Married to the Marquess (16 page)

“D
erek! How unexpected. And Katherine, too! This is a surprise indeed.”

Katherine blushed as the beautiful dark-haired woman before her appraised her with the green eyes that seemed to be an uncanny Chambers family trait. “I am so sorry, he would not let me send a note to inquire if we could come, though I told him it was polite.” She glared up at Derek for effect, which brought an amused smile to Diana’s face.

“Yes, a note would have been polite. But as it is my brother, I don’t expect it,” Diana said, still looking at Katherine with interest.

“Ha! See, Kate? I told you she wouldn’t expect it!” Derek crowed, jabbing her in the shoulder with a finger.

“Katherine,” she muttered, batting his finger away.

“Kate,” he scolded with a warning look.

Diana looked supremely interested in them now, and her smile grew just a touch. “Just because I don’t expect you to be polite, Derek, doesn’t mean that it would not be nice. One could always use a little warning before guests show up.”

“I told you,” Katherine accused with a glower, feeling strongly tempted to jab him back, but decided against it. One should not be so childish in front of practical strangers, even if they were related by marriage.

“But you like surprises!” Derek cried, looking at his sister with a sort of betrayed air.

Diana held up a finger for clarification. “I like
pleasant
surprises, Derek. Unless you are bearing gifts, you are rarely one of those.”

Katherine allowed herself to smile widely. She liked Diana already.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Derek grumbled as he shifted uncomfortably. “Come on, Kate, let’s go and visit some people who actually like us.”

“Oh, no, I am staying right here,” Katherine replied, taking off her bonnet for effect.

“Yes, I would like her to,” Diana agreed. She took Katherine’s arm in her own, and smiled at her. “You do not need to send a note, Katherine. You are welcome to show up at any time without warning.” Then she glared at her brother. “From you, I will require three days’ notice.”

Derek smirked at her as he removed his hat and gloves and handed them off to a servant. “I am going to speak to the only person of sense in this house, if you ladies will excuse me.”

He moved to go past them, but Katherine stopped him with a hand to his arm. “I thought you were going to sit in with us.”

“And be abused by the both of you?” He snorted and shook his head. “I think not.”

“But you said you needed to keep Diana in check,” she reminded him, enjoying the way his eyes widened in warning the moment she finished.

“He said
what
?” Diana cried, looking at her brother in indignation.

Derek broke free from Katherine’s arm and moved on. “Beckham!” he called, moving rather swiftly away from them. “Beckham, where are you?”

Katherine watched him go for a moment, feeling just the slightest bit uneasy about being left alone with Diana when she knew very little about her. She had been counting on Derek to be a soothing influence, which seemed odd, considering his temperament, but he knew his sister and obviously loved her, so he could make things a bit easier for her.

She heard a quiet snickering from beside her and glanced over at Diana.

“I’m sorry,” she said between laughs. “I just love to give my brother a hard time. It is so easy to rile him up.” She sighed and smiled brightly. “Come, you look hungry. I’ll order us some luncheon.”

With a fairly strong tug, Diana pulled her down the hall to a rather comfortable dining room, which must have been reserved for family only, as it was not very formal at all, and would not be able to sit more than eight comfortably. She felt oddly pleased to be so included.

“So, Katherine,” Diana said without preamble once they had food before them, “what brings you to visit me today?”

Katherine’s brows raised just a touch at the directness of her tone, and the bluntness of her question. No false expressions of delight, no attempt at small talk, nothing but the truth and the root of the situation. Yes, she thought she might like Diana very well.

“I needed someone to talk to,” she confessed softly, looking down at her hands.

“And you thought of me?”

She chanced a glance up at her sister-in-law, who was watching her with some confusion, but without any judgment or censure. “I didn’t, actually,” Katherine admitted with an apologetic smile. “It was Derek’s idea. I went to my own sister this morning, which is not a very wise thing to do.”

“I can imagine not,” Diana said with a wrinkle of her nose. “I know your sister, Katherine, and you must really be in a sorry state if you tried her first.” She winced, which made her look very much like her brother. “I’m sorry, that was rude. What I meant was that I do not think that your sister would be a particularly able advisor.” Diana frowned at those words as well. “That doesn’t sound polite either. What I am trying to say…”

Katherine laughed a little and covered Diana’s hand with hers. “Don’t make yourself uneasy, I understand.”

Diana grinned. “Thank you. I hope you don’t take offense at my wondering why you should go to her.”

“Not at all,” Katherine said with a shake of her head. “It was my own fault for thinking I could get any sense out of her.”

“Who would you confide in before?”

“My mother.” She shrugged and attempted to eat something, but she could hardly taste it. “It seems odd, I know, but she had always been the person who advised me. Whether it was good advice or bad, she allowed me to regain some balance, and she always had a ready opinion on how to proceed. Now…” She trailed off and took a bite of her food, knowing that her silence would say what she could not find the words for.

“And you cannot confide in Derek?” Diana asked carefully.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, toying with her fork absently. “Our relationship is complicated, and he is part of the problem, and…” She heaved a sigh and shook her head. “I am feeling so lost, I don’t even know which side is up. I don’t know what to do, and nobody is giving me direction.”

“Well, Derek is a very good listener,” Diana suggested as she lightly buttered a roll, “when he wants to be. But I am always willing to listen and advise or simply sit here and let you ramble on with whatever thoughts are swirling about your head. I am sure that your friend Lady Beverton feels the same way, knowing what I do of her.”

“Yes, but she doesn’t know Derek that well. She’s only known him for a few months. I need someone with a bit more insight into the man I married.”

“Oh dear,” Diana said as she wiped her mouth with the serviette in her lap. “What has my brother done to cause such a conundrum in your life? You two have been married for five years, I should think that nothing would surprise you anymore.”

Katherine smiled. “We are trying to be friends,” she told Diana as she began to eat the meal before her in earnest.

“Now that is something I never expected to hear,” Diana laughed. “I know he loves sparring with you, I wonder at his giving that up. How is it going?”

“Rather well, actually,” she admitted just a little grudgingly. “But it’s confusing.”

“I can imagine.” She smiled faintly. “After all this time? What a mess.”

Katherine nodded, sighing a little. “I am so used to him fighting with me, and being insulting and rude and insolent and irritating. That is the man that I married, the one who does everything in his power to avoid me and stay out of my sight.”

“Is that why he’s never in town?” Diana asked in surprise.

“So I assume. I don’t blame him, I can be quite tyrannical, no doubt you’ve heard about it.” She glanced up at Diana, but found her expression suspiciously blank.

Undeterred, Katherine went on. “We have grown accustomed to our battles, and now… it is this other, more friendly side of Derek that I am having trouble with.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he has never been this way with me. We have always been at each other’s throats, all the time. Even before we were married, we spent our annual visits in either a war of muttered insults or complete silence. So I have to ask myself, which is my husband? The man I have known or the man I am coming to know?”

Diana sighed and set her serviette on the table. “I think this conversation is better suited to a sitting room, Katherine. Are you finished?”

Though she was not, she was not going to waste a moment of possibly gaining insight into her husband from an expert on the subject. “Yes, I am.”

Diana nodded and the two of them made their way to the sitting room a few doors down. Though not expensively furnished, the room was neat and clean, rather well-ordered, and altogether pleasing to the eye. Katherine suspected that was the very nature of Diana and her husband. Simple, unadorned, but rather elegant at the same time. It was refreshing.

“I think that I need to tell you about how we grew up,” Diana said softly as they took seats near the large window in the room. “Perhaps that will allow you to see Derek in a more honest light.”

Katherine nodded somberly, and found herself somehow both eager to learn and content to listen at the same time.

“Derek is the firstborn, which of course you know,” Diana began, keeping her eyes fixed on Katherine intently. “In our family, firstborns are held to a rather high standard. As our family inherited our title by a death in the direct line, all of the dukes since have been determined to prove that we are deserving. My father is the most determined of all. I don’t know if you are aware of my father’s irritation with my brother David or not.”

“I am,” Katherine said quickly. “Derek and I had a discussion about him only a few days ago.”

“He confided in you about that?”

She nodded. “It seems rather a lot to ask of an elder son to take charge and control the younger, particularly when the younger son has no responsibility.”

“Ah, but you forget; my father is very determined,” Diana said with a raised finger. “We all were bound by the same rules and restrictions as Derek, purely to ensure that our behavior was impeccable at all times. David does not like rules; I do not like rules; Derek does not like rules. But unlike David and myself, Derek obeyed without a fight. He is a very obedient son, and he works very hard to please. Even as a boy, he was being trained up and tutored to be a duke. If he had been an only child, perhaps he would have become the very likeness of our father.”

Diana broke off with a bit of a mischievous smile. “Thankfully, David and I took it upon ourselves to prevent that.” She sighed and the smile faded slightly. “But it did not stop him from inheriting the same determination to prove his position. He feels very strongly about our family name and our heritage. Does he feel as strongly about things as our father? No. Derek has a genuine love and concern for people, regardless of who or what they are.”

Katherine only nodded, her mind whirling. Had she and Derek really had much of the same upbringing? Granted, she had not the luxury of siblings who were full of joy and laughter, but it seemed they had both been groomed for the positions they now held.

“He will be a wonderful duke,” Diana continued with a fond smile. “Better than our father, I am sure, because Derek cares for more than his title and position and the opinions of others. Derek feels things far more deeply than he appears to, and he always has. You said that he is being rather warm and friendly to you, more than you expected?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly. “I never anticipated he would try so hard to make a friendship between us work. It was my idea to be friends, and if we are to have any sort of working marriage, we ought to be able to remain in the same room with each other for a few minutes.”

“Yes, I think that would be a requirement, particularly if you want the family to continue on at all,” Diana said with an impish smile that was so well suited to her that Katherine suddenly had a glimpse of what she must have looked like as a child.

She blushed in response to that, but it faded nearly as fast. “But he is so changed from who he was even a few days ago. I am not sure which man is really Derek.”

“I would venture to say that he is both,” Diana replied. “But the heart of Derek is in the man you are beginning to see. I imagine that before now he viewed you and your marriage as one more responsibility he had to bear, and since our father was not to always be overseeing this particular part, Derek could control it. He could resent it, he could do whatever he liked with it. Now that he has been forced to view it in another light, I think he is seeing that there is another way it could be done. I think you ought to trust this version of Derek, rather than expect something nefarious to come out of it.”

Katherine winced at the implication. “Was it that obvious?”

Diana flashed a friendly smile at her. “Not really, but I know my brother, and I think I am getting quite a good read on you. You have never had someone you could confide in, so I daresay trust is difficult for you. I only wish that I had been able to come to those annual meetings between you and Derek before you were married. I think you could have used some ballast.”

“Will you be my ballast now?” Katherine asked softly, tears pricking at her eyes.

“Of course, I will,” Diana said instantly, reaching over to hug her. “Between Moira and myself, I think we can steer the two of you towards calmer waters.”