“David has come into an inheritance and the title. It’s the most unexpected thing. His great uncle, Lord Brooke, died recently of an inflammation of the lungs, then the heir was killed within the week in a hunting accident. David hardly knew the Brookes, and of course I had never met them, so you can’t expect me to be too sad, you know. But no one else is left of the family and Captain David Morris is now Lord Brooke of Somerset, and your own little sister, married barely seven weeks, has become Lady Amelia Brooke.”
“Amy, I can hardly believe this!”
“Yes, it’s almost enough to be scary. There’s a townhouse in Grosvenor Square, and vast estates near Taunton, and no end of complication and business. David is to be running back and forth forever. We had to travel to London right away to see the old Lord Brooke’s man of business, though, and I am to be here in our townhouse for the winter. We both insist that you will come and keep me company, since he is to be gone so much. Do say that you will! And you must come this instant, since David leaves again in the morning.”
Catherine hesitated for only a moment. Of course she would accept her sister’s invitation. Life as companion to Lady Montagu was rapidly becoming intolerable. As she smiled and gave a little nod, Amelia leaned forward and grasped her hands.
“I’m so glad, Cathy. We shan’t go about much in society because of the mourning, except among the family, but David will be much relieved to have you with me. And I thought to write Mama and have her send Annie up to London to stay with us for a while. She would adore the sights, and I need to stay in practice entertaining children.” Her face suffused with a subtle blush and she laughed. “You see, I know it’s early to be absolutely certain, but I think—no I’m quite sure really—I’m to have a baby in the summer.”
* * * *
While Amelia waited, Catherine repacked her modest case. At breakfast, she gave her notice to Lady Montagu. That lady expressed the severest regrets that dear Miss Hunter was no longer to fetch and carry for her, but she agreed that she must indeed be with her sister during such a delicate time. Mrs. Charlotte Clay was not sorry to see Catherine Hunter leave her house, but she was extremely sorry that she had ever been rude to her, now that she was Lady Brooke’s relation. In a last minute effusion of sanctimonious protestations, she tried to establish a friendship.
Catherine was polite and tried to hide her amusement, before she and Amelia drove away together in the grand Brooke carriage, emblazoned with its ancient coat of arms. In contrast to the little attic room where she had spent the previous night, she was shown into a gracious bedchamber at Brooke House overlooking the square. The huge drawing room was dominated by a large pianoforte, which the new Lady Brooke demanded she play as often as she liked.
Neither of these things quite accounted, however, for the delicious happiness that filled Catherine as Amy showed her around. The one thing that mattered the most was her sudden new-found freedom. As Lady Brooke’s guest, she could come and go as she pleased and there was nothing to stop her in her quest to find out the truth about Devil Dagonet.
She was not to find the time immediately, however, for Amelia insisted on buying her a new wardrobe, and the sisters spent long hours at the most fashionable mantua-makers, where Catherine must be measured and prodded just as if, she commented in an aside that made Amy giggle, she were a horse being fitted for harness.
Then she must accompany her sister on the visits that duty required they make to various relations of the last Lord Brooke. They had been subjected to several of these, where they sat in hushed drawing rooms and made polite conversation, when Amelia received an invitation to dine with an ancient aunt of David’s, one Lady Easthaven.
Catherine did not go to a great deal of trouble with her toilette, expecting another dull evening. She selected an attractive pale gold silk dress that Amelia had given her, but she dressed her hair herself, and had no jewelry. However, she knew that she was perfectly presentable to be the guest of another aged relation.
They left for Lady Easthaven’s large mansion on the outskirts of the town in good time and were allowed into the house by a particularly erect and pompous butler. They were shown into the drawing room, where Catherine was surprised to see a small company already gathered. It was obviously going to be a society evening, after all, rather than the quiet family meeting she had expected. The tiniest of wrinkled ladies, in an old-fashioned hooped dress and a great deal of rouge, hurried over to greet them.
“My word! Delighted! Delighted! Lady Amelia Brooke, you are most welcome to the family, my dear. And Miss Hunter. Welcome, welcome!”
They were introduced one by one to the guests, as Lady Easthaven kept up a steady stream of bright conversation.
“Surely we are missing two gentlemen?” Amy whispered, when she was able to get her sister’s ear. “We shall not be able to sit down to dinner without having extra ladies.”
“Perhaps Lady Easthaven does not worry about such niceties,” Catherine replied softly. “She would seem to be quite the eccentric.”
At that very moment, the door opened again, and the two missing gentlemen were shown into the room. The first was obviously a very serious dandy. He stopped and quizzed the company through a small glass, then bowed to the ladies.
“My dear Lady Easthaven,” he said lightly. “I have worn my neckcloth in a
‘trône d’amour’
in your honor, and now I cannot turn my head without cutting my cheek on the points of my collar. Nevertheless, I cannot fail to see in my stiff scanning of the company, that you have two young ladies here whom I have never had the pleasure to meet. You will sit me next to whichever is unmarried, I trust?”
He stared steadily at Catherine, but she had no eyes at all for him. She had colored deeply and was gazing at the other gentleman. Dressed simply in neat evening clothes, his sea-green eyes were laughing back at her.
“You are embarrassing Miss Catherine Hunter, Lord Kendal,” Devil Dagonet said. “If you will put down that damned quizzing glass, I will introduce you.”
A moment later, Dagonet was bowing deeply over her hand. “How refreshing to see you in a clean, dry dress!”
“If I can avoid spilling my wine down my skirts, I shall attempt to keep it that way, at least for the evening,” she shot back. “Whatever are you doing here, sir?”
“Why, I came, as I imagine you did, to eat my dinner. Not every member of the
ton
has the fine scruples of Mrs. Charlotte Clay, but then few have had the good fortune to have enjoyed the impeccable example of her dear departed husband. Lady Easthaven is not so nice. Besides, she is an old friend of my grandfather’s and has known me since childhood. She has the bizarre idea that I am not capable of wrongdoing, and would like to marry me to an heiress.”
Catherine was not able to reply since Lord Kendal was demanding her attention, and it was that gentleman who escorted her into dinner. Dagonet was seated at the far end of the table beyond the three-tiered mold of game mousse, and she was forced to give her attention to her immediate neighbors. She could not help but notice, however, as the elaborate formal dishes were brought and removed, that he seemed to have his companions in delighted laughter for most of the meal, particularly a pretty young lady in a sapphire necklace.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner, Lady Easthaven lost no time in demanding that she be provided with music, and Dagonet was called upon to play. Catherine watched with interest as his fingers roamed over the keys for a moment. In the next instant, she was transported. Why should she be surprised that he played with such subtlety and power? There was not another sound in the room except the sweeping notes, until the company burst into applause at the end of the piece.
Dagonet spun around on the piano stool. “It is customary, Lady Easthaven, for the ladies to entrance us with their talents.” The lady in the sapphires sat up a little straighter. She had informed him at dinner that she loved to both play and sing. Her brow contracted as he continued. “Miss Hunter sings, I believe?”
Catherine was trapped. She went graciously to the piano, where Dagonet was laughing up at her. Before she could express any preference, he began the opening bars to the old folk song that she had sung in the pool.
“How dare you choose this?” she hissed.
With a wicked grin he began the words:
“We lingered where the water flows, sweet promises her eyes did make;
I gave her but a single rose, but she my heart and soul did take.”
She was forced to join in and supply the lady’s part:
“I am a maiden lost in sadness, lost the hand without the glove;
Lost my laughter, lost my gladness; lost am I without my love.”
As soon as they finished, under cover of the applause she leaned over and was able to speak to him.
“Lady Easthaven is wrong, sir. You delight in wrongdoing.”
His reply was casual. “Whyever should you think so, Miss Hunter?”
“Because you are determined to discompose me. How could you force me to join you in a love song? I think it is time that I took adequate revenge.”
She sat next to him on the piano stool, and launched into a well-known ballad of betrayal. Without a moment’s hesitation, Dagonet supplied the harmony.
“I pray you will not, dear Kate,” he whispered under cover of the music. “My wicked habits are no concern of yours.”
Catherine turned to glance at him and felt her heart turn over. It was simply unfair for a man to have such a profile! And they were sitting altogether too close for any kind of emotional equilibrium. “But perhaps I will make them my concern, sir,” she said. “Such a reprobate should be brought to his accounting!”
“Are you threatening me, Kate?” His voice was perfectly level, but his expression was unreadable.
Catherine forced herself to look away, before her wayward body betrayed her. “If I were, it would only be just, don’t you think?”
They were not to speak privately again. The demands of the company must be met. Dagonet next played a duet with the lady in the sapphires, then another guest took a turn at the instrument. Within another couple of hours, the company broke up.
Devil Dagonet returned alone to his lodgings in Jermyn Street.
What Catherine meant to do, he had no idea, but he could not let it worry him. He must devote himself to his quest. John Catchpole had disappeared very thoroughly into London’s noxious underground. In subtle pursuit of his quarry, Dagonet had built the reputation of being just another young blade with a passion for horseflesh, who had no objection to rubbing shoulders with the more questionable members of the trade. He was steadily building the contacts and the trust he would need to discover where that certain Exmoor horseman had gone and what he had been doing, after he had left Lord Bentwhistle’s stables.
As George had announced to the scandalized ladies, Dagonet was gambling heavily, and was indeed firmly a member of the Prince Regent’s inner circle. Beau Brummel and Lord Kendal took delight in his wit and style, and as George had discovered, couldn’t care less about any unsavory past, as long as he was prepared to drink deep and wager high. Lady Easthaven was beyond reproach and was also using her influence in society on his behalf. Contrary to his cousin’s description, however, he was not financing his high-flown life style by trading horses. Rather, his skill at the gaming tables was giving him the blunt to continue to follow the faint trail left by John Catchpole. Without that gentleman’s suspecting anything, Dagonet was already extremely close to his quarry.
There was only one area in which he didn’t quite seem to fit his enviably expanding reputation among London’s dandies, and that was that he wasn’t known to be keeping a ‘bit of fluff’ of his own. The ladies of the demi-monde found him infinitely charming, but none of them, to their great chagrin, had been able to fix his fancy.
Nor was he showing any interest in the lovely young heiresses that Lady Easthaven was determined to put in his way. Dagonet himself was damned if he knew why. The ladies were beautiful and enticing enough. It couldn’t still be any trace of his feeling for Catherine Hunter. His self-control was too great for that.
A picture of her as he had seen her in Morris’s garden came unbidden to mind, the wisps of dark hair blowing about her flushed cheeks, those magnificent eyes flashing fire. He had deliberately behaved to her like a dog. No wonder she hated him. It had been his intention that she forget all about him. To meet her at Lady Easthaven’s was perhaps inevitable, but it seemed, to his relief, that she was still determined to hold him in dislike.
The threats she had made at Lady Easthaven’s were nevertheless empty. In the future he would make sure that they did not meet, for he fully intended never to see her again.
* * * *
Exactly one week later Dagonet discovered what she had done.
It was still early when he returned to his lodgings and, pulling off his cravat, threw himself back in an armchair. He had already won a great deal that night, but his tongue felt rooted to the roof of his mouth with the foul taste of too much wine and spirits, too much wearying wit and meaningless laughter. Nevertheless, he would change his clothes and go out again. His manservant, before he retired for the night, would have left fresh linen laid out in the bedchamber. Dagonet did not expect his servants to wait up for him when he was about to spend a night on the town.
Meanwhile a jug of hot coffee sat by the fire and several days’ newspapers lay piled on the table. He sipped the welcome coffee and was idly perusing the classified personal columns when he suddenly leapt up from the chair, his heart hammering.
Damn it! How could she have done something so foolish? Innocent, brave, impetuous Kate! Good God, didn’t she realize the danger that might be involved?
He scanned the advertisement’s tiny print one more time: ‘Wanted: information about one John Catchpole from Exmoor. Reward offered. Contact Miss Hunter at Brooke House, Grosvenor Square.’