Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (24 page)

“It seems in his youth, he was in love with a lady who either died or married someone else, and I suppose he decided if he couldn’t marry her then he wouldn’t marry anyone.”

“That sounds rather romantic, but sad,” Susannah remarked.

Kate studied Nathan from across the table, the view framed by a pair of epergnes holding up two pyramids of fruit. He was clearly grimacing, and not because the food disagreed with him in some way. This was the best roast beef Kate had eaten since she’d last been in London.

“Apparently you don’t consider it romantic or sad,” she ventured to say.

He met her steady gaze, his blue-gray eyes almost piercing the lenses in her spectacles. “I can’t say as I have a great deal of compassion for his supposed heartbreak.”

Kate found that puzzling when he had so much compassion for others less fortunate, like the thankless Freddy Hathaway, who returned the gesture by stealing Nathan’s carriage and horses and taking Polly back to Leeds with him. Or even for Kate herself. As long as he believed she was Margaret Hathaway, he was all in favor of sending her back to her family. But once he realized that she was, in fact, Katherine Baxter, niece of the Marquess of Carswell and stepdaughter of the Earl of Bellingham, he’d agreed to take her to London.

Because she was the niece of a marquess and the stepdaughter of an earl, and ergo more worthy of his consideration than the less well connected Miss Hathaway? But if her family connections were so important to him, then why did he do the things he did last night, only to not offer marriage to her?

“I for one can certainly understand that,” Trevor commented. “After what happened, I would feel the same way.”

“What did happen?” inquired Susannah with furrowed brow.

Nathan flicked a large hand in her direction. “Oh, ’tis a very sad tale, my lady. Not the sort of thing to brighten up a fine dinner with equally fine ladies, who I’m sure have been looking forward to a bit of gaiety this evening.”

Kate toyed with the carrot slices on her plate. “Actually, I heard there
was
a lady the previous duke hoped to marry, but only because she was the daughter of the lady he loved. Yet she did not return his regard because
she
loved someone else.”

Silence hung over the room. Kate swept her gaze around the table. Trevor was busy eating, whereas Susannah looked highly intrigued.

Nathan, however, stared back at her thunderstruck. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

She sipped her claret. “From my brother’s wife, who’s the sister of the Earl of Whitbourne. ’Twas on Whitbourne’s estate that your half brother died.”

He nodded. “That much I know. I was told only that he was shot at Whitbourne Park by a spurned mistress. She must have been jealous of this lady he was hoping to marry. Who was the lady?”

“She’s the only grandchild of Viscount Barrington, and she’s now happily married to a young man whose father was a squire, and whose ancestral pile is adjacent to Bellingham Hall,” Kate explained. “They came over for dinner once last fall. She’s much younger than me, but she reminded your brother of her late mother, whom he loved, and that’s why he plotted to marry her but only ended up getting shot.”

Nathan drained his wine goblet. “That’s an interesting tale, yet I can’t say any of it surprises me. Do you really want to hear my own sad tale about him?”

“I wish you would, unless it makes
you
too sad.” Kate felt a flutter in her heart at the prospect of Nathan opening up to her a little more.

“It doesn’t make me as sad now as it did at the time it happened,” he assured her.

“It’s just that you’ve shown great compassion for me and Mr. Hathaway, yet none for your own brother. I’ve often wondered why you took pity on Mr. Hathaway, or for that matter, why you didn’t just leave me in York.”

Nathan gazed at her intently. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be standing at a crossroads looking as pathetic as he did.”

“Oh? Did someone once throw you out of a carriage and leave you standing at a crossroads, uncertain which path to take?”

He reached for the wine carafe and refilled his own goblet before the footman could even budge. “I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t throw me out of the carriage, but otherwise, yes—only I wasn’t left at a crossroads, but in the woods. It was about twenty years ago, so I was only eight. And to answer what I’m sure must be your next question, the culprit was my half brother.” He sipped the claret. “But after that, I could never abandon anyone, even an adult who could ideally look after himself.”

“Why did he do it? And what did you do?”

Nathan shrugged. “He didn’t want to be responsible for me, or for my mother, because she wasn’t
his
mother—just as your stepfather didn’t want to be responsible for you because you’re another man’s daughter.”

“You two seem to have a great deal in common,” Susannah interjected.

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “We were on our way to a house party, and my brother was riding in a great big barouche with all his friends. I was supposed to be in another carriage with my mother, but I wanted to be with the big boys and was very happily surprised when my brother agreed. About an hour later the barouche stopped in some woods and everyone disembarked with the idea that each of us was to find a tree.”

He paused, as if he thought Kate might inquire the purpose of finding a tree, but having traveled with her stepfather she already knew. “Go on,” she said.

“To make a long story short, they didn’t bother to wait for me, and they never came back. I chased after the barouche, shouting the whole time, just as I did the other day when we missed the stage with Bilby atop it, but they never stopped and came back for me.”

“What a cruel thing to do!” Kate exclaimed. Her heart went out to him, or at least to the child he’d been. “You must have been frightened out of your wits.”

“I was, but I survived, as you can see. I just kept plodding along that road till I was out of the woods, and then I came to a crossroads but had no idea which way to go. Fortunately, another carriage going to that same house party came along and they knew who I was. They took me the rest of the way there. So you might say that when I spotted Freddy at that crossroads the other day, I saw something of myself in him.” He favored Kate with a wry smile. “So you needn’t worry that I’ll ever abandon you.”

At least not until they reached London, she thought bleakly. For that reason, she couldn’t let her heart go out to him, though she feared she’d lost it already.

In the days that followed, Nathan couldn’t help noticing that Kate, as he now thought of her, seemed to be taking great pains to avoid him—or at least not to look at him.

He could only conclude that she feared he would try to take advantage of her again—which he had absolutely no intention of doing—unless, of course, she wished it.

He certainly wished it, even though he knew he shouldn’t. If he did, she would certainly and rightly expect marriage, and that was not how he wanted to acquire his duchess.

So why couldn’t he get her out of his head, especially when she wanted nothing to do with him?

A dancing master from Derby came to Ellington Hall, bringing his wife, who accompanied on the pianoforte. Since Trevor and Susannah were planning a ball that Friday and Susannah had never attended a dance in her life, she wanted to learn. She insisted their guests join them.

“No one wants to dance with me,” Kate insisted.

“Perhaps Nathan will wish to dance with you,” Susannah countered. “Nathan, you do know how to dance, don’t you?”

“I ken a great many Scottish reels, lassie,” he teased her in his best Highland burr.

“I don’t know any Scottish reels,” Kate said flatly in an accent that revealed her wish to be in London, far from the barbarous Highlands, or at least from the desolate moors of Yorkshire.

“What? Ye nae ken any reels, my wee lassie?” Nathan asked in mock dismay.

“Oh, do speak English,” she said peevishly, without so much as a glance his way.

“Kate, do learn to dance with us, even if you think you won’t be dancing at all this Friday,” Susannah said. “I won’t feel like such a fool as long as there’s someone else to—to—well—”

“Feel like just as big a fool?” Kate suggested. “I do believe I understand, forasmuch as I feel like a fool almost all the time. Very well, I shall learn with you.”

The ladies and gentlemen had to learn their steps separately before the dancing master would allow them to dance with each other. Nathan enjoyed watching Kate whirl about on the dance floor as the dancing master put her through the steps of various dances. He liked the way the hem of her sprigged muslin skirt swung around her slim ankles. He loved watching her skip haphazardly down the length of the ballroom, looking like a butterfly newly emerged from her chrysalis and still trying to figure out how to fly. Strands of her honey-colored hair fell out of her bun and dangled over her face. As she stroked them back behind her ears, Nathan found himself wishing he could do it for her. In fact, he longed to remove all the pins from her hair and let it fly free as she spun and twirled.

He never tired of admiring her form. The high waist of her borrowed frock emphasized the pointed, upright breasts that he’d cupped and tasted the other night, while the long skirt hung straight all around—except at the back, where it gently curved out and over her perfectly formed derriere, as upright as the breasts.

Her face was flushed from the exertion, yet she never once cast a glance his way. He knew she never did because he never took his eyes away from her. Every time she made a stumble, he was careful to hide his amusement, even though she never failed to make light of it. The dancing master only shook his head.

“Miss Baxter, you will never learn the proper steps unless you take them more seriously.”

“I do take the proper steps seriously,” she retorted. “It’s precisely why I take the improper ones more lightly. Would you prefer I throw a tantrum and cry every time I make a misstep? Rather like you do, sir?”

Nathan couldn’t suppress his mirth as the dancing master, on cue, threw another tantrum about difficult pupils who didn’t understand the grave importance of what they were supposed to be learning.

That was one of the things Nathan liked about Kate. She never threw tantrums or cried whenever something went wrong—and a great many things had gone wrong from the moment he met her. Instead she tossed off each mishap with a lighthearted jest and moved on to the next imbroglio as if she couldn’t wait to encounter more chaos. She embraced life, but more than that, she relished adventure. She was like a princess who’d lived her entire life locked away in a high tower, or who’d been sleeping under a spell for many years, her life a ruin of cinders, yet she never abandoned her hope, nae, her determination, to escape from those who would cut out her heart and lock it in a box for all time.

Trevor had said that Nathan wanted a fairy-tale bride, and to find her in a fairy-tale way.

But now he realized that most fairy tales did not take place at balls.

If only she would look his way, for just a second. Why was she so determined to act as if he were invisible?

When it was his turn to take to the floor, he didn’t look at his feet. He kept his eyes on Kate, who sat next to Susannah on a sofa pushed against the wall. She looked everywhere but at Nathan. When she wasn’t smoothing back her hair, she was tugging on the bodice of her frock to keep it from sticking to her perspiring chest. She bent forward, unwittingly allowing him the slightest glimpse of cleavage, yet it was enough to send a hot shard of desire straight to his loins.

Bloody hell. The last thing he needed was to become aroused in the middle of the dance floor. He stumbled and made just as many missteps as Kate, if not more, and he knew it was because he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Which raised an interesting question—had she been stumbling about because she couldn’t get
him
out of her mind? And then he quickly dismissed that as she wouldn’t even look at him.

Finally, the dancing master had both couples on the floor together. At his cue, Nathan bowed as Kate curtsied, still keeping her gaze averted.

“Well, Miss Baxter, at least you’re not looking at your feet anymore,” the dancing master remarked. “Now if only you would look at your partner.”

“I’m afraid she finds me hideous,” Nathan said as he fell into the steps of the dance.

“Miss Baxter,” the dancing master said crisply, “if you don’t look at your dancing partner, you’ll—”

She smacked right into Nathan’s backside with her own.

He chuckled. “I do believe I like this dance.”

She stepped around in front of him, fixing her gaze not on his face, or his waistcoat, but on the falls of his buff breeches.

Well, in that case, he’d settle his gaze on her gently curved bosom, which turned out to be a grave error, for he felt an immediate erection just from observing how the shirred bodice of her frock seemed to make her breasts stand out more, instead of nearly flattening them as her pelisse had done when he first saw her in York.

He forced himself to glance away, only to bump into her front to front, her breasts briefly pressing into his chest, and his partial arousal jabbing her just long enough to prompt a startled chirp as she spun away.

“Stop!” the dancing master called out. “Lord and Lady Ellington, the two of you dance as if you were made for each other.”

“I should hope so,” Trevor replied.

“But you, Your Grace, and you, Miss Baxter—I fear you are both a very poor match.”

An awkward silence fell over the ballroom as Nathan stole a glance at Kate, who looked quite pointedly at the dance master and said, “On the contrary, I believe we are just as perfect a match as Lord and Lady Ellington. Surely His Grace can’t be as exasperated with me as he might be were he a more skilled dance partner than I am. In that sense, I daresay he and I are evenly matched.”