespeople, or, at the most, educators of some kind—could have been acquaintances with an earl. Burke, a marquis, had no acquaintances whatsoever outside his own circle.
The fact that he had very few within that circle, as well, did not occur to him.
And the other fellow … Craven, he thought he’d heard her call him. A business associate of her father’s? Ludicrous. Why had she paled so upon merely being greeted by a former business associate of her father’s? There was something else going on there, Burke was convinced. And he was going to get to the bottom of it. See if he didn’t.
In the meantime, he flattered himself that he had sussed out the truth behind Miss Mayhew’s relationship with the Earl of Palmer. Bishop was a friend of the Mayhew family, that was certainly true. But only because he had somehow insinuated himself into their circle, undoubtedly drawn there by the sight of Miss Mayhew’s fetching lips.
Burke himself had done everything he could think of to distract himself from the temptation of that mouth. He had stayed, as much as he was capable of staying, away. He had spent whole days—and even some nights—at his club, which he had never appreciated before, having always possessed a marked aversion to the sort of club that would accept a man like himself.
But it kept him, at least, from being at home, where he was all too likely to run into Miss Mayhew. Miss Mayhew who, in some way he could not understand, seemed to draw him to her, the way fire was drawn to air.
About the only thing Burke hadn’t tried was quenching that fire.
And it wasn’t for lack of offers, either. Sara Woodhart was as persistent as ever in her efforts to win him back. And there were several other women—the wife of a certain MP, a ballerina, even a princess of questionable virtue but undoubtedly noble Russian blood—any of whom he could, at any moment, have had, any number of ways. But for some reason, he simply wasn’t interested.
It was this lack of interest in the more carnal pleasures in life that worried him more than anything. Because it wasn’t that he didn’t want a woman. It was that he only wanted one woman.
And the woman he wanted was the one woman he couldn’t have.
Burke was perfectly aware that even a man of his low character and wretched reputation could not go about debauching his daughter’s chaperone, however tantalizing she might look in a nightdress. And that was the only reason, he was quite convinced, that he wanted her so badly. She was simply so absurdly attractive. That was all.
It hadn’t anything to do with her personally. It was her looks. It certainly wasn’t because she was kind. Kindness was hardly considered an important character trait in young women anymore—though apparently no one had told his daughter’s chaperone, since he had observed her, on numerous occasions, slipping coins or a soft word to ragged children on the street, and even, to his horror, helping the elderly with their burdens.
Nor was it her seemingly endless patience with all living things, from the Sledges—who, in Burke’s opinion, ought to be shipped off to Papua New Guinea and forced to stay there—to his own child, whom he’d been tempted more than once to horsewhip, but to whom he’d never heard Miss Mayhew utter a harsh word.
And it hadn’t anything to do with her manners, which were faultless—she was as polite to the other servants as she was to his neighbors, amongst whom ranked a duke.
Nor was it her engaging frankness. It certainly wasn’t because she was at all times sensible and practical, and never screeched or threw tantrums, unlike every other female with whom he’d come into contact during his lifetime. It wasn’t her laughter, which sometimes, especially when he was most trying to avoid her, came floating down from Isabel’s room.
And it certainly wasn’t because, when he spoke to her, he actually believed she was listening, or that when she replied, it was with that rarest of all things, honesty.
That he couldn’t believe. Not after so many years of having been lied to, by so many women, starting, first and foremost, with his own wife.
No. It was her looks, pure and simple. Yes, he’d never before found himself attracted to anyone so small or so blond or so … well, virginal. But there was something about her that had made him want her more than he had ever wanted any woman he had ever known.
Most likely it was her mouth. Certainly, most days, he could not get that mouth out of his thoughts. On the other hand, the fact that she seemed to have a tendency to run about his house in the middle of the night in diaphanous, lace-trimmed wrappers and practically transparent nightdresses did not hurt, either. How he’d ever managed to keep himself from throwing her across his desk and violating her ten different ways then and there, he still hadn’t the slightest clue. He must, in spite of everything, still be in possession of some shred of self-control.
But it hadn’t been easy. It had taken everything he had to set her down again, after she’d landed so miraculously in his arms. When that mouth—that mouth that, from the very first time he’d laid eyes upon it, had never been very far from his thoughts—had ended up so very close to his own, he’d very nearly satisfied the wish that had, over the course of just a few weeks, become almost an obsession, and kissed her.
And she had wanted him to. He was certain of it. She’d been holding a book—a big, solid edition of something by Scott—and she hadn’t even tightened her fingers on it. She’d been fully prepared to let him kiss her.
And yet he hadn’t. At the last possible second, he’d drawn back, and let her go.
Why?
Because he was mad. That was all. Simply, utterly, irrevocably mad.
“And you needn’t worry, my lord,” the baroness was saying. “It’s true we have run into some financial problems of late—well, the baron would invest in those African diamond mines a few years back, and we all know what happened with that—but any amount you would settle on your daughter would, of course, remain hers. We are quite forward-thinking. Why, even the baron is beginning to come around to the idea that women are quite capable of handling their own finances … well, with the help of an accountant, of course.”
Burke turned his head and said, “Baroness Childress.”
She smiled up at him confidently. “My lord?”
“If your son—Headley, did you say his name was? Headley, then. If Headley sets so much as a foot near my daughter, Baroness Childress, I will personally rip out his liver. Do you understand me?”
The baroness paled beneath her face powder. “Lord Wingate ….” she stammered, but he didn’t stay to hear more. He moved around the edge of the dance floor, elbowing his way through the crowd.
Because, of course, he had noticed that Miss Mayhew was no longer sitting alone. A fair-haired young man had joined her. And not, he saw, to his disappointment, the Earl of Palmer, whose face he would sincerely have enjoyed rubbing into the parquet floor beneath their feet. No, it was the other one, Craven, the one who’d distressed her so.
Burke didn’t know the fellow, of course—had never even heard of him, which wasn’t unusual, since Burke didn’t know many people anyway, and made a habit of paying no heed whatsoever to gossip, having been the object of a considerable amount of the stuff himself—and knew he would not have as much fun frightening him away as he might have Bishop. Still, he fully anticipated having an enjoyable time intimidating the fellow, who seemed, if the amount of color that had waned from her face was any indication, to be making his daughter’s chaperone very nervous, indeed.
“Oh, yes,” Miss Mayhew was saying, in that curiously throaty voice of hers that seemed much too low for someone of her size, and had caused, on more than one occasion, the hair on Burke’s arms to stand up. The voice did not reflect any of the unease its owner appeared, judging from her lack of color, to be feeling. “Lady Babbie survived. They found her, I understand, hiding in a closet the day the fire was finally put out.”
Craven noticed him first. He said, with too much enthusiasm, “Why, hullo, there. What a surprise. Look, Katie. Your friend has joined us. Again.”
“Katie” turned in her chair with surprising quickness. “Oh,” she said. Suddenly, as Burke stood there watching, all of the color that had drained from her face returned in a rush, flooding her cheeks hotly. Burke watched in amazement, rendered quite speechless by the sight. He had never seen anything like it.
Kate climbed hastily to her feet, and stood twisting the silken cord to her reticule around and around one finger.
“Oh,” she said again. “I … I …”
Burke ignored her—inasmuch as he was capable of ignoring Katherine Mayhew—and, thrusting his right hand past her and toward a laconically smiling Craven, said in a hearty voice, “As this seems to be becoming a habit, I suppose I ought to introduce myself. Burke Traherne, Marquis of Wingate.”
Craven stuck out his own hand, grasping Burke’s in a grip nowhere near as strong as his own.
“Daniel Craven,” he said with a pleasant smile. “Esquire.” Then, drawing his hand back again, and with a wink in Kate’s direction that infuriated Burke even more than the fingers the blighter had been resting against the back of her chair, he said, “Moving up in the world, Katie? Why settle for an earl when you can get yourself a marquis, eh?”
All of the color that had blossomed in Miss Mayhew’s cheeks disappeared. She appeared, for a moment, to sway a little upon her feet, as if his rudeness had physically rocked her. But before Burke could draw back an arm and send it crashing into the blighter’s face, she was saying, faintly, “Lord Wingate is my employer, Daniel. I’m chaperone to his daughter, Lady Isabel.”
Craven, looking from Kate’s ashen face to Burke’s curled fist, said, “Oh, I say. No offense meant, my lord. Katie and I are old friends. I was only teasing her a bit.”
“I don’t believe Miss Mayhew appreciates your teasing, Mr. Craven,” Burke said woodenly. “And I know I don’t. I think it might behoove you to find someone else to tease, in the future.”
Craven was not a small man. He stood fully as tall as Burke, and only a dozen or so pounds lighter. In a fight between the two of them, it would be hard going saying who’d emerge victorious. Except, of course, that Burke had never lost a fight in his life, and the mere suggestion of him doing so was ludicrous. He rather hoped Craven would take that first swing, even though a fistfight in Lady Tetmiller’s ballroom was hardly the best way to secure an appropriate husband for Isabel. Still, it might go a long way toward relieving some of this tension that seemed to have been building up in him over the past few weeks ….
But Craven didn’t lift so much as a finger. Instead, he said, looking quite apologetic, “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know. Please excuse me if I seemed rude, won’t you?” And then, with rather fortuitous timing, he apparently spied someone in the crowd whom he knew. “Oh,” he said. “There’s Barnes. Do forgive me if I rush off—”
And then he did so, to Burke’s disappointment.
But Kate did not look at all disappointed. She looked positively relieved to see him go. So much so that Burke could not help demanding, rather sharply, “Miss Mayhew, who is that man to you?”
The relief in her eyes wiped clean away, and was replaced by anxiety again a fraction of a second later.
“I told you,” she said. “He was a business—”
“Associate of your father’s,” Burke finished for her. “Yes, yes, so you said.” Realizing that was all the information he was going to get on the subject, he said, “Well, if he bothers you again, Miss Mayhew, kindly let me know.”
Kate’s eyes were very wide as she echoed, “Let you know? But what can you do about it?”
He merely smiled at her naivete. “Leave it to me,” he said.
But she was not so naive as he supposed. “You can’t kill him, my lord,” she said, with some asperity.
He eyed her. “Can I not? And why not? I hope you’re not going to say you’re in love with him, Miss Mayhew, and could not bear to see his blood shed, when it is perfectly obvious the man frightens you witless.”
“He doesn’t,” she said, her chin sliding out stubbornly. “And that isn’t why you can’t kill him.”
“Oh?” He couldn’t help noticing how much even a look of intractability became her. Really, considering the number of young girls in roses and lace that were flitting about the place—not to mention their elder sisters and mammas, in rubies and velvet—it did not seem at all likely that the prettiest woman in the room would be a former governess, a mere chaperone, in a simple grey silk dress, wearing no lace or jewelry whatsoever.
And yet it was undeniably true. Well, there might exist men who’d try to deny it, but frankly, Burke cared for no one’s opinion but his own. And in his opinion, Kate Mayhew was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.
Which was why, that night he’d first met her, that night she’d first accosted him with her umbrella, he ought to have run, run far, far away.
“Why can’t I kill him, then?” he asked.
“Because it would only cause a scandal,” she said, with some impatience. “And then your daughter will have no choice but to marry Geoffrey Saunders, as he’d be the only man willing to have her.”
Burke considered this while beside him Kate seemed suddenly extremely interested in the contents of her reticule, which she began to rifle through with some energy. It was, Burke realized, their first meeting since the incident in the library almost a week ago, and he supposed she was somewhat unnerved by his presence. Which was only natural, considering that she was very young, and very inexperienced. It was up to him, he supposed, to try to instill some normalcy into the situation, to let her know as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed between them.