Wed at Leisure (4 page)

In some way Kate’s antagonism made him feel . . . like just a man.

Which was why, even if he had no intention of marrying anytime soon, he wanted to delve beneath Kate’s cool exterior and discover if what he suspected was true.

Thus his ridiculous terms. And the painful disapprobation of his mother and brother as they waited for the butler to show the Mansfield women into the sitting room.

His terms.
Join me for dinner this evening at Fairview
.

She’d considered saying no. He’d seen the hesitation in her face and chided her for her cowardice, which naturally was exactly the sort of thing that would get her to agree.

“Mrs. Mansfield and Miss Mansfield,” the butler intoned a moment before the pair stepped into the room. He rose instantly, as did his brother.

As usual his eye was drawn immediately to Kate, to the compelling intensity about her. She was a slender thing, with quick yet graceful movements. She did nothing she did not like to do. Yet she was not painfully honest in that way that some called a virtue.

Her dark hair was swept up in one of those delightful manners that let a man admire the sway of a woman’s neck, and imagine unfastening the pins to see the locks tumble down later, in private.

Not that he was imagining that about Kate.

Not that he wasn’t.

Admittedly, he had entertained more carnal thoughts of her. He was a man and fashioned for such a thing. He had admired the better attributes of half the ladies of the ton and so had all his peers.

It meant nothing.

Nothing that truly mattered that was. He was not stupid enough to be swayed by a pretty face. He far more appreciated a woman of substance, and if there be an outer shell to match so much the better. Of course, it had taken two madcap years to learn this about himself, during which he had gained a reputation as a bit of a rake. An appellation that still made him laugh.

“My dear Duchess!” Mrs. Mansfield cried. “What a kind invitation.”

“You may thank my son,” his mother said dryly and he winced. She could at least make an effort. But the Duchess had not particularly approved of Kate’s father’s quick marriage to Henrietta Mansfield. She’d been close to Kate’s mother, and thought a longer mourning more appropriate.

“It was my own luck that I stumbled upon Miss Mansfield this morning,” he said quickly, hoping to save Mrs. Mansfield from her flushed confusion. “It had been far too long since I had the pleasure of her company.”

Kate laughed. “Was it that long?”

“An eternity.”

“It seems we only get to see the Mansfields in parts,” his mother said. “Barely a month ago, we had the pleasure of Mr. Mansfield and young Bianca.”

“Did you?” Kate asked.

“I was starved for company, having just returned from town,” Reggie said, shooting Peter an accusatory look. “And your sister is beyond charming.”

Peter held his tongue. There was no point in mentioning that Reggie might have remained in town if he wished had he put some forethought into his spending. He had already attempted the discussion of Reggie’s finances and his younger brother had rolled his eyes and complained that Peter’s wealth was wasted on him.

“Miss Bianca does take after her father,” the duchess stated. “I remember when your mother was alive, how she admired those golden curls. Time certainly has not diminished their brightness. You, Miss Mansfield, look nothing like your sister, or your father for that matter.”

“My mother always insisted that I took after my uncle,” Kate said, though she didn’t sound particularly enthused about it. Understandably. There were few secrets in a community as small as theirs and he could easily recall the whispers about her hell-raising uncle Philip Hughes.

“I never met Mr. Hughes, but you look exactly as your mother did when your father first brought her home to Hopford Manor. We were both so young then.”

“Who needs youth, when you have beauty, Mother?” Reggie said quickly and their mother smiled fondly on him.

“Said by one who is young.”

And so it went on through dinner, with his mother making pronouncements and sharing memories as if she were some elderly relic instead of the not yet fifty, spry woman who rode every morning and tended her own roses in the afternoons. But if there was one thing the Duchess of Orland liked to do, it was to manipulate others into complimenting her. She had been doing it his entire life, had been very skilled at manipulating his father, although Peter had not inherited that talent.

Reggie was more than happy to feed into his mother’s wishes, but Peter no longer wished to play that game. When he’d found the strength within him to enlist in the army, despite his father’s wishes, he’d embarked on the journey of becoming a man. His own man.

And when he’d inherited the duchy, it was as if in an instant the last vestiges of childhood had been shed and he’d stepped into the role easily. There were demands and responsibilities but it was no burden. Rather, it was employment as honorable as serving one’s country. Husbandry of a dozen sorts.

He suspected London had been much that way for Kate, their own caustic exchanges aside. That, he understood, or rather thought he did, stemmed from that one childhood day so long ago when she had revealed more than she felt comfortable.

A
nna, Duchess of Orland, looked exactly the way a duchess should. At least in Kate’s mind, and in part that was likely due to the fact that she was the first and only duchess she had known during her first seventeen years. However, with her straight back, long nose, deep-set eyes, full lips, and reddish-blond hair, she had a certain presence. One that Peter had inherited. Reggie, too, in his own way, though his inability to ever be serious, to ever take anything seriously, undercut that.

Of course, presence and all, the Duchess of Orland had bordered on rudeness all evening. Particularly to Henrietta. It wasn’t any one thing she said, more the way she made subtle digs at the fact that Kate’s stepmother was so much younger than her father. The way she lingered on Kate’s mother.

Although that part was somewhat interesting. While she knew she took after her mother’s side of the family, her mother had been a beauty. No one before had ever compared the two of them favorably. A surface detail, yes, but what other details of her mother did she not know? All she truly knew were the criticisms and fights. Her mother’s insistence that Kate could do nothing right, that her stitches were uneven and her posture crooked. She had demanded absolute perfection and though Kate had raged, she also hurt, and she also tried desperately to be what her mother admired.

Which she would never be.

But perhaps it was something different. Perhaps it was that her mother saw in Kate what she disliked in herself?

Now, as they gathered once more in the sitting room, the conversation seemed to falter. It was clearly time to go home and yet, at the same time too early for convention. At least another quarter hour of chitchat was expected.

Her stepmother was doing admirably, going on and on about the scarves they were now knitting for the Foundling hospital. However, it was embarrassing the way she kept saying how wonderful Kate was for suggesting the idea. They were simply scarves for unfortunate orphans. It was hardly some grand charitable gesture.

No, it was far more base than that, although she could never admit to the reasons. Admit that despite having a father, and a stepmother, and a sister and half brother, she felt like an orphan, alone in the world and completely misunderstood.

Kate glanced about the room, eyed the pianoforte in the corner, a chess set in another. A table that was perfect for a game of whist. Something, anything to alleviate the awkwardness.

Then Peter sat down next to her, rather close. Close enough to suggest this evening’s invitation had been out of some romantic interest, although that idea was ridiculous considering, truce aside, there had never once been an inkling that he held her in such regard.

Well, perhaps just that once.

“You look as if you are seeking an exit,” he observed quietly.

“Am I that obvious?”

“Obvious enough. What would you rather be doing tonight? If we were in London, where would you be?”

An interesting question.

“Where would I be or where would I wish to be?”

“A fine distinction. Wish.”

“Listening to music. I so like to attend a stirring concert.”

“What did you think of Mr. Brandon and his compositions?”

“Were you at Lady Milliford when he played? I do not recall.” But it was odd to realize that she did recall. She could see Peter vividly in her mind, standing at the rear of the room with Lord Trumbull. Somehow she remembered every encounter with him over the last years. Every Sunday in church in Watersham, every ball, route, musicale, opera, play, or soiree in London. “I found him insipid, to be honest and his music . . . derivative. As if he is attempting to be Herr Beethoven.”

“Ah, you admire Beethoven, as well.”

“Do you not? He is . . . astonishing.” In fact she could still remember the first day she had ever heard anything by the Austrian composer. What had the piece been? A part of her awakened that she had not known was asleep. A yearning, a sense that there was something more. She had nearly wept and barely understood why.

She still barely understood.

“He makes one feel, does he not?” Peter agreed. “Whereas before, music made me only think.”

“Eloquently put.” And he made her wonder, too, just what he felt when he listened to such passionate music.

“Do you play?” He gestured to the pianoforte.

He was not asking her to play a Beethoven piece, she hoped. It was one thing to appreciate the music of a master when played by an equally talented pianist, but capable as she was, she was no artist.

She shook her head.

“Come, Miss Mansfield,” his mother said and Kate felt the heat in her cheeks, embarrassed that she’d nearly forgotten anyone else was in the room. “I’ve heard you play before. As long as you have not been neglecting your studies, you have a decent hand.”

“She does, Your Grace,” Henrietta assured her. “Kate, do play one of those lovely Bachs.”

“I believe they miss the point entirely,” Peter said quietly as Kate reluctantly rifled through the sheet music.

“And what point is that, Your Grace?”

“Music that requires you to feel.”

P
eter had called a truce but he needled her all the same. Only now there seemed to be no malice in it, merely well-chosen or unfortunately chosen statements that stabbed at her soul. No, stabbed was not the correct description. It was more as if her soul were a harp and he plucked at it, filling it with a song of longing. How maudlin and ridiculous.

Still, it was true. Peter seemed to find all the most yearning parts of herself. The parts that were forever weepy, nostalgic for a future she did not know and a past that was so lost as to be merely a figment of an idea in her mind.

And maybe that was why she continued to follow his
terms,
which was merely the condition that she dine with him, ride with him, give him a chance to make amends. Amends for his past behavior, though he did not specify and she longed, and feared, to ask him to.

So at seven the next morning, Kate stood in front of the mirror in her room and stared. She was wearing her favorite riding costume, its color a deep forest green, and she knew very well what she looked like in it, with the jaunty little matching cap that her maid had fastened to her hair. However, what had her frozen was the idea that everything was upended.

She had had this thought before many times since leaving home for her first Season. But away from Hopford, it was as if living a different life, being a different person, nearly an actor upon a stage. Here at home, she was forced to reconcile who she preferred to be and who she was. Who she had been.

She was being forced to question her perspective and her choices. It was unsettling.

Peter was unsettling.

He acted like he knew her. Not the Kate of London or the Kate of Watersham, but both, or something deeper. Something she wasn’t even certain she herself knew. Which meant he didn’t know her at all.

She shook her head, the movement making her feel more decisive, more in control, and she left the looking glass behind.

He was waiting for her in the entry hall, looking handsome and familiar. It was the familiarity that made her feel such warmth in her chest. The way one might feel at a known face in a crowd of strangers, even if that person were normally an enemy.

A truce
.

“Good morrow, Kate.”

She giggled.
Giggled.
How ridiculous.

“My name is Catherine.”

“I do like Catherine,” he said. “And I like Kate. They both fit you. The regal and the common.” He took her arm. “Shall we?”

She let him guide her out of the house, to where their horses and grooms waited.

“Are you calling me common?”

“Only if I am calling you regal, as well.”

“Hmmph.” She slipped her arm off of his and mounted her mare, Clara. Then looked back at Peter to find him still on the ground, looking up at her.

“No, Kate, there is nothing common about you.”

There was a look of physical admiration in his gaze. She knew it, had seen it before in others’ gazes, had taken it as her due, as the triumph of her fight for social approbation. But now for some reason the warmth of his gray eyes made her uncomfortably hot. She laughed. “How kind of you. Not that you were forced into such a compliment. I know it was positively spontaneous and natural.”

“And you would be correct. You may be petite, but your spirit is quite large.” She watched him accept his groom’s help, mount the horse whose brown flank was still lightly damp from the ride over.

Once he had seated himself comfortably, she guided Clara over to him. “Is that a compliment, Your Grace?”

“Naturally.”

“You admire a large . . . spirit?”

He laughed. “Are you flirting with me?”