Then Comes Seduction

18

KATHERINE went down to the servants’ quarters after luncheon while Jasper went in search of his steward. And she had a word with the housekeeper and the cook and the butler. They must be consulted, after all, before she proceeded further with plans for the fete. It was upon them that much of the work would fall-and they already had a houseful of guests to prepare for.

They were indeed alarmed at her initial suggestion. A grand fete and ball in one month?

But as soon as she had assured them that the bulk of the planning would be hers and that most of the work would be shared among whichever neighbors could be persuaded to take on the task, they became almost instantly enthusiastic, even excited-and comically offended that she should try to release them from some of the work.

“But I am going to be in charge of the food, mind,” the cook declared in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “I don’t mind a bit of help with the planning and even the cooking, my lady, but I am going to be in charge.”

“I never thought for an instant that you would not be,” Katherine said, smiling. “Indeed, I hoped you would be, Mrs. Oliver, as I suspect the kitchens here would collapse if ever you were to abandon them.”

“And I will be in charge of decorating the house and ballroom,” Mrs. Siddon said, “and ordering the supplies. You will find any number of people, my lady, who will be only too eager to help out and give you ideas and even set them into effect, but I must be in charge of the house.”

“And happy I am to hear you say it,” Katherine assured her. “But I will see to it that you get all the help you need.”

“I will speak to Benton myself, my lady,” the butler said. And lest she not remember who that was, “The head gardener, my lady. He will want to supply all the flowers for the ballroom from the kitchen gardens and the greenhouses.”

“I was so hoping he would,” Katherine said. “And I would be much obliged if you would ask him.”

“And I will be in charge of the food tables,” he said as if he thought she might argue, “and the footmen serving at them.”

“Oh,” she said, “how very kind you are, Mr. Couch.”

“It will be just like old times,” Mrs. Oliver said with a sigh. “Ah, the fete at Cedarhurst was always the best day of the whole year. It was always good, clean fun for everyone, I don’t care what anyone says to the contrary. It was not the devil’s own work. The very idea!”

“The last one was less than a year before Lord Montford died,” Mrs. Siddon said. “Less than a year before his present lordship was born. Bless my soul, how quickly time does fly. Though there have been long, dreary years in between, there is no denying.”

“Those days,” the butler said, “are like something out of another lifetime.”

“And now they are to be resurrected,” Katherine said. “Oh, I do want the fete to be as it always was-with some new touches too. I want it to be perfect and something everyone will want repeated every year for the rest of their lives.”

“The people you need to speak with, my lady,” Mrs. Siddon said briskly, “are…”

And she listed an impressive number of mostly older people in the neighborhood. Mrs. Oliver and Mr. Couch added the names of some younger people, who maybe did not remember the fetes but who would be only too delighted to plan a new one.

They could not go visiting at all during the rest of that day as Jasper needed to be busy with the steward, though he did come and fetch her from the drawing room during the afternoon so that she could join him, Mr. Knowles, and Mr. Benton on the east lawn. They spent an hour out there, discussing what was wanted and needed, pacing back and forth across the grass to see how large the orchard could be and where exactly the rose arbor should be situated.

It rather intrigued Katherine to see Jasper without any of the artifice he affected in London and kept up most of the time when alone with her. With the two men he was all seriousness, all business, all energy and intelligence. And he clearly knew a great deal about land and drainage and plants and sunshine and shade and everything else one needed to know to be a successful gardener.

He knew the house and he knew the park. He knew all of his ancestors pictured in the gallery. He might have hated Cedarhurst for most of his life, but he had not neglected it or his duty to it.

She found it all a little disconcerting. And reassuring too. She could like this man.

The rest of the afternoon she spent in the making of lists of things that would need to be done if the fete and the ball were to be a success. Something of this magnitude would usually take a whole year to plan, she guessed. But there was only one month.

It was a daunting, exhilarating thought.

Perhaps, as Jasper had assured her on more than one occasion, this new life would not be so bad after all.

They spent much of the next three days calling upon the neighbors, some of them in the village, some in the countryside around. Jasper had known them all as a boy, though only a few of them had been deemed worthy of being officially visited or of being invited to visit or dine. He had played with some of their children whenever he could steal away to do so, and indeed some of those children were now grown up and settled with families of their own.

He had enjoyed genial relations with everyone since growing to adulthood. But he had not spent a great deal of time here, except that one year when the disaster of the Vauxhall wager had driven him home. He had never had any problem getting along with his neighbors.

It had not dawned upon him, though, until now that these people were his people, that they shared a background and heritage and memories with him, that they had known him most of his life, that they were, in fact, fond of him.

They were all eager to meet his wife, and it struck Jasper that word of the scandal that had precipitated them into marriage had undoubtedly arrived here. But rather than looking upon him with disapproval and Katherine with suspicion, everyone seemed more inclined to take their own to their collective bosom and let the world beyond their neighborhood go to the devil.

It was clear to him that they all fell in love with Katherine almost as soon as they met her. She had beauty, of course, and charm and a way of dressing that was smart and elegant without in any way suggesting that she was trying to put on town airs. Her roots were in a country village. These might not be people she knew, but they were people with whom she could identify. And they recognized that in her and respected it and liked her the better for it.

And she had a way of showing interest in everyone, of deflecting attention away from herself and onto them. She listened to their stories, their woes, their triumphs, their jokes, their reminiscences of the past and always responded appropriately.

And of course-he might have expected it-she had only to mention the idea of reviving the Cedarhurst summer fete and ball for everyone to exclaim with delight and offer to help in any way they could. The older people remembered the fetes as the high point of the year and had wondered when his lordship intended restoring them.

“It had not occurred to me,” Jasper explained more than once as they moved from house to house, “since the last one happened before my birth. Now that my wife is determined to revive it, however, I am all enthusiasm.”

For which pronouncement he was always favored with a dazzling smile from Katherine and fond nods of approval from his neighbors.

The younger people could not wait for the revival of something they had heard spoken about with happy nostalgia so often down the years.

Before the three days of visits were over, they had seen everyone there was to be seen and had drunk more cups of tea and consumed more cakes than Jasper had done in a decade. And the fete was well on the way to becoming a reality. Mrs. Ellis had agreed to head a committee to organize games for the children, Mrs. Bonner had volunteered to look after the needlework contests, Mrs. Penny had been unanimously declared the best one to be in charge of the baking contests, and Mr. Cornell had been persuaded by his wife and four daughters and a sister-in-law-he had not stood a chance, poor devil-to form a committee to plan games and activities for the men.

“And an ale-drinking booth will not suffice, Cornell,” Jasper had said with a straight face.

All the ladies had laughed heartily at the witticism but had then assured Cornell that indeed it would not.

And the Reverend Bellow, Miss Daniels’s betrothed, would take it upon himself to prepare a blessing to be delivered at the opening of the fete.

“For it has been brought to my attention, my lord and lady,” he said in the gentle, serious manner that had endeared him to all his parishioners, “that the old fetes were sometimes described as being the devil’s work-which a community celebration of the joys of summer and neighborly fellowship is assuredly not. But it will be just as well to let everyone know that the Lord’s blessing is upon such innocent amusements.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Bellow,” Katherine said. “We had hoped you would do something like this, had we not, Jasper?”

“Indeed,” Jasper said, raising his eyebrows.

It was all done, then. They had established themselves with their neighbors to such a degree that he guessed social life at Cedarhurst would be active for years to come. They were to reestablish the summer fete, probably as an annual event. They were expecting a houseful of guests and two weeks of frolicking. And there was to be an apple orchard planted at the east end of the house and a rose arbor beneath their private sitting room. They had been married for a little less than one week.

If he could have seen into the future just six weeks ago, Jasper thought, and seen this, he would have wept. Or got thoroughly foxed.

He actually felt remarkably cheerful.

Of course, there was still a three-legged race to be run, which might be quite entertaining if it was Katherine’s leg that was to be bound to his own.

And fruit tarts to judge-but country ladies were always the very best of cooks.

And country dances to be jigged. Hmm.

And a houseful of mostly very young persons to entertain. Plenty of giddiness and giggling to be expected there.

And a wager to be won.

And love to be fallen into. But he already liked her very well indeed. And he already desired her-a thought best avoided for the next three weeks or so.

He had never been very good at celibacy-not since he had lost his virginity at the age of eighteen, exactly one day after leaving Cedarhurst.

Though come to think of it, he had been celibate for almost a year when he had come back to Cedarhurst after Vauxhall.

Jasper spent a full morning with his steward. He looked strangely attractive when he set off for the home farm, clad in what looked like an old, somewhat ill-fitting brown coat and drab breeches that bagged slightly at the knees and top boots that had seen better days.

Katherine spent the early part of the morning in conference with Mrs. Siddon and the rest of the morning writing long-overdue letters to Margaret and Vanessa. It felt good to relax a little after the busyness of the past few days, though there was, of course, much to be done for the house party and the fete. She had no intention of leaving everything to the servants and the neighborhood committees. But today she was going to take off just for herself.

She changed into fresh clothes after a late luncheon taken alone since Jasper had not returned from the farm, and stepped outside. Her first plan was to go down into the parterre garden to sit. But she had not yet seen any other part of the park except from a distance, and the lake was not far away.

She walked past the stable block and down the sloping, tree-dotted lawn beyond it until she came to the lakeside. The lovely summer weather was still holding. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky or a ripple of a breeze. She opened her parasol, glad she had thought to bring it with her.

She went and sat on a little wooden jetty that jutted out into the water of the lake not far from a boathouse, her knees drawn up, one arm clasped about her legs, the other holding the parasol at an angle to shield her eyes from the sun. She was surrounded on three sides by water, which was glassy calm and a shade darker than the blue of the sky. Opposite her was a grassy bank, a wooded slope above it, and a little thatched stone cottage farther to the right, which she suspected was a folly, since it looked far too small to be a real habitation. Beside it, a waterfall fell like a ribbon over the steep bank. She could even hear it from where she sat-a peaceful, rural sound. A family of ducks swam across the water, a row of little ducklings in hot pursuit of their mother, leaving V-shaped trails behind them.

Behind her were the sloping lawn, the stables, the terraces and the house, and, behind it, in a great horseshoe arc, low, tree-covered hills.

There was something very special about Cedarhurst, something that spoke to her soul. She could sit just here forever, she believed, not reading or painting or doing anything useful, not talking, not even thinking. Just being. A part of it all. Solitude had always been something she had actively sought out whenever she could. There was never quite enough of it. Perhaps here she could find both a busy life to keep her mind off the negative aspects of her marriage and peace too.

And perhaps eventually there would be more solitude than she had ever wanted. She had not really looked beyond the next few weeks. What would happen after the house party was at an end and all the guests had returned home? Would he remain at Cedarhurst? Or would boredom soon drive him away, to return again for brief, unsatisfactory visits down the years? What could she offer that would keep him here with her, after all? And did she want to keep him with her?

But she would not think of such things today. And not here.

She lowered her parasol, lifted her face to the warmth of the sun, and closed her eyes.

“A perfect setting and a perfect pose,” a voice said from so close by that Katherine realized he must be standing on the bank behind her. “Even the lemon-colored muslin dress and pale blue sash and your wedding bonnet are perfect.”

His voice was soft, amused.

Katherine looked back over her shoulder. Jasper was propped indolently against a post that had been driven into the bank, his arms across his chest. He had changed into a dark green form-fitting coat with buff-colored pantaloons that molded his muscled thighs like a second skin, and shiny Hessian boots crossed at the ankles. His neckcloth was white and crisp and tied in a neat, unostentatious knot. His shirt points were high but not dandyish. There had never been anything of the dandy about Lord Montford.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “is it so obvious that I dashed down here to observe the surroundings and then dashed back to the house to dress accordingly-just as I did with the Adamses’ garden party? Ought I to have worn just any old rags instead? And sat beside the rubbish heap?”

His eyes regarded her lazily from beneath the brim of his tall hat.

“The trouble is,” he said, “that I am not sure it would make any difference. Katherine in rags beside a rubbish heap would doubtless look just as dazzling as Katherine dressed in blue and yellow by a blue lake with blue sky and sunshine overhead.”

She hugged her knees and smiled at him.

“I always fall head over ears in love with flatterers,” she said.

“Ah, do you?” he said. “But not with those who speak from the sincerity of a pure, adoring heart? How cruel of you.”

She half wished she had not grown to like him so much. One ought not to like a man who had flatteries and deceits at his fingertips-or at his tongue’s end. But then, he always spoke them with humor and perhaps no real intention of deceiving her. He seemed to enjoy the game for its own sake.

“I suppose,” he said, “I will not make nearly as romantic a figure sprawled on the bank as you make perched on the jetty, but I will try my best notwithstanding.”

And he sat down on the bank, reclined on one side, tossed aside his hat, propped one elbow on the ground, and cradled his head in his hand. He looked lazy and relaxed and impossibly handsome. Katherine turned to face him so that she would not have to keep her head turned over her shoulder. She raised her parasol again-it was pale blue to match her sash and the ribbons and cornflowers in her bonnet.

“Not so romantic, perhaps,” she agreed. “But a tolerably pretty picture nonetheless.”

“Pretty?” He lofted his right eyebrow. “Tell me you chose the wrong word, Katherine, or I shall dive into the lake without further ado and sit sulking on the bottom until I am well and truly drowned.”

She laughed.

Laughter was the last thing she had expected of the days following her wedding. But she had been doing a great deal of laughing during the past week, she realized. But of course, he always had been able to provoke laughter in her.

“Handsome, then,” she said. “There, you have had your compliment for the day.”

They sat looking at each other. Somewhere behind her the family of ducks she had been watching earlier were having a conversation in which all seemed to be quacking at once. In the grass unseen insects were whirring and chirping. From the direction of the stables came the occasional, distant clang of a hammer upon metal. All the sounds that had accentuated the peace of this particular place in the park just a few minutes ago now drew attention to the silence between them.

Jasper plucked a blade of grass from beside him and sucked on it while he gazed at her with narrowed eyes.

And she wanted him-sharply and shockingly.

“What would you be doing now,” he asked her, “if you had not married me? If that scoundrel Forester had not stirred up scandal and forced you into it?”

“I would be at Warren Hall preparing to come here,” she said, “with Meg and Stephen.”

“And afterward,” he said, “what would you have done?”

“Gone back home to Warren Hall,” she said. “Lived there quietly until someone suggested leaving again-to go and visit Nessie and Elliott and the children, perhaps, or to go to London.”

“Your eldest sister will miss you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Why is she not married?” he asked her. “She is several years older than you, is she not, and just as beautiful in her own way. Rumor has it that Allingham made her an offer, which she refused. Is she holding out for love, as you were doing?”

“She was in love,” she said, “with Crispin Dew of Rundle Park near Throckbridge. Nessie married his younger brother, but he was consumptive and died within a year. She knew when she married him that he was dying. She loved him dearly, and he her.”

“Three romantics,” he said, “and only one got her wish. But even she married a dying man. There is a lesson for you somewhere in all that, Katherine.”

“Nessie and Elliott love each other dearly too,” she said.

“But the elder Dew did not love your eldest sister?” he asked.

“He did,” she said. “They would have married when she was very young, and I daresay they would have been happy for a lifetime. But my father had died and Meg had promised to look after us until we had all grown up and could look after ourselves. She refused to marry Crispin until much later. But he would not wait. He joined a regiment and went off to war and married a Spanish lady and broke Meg’s heart. You may laugh now, if you wish. Women are very foolish.”

“They frighten the devil out of me if you want the truth,” he said.

“Well, that, at least,” she said, “is a positive sign. With the devil gone, there is hope for you.”

He chuckled softly and sucked on his blade of grass again.

“Selfless love,” he said. “The supreme virtue. Or is it? In choosing you and your sister and brother rather than love, did Miss Huxtable perhaps doom a decent man to a life that can never bring him the happiness he might have had with her?”

She was instantly indignant. Trust Jasper to take the man’s part. Crispin might have had the patience and fortitude to wait. The wait would be almost over by now-Stephen was almost twenty-one.

“Do not people who selflessly choose the path of servitude to one or more individuals often neglect other paths and other individuals who need them just as much?” he asked her.

“Like a nun going into the convent and leaving a family bereft of her presence?” she said.

His eyes smiled.

“That would be one illustration, I suppose,” he said, “though I confess I would not have thought of it myself.”

“Or a mother so devoted to her children that she would neglect her husband?” she said.

He pursed his lips and tossed the blade of grass aside.

“That would be the husband’s fault for not paying enough attention to pleasuring her,” he said.

And trust him to give a sexual slant to what was really an interesting topic.

“Or a mother so devoted to her husband, then,” she said, exasperated, “that she would neglect her children.”

“There could never be such a mother, could there?” he said softly.

“No.”

He sat up, crossed his legs, draped his wrists over his knees, and squinted out over the water.

And she realized something. There could. Be such a mother, that was. His own mother? Had that happened to him?

“Miss Daniels,” he said in what seemed like a complete change of subject, “has been Charlotte’s governess, more lately her companion, since she was four years old. They have both been very fortunate. They are extremely fond of each other. And now, when Charlotte is ready to spread her wings, Miss Daniels is to marry the local vicar.”

“And Rachel?” she said.

“The world was a wide and wicked place,” he said, “and so Miss Rachel Finley of Cedarhurst Park remained at home. And then she remained because she was in mourning-and then because our mother had collapsed so almost completely that she needed a constant companion. And then there was the mourning again for her death. Rachel was twenty-four when she finally had a Season and made her come-out. Shocking, was it not? She was fortunate to meet Gooding. He is a thoroughly dull dog, but he is of steady character and fortune, as dull dogs tend to be, and I suspect they have an affection for each other.”

Katherine had lowered her parasol again so that she could hug both legs.

And what of him? How had his mother neglected him?

Had she been so besotted with his stepfather?

He was looking directly at her again, his eyelids drooping, a lazy smile in his eyes. But there was a tension about his shoulders and arms that told her more than ever that he wore that look as a mask when he did not wish to reveal too much about himself.

“Are you in love with me yet?” he asked her. “Can we dispense with the next three weeks? I have already told you more than once that I adore you.”

It was not a serious question-or a serious declaration. He just did not want to pursue the line the conversation had taken. She realized that.

“I am not, and will never be, even one modicum of one iota in love with you, Jasper,” she said. But she was half smiling at him.

He set one hand over his heart.

“A modicum of an iota,” he said. “I am trying to picture such an entity if it can be observed with the naked eye. Is it like a grain of sand? ‘To see the world in a grain of sand’ ?”

He was quoting William Blake at her. How could he possibly appreciate such gloriously mystical poetry when he knew nothing of dreams?

“A grain of sand,” he said, “or a modicum of one iota will be quite enough to work on. I am delighted to hear you admit that such a seed exists.”

“You are famous for not listening,” she said. “I said it did not exist.”

He raised both eyebrows.

“There is no such thing as one modicum of one iota?” he said. “You disappoint me. But I believe there must be. If there were not, you would not have mentioned it or you would simply have been making yourself sound foolish. And if it exists, then I am left to hope. Nothing that exists ever quite disappears, you know. Or is lost. If it is lost, it is merely because someone is too lazy to look for it. Despite what you may think of me, Katherine, I am not lazy. It is just that I conserve my energies for what is of importance to me. I will find that modicum of an iota and will build it from a grain of sand into a whole glorious sand castle with towers and turrets and a liveried bugler standing on the battlements blowing out his hymn of triumph. Is hymn the right word? But you understand my meaning. You will love me and bow to my adoration, my sun goddess.”

She was laughing helplessly.

But some absolutely absurd part of her wanted to be standing on one of those turrets listening to the bugler blowing his song of triumph and watching her knight ride up to the castle walls, cloak billowing, drawn sword in hand, smiling up at her in triumph and love.

There were definite disadvantages to being a dreamer. It could make one daft.

“I have not shown you anything of the park, have I,” he said, “except the parterre garden and the empty east lawn. The walk about the lake is picturesque and can be done at a sedate pace in an hour or so or at a brisk trot in considerably less. The wilderness walk up into the hills behind the house is more rugged and takes a few hours to walk in its entirety. But it was carefully constructed and offers much variety for nature lovers as well as some pleasing prospects for those who like them.”

“I would enjoy both walks,” she said.

“We will do the longer one,” he said. “Tomorrow?”

“I have promised to look in on three different committee meetings in the village tomorrow morning,” she said, “and one in the afternoon. The Misses Laycock are coming to tea the day after with their young niece. She is Charlotte’s friend, I believe.”

“Might I make an appointment to go walking with you the day after, then?” he asked. “Most humbly? On my knees if necessary?”

She smiled at him. “I ought to make you do it,” she said. “You did not do it when you proposed marriage to me. The day after tomorrow, then. I shall look forward to it.”

“I believe,” he said, “that if I had knelt to propose marriage to you, you would have kicked me in the head.”

“Probably,” she agreed.

He got to his feet, set his hat back on his head, and offered her his hand.

“Shall we go back to the house for tea?” he said. “I find that after imbibing cup upon cup of the stuff for the past three days, I now cannot do without it. Is it like alcohol, do you think? Have I become addicted to it? I cannot wait for Con to find out and Charlie and Hal.”

“Tea would be lovely,” she said, setting her hand in his.

And she meant it too. The day had brightened somehow since he came.

She was not sure if she ought to feel relieved or alarmed.

She wondered if heartbreak loomed somewhere in her future.

But she would deal with the future when it became the present.