The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

K
ATHRYN MOVED HER
fingers purposefully on to another book, and she climbed carefully down. Without turning around, she opened the book and shuffled slowly to a window seat, pretending to be engrossed.

“That would be very convincing—to someone unaccustomed to chicanery,” Lady Jane said behind her, “but, unfortunately for you, I know a fellow sneak when I see one.”

Kathryn suddenly noticed that the words in the book were upside down. She looked up at Jane questioningly. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Oh! You know very well what I mean. What is upon that high shelf?”

Kathryn looked up where Jane pointed, directly at the spot where the papers were hidden. “Books, it appears to me,” she said blandly. “Did you escape lessons, Lady Jane?”

“No. I escaped tea. I was much more interested in what you were doing off by yourself than I was in a cup of tea. And you,” Jane said, coming to sit beside Kathryn, “were interested in . . . something other than tea as well.” She shrugged her shoulder in the direction of Kathryn’s almost untouched tea tray. “Care to enlighten me?”

“About what?”

Jane sighed. “Very well. If you will not tell me what you were doing perched on that high shelf, I cannot force the knowledge from you. But I certainly can ask how you came about that lovely dress you are wearing. I know you had no such finery when you arrived at the school.”

“Oh? And how did you determine that, Lady Jane?”

“Call me Jane. And I picked the lock on your valise, of course.”

A thrill of panic seized Kathryn. “You what?” If Lady Jane had found the note Thomas had delivered to her from Ophelia . . . bells in heaven! She could only hope Jane hadn’t found the concealed compartment at the bottom of her valise.

“I picked the lock. But, as you know, I found nothing of interest.”

Kathryn relaxed a little and gave Jane an indignant sniff. “Since you have told me you invaded my satchel, why did you not just ask me for the key, Lady Jane?”

“Jane. Call me Jane, if you please, because it would be most awkward to be calling you Kitty otherwise. And why did I not ask you for the key? Because you would not have given it to me. And because I did not know what sort of person you were. My instincts told me to trust you, but after seeing you searching the parlor, I thought you might be a robber.” Jane laughed. “I had to find out if you were good or bad.”

Kathryn’s face burned with crimson fire. “I see. And has pawing through my meager private possessions helped you to reach a conclusion, Jane?” She dimpled in spite of her alarm.

“No. Your visit to the stables did that.”

“You! I knew I saw a movement at that window. But it was not the window in our chamber and so I thought—”

“I had sneaked into Martha and Anne’s room. They have the best view of the orchard and garden.”

Kathryn narrowed her eyes at Jane.

The girl held up her palm. “Do not look at me that way. I approve of your visit to young Thomas.”

“What makes you think I visited Thomas? You cannot see the stables from that window. The orchard blocks the view.”

“I overheard Cook the next morning complaining about a missing chicken leg and some biscuits. She keeps track of every crumb, I vow. And the pocket of your wrapper was full of crumbs.”

“You leave no stone unturned,” Kathryn remarked.

“And no book,” Jane said, reaching out to turn Kathryn’s right side up. “I pride myself on being thorough.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “Little Thomas, however, is not such an easy pebble to be overturned. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge your midnight visit, though he still had grease marks on his mouth and sleeve the next morning.”

“Thomas is a good boy,” Kathryn said quietly. “He has no parents. He deserves better from life.”

Jane nodded. “As do you, for you are a good person, too. So then, tell me. What are you searching for?”

Kathryn only blinked innocently at Jane in response, who laughed and tossed her head. “Well, in spite of whatever nefarious activities you are indulging in—no, do not bore me with a denial! In spite of the fact that you hold secrets, I still believe you are a good person at heart.” She tipped her head to one side. “How long have your parents been dead?”

Kathryn blinked back shock at Jane’s forwardness. She had only encountered such bold behavior in her own parents and in Ophelia, and she had never had to fend off such a direct question from others. It took her by surprise. “Oh . . . it, ah . . . seems like forever.”

“I know what you mean,” Jane mused, then asked suddenly, “How many years?”

“Eight!” Kathryn blurted out, her nerves still aflutter at having been caught atop the ladder. Then, immediately, she cringed. She’d already told Jane she’d lost her parents when she was ten! If “Kitty Davidson” had been an orphan for eight years, then that made her eighteen years old and past the age where she could reasonably expect to be attending a girls’ school.
God’s green goose
! Kathryn’s heart pounded in her ears.

But Jane appeared not to have noticed the discrepancy. Instead, she frowned her sympathy. “Eight years is a long time. Do you miss them?”

“Oh, yes. Dreadfully,” Kathryn said. That statement, at least, was truthful, for at that moment Kathryn would have happily traded her parents’ companionship for Jane’s dratted inquisitiveness. Yet Jane chose that moment to subside. Instead of asking more questions, the girl wandered to the window pensively twisting a lock of her raven hair.

“You . . . must miss your parents as well,” Kathryn said gently.

“Yes,” Jane said. “Yes, I do. But I am lucky. Nigel is a darling, and we get along famously, though really we are from different worlds.”

Yes
, Kathryn thought,
Jane belongs on Earth, and Blackshire belongs . . . somewhere decidedly balmier
.

“He does suffer from an occasional moodiness,” Jane went on, “but everyone succumbs to the blue-devils now and then. Other than that, he’s utterly perfect. And yet you were determined to dislike him from the moment you laid eyes upon him. I cannot understand why. And do not tell me it was because you misunderstood his remark about tossing away your clothes. You are not such a simpleton, Kitty.” Jane’s eyes widened and she smiled. “Saying your name reminds me of Kettle.”

“Kettle?”

Jane smiled. “My new cat--though I have hardly even seen her. I acquired her the same day Nigel decided to place me here.”

“Indeed? Was it such a hasty decision then? Or had he been contemplating it for days, do you think? And—and what an odd name for a cat!” she added. Anything to steer the conversation away from “darling Nigel!”

“Kettle is odd—oddly marked, rather. White on top and black as a kettle on the bottom—which is how we named her of course. Two of her kittens have the same coloration, but her other four are striped. Would you like one? Perhaps I can find homes for all of them here at the school. Nigel would like nothing better. Kettle and her brood were strays, and he complains bitterly about them.”

“That does not surprise me. He does not strike me as a man with an abundance of compassion.”

Jane laughed. “La, it was Nigel who rescued Kettle and her kittens and brought them home to me. Found them under a thorny hedgerow. Muddied his trousers and tore his shirt getting them out, too. And if that isn’t enough proof of his compassionate nature, when our housekeeper scooped Kettle and her brood up to take them out to the stable, it was Nigel who insisted the lot of them be installed in the house. He said it was just too cold outside. Now,” Jane said, placing her hands on her hips, “does that sound like the behavior of an ogre to you?”

“Hmm!” Kathryn said, and lifted her shoulders.

The response seemed to satisfy Jane for a moment, for she went to a window and used the weak reflection there to fuss with her hair.

Kathryn plunged her hands behind her to hide their sudden quivering.

Blackshire had taken the mother cat from outside Aunt Ophelia’s home with him? Rescuing cats wasn’t part of a scoundrel’s normal repertoire. Could she be wrong about him? Might there have been some misunderstanding about Lydia as he’d said? Could it be as Jane and Auntie seemed to think—that Blackshire wasn’t a demon? That the evil marquis was not as evil as Kathryn thought? That he was actually good and kind?

Kathryn had begun to suspect that Ophelia had badly misjudged Agnes Marchman’s character. Perhaps Kathryn was mistaken about Blackshire’s as well. Perhaps what she’d seen upstairs at Palin House really had been some hideous misunderstanding, as Blackshire had tried to persuade her that night.

She remembered the tender way he had held her in the salon, his laughter and his smile—a smile, it seemed to Kathryn, which had reached his eyes—and his concern that she should be seen by a doctor. She remembered the way Auntie had dimpled and smiled at him, the way the sensible Lady Marchman had so easily confided in him. And she thought of Jane’s effusive praise of her “darling Nigel.”

She shook herself. No. His influence over them and her own questioning of his character now only underscored the dangerous power he wielded, the power to fascinate the unwary. Jane and Lady Marchman and even Ophelia had fallen under his spell. Kathryn would not. She’d witnessed the truth of his character herself! Hadn’t he accompanied Lydia into that bedchamber at Auntie’s? Hadn’t he struggled with her, torn her gown, pursued her? And if that weren’t enough evidence against him, hadn’t he then pursued Kathryn into Auntie’s garden and seduced her?

She would not be fooled. If he chose to take stray cats home with him or to keep them in the house, then it must serve his purpose to do so. Maybe his house simply had mice. Whatever the reason, most certainly it had nothing to do with compassion. She took a deep breath, girding herself against his false charm.

Yet a small part of her couldn’t help cherishing a hope that she was somehow mistaken about the scoundrel. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memory of his touch, of his silken voice, of his lips tasting hers. Bells in heaven, why had she allowed it? But she knew the answer. Not only had she allowed it, she had wanted it. She’d been done in by his false show of tender concern for that poor baby bird. She’d been all too willing to forget about what she had seen and heard upstairs and give in to the intense attraction she’d felt from the moment she’d seen him.

She’d been a silly little country mouse without an ounce of sense.

“What morose thoughts shape your expression?” Jane asked, and Kathryn snapped to attention. Jane went on without an answer. “Do not wallow in misery, for today, I vow, I cannot afford you any sympathy. My heart is filled only with gladness, for Nigel has promised to take me for a drive in the park on the morrow,” she said brightly. “They say the park is where many love-matches are formed. I am hoping to finally be noticed.”

“By whom?”

“La, only by the most excellent and beautiful of men. Quinn, Lord Bankham. He always drives in the park on Tuesday.” Jane hugged herself and shrugged, transported for a moment, Kathryn was sure, into the imaginary arms of her “most excellent and beautiful of men.” How lucky Jane was, Kathryn reflected, watching the girl’s shining face. Her life lay before her, like a thick, red carpet strewn with white rose petals. She would have a come-out, and she would have her choice of clever, handsome, wealthy suitors. Perhaps she would even marry the man about whom she was now daydreaming.

Kathryn looked down at her hands. “It sounds lovely,” she whispered, knowing she would never enjoy any of those wonders. Not now. Blackshire’s knowledge of her masquerade here at the school would prevent that.

“Would you care to join us?” Jane asked. “I am sure Nigel will have no objection to your accompanying us, and—”

The marquis strolled into the room and interrupted her. “You are certain Nigel will have nothing to say about it?”

Jane glared at Nigel, who did not return her gaze for his eyes seemed fixed upon Kathryn. He was resplendent in an embroidered waistcoat of royal blue and a coat the same shade as his dark hair. He wore close-fitting, buff-colored breeches and tall, black boots that made him seem even taller than before.

Kathryn hated the way her heart beat so much harder in her chest at the sight of him. Hated the way her eyes were drawn to his lips. He was attractively imposing. Dangerously handsome. Disturbingly masculine.

And he knew it.

She looked away, swallowed, and when she looked up, he was watching her. She defiantly returned his gaze, but he greeted Kathryn’s studied belligerence not with an answering enmity, but with a knowing, slightly amused expression. Kathryn looked away once more and instantly regretted it, for out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smirk, the popinjay.

“Jane is correct, Miss Davidson. I will have nothing to say about whether you accompany us or not, as my ward is obviously in charge of everything. She is a controlling, manipulative little witch.” His words were carefully chosen to insult, but his expression plainly suggested his intent was not malicious.

Jane swatted her guardian playfully and then stilled as the marquis turned his gaze upon her. Kathryn couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though a silent communication passed between the two. Though Jane’s face was turned away from her, Kathryn could see Blackshire’s features clearly. He was once more wearing the carefully bland expression she had come to think was studied, constructed, and maintained for the world’s benefit. His eyes were fixed firmly on his ward’s face, and though Jane’s face was not visible, Kathryn still had the distinct impression that the girl silently mouthed a word or two to Blackshire.

It must be her imagination.

But no—there! Her eyes widened. Jane was definitely making some sort of hand gesture to him. It wasn’t her imagination after all. Immediately, Jane turned on her heel and passed on her silent way out of the room, leaving the massive doors open for propriety, and leaving Kathryn alone in the deserted library with the Marquis of Blackshire.

NIGEL WATCHED JANE go, his heart thumping a little harder in his chest. Had he understood Jane correctly? She’d held up all ten of her fingers, made two fists, then held up eight fingers. Then she’d mouthed the words, “She’s eighteen,” waggled her eyebrows, and withdrawn.

Was that possible? Was tiny Kitty Davidson really eighteen years old? What the devil was she doing at a girls’ school then? Were she back home in the country, she would possibly married, maybe even caring for her first child by now. Not that the thought bothered him especially, not since he’d made the connection between her and his fair Titania. They really did look much alike.