Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (41 page)

The tall figure was already on his feet, striding towards the dais with a determination that the flustered pianist was in no mind to resist. Vaulting off the piano stool, he stumbled out of the way only seconds before
Sir Chase occupied it and, before the astonished audience had time to wonder, the first galloping, tripping, lilting notes of her song flowed out from beneath his hands, his eyes smiling at Caterina as if somehow they had both known that this would come about.

At this kind of event, Caterina had had experience and good training, and now she gave herself completely to the music, to every word and nimble note, pouring out the enchanting sounds of Mozart’s
‘Love is a Little Thief’
in its original Italian in a seamless joining of voice and piano that spellbound all those who listened. They marvelled at the flight of top notes as much as at Sir Chase’s perfect timing that allowed her to take off and soar alone before catching her again on his wrist, so to speak, rollicking to the end where the applause almost overlapped them. Laughing with giddy relief, the two joined hands, hearing cries of, ‘Again … again!’

So they obliged, after which everything else seemed like an anti-climax, so close had they come to disaster. Caterina sang with the orchestra and with Sara, but it was the song with Sir Chase that was talked about afterwards when they stood around in the drawing room, mingling with the musicians.

Lord Rayne was among the first to congratulate them, Lord Byron a close second, but his praises were not at all to the liking of Lady Caroline Lamb, who thought they were both excessive and unnecessary. She not only thought so, but said so, quite loudly enough for all to hear.

Sir Chase, however, was ready for the attack, even if Caterina was not, and before the venom could be stopped, he had taken her elbow to usher her through the open glass doors to the terrace. Behind them, the crowded room had fallen silent except for the jealous
woman’s tirade and two or three voices attempting to mollify her and, although Caterina was not near enough to hear the words, they acted like another twist to her already wound-up state.

‘Whatever is the matter with the woman?’ she said, wincing with anger. ‘Is she mad?’ Walking quickly to avoid the screeching and howling, almost running, her feet made little noise on the stone steps leading down to the side of the house and the high wall beyond. ‘Go back!’ she commanded, over her shoulder. ‘Go back, if you please. I am best left alone for a while.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Please … leave me.’

Her steps quickened, but the determined click of his shoes told her that he was ignoring her request without an argument. When a half-open door appeared in the wall, she slipped through it, intending to push it closed, reinforcing the need for her own company. But his hand and foot resisted the attempt.

‘Go back!’ she yelled, hoarsely. She began to run between plots of bushy rosemary and sage that lined the gravel pathway, the tiny stones pressing through her fine satin slippers, the white-loaded apple boughs catching at her hair in the darkness. Stumbling around tall canes and cold frames, clumps of fennel and parsley, she searched for some secluded corner of the kitchen garden that would offer her solitude, a chance to unwind, alone and unaided. It was dark, unhelpful, uninviting, and her pleas for privacy were not being heeded.

The last few days had led irrevocably to this, filling a dam of unrest and anger inside her to overflowing. Usually, she would have had to wait until the social evening was done before helping the euphoria to settle after a performance, but this occasion was different in every way, for now her personal freedom was being
threatened and the man set to take it from her had already begun an assault upon her emotions more than any before him, and in quite unacceptable circumstances. Always an intoxicating event that put her high in the clouds, her singing was a release, a therapy, and a massive boost to her creative urge, but tonight’s performance had been unreal in other ways, too. And while her northern pragmatism frowned at any excess of fervour in her daily life, her natural sensitivity and artistry, whether she willed it or not, were being adversely affected by events before, during and after her recital. Out of control, her emotions were rushing ahead of her feet.

A solid five-barred gate to the topiary gardens obstructed her flight, camouflaged in the dim light by dark sculpted shapes below a sky of purple and apricot. The iron lever would not respond to her pulling before a large hand closed gently over her wrist, easing it away, moving his powerful bulk into the space she was seeking between strife and seclusion, between past and future. There was no room for anyone but herself there. The top of the gate pressed hard into her shoulders as she whirled to face him, pulling at her captured hand, pummelling at his chest with the other before he caught it, deftly.

He brought her hands together, and the sounds of her distress subsided to hoarse pleas to be left alone, lacking the former commanding tone, again ignored. Her head lowered, resting on their fists, and still he denied her the chance to argue by remaining silent. But her lips and cheeks were upon his knuckles as well as her own, vaguely recognising the warmth and texture of him, taking in the indistinct redolence of maleness through her breathing, his firm grip through her fingers, the intimate closeness of his thighs pressing her against the
gate. Her senses swirled at the first taste of him as her lips moved softly along the back of his hand, the tip of her tongue exploring the light silky hair that lay there, delving into the crease of his thumb and its soft delta, staggering her breath at the stealthy approach of abandonment.

Dreamily, she felt the lift of their hands, taking her mouth with them, presenting her with another palette of smooth male skin to taste, a deeper experience that moved to accommodate and teach her. The hands fell apart, hers to reach up and hold, to wander freely, to search for his ears, his hair, while her body responded to her findings with an immediate blindness that slammed down the shutters of her mind and bent her like a bow into his body, consuming all the restraints of the past few days as fire consumes dry tinder. Without a single thought to hinder her, she fell headlong into the blaze where senses melted and mingled, where she was drawn deeper into oblivion, lured by the sublime pressure of his lips over hers.

Steering her with a finesse polished by years of experience, he enclosed her yielding body within his arms at the first leap of flame, his heart singing with elation at the fierce intemperance of her responses, his kisses joining hers, leaving hardly a space for breathing.

Tightly coiled after recent events, her emotions had at last found a release through fires that had smouldered, ready to ignite at his touch, and it would be up to him to control them before they could be a cause for regret. His hand gripped her shoulder, feeling the soft warmth of her skin beneath her sleeve, and it took all his efforts not to allow a search down the supple back into forbidden territory. His kisses deepened, hungering for more while staying awake to her innocence, for this was
something that would require his most skilful handling if it were not to slip through his fingers like a moonbeam.

For how long they sought each other’s kisses they were never able to recall, there being a mindless craving to be sated and, in Caterina’s case, an overflow of pent-up anger and tension to be released into the one man who knew how to manage them, the only one, it seemed, who had come close to understanding her. But after the first fires had raged madly out of her control, she began to sense that he was directing her, showing her a change of pace, giving her the chance to regain her breath while his kisses travelled, surprising her, gently drawing her mind back into focus. When his hand moved on to her breast, the shutters of oblivion opened with a sigh, showing her both the bliss and the danger, which is what he cleverly intended.

Deep inside her, something trembled and disturbed her with thoughts of capitulation, telling her that she would accept him in spite of all her protests. On so many levels he was more than a match for her. Why not melt for him … now … here? His gentling hand moved, caressing, well practised, warning her that she was already out of her depth, that he was a man of experience and that she had everything to learn.

Her hand had been deep in his hair, but now she brought it down with a gasp like one who wakes too quickly from a dream, only half-aware of her part in it, but sure she had needed no persuading to go there. Taking his wrist, she lifted it away, pushing herself out of his embrace with her body still throbbing, her hunger still unfulfilled, still wanting, but now more sensitive to the danger than before. And the foolishness. To such a man, she told herself, this kind of encounter would be
commonplace. He must not think she was like all the others, easy to take as far as he pleased, whenever he wanted them.

Trembling and thoroughly unnerved by her lapse, silent and subdued, she slid away from him, angered by her own unusual weakness. Puzzled by it, too. She would have sidled further away along the gate’s length, but he caught her by the wrist, reaching her in one stride. ‘No more running,’ he warned her. ‘You cannot be for ever bolting, Caterina.’

She felt his warm breath on the back of her neck as he stood behind her, and knew she was still only a hair’s breadth away from changing her mind. ‘I must go,’ she said, holding a hand to her throbbing lips. ‘This is not … not what I wanted to happen.’

‘It’s what your body wants. I think you might listen to it more. You listen to it when you sing, why not at other times?’ His deep voice was soft upon her bare neck, and dark with overtones of those last few passionate moments.

‘I’m surprised you of all people can say that, Sir Chase, when you and my father between you have decided to ride roughshod over what my body is telling me. I know what it’s saying well enough, as most women do, but men delight in having the last word, do they not?’

‘Then hear it from me.’

‘No, you obviously think—’

‘You cannot know what I think.’

‘That I have done this kind of thing … that I am …’

‘I know you have not. Do you think I cannot tell?’

Still captured by one hand, she turned to lay an arm along the top of the gate, supporting her forehead. ‘I don’t know what to think, except that I have gone too
far. This would not have happened if …’
If Lord Rayne or Lady Dorna had been closer at hand. No, that was unfair. She was not a child to be tied to their apron-strings.

‘It happened,’ Sir Chase said, ‘because at that moment you needed me, Caterina. You cannot deny that. Ask yourself if you would have done the same with any other man. Would you?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I would not have done that with any other man.’

To her enormous relief, he betrayed neither by word nor expression the triumph he must have felt at her admission. Nor did Caterina herself know what had caused her to admit such a thing except natural honesty and impulse. The words echoed between them in the silence, and when she raised her head at last, she saw in the faded indigo sky that a fine sickle moon had come to hang over the dark topiary shape of a cockerel, fitting neatly inside the curve of its back.

‘Just look at that,’ he whispered.

Hearing the smile in his voice, she allowed him to take her hand in his and to keep it there, and for a while longer they stood without speaking of that which was too fragile and new to discuss. The beginning of acceptance.

‘We must return,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I would not want anyone to think—’ She stopped, not wanting to say what they might think.

‘We’ve been to take the air, Miss Chester,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Would you allow me to tidy you, m’lady, before we’re seen? I did it once before, if you remember? When we drove together in Richmond.’

‘I remember.’

He smiled, replacing a few wayward tendrils behind the satin ribbons while she stood meekly, savouring the touch of his fingers on her hair, which only recently she had imagined. ‘Sir Chase,’ she said, ‘what happened just now was … well … not …’

‘Not enjoyable?’

‘Not what I had intended.’

‘There now,’ he said, lifting her chin with his finger. ‘That’s better. Now no one will think anything. Ready?’

‘Yes, thank you. Did you hear what I said?’

‘I heard you. It was not what you intended. Yes, well, I knew that. Now, shall we say no more about it at present? There will be other better times for discussion.’ Taking her by the hand, he led her without further comment back the way they had come and then, instead of making an entrance into the brightly lit drawing room, he opened another glass door that led directly into Lord Ensdale’s great library and study. ‘We shall be less noticeable this way,’ he said, helping her through.

A candelabrum shed light upon surfaces of glass, brass and wood, upon clock faces, telescopes and globes on stands, and on unnamed instruments for measuring unseen things. It was where Lord Ensdale kept his collection of scientific instruments, a lofty room with shelves of leather-bound books, a room familiar to Sir Chase. Glad of the chance to compose herself, Caterina lingered on her way through, catching sight of the mahogany box she’d seen in the drawing room on the previous evening. ‘Lord Ensdale’s something-meter,’ she said, bending to look more closely. ‘Lady Ensdale said you knew about naval things. Is this a naval thing?’

Flicking back the brass catch, he lifted the lid. ‘It’s a naval chronometer,’ he said. ‘It gives the time of the day on the dial, see, and it also helps mariners to work
out their position at sea by giving them a longitude reading.’

‘So you
do
know,’ she murmured.

‘Just a bit.’

‘So why does it rock backwards and forwards like that?’ she said, as his finger swung it.

‘So that when the ship rolls, the instrument stays level and accurate. This brass ring-mount is called a gimbal. They put ships’ lanterns in them, too, so the oil doesn’t tip out when the ship leans over.’

‘You’ve been in ships?’

‘Yes, Miss Chester,’ he said, lifting the clock out of its mount. ‘I suppose one is more or less bound to travel by boat when one goes abroad.’ His mouth was on the verge of a smile, reminding Caterina of the taste and feel of him.