Promise Me Heaven (12 page)

Cat held herself rigidly, obviously afraid he was going to drop her. Hoping to reassure her, Thomas tightened his hold, only to be greeted by a look of increasing panic on her lovely features. Arriving at her suite, Thomas kicked the door open and strode into the room, deposited Cat on the slipper chair, and summoned Fielding.

While Fielding fluttered dramatically about Cat’s swollen ankle, Thomas asked, “Can I do anything more?”

Cat merely lifted her grave countenance to his and tonelessly thanked him for his help.

He walked back to his room, damned if he could figure out what deviled the chit. Such moodiness was uncharacteristic of her. No one who engineered her own successful debut, who was the recipient of the condemning comments of an antiquated religious fanatic, and who single-handedly led a family of eccentrics could afford to be subject to fits of pique. Raking his memory, Thomas searched for some clue of where his own conduct was lacking. He had treated her with a studied casualness and friendly disregard that challenged his playacting ability. And she had always seemed comfortable with that.

She did not suspect the tightening in his loins when she appeared in some new gown, the constriction of his lungs as she laughed at his feeble sallies. He did nothing, he would swear it, nothing to give her a clue as to his true feelings. His hunger was well disguised. He was good at this. He had, after all, made a career of it. And if he was a stranger to unsatisfied longing, by God, he would learn that role too, rather than frighten her.

Chapter 10

A
young man, unrecognizable under assorted bandboxes, cartons, and wrapped parcels, groaned and dropped his burden on the bed then beat a hasty retreat, pausing only to wink at Fielding. She beamed even as she muttered, “Well, I never!” and set to work untying the strings that held the packages.

“Oh, milady!” she cooed, hauling out a pretty confection of lace and satin. “I never seen such a beauteous thing! Swear to Gawd, I haven’t. A chemise, ain’t it?”

Cat looked at the garment without interest and nodded. Immediately Fielding was solicitous.

“Hurts awful, does it? Perhaps we just ought to have the local leech look at it? Or maybe take a restorative in the seawater? I heard that Lady Renville—”

“No, Fielding. My ankle is fine,” Cat said dispiritedly.

“It’s brave you are, milady.”

At this, Cat finally smiled. “On the contrary, Fielding. I am the rankest coward.”

“Coward? Who’s a coward?” Hecuba asked from the adjoining suite. She appeared a second later, just as Fielding pulled up a dress of silver muslin and indigo tambour work.

“How very fetching!” Hecuba breathed.

She lifted her chin at Fielding, who was staring at her in amazement. “I meant but to say, ’tis a pretty piece of workmanship though entirely unsuitable as garb.” Hecuba darted a glance at Cat, continuing casually, “Though were one to wish to draw attention to oneself, this would do the trick. What other snares of the devil have you secreted in there, Fielding?”

Needing no further encouragement, Fielding proceeded to rend packages with enthusiastic fervor. But Hecuba’s sharp gaze remained focused on Cat’s unnaturally still figure.

“Fielding, take these dresses down to the laundry and have them pressed immediately. And don’t you dare show your pert face up here without them. If you aspire to being a lady’s maid, personally supervising your lady’s gowns is of the utmost importance.”

“Yes, mum.” Fielding dutifully gathered an armful of brilliant-colored silks, satins, muslins, and lace.

As soon as she had left, Hecuba took a seat beside her great-niece. “It’s Montrose, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” came the quavering reply.

“Fustian! I may not approve of the conduct of your generation, but that does not mean I have turned blind. I have seen this coming for days.”

Cat turned toward Hecuba. “Seen what coming for days?”

“Your infatuation, Cat. Don’t bother denying it.” Hecuba held up her hand. “What else could it be? Off you traipse, unchaperoned, with one of the beau monde’s most notorious blades—very foolish, most unwise—only to return hours later in the arms of a now thoroughly perplexed rake, your face a brown study.

“What has happened to our two cozy coconspirators?” Hecuba asked. “I will tell you! For I once had a… a friend who entered into a similar ‘platonic’ liaison with just such a man. She, too, finally succumbed to a one-sided infatuation.”

“What happened to her?” Cat asked.

“Well, she didn’t sit about in a consumptive stupor waiting for him to come up to scratch. She was proud. She quickly ascertained the uselessness—and unattractiveness—of pining and set her sights on other, more appreciative suitors!”

“Oh, Aunt Hecuba!” Cat covered the older woman’s hands with her own. “I am so sick of schemes! I am tired of being vivacious, amusing, and unattainable. I
want
to be attained!” She covered her face with her hands and commenced to bawling.

Hecuba pulled Cat’s head onto her plump shoulder, patting her.

“It makes me so angry!” Cat sniffled. “All the plotting and planning and scheming. It’s so bloody much
work
making oneself agreeable to men!”

“Except with Thomas,” Hecuba said. Cat nodded.

“And yet, Aunt Hecuba, he’s the worst of the lot! He’s so attuned to all this ridiculous posturing that he can give lessons in it!”

Hecuba lifted Cat’s chin with a single finger and gazed steadily into her red, bleary eyes. “You must keep your pride, Catherine. It is ultimately all we are left with and therefore sacrosanct. Even if it needs be manufactured, it is essential. There now.” She patted Cat on top of the head again and shoved herself upright. “I’d better see how Fielding is mismanaging the ironing.”

She squinted down at Cat. “Leave off blubbering too, Cat,” she said curtly. “You always look horrid after you’ve cried. Your nose runs.”

A burble of laughter escaped Cat. Hecuba smiled and started for the door.

“Aunt Hecuba?” Cat called.

“Yes?”

“Your friend? The one with the unrequited attachment?”

“Yes?”

“Did she find a replacement for the unappreciative rake?”

Hecuba’s nose rose in the air. She sniffed.

“Many.”

Chapter 11

R
esolving to put their relationship back on safe ground, Thomas headed for the anterooms of the hotel, looking for Cat. She was not in her suite, though Hecuba and the maid were. Hecuba’s answer to his query as to her whereabouts was terse.

“Though she was not gravely injured, I instructed her to rest. The girl never listens to me, though. She has taken herself off somewhere to pout. Fielding here,” Hecuba tilted her black-turbaned head in the maid’s direction, “has strapped up her ankle so she won’t be very quick on her feet, Montrose. You should be able to run her to ground easily enough. Any more than that, I will not say.”

“Fielding,” Thomas said in exasperation, “where is Lady Catherine?”

The maid looked disapprovingly at him. “Why?”

“Cat is right,” Thomas muttered. “I have been far too lenient in my expectations of my staff. ‘Why,’ Fielding? Because I wish to have my way with her, or perhaps to beat her, or merely to devour her.
Now where is she?
”

Fielding’s mouth dropped open. She had never seen Master Montrose lose his temper before. While she suspected there was more aggravation than anger in it, it was still a formidable sight.

She hastily sought to recoup her situation. It was a good position she had in Mr. Montrose’s household, even in spite of Mrs. Medge.

Hecuba patted the maid’s hand consolingly. “He’s a wicked man, m’dear, evil black-eyed womanizer that he is. I shouldn’t answer if I were you.”

“Fielding…” Thomas ground out.

“She went to the conservatory, sir. Sorry I am for my impertinence, sir. I’m hoping you’ll mark it down as the sap-skulled rattling of a feeble mind under the influence of,” here Fielding paused and narrowed her eyes on Hecuba, still patting her arm, “her betters.” But before she had finished the sentence, Thomas had strode from the room.

In answer to Thomas’s inquiries, a porter directed him to the conservatory at the east end of the hotel. He stepped from the dark hallway into the sunlit expanse of a greenhouse. Someone had transformed the alley behind the hotel into a glass-encased fantasy. Brick paths wound between tall palms and fig trees. A miniature brook gurgled in its diminutive bed before disappearing under dense ferns. Sun filtered in from between the lacy tapestry of vines hanging high overhead.

His entry amongst the lush green vegetation was masked by the sound of running water so that he spied Cat before she was aware of him. She was studying some flowering bromeliads. As he watched, she lifted her arms and stretched them high above her. Yawning hugely, she tilted her head back, closing her eyes to the warm touch of the sun on her face.

“Yawning is gauche,” he said, because anything else would have been too tender, too desperate.

She didn’t even open her eyes. “Very,” she said. “So please spare yourself more of the same by taking yourself off to where you will no longer be subject to witnessing such unladylike gestures.”

“Dear me, no. I am all eagerness to see what further examples of unfeminine behavior you might exhibit.” He dragged an iron chair from where it had been tucked amongst the greenery and perched himself on its edge in an attitude of dramatized expectation.

“Perhaps I shall burp,” she suggested, opening one eye.

He clucked his tongue. “Not unfeminine, merely coarse.
I
do not burp.”

The other eye flew open so both regarded him balefully. “I shall swear. Certainly that is a masculine habit.”

“Only amongst common males.”

“All right. I shall smoke a pipe. I shall ride astride and I shall wear breeches like Lady Skeffington is reputed to do!”

“Why do you insist in seeking out the most thoroughly unfeminine women in the realm as your examples?”

“Better to follow a woman’s example than mindlessly heed the dictates of men.”

Thomas considered her statement. She took his momentary silence as disapproval and, already tense, warmed to her discourse. “ ’Tis true! How patently ridiculous you men make us! How unfair you treat us in your paternal assurance that you know best what is feminine, as opposed to unfeminine, behavior.”

“Ridiculous? How so?” he asked, curious.

“Take, for example, popular fashion.” Cat gestured down at the gown that covered her in a sheath of cream and saffron striped silk.

“What of it? You look delectable.”

“I expect I do. But to what end? I am told to wear garments which only an idiot or a blind person could say does anything other than attract the eye to certain salient points of my anatomy. They assuredly are not comfortable. Have you ever tried mincing gracefully down a crowded promenade in a muslin cylinder? I should say not. Its sole purpose is to draw attention to my figure.”

“For the sake of argument, let us say you are correct.”

“I
am
correct. Here I sit, ensconced in a pretty prison of provocative attire, looking ‘delectable.’ I have become nothing more than bait. A plump little delectable worm. I am supposed to offer a gentleman temptation so great as to be irresistible. And yet, and yet, Mr. Montrose, when you gallants come to the point of taking the bait I have so graciously angled, it is your edict that I am at this point to say, ‘No, no, Lord so-and-so, mustn’t touch!’ Who but an idiot or a perverse demigod would contrive such ridiculous conventions?”

“I believe you overstate yourself. To attire oneself attractively is not the same as being wanton.”

“Oh, pish! I’m not talking about morals! I’m discussing bribes!”

“Bribes?”

“Yes, sir. Bribes! I allow you to view what marriage buys.” Though her lips trembled with the force of her feelings, she held her pale chin up, daring him to argue.

“And what would you suggest?” Thomas asked, leaning forward and bracing his long forearms on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs. “Would you really attire yourself as a male? And where then are the boundaries drawn? Would you like to work as the manager of an estate, argue politics, be responsible for an entire population? And, if so, to whom does this leave the rearing of the young?”