Then Comes Seduction

20

DAMN him for an idiot!

In the game of seduction his skills and his timing were unsurpassed.

In the game of love he was the veriest dunce.

He had asked her if she loved him.

Instead of telling her that he loved her.

He was worse than an idiot. Even an imbecile would have known better.

It ought not to have mattered that he still did not know quite what he was supposed to have meant by professing love for her. He ought to have done it anyway. And he had been feeling an affection for her that he had never felt for anyone else his whole life. He had been feeling relaxed and even happy-whatever the devil that meant. He had been feeling that all was well after all, that marriage was not all that bad. No, he had been feeling more positive than that. He had been feeling that his marriage was a good thing, that it was going to bring him a contentment he had never yet known, that it was going to bring her contentment too.

He was going to suggest that they consign that wager to the devil. Instead…

In love? Do you love me, Katherine?

And then, even worse…

Did I say something wrong?

He was an embarrassment to himself. If Con could have heard him or Charlie or Motherham or Isaac… It did not bear even thinking of.

And the consequences were that for what remained of the week before Charlotte came home and all the guests arrived, they lived together like polite, amiable strangers, he and Katherine.

He could not think of a way of putting right what had gone wrong down at the lake. He could not suddenly blurt out I love you, could he? She might ask him what he meant, and then he would be left gaping like a fish with nothing to say. What would he mean?

And she made no attempt to put things right. She dived into plans and preparations for the house party and fete so that he hardly saw her. When he did, she was the vicar’s daughter-the sort of prunish woman who would not even have known the meaning of the word shift if someone had asked her, let alone cavort about in one by a lake and frolic and shriek in the water with nothing on but.

He busied himself with his steward. The man took to looking at him every time he hove into sight as if he must be suffering from a touch of sunstroke.

Deuce take it, but this marriage business was nothing but trouble after all. Not that she had done anything wrong. He might at least have enjoyed feeling aggrieved if she had. But it was him. He had been an ass.

And Couch was starting to give him wooden-faced, sour looks. So were Mrs. Siddon and even Mrs. Oliver when he went down to the kitchen one day to steal an apple. Even Cocking, for the love of God.

Mutiny at Cedarhurst!

And if anyone thought that that was a contradiction in terms-wooden-faced and sour, that was-then that person had not seen his upper servants when their eyes alit upon him.

Knowles was merely wooden-faced.

But the day of the expected arrivals came at last, and Jasper remembered the and one other thing that Katherine had mentioned when they were coming here from London. He had promised to convince her family and his that theirs was a happy, love-filled marriage.

Well, then!

He dressed with special care after an early luncheon. Cocking tied his starched neckcloth in a perfectly symmetrical knot. And he discovered when he went downstairs to the hall that Katherine too was looking her very best in a pale green cotton dress that fell in soft folds from its high waist, which was tied with a cream-colored silk ribbon. The hem and short, puffed sleeves were trimmed with narrower bands of the same ribbon. Her hair was arranged in soft, shining curls on her head with a few wavy strands arranged enticingly along her neck.

And she was smiling.

So was he.

That was the thing, though. They had smiled all week. How the devil his servants could have the gall to look sourly upon him, he did not know.

“I suppose,” she said, “that if we stand here all afternoon, no one will come. But the minute we go about our business elsewhere, there will be a half dozen or more carriages bowling up the driveway.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “we ought to go and stroll in the parterre garden and pretend that we are expecting no one. Perhaps in that way we can trick at least one carriage into showing its face.”

“A splendid idea,” she said, taking his arm. “We are not expecting anyone, are we?”

“Never heard of him,” he said. “Never expect to set eyes on him. And what a foolish name to have-Anyone. He could be anyone, after all, with a name like that, could he not?”

For the first time in a week he heard her laugh.

They stepped out of doors and descended the marble steps together to the upper terrace.

“I have heard,” she said, “that he is a very bland gentleman with an equally bland wife. The sort one might pass on the street and hardly notice at all. Which is very unfair really. Everyone is precious and really ought to be noticed.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “he ought to change his name to Someone.”

“I believe he ought,” she said. “And then everyone will notice him, and his wife, because he will be someone.”

Which silly nonsense set them both to snorting and laughing like a pair of idiots. It felt good to laugh again-with her.

“And just look,” he said, pointing beyond the parterres. “While we have been deep in intellectual discussion, a carriage has come into sight-no, two.”

“Oh,” she said, gripping his arm more tightly, “and the first carriage is Stephen’s. They are here, Jasper. And look, Stephen is riding beside it. Meg and Charlotte will be inside.”

He released her arm in order to clasp her hand and lace their fingers. Then he tucked her arm beneath his again. She was glowing with excitement, he saw, and he felt an unfamiliar fluttering of… something low in his stomach. Tenderness? Longing? Both? Neither?

Actually, though, it was not a totally unfamiliar feeling. He had felt something similar on the beach that day.

Merton reached the terrace first with Phineas Thane, who could be no more than seventeen, if that, and had the spots to prove it. Merton’s carriage was close behind them. Sir Michael Ogden rode beside the second carriage, which contained his betrothed, Miss Alice Dubois, as well as her younger sister and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois. Thane must have come with them.

Merton was off his horse in a moment. He threw a grin Jasper’s way and then caught Katherine up in a hug and swung her off her feet and in a complete circle. She wrapped her arms about his neck and laughed.

Jasper did not wait for the coachman to descend from his perch. He opened the door of the carriage and set down the steps. He offered his hand to Miss Huxtable and smiled at her.

“Welcome to Cedarhurst, Miss Huxtable,” he said.

“Oh,” she said as she descended the steps, “I think that had better be Margaret, Lord Montford. Or, better yet, Meg.”

“In which case, Meg,” he said, “I am Jasper.”

She turned to Katherine, and they held each other in a wordless hug while Jasper turned back to the carriage. But Thane had already offered his hand to Charlotte, who was smiling at him and blushing.

Well, Jasper thought, already supplanted by a spotty youth. He helped Miss Daniels alight.

But Charlotte turned to him as soon as her feet had hit the terrace, and she squealed and threw herself into his arms.

“Jasper!” she cried. “I have had such a wonderful time at Warren Hall. And really the journey here was not tedious at all, was it, Danny? There was Meg to talk to, and sometimes we let down the window and talked with Lord Merton, and then when we were changing horses at-oh, I cannot even remember where. It was three or four hours ago anyway. Along came the Dubois and Sir Michael and Mr. Thane, and we all came along together in one merry party. Oh, Kate! I have longed to see you again. And how lovely you look. But you always look lovely.”

Jasper turned to greet the other new arrivals and to welcome them to Cedarhurst. After a few moments Katherine joined him and slipped her hand into his.

The guests were shown to their rooms, and Katherine and Jasper awaited the arrival of the others. They all came before tea, one after the other.

The Countess of Hornsby was in the next carriage to arrive with her daughter, Lady Marianne Willis, and not far behind them were Sidney Shaw and Donald Gladstone, riding side by side, and Sir Nathan Fletcher and Bernard Smith-Vane, one on each side of the carriage that brought the former’s sister, Louisa Fletcher, and Araminta Clement. They had all traveled together.

Miss Hutchins came up from the village in the Reverend Bellow’s gig and was immediately claimed by Charlotte, who had come running downstairs to meet her and take her to her room.

They both squealed before they disappeared.

And then, last to arrive, came Uncle Stanley with Cousins Arnold, Winford, and Beatrice-aged seventeen, sixteen, and fourteen.

It all seemed a little like the infantry brigade, Jasper thought. All the gentlemen except Gladstone, and of course Dubois and his uncle, were years younger than himself. Miss Dubois and Miss Clement had already made their debut in society and therefore must surely be at least eighteen, but the other young ladies, with the exception of Margaret, were younger even than Charlotte. He felt like a veritable fossil.

He walked into the house with his uncle while Katherine took Beatrice’s arm and Arnold and Winford fell into step on either side of them.

“It is good to be here again where I grew up, Jasper,” his uncle said, “and to see you settled at last with a good woman. And despite all that foolish gossip in London, I do believe she is a good woman. Your father would be pleased.”

Jasper raised his eyebrows but made no comment. He wondered if his father would look somewhat like Uncle Stanley today had he lived-slightly portly but still a fine figure of a man with all his hair. There was a definite family resemblance-as there was with the cousins. He had felt bitter through most of his life about their neglect-abandoning him and Rachel because they could not stand his mother’s second husband. But it was foolish to remain bitter. It was time to mend fences.

And it struck him suddenly that if he had been born a girl, then Uncle Stanley himself would have inherited the title and property. Perhaps he had felt somewhat bitter too.

“It is good to have you here, Uncle Stanley,” he said. “I look forward to getting to know you better-and my cousins.”

“You will be shown to your rooms,” Katherine said, addressing them all when they were inside. “I am sure you will want to refresh yourselves. We will wait in the drawing room for everyone to come down for tea. Come when you are ready. There is no hurry today. Oh, we are so glad you could come. And, Mr. Finley, you look very much like Jasper. As do Arnold and Winford, particularly Winford.”

“You will call me Uncle Stanley, if you will, my dear,” he said.

“Uncle Stanley,” she said, stepping up to Jasper’s side and slipping her arm through his. “Family is so terribly important.”

And then they were alone together, the two of them, though soon everyone would be coming for tea, and the next two weeks were likely to be hectic enough. There would be chance enough to avoid each other’s company if they wished-though he had promised to give a good impression to their families.

“Well, Katherine,” he said.

“Well, Jasper.”

“Happy?” he asked.

“Happy,” she said.

But the question and its answer brought to mind the next question he had asked down at the lake. And he could see that she had the same thought.

He patted her hand.

“We had better go up to the drawing room,” he said.

“Yes.”

It was very easy to feel happy, Katherine discovered over the next week or so, when one was mistress of one’s own home, when that home was filled with guests and it was summertime and they could amuse themselves every moment of every day with walks and rides and picnics and a few excursions, with tours of the house and musical evenings and charades and a thousand and one other activities.

It was easy to feel happy when one was planning a combined birthday party and fete and ball and when the whole neighborhood was buzzing with excitement and pitching in to plan and help. And when all the houseguests were filled with enthusiasm too and could not wait for the day to arrive-except that it would be the next to last day of their stay and they were not at all anxious to return home.

It was easy to feel happy when one had family close by. It was not just her own family whose company she enjoyed. She delighted in Charlotte’s enthusiasm and she loved sitting or strolling and talking with Jasper’s Uncle Stanley, who told her tales of his own childhood at Cedarhurst, many of them involving his elder brother, Jasper’s father.

But, oh, to have Meg at Cedarhurst! And to show Meg how well she was managing the household and how well she was hosting the house party and planning the fete! And just to be able to talk to her, to sit in Meg’s room with her and just talk the old, familiar talk.

“Are you happy, Kate?” Meg asked her one day when they were sitting in her room. “Oh, I know you are enjoying these weeks, and I know you and Jasper have a fondness for each other. But is it going to be enough afterward? Kate… Oh, I do not know quite what to ask. Are you going to be happy?”

Katherine, who was sitting on the bed, hugged her knees to her chest.

“Meg,” she said, “I love him.”

It was the first time she had said it aloud. She had tried not even to think it since that day at the lake.

“Yes.” Meg smiled. “I know you do, Kate. And does he love you? I believe he does, but one can never really tell with men, can one?”

“He will,” Katherine said.

And almost she believed it. When they joked and laughed and talked nonsense together, when he pursed his lips sometimes when he looked at her, when he took her hand and laced their fingers together and held her arm to his side, even if it was done primarily to impress their guests-oh, then, sometimes, just occasionally, she believed that one day he would love her.

And, really, love was just a word. She would never demand that he use it. She would never allow herself to feel rejected and unloved if he did not. But she would know. When he loved her, she would know it.

When?

Not if ?

Sometimes she was optimistic enough to say when. More often it was if.

“And what of you, Meg?” she asked.

“What of me?” her sister asked, smiling. “It was good to be back at Warren Hall, Kate. Though I missed you-even though I had Charlotte and Miss Daniels with me.”

“The Marquess of Allingham?” Katherine asked tentatively. “Did you see him again after I left London?”

“He was at the wedding, of course,” Meg said. “He took me driving in the park the next day, but we left for home the day after that.”

“And has he said anything?” Katherine asked.

“By way of a declaration?” Meg asked. “No. I refused him once, remember.”

“But that was more than three years ago,” Katherine said.

“We are friends.” Meg smiled. “I like him and he likes me, Kate. Nothing more.”

Katherine would not press the matter further. But she did wonder about her sister’s feelings. Close as they had always been as sisters, there was the age gap between them, and she had always been aware that she was not quite Meg’s confidante. She doubted anyone was. Meg and Nessie had been close when they were younger, but Nessie had been married for a number of years, first to Hedley Dew and then to Elliott.

“Nessie is taking the children to Rundle Park for a few weeks,” Katherine said, “for Sir Humphrey and Lady Dew to see them.”

“Yes,” Meg said. “They were always terribly fond of her. They were genuinely glad for her when she married Elliott. They told her, though, that she would always be their daughter-in-law and that they would consider any children of her marriage to be their grandchildren.”

They smiled at each other.

“I am going to go with her,” Meg said. “I will stay at the cottage in Throckbridge with Mrs. Thrush. It will be good to be there for a while and to see all our old friends.”

“You must give everyone my love,” Katherine said. “I am sorry there is no one eligible for you here, Meg. All of Charlotte’s guests are very young. We did think perhaps Mr. Gladstone would single you out for attention since he is older than everyone else, but Sir Nathan Fletcher has taken to monopolizing your company instead, and he is hardly any older than Stephen.”

Meg laughed.

“He is a charming and eager boy,” she said, “and I am flattered by his attentions. I like him-as I do everyone here. It is a happy group, Kate, and much of the credit must go to you and Jasper. You are keeping us all well entertained every moment of every day.”

It was lovely to have Stephen at Cedarhurst too. He was extremely popular, as he seemed to be wherever he went. The gentlemen tended to look to him to take the lead, and all the ladies gazed at him with thinly disguised adoration. Had Katherine drawn his attention to the fact he would have replied as he always did that of course he was an earl and such an exalted title tended to dazzle people. But it was more than that. There was something… oh, what was the word? Charismatic? There was something in her brother’s very character that drew people to him.

There was a joy for life in Stephen.

Charlotte was his favorite. Or he was hers. Although all the guests mingled with all the others, more often than not it was beside Charlotte that Stephen sat or beside her that he walked or rode.

It was easy to feel happy for these two weeks. And if there was some apprehension about what would happen afterward, when all the guests had left and all the excitement was at an end and life settled, as it inevitably must, into a fixed routine, then Katherine firmly set aside her anxiety. That time would come soon enough. She would deal with it when it came.

Meanwhile she dreamed that perhaps Jasper would love her someday-even if he never said so.

Jasper could not remember a time when Cedarhurst had been so filled with guests, though his staff assured him that in his father’s day and his grandfather’s there had always been people coming and going and sometimes there had been great house parties that had brought every guest room into use.

He had been forbidden to mention his father when he was a boy. Strangely, it was one order he had obeyed-perhaps because he had not wanted to know any more about him than he already did. And perhaps because every servant had been forbidden to mention his name too. He was surprised to hear him mentioned now.

It happened one morning more than a week after the house party had begun, when he had wandered down to the kitchen in search of Katherine-she was not there-and had stayed to eat two currant cakes, fresh out of the oven. Someone mentioned the upcoming fete and someone else mentioned his father as the host of the last one.

“Did he even attend it?” Jasper asked. “He was a wastrel, was he not?”

At which Mrs. Oliver lifted the utensil she happened to be holding in her hand at that moment, a rather lethal-looking carving knife, and pointed it directly at his heart from no more than three feet away.

“I heard quite enough of that nonsense when Mr. Wrayburn was alive,” she said, “God rest his soul. But just because Mr. Wrayburn liked his Bible and his sermons and did not like liquor or dancing, that does not mean everyone who enjoyed a bit of fun now and then was the devil incarnate. You were not the devil, my lord, even though you was bad enough to grow gray hairs on the heads of everyone that cared for you. And your papa was not the devil either even though he liked his drink and his wild ways and, yes, even his women before he married your mama. At least there was laughter in this house while he was still alive, which there was precious little of after he died, Lord knows-and no one has ever persuaded me that the good Lord does not enjoy a good belly laugh from time to time. And if her ladyship, God bless her, is aiming to bring the laughter back, and even a bit of the wildness, then good for her, says I.”

Her eyes fell upon the wicked blade of the knife she had been wagging at him, and she had the grace to lower it hastily. She was flushed and out of breath.

“And so says everyone in these parts,” Couch added. “Begging your pardon, my lord, for expressing an opinion in your hearing unasked.”

“That never stopped you when I was a lad,” Jasper said. “I seem to remember growing heartily tired of hearing your opinion, Couch.”

“Well,” the butler said, looking somewhat abashed, “if you would tie the footman’s wig to the back of his chair when he nodded off in the hall, and if you would ride down the waterfall when you were wearing your good clothes and tear holes in your coat and your breeches when they caught on branches and stones on your way down, you had to expect to hear my opinion, my lord.”

“Let me hear it now again, then,” Jasper said, grinning and sitting down on one of the long benches that stretched the length of the kitchen table and helping himself to an apple, into which he bit with a loud crunch. “Tell me about my father.”

They both told him a good deal even though they exchanged a look first, as if even now they were afraid of breaking a rule set by a dead man. His mother’s second husband had cast a long, dark shadow, Jasper reflected.

He could not stay in the kitchen for long. Charlotte had borne off the young people in gigs and on horseback to the village, where they intended to look at the church-probably very briefly if Jasper knew anything about young persons-before taking refreshments in the taproom at the inn. He had promised to show the gallery to Lady Hornsby and Dubois and his wife and give them a bit of a history lesson about his family and Cedarhurst. His uncle was going to join them too.

He had hoped that Katherine would accompany him-that was why he had been looking for her-but she had vanished, probably into the village for one of her committee meetings.

The young people had in no way been tired out by their outing, it appeared later at luncheon. It was decided that they would walk about the lake during the afternoon. They had been down to the water several times, to stroll along the near bank and to picnic there and take out the boats on one occasion, but they had never yet found the time to walk to the far side-or to take the wilderness walk.

“It is really very pretty on the other side,” Charlotte explained. “There are lovely views from every point, and there are several places to sit and rest-including the little cottage, which is really just a folly. We will save the full wilderness walk through the hills for another day.”

“I would think so too,” Miss Fletcher said. “My shoes will be all worn out before I return home, not to mention my feet.”

“You must allow me to escort you, then, Miss Fletcher,” Thane said, his voice half cracking over the words, as the voices of very young gentlemen frequently did, “and you may lean upon my arm.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Thane,” she said, blushing while the younger Miss Dubois giggled.

Why did very young ladies giggle so much? And why did they do it almost without ceasing when other young ladies were with them-and even more so when there were young gentlemen within earshot? But Jasper listened to it all with an amused indulgence.

“Miss Huxtable,” young Fletcher said, “may I have the honor of escorting you?”

The poor boy had been suffering from a severe case of infatuation for Margaret all week, even though he must be at least six years her junior and in no way her match in the looks department.

She smiled kindly at him. “It would be my pleasure,” she said.

She was a kind lady.

“Shall we walk to the far side of the lake too, Jasper?” Katherine asked. “It is the one part of the walk we have not yet done.”

All heads, it seemed, turned first her way and then his, as if his answer was of the utmost importance to them all. No one had forgotten the circumstances of their marriage, of course, when so little time had passed since their wedding. Everyone’s eyes had been upon them for more than a week. They had done a great deal of smiling at each other, he and Katherine.

“We certainly shall, my love,” he said. “Especially if I may have you on my arm.”

“Of course,” she said.