Then Comes Seduction

11

THE first inkling of trouble to come came to Jasper early the following morning when he went for a ride in Hyde Park despite the fact that the clouds were low and a misty drizzle was threatening to turn into an out-and-out rain. He had Rotten Row almost to himself, though Isaac Kerby and Hal Blackstone were there too, riding together.

They stopped when they saw him and waited for him to come up to them.

“Ho, Monty,” Hal called by way of greeting, “finding it hard to sleep at night, are you? Love is said to do that to a man.”

He grinned at Isaac, who grinned right back. As if something mightily witty had just been said.

Jasper raised one eyebrow.

“Love?” he said. “Affecting my sleep?”

“I have been telling Hal,” Isaac said, “about how Charlie and I were cruelly rebuffed yesterday at the Adams’s garden party.”

Jasper reined in his horse until it was moving at the same snail’s pace as theirs.

“Rebuffed?” he said. “Cruelly?”

They chose to be further amused.

“You see, Isaac,” Hal said, “love makes a man blind. He did not even see you.”

“Ah,” Isaac said, “then it must have been a fly he was wafting away, Hal, and Charlie and I were not after all being sent to perdition because Monty was smitten by the lady’s charms.”

Oh, the devil! Jasper realized suddenly what they were talking about.

“You would have to agree with me, Hal,” he said, “that Miss Katherine Huxtable is considerably prettier than either Charlie or Isaac. We admired the roses together. And I had an excellent sleep last night, thank you kindly.”

“Half an hour or longer to admire the roses,” Isaac said. “Did you count every petal on every single bloom, Monty? You had any number of people speculating-I heard them. It is most unlike you, you must admit, to seek out the lone company of any lady-in public. A word of advice, old chap. If you are not looking for a leg shackle, you had better count rose petals entirely alone in future. Or not at all unless you want all your friends believing that you are touched in the upper works.”

“It is a sorry state of affairs,” Jasper said, “when a man may not enjoy the company of a lady at a social event without risking a marriage trap.”

And yet all his adult life he had deliberately avoided just the sort of ridiculous speculation that he had apparently aroused yesterday. He must be more careful in the future.

“But the same lady with whom you waltzed at the Parmeter ball?” Isaac said, coming after him. “That must have been a sight worth seeing, Monty. I wish I had been there. I did not even know you could dance.”

“And the same lady, Monty,” Hal added, “with whom you walked the length of the park just a day or two after the ball? And the same lady who is to spend two weeks of the summer at Cedarhurst?”

“Ah, you know about that, do you?” Jasper asked.

“Merton mentioned it when I ran into him last evening,” Hal explained.

“Then you also know,” Jasper said, “that Merton himself and the eldest Miss Huxtable are to be at Cedarhurst too-all of them as guests of my sister.”

But his friends would only laugh.

He really must be more careful, Jasper decided. He had been enjoying the challenge of flirting with Katherine Huxtable so much that he had been neglecting the caution he had practiced for years. That very caution was his potential downfall now, of course. It was apparently so unusual to see Lord Montford spending more than thirty seconds at a time with any lady of ton that everyone and his dog sat up and noticed when he did.

It was not a problem that weighed heavily on his mind, though. Any incipient gossip would soon die down when he stayed away from the lady.

The fresh morning air-even the water droplets against his face-felt invigorating. He looked forward to another day of pleasurable activities, beginning with this ride along an unusually empty Rotten Row. He urged his mount to a gallop, and his friends fell into place on either side of him.

The first inkling of trouble came to Katherine via Constantine. He came to call upon her and Margaret the afternoon following the garden party. They had stayed at home because the weather had turned. Fine drizzle had alternated with heavier rain all morning, and the clouds had begun to break up only when the afternoon was too far advanced for them to make plans for an outing.

They were glad they had remained at home when Constantine came. They both enjoyed his company and had it all too infrequently. He took tea with them and stayed for half an hour before getting to his feet to leave.

“The sun is trying its best to shine at last,” he said, looking toward the window. “I brought my curricle with me. I can take only one passenger, I am afraid, or I would invite you both to take a turn about the park with me.”

“Thank you, but I would refuse anyway, Constantine,” Margaret said. “I find riding in sporting vehicles pure terror. I need a barouche or a gig or a closed carriage in order to feel safe.”

He stood smiling down at her.

“I will borrow a barouche one day, then,” he said, “and come back for you, Margaret. Would you care to ride up with me today, Katherine, or are you trembling in your slippers too?”

She had looked wistfully at the sunshine beyond the window when he had drawn their attention to it. She hated to spend a whole day indoors.

“I would love to come,” she said. “Give me a moment to fetch my bonnet.”

A short while later they were bowling through the park, and Katherine was happily admiring the scenery and observing the crowds from her high perch beside Constantine.

“I understand,” he said, “that you are to be Monty’s guest at Cedarhurst Park for two weeks in August, Katherine.”

“Yes, indeed. Meg and Stephen and I are all going,” she said. “But we are to be Miss Wrayburn’s guests at a house party in celebration of her eighteenth birthday.”

Why was she feeling defensive?

He maneuvered the curricle past the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians making the usual afternoon circuit. Soon they were on a long path that was relatively secluded.

“Katherine,” he said, “at the risk of sounding like a fussy chaperone, I must warn you to be very careful. Monty is dangling after you for some reason known only to him, and it is extremely unlikely that he has matrimony in mind. He never does.”

She felt a shock of indignation and… humiliation?

“Oh, this is really quite unnecessary, Constantine,” she said. “Is this why you brought me out here this afternoon, away from Meg? Because you feel somehow responsible for me? I have no idea why you would feel any such way when I have both Stephen and Elliott to protect me should I ever be in need of protection. And is it also because you do not trust me? I am twenty-three years old. I have learned a thing or two about life during all those years. I have certainly learned how to spot a-a rake. I know Lord Montford has a reputation for being one, and I would have known it for myself even if you had not told me so a long time ago. I am well able to handle any improper advances he may make toward me. He has not made any.”

“Not even three years ago?” he asked, causing her stomach muscles to clench. “I was not in London at the time, but I know you handled that situation very well indeed, discerning his intentions immediately and drawing him aside to deliver a scold and a blistering setdown. He confessed all to his peers the very next day. Had he not, or had he in any way succeeded in what he had set out to do, I doubt he would be living now to boast of it and harass you again.”

Her heart felt suddenly as if it were beating at double time. He knew about that long-ago wager? Had known all this time? But he did not know the actual details of what had happened. Had Lord Montford lied in the retelling of that night’s events, then? Had he made her seem entirely blameless, even heroic? Had he made himself seem rather ridiculous?

“If you know about all that, then you ought to trust me now,” she said, somehow finding her voice. “I do not need a lecture from you, Constantine. Besides, you are Lord Montford’s friend. Do you not trust him?”

“Monty may feel that he has something to prove after that colossal failure,” he said. “It embarrassed him so much, by the way, that he left London afterward and stayed away for more than a year. He can be very charming when he chooses to be, Katherine. I have known him a long time, remember.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “he is merely being amiable.”

“Monty,” he said, “never dances. Yet he waltzed with you at Lady Parmeter’s ball. He never strolls in the park with a lady on his arm. Yet he strolled all the way to the Serpentine and back with you.”

“And with Meg and Stephen and his sister,” she said indignantly. “How foolish this is, Constantine.”

But he had not finished.

“And he sat for a whole hour with you in a secluded pavilion at the Adams’s garden party yesterday,” he said. “I was not there myself. But even allowing for the fact that reports can be exaggerated and it might have been half an hour and the pavilion and its occupants might have been fully visible to every other guest in attendance, nevertheless you were alone with Monty-and sitting very close to him-for quite long enough to attract attention. Some reports even have it that his arm was about your shoulders.”

… for quite long enough to attract attention…

Some reports…

She felt suddenly cold.

“I would not have expected you to listen to idle gossip, Constantine,” she said. Her voice was all breathless and shaking.

“One cannot help listening,” he said, “when one is in a place where people all around one are constantly talking. I was in such a place last evening. I do not pay heed to ninety-nine out of every hundred snippets of gossip I hear. But when one of those snippets concerns a cousin of mine, and one of whom I am fond, then I do take notice.”

“It is wicked and ridiculous gossip,” she said. “What about all the other gentlemen I danced with at Lady Parmeter’s ball? Is anyone gossiping about them? And what about the fact that Meg walked one way to the Serpentine on Lord Montford’s arm while I walked with Stephen and Miss Wrayburn? Is anyone gossiping about Meg? And we were together no longer than half an hour yesterday in a pavilion made entirely of glass a mere few yards from the terrace and lawn where most of the other guests were congregated. Meg was out on the river with the Marquess of Allingham for longer than I was sitting with Lord Montford. Is anyone gossiping about them? And Lord Montford did not have his arm about my shoulders. It was draped across the back of the seat because it was narrow. He did not once touch me.”

“I can understand your anger, Katherine,” he said, turning the curricle onto a path that would take them back onto the main thoroughfare. “But I am not sure you understand the ton. Gossip does not have to be based on pure truth. It is built upon half-truths and perceptions and exaggerations and speculations and the human tendency to think the worst of others and even to enjoy thinking it. And Monty has been behaving out of character, you know. He never singles out any lady at any social event. The fact that he has done so now more than once with the same lady accounts for the notice everyone is taking. Unfortunately, you are the object of his attentions. I will have a word with him-he really ought to know better and doubtless does. His trouble is that he does not care a fig what the ton thinks of him. Please do be careful. Not of your virtue-I know that is safe. But of your reputation. Monty is trouble, Katherine, even if he is my friend.”

They had emerged from the cover of trees. The sun was now shining in earnest, and Katherine raised her parasol above her head.

“This was all very unnecessary, Constantine,” she said, “but I will remember that it comes from your concern for me. And I always appreciate that. How I wish we had known each other from childhood on as we ought to have done since we are cousins. I would have known Jonathan too. I am sure I would have loved him.”

Jonathan had been Constantine’s younger brother-his legitimate brother and Earl of Merton for a while after their father’s death. He had been handicapped and had died at the age of sixteen, leaving Stephen the title and properties and fortune. Constantine had once described his brother as pure love.

He turned his head and grinned at her.

“Anxious to change the subject, are you?” he asked. “Very well, then. Yes, you would have loved Jon, and he would have adored you. All of you.”

Katherine relaxed and tried to enjoy the rest of the outing.

But part of her was almost numb with shock.

There was gossip about her. About her and Lord Montford of all people.

And she was at least partly to blame. She might have said no when he asked her to dance at Lady Parmeter’s ball. She might have insisted upon taking Stephen’s arm for the walk back through Hyde Park from the Serpentine and left Lord Montford to escort Meg or his sister. She might have told him yesterday quite firmly that she wished to be alone in the pavilion. Better yet, she might have got to her feet, bidden him a civil good day, and left him there.

Oh, yes, she was at least partly to blame. For she had actually been finding his company amusing and his conversation witty and stimulating, much as she disapproved of him and told herself that she wanted to have nothing to do with him. Much as she knew very well that he was up to no good.

She must indeed be more careful. She must have nothing whatsoever to do with him while she remained in London, and when she went to Cedarhurst Park-how she wished now she were not going-she must remain with Meg or Stephen or Miss Wrayburn or one of the other guests at all times.

But all resolves to be more careful came too late.

Trouble hit with full force for Jasper the following day. He had spent the evening at home, a rare thing for him. He had accepted an invitation to the Clarkson soiree, but it was sure to be one at which Katherine Huxtable would also be making an appearance, and it seemed wise to stay away. He could have gone, of course, and made a point to the would-be gossips by staying far away from her all evening, but that would have been a flat bore, and he chose never to endure boredom when it could be avoided altogether.

So he had delighted Charlotte by remaining at home with her all evening.

He was taken quite by surprise the following morning, then, when, on his arrival at White’s Club to read the papers he was greeted by a veritable army of friends, acquaintances, and the merely curious.

“Ho, Monty,” Viscount Motherham called out by way of greeting, “we all guessed that you would have run for the hills by now as fast as your legs would carry you.”

“Splendid courage, old chap,” Barney Rungate said. “I did not guess any such thing. I would have wagered on your sauntering in here as you have just done as though nothing had happened.”

“Courage?” Charlie Field said. “More like a death wish, Rungate. Is it not a mite suicidal to be still in town this morning, Monty? I would have thought even Cedarhurst unsafe territory. Or even the hills, for that matter. Does the American wilderness beckon, perhaps?”

“You are a dead goner, Monty,” some unidentified voice said mournfully. “No doubt about that.”

“With the key word being dead,” someone else added. “I believe the Duke of Moreland and the Earl of Merton and Con Huxtable are after your blood, Monty, to mention only three.”

Ah! What now?

Jasper raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

“Where the devil have all the papers gone?” he asked. “Has Norton taken them all again? And have I perchance missed something interesting? Three gentlemen turned vampire, for example?”

“Monty,” Charlie Field said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “never mind the papers, old boy. Those three would probably have found you by now and relieved you of a pint or two of blood each if they had not considered it of greater importance to go after Forester first. He is your cousin, I believe?”

Ah!

Jasper went very still. He did not even correct the misconception.

For the first time he felt a powerful premonition of disaster.

“I am devastated,” he said languidly. “Forester is deemed of greater importance than I? What has he done, pray, to merit such a distinction? Or said?”

“It is more what someone else has been saying, Monty,” Motherham explained, “though no one seems to know who, and understandably no one is owning up to having loose lips and saying it. But someone has told Forester about that infamous wager you lost a few years ago. A few dozen men knew about it, of course, but not a one of them ever broke the code of a gentleman’s honor to spread the word outside our own circle, especially as the reputation of an innocent lady was at stake. Not a one until now, that is. But someone told Forester, perhaps because the man is your cousin and whoever it was assumed he already knew.”

Jasper stared at him, all pretense of languorous unconcern abandoned. It was far worse than anything he might have expected.

“And-?” he said softly.

“And Forester spent all evening yesterday at Clarkson’s telling everyone who would listen,” Motherham continued. “Except that he changed a few details and cast aspersions on the lady’s honor and on your word that you had failed to win the wager. He has been saying that her behavior this year indicates that she did not spurn you on that occasion, Monty, and has not spurned you on any occasion since then either.”

“It’s a disaster, old chap,” Charlie said unnecessarily, slapping him on the shoulder again. “You know that gossip is like the contents of Pandora’s box. There is no recalling it.”

“It is going to be parson’s mousetrap for you if you do not make a dash for the hills now or sooner,” Hal said. “I would dash for the hills if I were you.”

“It is going to be the end of all matrimonial hopes for the Huxtable chit if you do that, though, Monty,” Barney Rungate said. “And probably for her sister too. Even Merton may find himself not so well received for a while. It’s a devilish thing. I wonder if Moreland and Merton and Con will toss for it to see who gets to put a bullet between Forester’s eyes-before coming after you, that is. However did you get yourself saddled with someone like Forester for a cousin? It’s dashed hard luck. And what the devil have you done to offend him that he has dreamed up this sweet revenge?”

Jasper had recovered some of his famous ennui. He even managed a yawn behind one hand, though admittedly that was probably overdoing things just a little.

“My mother had the misfortune to marry his uncle,” he said. “He is not my cousin, and I would be obliged never again to hear that he is. I believe he has taken exception to being called Sir Clarrie instead of Sir Clarence. It is, I suppose, provocation enough for a vicious attack upon a young lady who has done nothing to offend him and is entirely innocent of all charges against her. I trust everyone here is convinced of that fact?” His voice had gone very quiet.

There was a murmured swell of assent.

“Whiter than snow, Monty,” Charlie said. “There has never been any doubt of that. Not here, anyway. But it will be another story in almost every drawing room in town, old fellow. I believe Lady Forester was with her son last evening and confirmed everything he said. Until she had a fit of the vapors, that was, and had to be carried out to her carriage. I hear it was a most affecting sight.”

“Well,” Jasper said, looking around the room. “If Norton has made off with every paper, there is no point in my remaining here, is there? I will have to look for something else to amuse me. I believe I shall go weasel hunting.”

Nobody asked what he meant by that. Nobody tried to stop him. And though Charlie Field slapped him on the shoulder again and even squeezed it reassuringly, no one offered to go with him.

Within two minutes he was striding down the street. Two gentlemen who were approaching the doors of White’s took one look at his face and thought better of attempting to greet him and commiserate with him.

Trouble came with full force to Katherine while she was in the breakfast room with Margaret. They had sat talking rather longer than usual, reminiscing pleasantly about their years in Throckbridge. They were to meet Vanessa later to shop on Bond Street and had just agreed that they must go and get ready if they were not to be late.

Before they could even rise from their chairs, however, the door opened abruptly and Vanessa herself rushed in. Her eyes focused immediately upon Katherine.

“Oh, thank heaven!” she exclaimed, hurrying toward her. “You did not leave home early for some reason.”

But before Katherine could get to her feet to hug her sister and comment upon her strange appearance here so early, she became aware that Elliott, Duke of Moreland, was also in the room, looking dark and forbidding, to say the least.

And Vanessa was looking rather as if she had seen a ghost.

Katherine surged to her feet, as did Margaret.

“Nessie,” Katherine said, terror clutching at her heart. “The children?”

Vanessa shook her head, but it was Elliott who answered.

“I ought to have spoken to you after the garden party, Katherine,” he said, striding farther into the room, “though as it has turned out, I would have been too late even then. Your name has become inextricably linked with that of one of London’s worst rakes, I am afraid.”

Oh, this again! She did not pretend to misunderstand.

“Lord Montford?” she said. “There is some gossip, is there not? It is all very foolish and very baseless. Constantine warned me about it yesterday, and Meg and I stayed home from the Clarkson soiree last evening just to be on the safe side. It will doubtless blow over like yesterday’s wind once-”

“Oh, Kate,” Vanessa said, possessing herself of both Katherine’s hands and squeezing them rather painfully, “what has that man done to you? Why did you not tell us?”

“D-done to me?” Katherine looked from her sister to Elliott in some bewilderment and mounting alarm. “What do you mean? He has done nothing except dance with me and sit with me at the garden party. What exactly is being said?”

Margaret, she could see, had both hands pressed to her bosom.

Elliott sighed audibly. “We were not at the soiree last evening either,” he said. “We were at a private dinner instead. But Montford’s aunt and cousin were there for an hour or so, quite long enough to spread rumors that I hope are just rumors. Though even unfounded gossip can do considerable harm to your reputation. Katherine, did you meet Lord Montford three years ago soon after coming to town for the first time? Vanessa and I put our heads together on the way here and wonder if it might have been during that week when we went into the country with Margaret and Stephen and left you in my mother’s care. Did you meet him then?”

Katherine felt her head turn cold. If she could have trusted her legs sufficiently, she would have sat down on her chair again. But her knees seemed to be locked beneath her.

“Cecily and I had been invited to join Lady Beaton’s party at Vauxhall,” she said. “Miss Finley-now Mrs. Gooding-brought her brother without first asking Lady Beaton because Mr. Gooding had sprained an ankle.”

“Kate,” Vanessa said-she was still clutching Katherine’s hands, “what did he do to you?”

“Kate?” Meg’s voice was unnaturally high pitched.

“He did nothing,” Katherine said.

“Did he try to do something?” Elliott asked, looking keenly at her.

She opened her mouth to deny it. But clearly this was not the time for lies or evasion. Some trouble was brewing-and that was probably a colossal understatement-and it was going to be necessary that her family know the truth.

The tension in the room was thick enough to be sliced with a knife.

“He had made a wager,” she said. “It was in the betting book at one of the gentlemen’s clubs-I do not know which. He was to seduce me within two weeks. He had persuaded Mr. Gooding to sprain his ankle, and then he had persuaded his sister to allow him to escort her instead.”

Elliott’s blue eyes were boring into hers. Both Meg and Nessie were standing as still as statues.

“And?” Elliott asked, his voice rather like a whip. “Did he succeed?”

Katherine shook her head.

“No,” she said, her voice a mere whisper of sound. “No, he did not. And he went back to his club and said so. He did not claim victory. And he was not lying. He did not win that wager. He did nothing to me.”

She could not after all bear to tell the full truth.

Vanessa had one hand pressed over her mouth. Margaret was weeping with choking sobs, which she was trying to smother.

“Forester-Sir Clarence Forester,” Elliott said, sounding suddenly weary, “will be answering a few of my questions as soon as I have found him-he was not at any of the clubs when I tried them earlier. Whatever grudge he may have against his cousin, his manner of taking revenge is unpardonable. Then I will need a few answers from Montford himself. Maybe he did not win his wager, Katherine-indeed, I trust your word that he did not-but I have to dispute your claim that he did nothing. He took on that dastardly wager, did he not, and set about winning it?”

Margaret spoke up.

“Sir Clarence Forester and his mother are the pair who stopped us in the park,” she said, her voice trembling, “and made us all feel so very dreadful as if we had done something wrong. They are the ones who have done wrong-vicious, deliberate, irreparable wrong. What has Kate ever done to deserve their spite? Oh, if I could just get my hands on them.”

“I’ll do it for you, Margaret,” Elliott said grimly. “In the meanwhile, you had best stay in the house here, both of you. There is much-”

The door crashed open again and Stephen strode in, his hair a halo of unruly curls about his head after a morning ride, his eyes wild, his face as pale as his shirt.

“I am in time, thank God,” he said, fixing his eyes on Katherine. “You are on no account to go out this morning, Kate. There is a damned scoundrel and liar loose on the town and I have just drawn his cork. I would have done more, but the sniveling bast-The sniveling coward ran away. He took a purple nose and a bloodied shirt with him, though, by thunder. I know this is all a pack of lies, Kate-Monty is a friend of mine and you are my sister. But even so-”

The door did not crash open again for the simple reason that Stephen had not shut it behind him. But Constantine, when he appeared in the doorway, looked as if he would have come through the door without opening it if it had stood in his way.

“Constantine,” Katherine said, holding up one shaking hand. “If you have come here to tell me that you told me so, I shall first scream very loudly and then slap your face very hard.”

And she burst into tears to her own terrible chagrin. Soon she had four arms about her, and Meg and Nessie were murmuring words of comfort when really there was no comfort to be found.

“Forester is a clever bastard,” Constantine said. “By the time I appeared at his door a short while ago, he had his mother stationed there instead of a servant, and short of planting her a facer, which I was sorely tempted to do, I could not get in. If she is to be believed, Forester met with an accident this morning at the hands of a large gang of fierce footpads and lost a courageous battle against them.”

“They were me, Con,” Stephen said.

“Glad to hear it,” Constantine said. “It’s the first good news I have had all morning. I missed that damned soiree last evening. Oh, sorry for the language, Margaret. Sorry, Vanessa and Katherine. But now I have seen that Katherine is safely at home, I’ll pay Monty a little visit.”

“You can safely leave that to me,” Elliott said stiffly, and Katherine looked up to see the two of them-first cousins who had grown up like brothers and who looked more like twins-glaring at each other and almost squaring off.

“Oh, stop it!” she cried. “It is not Lord Montford who has been spreading spiteful stories-and untrue ones too if they claim that he won that ridiculous wager all those years ago. He did not win it because he chose not to pursue it. He told me about it and… and we had a laugh over it. I do not suppose he is enjoying this scandal any more than I am. It is all stupid and ridiculous, and I will not have everyone bloodying everyone else’s nose and fighting one another to be the one to defend my honor and all the other stupid stuff that goes by the name of manly honor. I will not have it. Do you hear me, Stephen?”

She had risen to her feet again. Her sisters stood at her sides, silent sentinels.

“I hear you, Kate,” he said. “But it is not-”

“And do you hear me, Elliott?” she asked.

“Loudly and clearly,” he said. “But-”

“And you, Constantine,” she said, “do you hear me?”

He shrugged with both shoulders and both hands.

“And I will not have you and Elliott carrying on your ridiculous feud in my presence or Meg’s,” she continued, unable to stop, it seemed now that she had started. “I have no idea what it is about, and I do not want to know. I do not care. Men are so foolish. Take your quarrel elsewhere if you must. Shoot each other if you must. But not here. Now go away all of you. All of you. I want to be alone. No, better yet, I shall go up to my room-alone.”

She swept past them all, her chin up.

She neither knew nor cared what they decided to do about her predicament or about the two men who between them had brought her to this.

She was ruined.

She was in no doubt about that.

And, as she had admitted to herself when she was with Constantine in Hyde Park, she was at least partly to blame.

She had thought herself far more grown up and worldly wise this year than she had been three years ago. But she had fallen prey to the practiced charms of a rakehell just as easily this time as last. It would be useless to deny it.

And now she was ruined.

She did not stop to consider that perhaps the punishment far exceeded the crime.