One Tempting Proposal (13 page)

“My hat!” As it flitted on the air behind her, Kitty reached back, arms wheeling to grab it. Majesty startled at the awkward movement and pranced forward, shaking Kitty off-­balance. Frantically grabbing for purchase, she rolled her hips and slid out of the sidesaddle, legs akimbo, and finally ended up bent across the horse, her backside pointing in Sebastian's direction.

All she could do was watch as her hat sailed past, landing on the banks of the Serpentine. It bobbed in the shallows, plumes standing tall like an extraordinary ship's topsail.

She heard Sebastian's cough behind her, and then felt his hands at her waist as he settled her safely back in the saddle.

“What are you doing?”

He handed her Junia's reins along with Majesty's. “I'm saving you from further embarrassment and fetching your hat. You do want it, don't you?”

Just then the wind caught the feathers and heaved the hat along, a forlorn little boat skipping on the water's surface.

“It's gone in too far now,” she said, trying to keep the whine from her voice. “You'll ruin your boots.”

“At least it got me off the horse.”

He removed his overcoat and handed it to Kitty.

Rolling up his shirt cuffs as he marched toward the shore, he stopped when the toe of his boot dipped into the water's edge.

Kitty swallowed hard. Where had a mathematician acquired such muscular thighs? And why was she staring at the man's thighs at all?

He turned back to her. “I hope they're watching. Whoever we're supposed to be convincing.”

Yes, of course. Being seen as a ­couple was why they were here in the first place, not for her to study the firm planes and sinewy swells of his body. Why
was
the man so muscled? The mystery of it gave her an excuse to stare longer.

No doubt he was one of those sporting gentlemen, preoccupied with running across fields or thwacking balls with bats. Men who talked of nothing but sports put her to sleep.

“You're quite fond of sports, aren't you?”

He'd just waded in, the water rushing up the length of his boots, then higher, pasting his black trousers to those thighs she shouldn't be so interested in.

“Is that what you wish to discuss now? While I'm . . .” He waved his hand ahead of him in the general direction of her doomed scrap of millinery. One determined peacock feather still poked its head above the water.

“I'm curious.”

He inhaled deeply, lifting his inexplicably contoured chest, and peered back at her over his shoulder.

“I was on the rowing crew at Cambridge and have a passing interest in other sports. I can swim, if that's what you're worried about.”

Rowing? That explained the width of his arms and the strength in his legs. Perhaps some sports weren't so bad after all.

When she said nothing more, he continued treading water, releasing a hiss as a wave crested his thighs, swelling up over his shapely backside, and higher still until the sky blue shade of his waistcoat turned an inky dark indigo.

“I told you it was deep.”

“Very helpful. Thank you,” he called back drily.

The force of his movements pushed a surge of water ahead of him, which set the hat weaving along at a faster clip. With one long arm extended, he reached out to snatch the frippery from the lake. It looked like a pathetic bird that had crashed to a watery end, its feathers sodden and limp.

Sebastian hoisted the little hat with a victorious pump in the air as if he'd just pulled Excalibur from its stone.

Kitty lifted a fist to her mouth to stifle laughter, but she heard a giggle and echoes of throaty female delight erupting behind her. A throng of women had gathered at the lake's edge to watch Sebastian walk out of the water with his treasure. One lifted up a kerchief as if she considered throwing it out for him to retrieve, but most simply stood agog, watching water sluice down his long muscular legs, his painted-­on trousers leaving little to the imagination. Water had seeped up his waistcoat and soaked the white shirt beneath, fabric clinging lovingly to each hard muscle as he moved. He was a gentlemanly Poseidon emerging from the Serpentine depths, and few seemed willing to miss a moment of the display.

When he finally stepped out of the water, a dainty applause broke out and then grew. A few gentlemen had drawn near and added their approval. Sebastian sketched a deep bow, waving her hat as if he'd just doffed a feathered cap at his gaggle of admirers.

He glanced down at her now ruined piece of headgear and frowned.

“It might be all right once it dries out.”

“No, it's ruined.”

“I'm sorry, Kat.” She'd never seen more sincerity in a man's eyes than when he handed her the bit of drenched fabric.

“Help me down.” He frowned at that and a twitch started at the edge of his jaw when he reached for her. She expected him to offer a hand to lean on, but he grasped her waist instead and took all her weight as he lifted her off Majesty and settled her on the ground, careful not to allow her body to brush against his wet clothing.

“We've attracted a good deal of attention.” She opened her mouth to instruct him to bow over her hand or whisper in her ear, to take some action to seal their romance in the memory of their sizable audience.

The duke needed no direction.

He released her waist and reached for her hand, but he wasn't content to place a chaste kiss on the back of her glove. Turning her hand palm up, he snaked his fingers up to her wrist, peeling back the edge of her leather riding gloves and finding the bare patch of skin below her jacket cuff. He rubbed her flesh with his thumb, drawing all the sensation in her body to that single spot. Then he bent at the waist to kiss her there on the inch of territory he'd staked for himself.

It wasn't a simple kiss. His tongue darted out to wet the spot, then his hot breath teased against the dampness before she felt the firm warm press of his lips.

Her thighs quivered as if the ground below her feet had begun trembling and might not hold her up.

When he stood and looked down at her, eyes searching for her reaction, she bit her lip to stifle the moan pressing at the back of her throat.

He hadn't released her hand, but for once she was grateful for his touch. The strong wall of his body steadied her, reassured her. Then she glared up at him. His far too tempting touch was the reason she needed steadying in the first place.

Tugging her hand from his, she took a step to put distance between them.

“I think we've made an impression.” He skimmed his gaze over a few ladies clinging tenaciously to the patch of grass near the water's edge, eager to catch his attention, or wishing she'd fall in, no doubt.

They'd made an impression all right. She could easily imagine some gossip rag scribbler preparing the next broadsheet in which her hat debacle featured prominently. But that wasn't the impression that still made rational thought a challenge and her skin tingle where he'd kissed her. The shape of his mouth seared into the sensitive skin of her wrist—­that was the impression that kept her thoughts stumbling.

“Can we walk the horses back?”

“I suppose you've earned that.”

As they walked and the horses clip-­clopped behind them, ladies turned to watch their progress. Or, rather, his progress. He still hadn't replaced his jacket, and she noted how their eyes wandered to all the places she'd perused so brazenly.

Kat clenched her teeth.

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with a soaking wet man?” For a gentleman who made his own emotions so apparent, he had a shockingly poor ability to read others.

Sighing deeply, she turned, determined to give him a bit of his own unvarnished truth. But she couldn't admit that the sight of him with his clothes pasted to his body set her own humming in the most irritating manner. Or that something else kindled below the surface.

However much she enjoyed her moments with him, they were all for show. They could be as entertaining as the best theatrical, but it would all be just as fictional.

But whatever she thought to say was drowned out by the sound of a throaty female voice calling his name.

“Sebastian!” Pippa rushed toward them, lifting her skirts high enough to indicate she wasn't overly concerned about anyone seeing her practical black boots or the flash of white stocking above. “Did you fall in?” The last question bubbled out of her mouth, punctuated by bursts of laughter.

His sister reached out to touch his waistcoat. “This will be ruined. You really do enjoy making your valet miserable, don't you?”

She smiled up at him and then finally seemed to notice Kitty at his side.

“Oh, hello, Lady Katherine. Did you fish him out of the Serpentine or were you the one who pushed him in? I wouldn't blame you if you did. He can be a bit overbearing.”

Kitty considered conveying the embarrassing tale of her doomed hat, which would explain Sebastian's sodden physique, but Pippa steamed ahead like a train.

“When you didn't come back to the library for me, I decided to take a walk. What serendipity to find you.” She turned again to Kitty. “And you, Lady Katherine.”

Kitty grinned at the young woman. She was grateful for Pippa's exuberance. Better to focus on his sister's amusement at Sebastian's wet disheveled clothing than for Kitty to let her gaze drift to all those places where the fabric still molded to his body.

But as soon as Kitty acknowledged Sebastian's sister, Pippa fell silent and began examining both of them as if trying to solve a mystery. “So . . . what did happen?”

Pippa's tone turned suspicious, and her gaze locked on Kitty, as if her presence was more of a conundrum than the question of why Sebastian stood dripping water onto the grass. She looked shocked to see them in each other's company, and certainly seemed to have no notion that Kitty and Sebastian had entered into a scheme to tell everyone they intended to marry.

He'd insisted on telling Pippa the truth of their plan, yet it appeared that he hadn't bothered telling his sister anything at all.

“You haven't told her.”

He swallowed and jerkily shook his head.

His perceptive sister missed none of it. “Told me what?”

The duke looked as if he'd happily dive back in the Serpentine headfirst if it meant he could escape dual feminine interrogation.

“Sebastian, tell me what?”

He shifted his gaze from his sister's face to Kat's, then back again.

“Why don't we discuss it over dinner? Lady Katherine, would you join us? And Lord and Lady Clayborne, if they're free on such short notice.”

Kat wouldn't ruin the moment for him. If he wished to tell his sister in private, she owed him that after his chivalrous attempts to save her hat. For a man who'd resisted her idea, he was committed now and it reassured her that they'd see Ollie and Hattie wed, hopefully by month's end.

“I look forward to it, Your Grace.”

 

Chapter Thirteen

“D
ID YOU BUMP
your head when you fell in the river?”

“No. And you're being purposely inaccurate, Pippa. I didn't fall in. I waded in.”

“To preserve her headwear?”

“She was fond of the thing.” Seb still wasn't sure why.

Pippa held still after he said it. She'd been pacing as she railed at him but stopped, suspended midstride as if he'd given something away. Was it so difficult to believe he remembered how to be chivalrous? He'd had a long dry spell, admittedly. So long his romantic notions were buried under dust, but he hadn't completely forgotten how to be a gentleman.

She glared at him long and hard and then resumed her march across the carpet, turning with all the stiff precision of a soldier and then treading past the spot where he leaned against the edge of his desk.

“You can't do this. She'll make a laughingstock of you when this is all said and done.”

“After today's performance, I suspect I already am.”

“Nonsense. I'm sure you looked terribly heroic while saving a wealthy lady's overpriced hat.”

Seb didn't bother to remind his sister that they were wealthy now too, and she could afford to buy as many ridiculous hats as she liked. It would be a futile argument. Give Pippa a hundred pounds and she'd probably spend it trying to assist those in need, only leaving a bit aside for a new tennis racket or fencing épée. She'd never given two minutes consideration to fashion, and he couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her wear anything beyond a practical straw hat to fend off the sun.

“I could care less about being a hero. We're doing this for Ollie and Harriet.”

On this journey across the carpet she stopped near the window and crossed her arms, staring out through the fine gauze drapes at their quiet corner of Mayfair.

“Why does he insist on marrying her?”

Now it was his turn to keep still, to fight the urge to respond to the pained break in her voice and go to her. But even as a child Pippa refused coddling and comfort. She might shed a tear or two over a skinned knee or sulk about the loss of a game, but she'd push their mother away when she attempted a reassuring embrace, or turn from Father when he'd offer one of his truisms about loss and perseverance.

“He says he loves her.” Seb uttered the words quickly, wishing for any way to mitigate his sister's pain.

“Ah, love.” Pippa's shoulders lifted as she uttered an awful choked sound, a bitter semblance of laughter. “We should all believe in love, shouldn't we? Because that impulse covers all sins. Love is always true.”

Beyond her infatuation with Ollie, as far as Seb knew, Pippa had never been in love. There'd been plenty of young men who indicated interest in her, but she'd either ignored their overtures or missed them entirely. Her interest in Ollie had become clear the previous year, if overlong gazes and sensitivity to their usual sibling-­like banter was any indication. But she ignored Ollie as often as she spoke to him, and he seemed as oblivious to her feelings as she was to those of her besotted classmates at Cambridge.

Seb couldn't imagine where she'd developed such bitterness toward love and romance. A thought chilled him. He only knew one person more jaded about love, and he glimpsed a bit of the pathetic man's face in the mirror over the mantel. Had his own bitterness somehow infected Pippa? He thought he'd hid it well, buried his pain and carried on so that none of them truly imagined what had transpired between him and Alecia.

He didn't want bitterness and a lonely life for Pippa. Such a clever, accomplished young woman deserved to find happiness and never know the pain of betrayal and lost love.

“Pippa—­”

“Do you intend to tell everyone you
love
Kitty Adderly?”

Horrible? Kat was a challenge, as her father had been quick to remind him, and her behavior at that first ball had been appalling, but there was a good deal more. Intelligence, determination, and a loyalty to her sister he couldn't help but admire.

“Until Oliver is married, yes.”

“So you'll lie about love, and yet you think Oliver, who possesses as much constancy as feral cat, means it when he says he loves this marquess's daughter?”

She turned just as he began to approach her and held up her hands. “Can we stop for now, Seb?”

He hated the pain in her eyes, the white pallor of her skin. She looked like a haunted version of his lively sister, and he couldn't comfort her. Even if she allowed such emotional displays, he had no idea what he'd say. He believed in the power of love as little as she did, at least for himself. If Ollie thought he'd found his portion of happiness, it wasn't his place to question the young man's devotion to Kat's sister. But for himself, the prospect of giving his heart seemed laughable.

Seb wasn't certain there was anything left in him worth giving.

“They will be here in an hour, Pippa.”

“Is Kitty coming? And Lady Harriet?”

“Ollie invited her.”

“Very well.” She wore the same expression he'd seen as a child when he'd bested her at a game of chess. Reticent concession, but something less than full-­on defeat. If she loved Ollie and his determination to marry another woman broke her heart, she'd never let him, or anyone, see that agony. Seb thought back to the years after Alecia's betrayal and wondered if he'd managed to wear a poker face as well as Pippa.

“What if he changes his mind about her? If you tell these lies and woo a woman you don't even like, and Ollie fixes his admiration on another young lady, as he is wont to do? What then?”

Seb had no ready answer. But his lack of a response didn't bother him nearly as much as the presumption that he did not like Kat. Dislike wasn't there when he thought of her. In fact, the emotions she sparked in him were deeper, thornier, far beyond anything as simple as like or dislike. And that disturbed him most of all.

“Y
O
U
'
R
E
CERTAIN SHE'LL
keep the secret until all is said and done?”

Kat whispered as Sebastian stood near her at the edge of his drawing room. Lord and Lady Clayborne engaged in conversation with Ollie while Harriet beamed at his side. Clayborne finally agreed to meet with Ollie in the afternoon, and no one could see the glowing smiles the young ­couple had been wearing since their arrival at Wrexford House and doubt the result of that meeting.

“Pippa can be trusted.”

“How did she take the news?”

Seb tried not to watch the drawing room door for his sister's entrance. She'd left him standing in the middle of his study, midsentence, as he fumbled over explaining his complicated feelings for Kat. He wasn't certain Pippa would join them for dinner at all.

“She's unwell this evening.”

Kat turned to face him. “You asked me to trust you once. Why not tell me the truth?”

He took a deep breath to explain, though revealing Pippa's affection for Ollie wasn't an option. Not only would it complicate everyone's plans, but his sister's feelings were her own.

“We didn't start well, your sister and I. Perhaps I frightened her.”

Frightened? Pippa? As a child she'd only begged for a retelling of the most gruesome of fairy tales and now collected volumes of Sheridan Le Fanu and Wilkie Collins's ghost stories for her nighttime reading.

“Don't look at me like that, Sebastian. I meant no harm. I merely—­”

The drawing room door swung open and Lady Harriet and her mother stood, perhaps thinking it was the butler calling them into the dining room. But it was Pippa. She wore a pasted-­on smile, and Seb's neck itched at the thought of what she might be feeling, the dilemma he could not fix for her.

Before he could lead her over, Kat approached his sister and whispered some sentiment amusing enough to make her smile, or at least feign it convincingly. Kat took Pippa's arm and drew her to a corner of the room. Seeing the two clever women together with heads bent did nothing to settle his nerves.

A few minutes later, Pippa approached. “She's good at this.” Though Lady Harriet had smiled at Pippa as she crossed the room and indicated a seat next to her, his sister offered Kat's sister a pleasant smile and planted herself at his side instead.

“Who's good at what?” Seb was busy watching Ollie's interaction with Lord Clayborne. The older man gave little away, and he hoped Ollie didn't overwhelm the girl's parents with his exuberance.

“Lady Katherine is good at convincing ­people to like her. What if Lady Harriet is as false as her sister?”

“As you pointed out in my study, I am lying as well. We're not enjoying this.” For the most part, it had been miserable. He hated lying, and the interrogation with Clayborne had been brutal. But he glanced up at Kat as he spoke, and he admitted, at least to himself, that it hadn't all been misery. “And as for Harriet, I know her as little as you do. But I do know Oliver. He's never shown this sort of devotion to any woman.”

“Then I shall be happy for him.” Seb suspected Pippa had no idea the words came out through clenched teeth. He leaned an inch closer but didn't reach for her. She blew out a breath, and then inhaled deeply. Peeking at her out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tear glistening on her cheek.

He considered offering his handkerchief, but the danger of drawing attention to her distress wasn't worth the gesture. She'd swiped away the evidence of her heartache before he'd finished the thought.

When the butler called them into the dining room a few moments later, she bolted from his side. Kat maneuvered across the room and reached for his arm.

“Thank you for coming this evening.” Trite words, though he meant them sincerely. Wrexford House took a bit less getting used to than Roxbury, but they'd yet to entertain any guests, and his parents had taught them that guests enliven any home.

“Of course.” She lifted her shoulders and her turquoise dress rustled. “We'll be family when all is said and done. Might as well know what we're up against now.”

He and Pippa and Kat made quite a trio. Each as cynical about love and happy futures as the other in their own way.

“I think I'm on the road toward making amends with your sister. I've invited her to go hat shopping with me, if that suits you.”

“The feathered one couldn't be salvaged?” He wasn't sad to hear the news.

“Yours was a valiant effort. But no.”

Dipping his shoulders, he tried for a slightly mournful expression. Whatever he thought of the monstrosity, Kat had adored the thing.

“Stop it,” she whispered as she tightened her grip on his arm.

“What?”

“You really are a terrible liar. Are you trying for sorrow over my hat's demise?”

“I'm trying for polite.” He really had done his best to save the bit of feathered velvet.

“Well, stop it. I assure you the next one will have feathers too.”

“I have no doubt.” He imagined she'd go for something grander and with bigger feathers just to see his reaction.

The Wrexford House staff knew how to impress dinner guests. The table glowed with spring flower arrangements positioned amid sparkling crystal stemware, a glinting silver ser­vice, and gilt-­edged porcelain plates bearing an extraordinary Moorish pattern of crimson, gold, and cerulean blue. The butler informed Seb they'd been specially commissioned by the late duke after a visit to Spain.

Beyond the table itself, however, the seating arrangement posed the potential for disaster. For some reason, Ollie's card placed him with Harriet by his side and directly across from Pippa. She wouldn't meet his gaze but held her head up high as if she meant to endure the evening, no matter what transpired.

Seb took his place at the head of the table, with Kat to his right. Her father had been placed at the other end of the table. Seb hadn't requested that the man be seated farther away from him than any other guest, but he wasn't displeased with the turn of events.

They'd barely begun sipping their soup when Ollie sprang up from his chair, wineglass held high.

“I must say thank you, Lord Clayborne, for considering my request to marry your daughter. I know the value of family, having lost my own. I will be forever grateful to the Fennicks for taking me in, but I am so looking forward to gaining a new family, and a beautiful bride. Let us all raise a toast to Harriet.”

Perhaps the boy would be a fine barrister after all. Seb couldn't deny he had a way with words. And judging by the ladies around the table dabbing kerchiefs to their eyes, a way of provoking emotions too.

After they'd all lifted their glasses and swallowed a drink for Harriet, Kat whispered between spoonfuls of bouillabaisse.

“How are you going to top that?”

“Must I?”

His answer came in the form a dull pain pulsing up his shin where she tapped him with her pointy-­toed shoe.

Seb stood, dropped his napkin on the edge of his soup bowl, and nearly knocked over his water glass. It got him everyone's attention and he lifted his wineglass in the air at the precise moment his mouth went dry. He took a sip of wine and raised his glass again.

“I echo Oliver's sentiments, and I . . .”
Am a complete and utter fraud.

Kat cleared her throat, a surprisingly dainty sound that drew his gaze. She managed to convey camaraderie and sympathy in a single look, and it suddenly mattered much less whether he was making a fool of himself or not. He didn't have to tell a lie to raise a glass to her. Their connection had begun on an odd premise, but he couldn't deny that she was the most appealing woman he'd met in years. If they'd become acquainted on some other footing, in different circumstances, when he still believed in love and possibilities, perhaps . . .