The Lady Who Broke the Rules (8 page)

‘Yes, it was,’ Kate said, mortified.

Her eyes were overbright and Virgil, who had made his own opaqueness of character a trademark over the past eleven years, found he did not wish this particular woman to misunderstand him. ‘Kate, I don’t care who sees us, but you ought to. This is your country, your home. People will talk.’

‘I doubt it,’ Kate said drily. ‘They will think they have imagined it, it is so very unlikely. It doesn’t even seem real to me.’

‘That a duke’s daughter should kiss a freed slave, you mean?’

She shook her head impatiently. ‘That someone like you would find someone like me even remotely kissable. I am not the type of woman men want to kiss, I know that. Besides, what can I ever be to you? Your life is so different from mine you may as well come from another world. You are here to see our village school. Castonbury is but a stopover on your route north. It is known that I have an interest in abolition. Why should people put any other construction on our being together? It is ridiculous, that is what I meant.’ Kate nodded, quite satisfied with this explanation, now she came to think of it.

‘Ridiculous,’ Virgil repeated slowly. ‘Ridiculous that we could possibly mean anything to each other, is that what you mean?’

‘Well, I suppose so.’

‘Though that doesn’t stop me finding you extremely kissable.’

‘But that’s probably why you do. Because it’s so unlikely.’

‘You have a very low opinion of yourself, Kate.’

‘A very accurate one, Virgil.’

‘No. You are quite unique.’ He caught her hand and pressed a kiss on her palm. ‘But you are quite right too,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘It is so impossible that it is almost laughable. You think that’s why we are attracted to each other?’

Was that relief in his voice? Was he, then, just as confused as her? It was true, Virgil being the antithesis of everything her family would deem eligible added a frisson to their kisses, but it wasn’t all there was. ‘Each other,’ she said with relief, only just realising what he had admitted. ‘It’s not just me?’

‘I thought that was pretty obvious.’

She was going to blush again. She was twenty-four years old, and quite beyond blushing. Kate consulted the little gold watch which she wore on a fob at her waist. ‘We must get on. I promised Giles I’d set whatever must be done to the Dower House in motion this afternoon. Our new sister-in-law—if that is indeed what she is—is expected within the week.’

She was right, again. It was just a kiss. An aberration for both of them, and they now had a perfectly reasonable explanation. No point in discussing it further. It couldn’t mean anything. It was just a kiss. Virgil nodded to himself and made haste to follow Kate off the bridge.

Chapter Four

T
he path they were following went round the side of the house, joining another, wider but overgrown, which led in one direction back to the disused gatehouse where they had stopped yesterday, in the other to a copse of trees, behind which the mellow sandstone of a building could be glimpsed. They made their way through the copse of oak trees, and onto the approach to the Dower House. Kate walked quickly, her arms swinging out by her sides, easily keeping pace with Virgil’s long-legged stride, the skirts of her habit flying out over the weed-strewn gravel.

The Dower House was built of mellow sandstone, with a pillared portico, two stories under a very low roof and very long windows in the old French style reaching almost to the ground. It was shuttered, and had about it an air of neglect, with weeds clogging the approach and a fretwork of ivy working its way along one of the side walls up into the eaves. Several large shrubs were so overgrown as to make the path which wound round to the north-facing garden impenetrable.

‘These will need to be cut back,’ Kate said, producing a large iron key from the pocket of her habit. Though it fitted easily enough into the lock, it would not move. Kate swore under her breath as she wrestled with it in vain. ‘I don’t think anyone has been here since Cousin Frederica died.’

‘Let me try.’

‘It needs oiling,’ Kate said stubbornly.

Nudging her aside, Virgil turned the key easily. She glowered, caught his eye and was forced to laugh. ‘Very impressive,’ she said sarcastically, though, in fact, she
was
impressed, and shamefully excited by his strength. She wondered what he would be like naked, and gave a little shiver which she quickly covered up, pushing the door back on its protesting hinges. A sensible woman would conclude that kissing Virgil again would be extremely foolish. Dangerous, even. So why was she thinking that the very impossibility of kissing Virgil again was what made it—well, possible. Safe? Not that, but…

Like swimming naked, as she sometimes did under cover of the night. It gave her a vicarious thrill to know how appalled her aunt would be, how outraged everyone would be, a thrill she could savour all the more for knowing she was highly unlikely to be caught. Kissing Virgil would be that kind of safe and a whole lot more exciting. Too exciting. She had to stop thinking about it and concentrate on the task in hand.

Shafts of sunlight pierced the gloom through the fanlight above the door. Their boots rang out on the chequered marble of the reception hall. Dust motes danced, stirred up by the sweep of Kate’s skirts. The place smelled musty, though there was an acrid undertone. ‘Cats,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Cousin Frederica had at least a dozen of them. They get in and out through the stillroom window. At least it should mean that there won’t be any mice.’ She stirred the pile of leaves and twigs which filled the hearth of the large fireplace with her boot, disturbing the remnants of a bird’s nest. ‘We’ll need to have all the chimneys swept. And if this is anything to go by,’ she said, gazing up at the cobwebs which swung in silver threads from the wrought iron chandelier, ‘it will take an army to clean.’

The room to the right was the drawing room. Virgil threw open the creaking shutters which guarded the window, flooding it with light. The furniture was draped in Holland covers, the carpets rolled in one corner, but the room was pleasantly proportioned, the plain wall panelling and cornicing painted in pale shades of green. ‘At least it doesn’t smell damp.’ A cloud of dust flew out of the window hangings when Kate shook them, making her sneeze.

Across the hall again there was a dining room and a small music room. To the rear of the ground floor, the windows of the study, another salon and the breakfast parlour, which opened out onto the wilderness of the garden. Virgil opened the catches and walked out into the late-morning sunshine. The fountain was clogged with ivy. A mangy brindled cat eyed him malignantly from the muddy basin. Another was washing itself perched atop a stone lion which guarded the entrance to what had once been a rose garden. ‘I hope your new relative likes felines,’ Virgil said, as yet another of the furry creatures twined itself around his legs.

‘They seem friendly enough,’ Kate said, ‘and she’s going to need some friends. Should I arrange to have the guttering cleaned, do you think?’

‘You’re going to a lot of bother for this woman. I thought you said she was just coming for a visit.’

‘If her claim is proved, her son is my father’s heir. Castonbury Park will be her home.’

‘Unless she marries again.’

‘Well, I suppose—I hadn’t considered that.’ Kate looked thoughtful. ‘She is only just widowed, but I believe she is quite young, and according to my cousin Ross she’s pretty so—Lord, that really would set the cat amongst the pigeons.’

‘How so?’

‘My father wants his heir here at Castonbury. He certainly won’t tolerate the child being raised by another man. Giles says he’s already set his lawyers onto sorting out a legal guardianship for the boy. If his mother is not careful, she will find that she has signed away her rights to her child.’

‘Surely she would not be so foolish?’

Kate shrugged. ‘Since Jamie did not see fit to inform the family that he was married, there was no settlement made for her. She is wholly dependant upon my father’s goodwill, and he can be very ruthless when he wants to be. I intend to ensure she has her own legal advisors. It’s the least I can do.’

‘So she will have at least one friend who is not feline,’ Virgil said with a faint smile.

‘I sincerely hope that she does not have cause to have to rely on me, however,’ Kate replied. ‘I would not like to wager on her success should the might of the Montagues be brought down upon her head.’

* * *

They made their way back into the Dower House and ascended to the first floor. It was darker here, with only the light from the landing window to guide them. Kate’s arm brushed against Virgil’s coat sleeve as they turned into the long corridor, where doors stood closed on either side. The largest of the six bedrooms contained a fantastically carved bed, the four posts a mishmash of gryphons and dragons and other strange fairy-tale beasts.

‘It was meant for the main house,’ Kate said, laughing at Virgil’s expression, which was a mixture of astonishment and horror as he traced the form of a voluptuous siren-like creature, ‘but even for my grandfather, it was a step too far. Cousin Frederica thought it profane and would not sleep in it, despite the fact that this is the best bedroom.’

‘What are the carvings supposed to represent?’

‘A confused mind?’ Kate replied flippantly. ‘Actually, the key is in the central carving up there in the support for the canopy.’

She leant over the mattress to peer up, explaining the various myths which the artist had chosen to entwine. The bed was high. Though he tried not to notice, Virgil couldn’t take his eyes off the way her bending over brought attention to the roundness of Kate’s rear, the indent of her waist, the length of her legs. She wore riding boots. Did they stop at her calves, or were they longer? Perhaps the leather fitted snugly all the way up to her thighs. Though the skirts of her habit were full, he had already noted that her long, graceful stride seemed to be unimpeded by layers of petticoats. He realised he had no idea what ladies such as Kate wore for undergarments. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder, until now. Lace and silk? Practical cotton?

He was hard again. He had already, in his imagination, taken the short leap from underwear to skin, from looking at her curves to imagining his shaft sinking into the pink, moist heat of her. He had taken a step towards her in the process, ready to cup and to mould and to stroke. So long it had been since he had shared such intimacies. He thought he had forgotten, but looking at Kate, he discovered he knew in astoundingly lurid detail exactly what and where and how he wanted to touch her. She had stopped talking, was looking at him, lips parted. Just looking at him, as if she could read the turn his mind had taken.

She was not shocked, that was what he thought first. There was something, a heat in her eyes, a recognition or a reflection of what he was thinking. That was his second thought. That it was wish fulfilment was his third. Just because no one else would ever guess, just because it was so outrageous it could not be anything other than fleeting, did not mean that he planned to indulge in this attraction which sparked between them.

Virgil stepped to one side of the tempting display of curves, careful to keep a distance between them, and leaned over on the mattress, looking up at the carving as if that, and not touching her, stroking her, sheathing himself in her, had been his intention all along. ‘Charybdis, the daughter of Poseidon, you were saying,’ he said.

‘You
were
listening?’

‘“Zeus turned her into a monster because she ate some sheep she stole,”’ Virgil repeated, relieved to discover that he had, on some other level, been taking in what she’d said, after all. He wasn’t touching her, but he was a breath away from doing so. They were on a mattress. On a bed. His body was very well aware of this, though Virgil tried not to be. He could smell her scent. Lavender? No, more complex than that. More female.

‘Charybdis made whirlpools to wreck ships,’ Kate said. ‘There is her accomplice, Scylla, on the post there.’

Virgil had the impression that what she was saying and what she was thinking were quite different. He thought this because it was the same for him. Kate pointed at the post on the left side of the bed at the top, though she continued to hold eye contact with him. The movement made her wobble, but she steadied herself before he could help her. He adjusted his weight so that he was propped on his side. ‘So the bed does tell a story,’ he said.

‘Several, all tangled up.’

She was not whispering, but her voice was low, husky, sensual. Did she know it? Did she mean it? There was a speck of dust on her cheekbone. Virgil brushed it away with his thumb. The pulse was there, just discernable, under her ear. He ran his hand down the length of her spine, into the dip at the base, over the swell of her bottom. He hadn’t meant to do that. He couldn’t stop himself. ‘All tangled up,’ Virgil repeated, imagining just that.

Kate made that strange little noise he remembered from earlier on the bridge, a breathy growl which seemed to connect directly with his groin. She leaned over and repeated his own action, her hand trailing down his back, to the base of his spine, to his buttocks. His muscles tightened under her fingers. His coat, the silk back of his waistcoat, the fine lawn of his shirt, the leather of his buckskins—he resented every stitch of expensive, fashionable clothing he wore.

He was so unaccustomed to a woman’s touch he had thought himself immune. The agony of loss had established a physical shield long ago. Celibacy gave him strength. In eleven years, he had never had the slightest problem in maintaining it, but Kate broke through all his defences with just this whispering touch. Virgil rolled onto his side. ‘Turn around,’ he whispered.

On her back beside him on the bed, her eyes wide, her skin delicately flushed, her mouth soft, she watched him. He touched her, traced her shape through her clothes, enthralled, fascinated by the shallow rise and fall of her breasts, by the fluttering of the pulse below her ear. When he flattened his palm over her belly she pulled it tight. When he cupped the slope of her breasts, she gave a tiny moan. Her eyes never left his face. When he tugged up the hem of her skirt, she made no move to help or to hinder. Her riding boots were almost as long as her legs. Like the boots worn in ancient times. Like the boots in one of her family portraits. He wondered if that was where she’d taken her inspiration from. He could hardly breathe, running his hands up the soft leather to her narrow flanks.

He ached to have her touch him, but it would be too much. Far too much. What had happened to his self-restraint? Think. Think! His scars. No one had seen those. Not since—and not even Millie…

Too late, he wished he had not invoked her ghost. Why had he needed to? It was done now. It had worked, that was the important thing. Virgil rolled over and got to his feet, turning his back on temptation in a pretence of examining the post where Scylla was carved. The silence, a few moments only, seemed to stretch and stretch. ‘Unless you wish to give your new relative nightmares, I think you should have a different room prepared for her,’ he said.

Kate got up, slanting him a puzzled look. He knew before she spoke that she was not going to follow his lead. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’

She straightened her jacket and gazed out of the ivy-clad window at the carriageway below. ‘Sorry you touched me or sorry that you stopped?’ Which was she? She didn’t know. Both. Kate rested her hot cheek against the thick glass. The panes were diamond-shaped, criss-crossed with lead. Some of them were loose. She would have to get someone to re-solder them. William Everett, the estate manager, he would know who. She must make a note to speak to him. He would deal with the chimney sweep too. And a gardener. And she’d have to get some help from the village to do the cleaning. Three women? Maybe four, with—

‘Both,’ Virgil said, making her jump. ‘Sorry that I touched you. Sorry that I stopped.’

Having her own thoughts so exactly articulated confused her. He confused her. What he made her feel confused her. This whole situation confused her. Anthony had put an end to her nascent desire—or so she had thought. Anthony had said it was her fault, her lack, and she had believed him. But what she felt for Virgil, it was so different. Did that mean that Anthony was wrong? Or she had changed? Or Virgil was different? She had no idea, and he was waiting for her to speak and she could not think straight enough to prevaricate. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m not like this. I thought I wasn’t like this—wasn’t capable of being like this.’

‘Not capable!’ Virgil exclaimed, quite taken aback. ‘Kate, you can’t possibly mean…’

‘I don’t know what I mean,’ she said wretchedly. ‘You confuse me.’

Another thing they shared, but Virgil was too much in the habit of keeping his own counsel to say so. He ought to say they should forget it, but could not bring himself to do so. Did Kate really believe she was frigid? The idea was preposterous. He was struggling to find a way of saying so, when a movement in the carriageway below caught his eye. ‘Who is that?’