Then Comes Seduction

23

LADY Forester and Clarence.

The bald-faced gall of it!

But before Jasper could express any of the outrage he felt…

Seth Wrayburn too!

“Be civil, Jasper,” Katherine murmured to him. “Do, please, be civil.”

After what the two of them had done to her? But God bless us, Seth Wrayburn! The man never stepped beyond the threshold of his own London house. Yet here he was in Dorsetshire, in company with Lady Forester and Clarence, of all people.

Jasper took himself in hand. What would more disconcert the latter two more than civility, after all?

“Ma’am? Sir? Clarrie?” he said in cheerful tones. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”

It would probably have been obvious to an imbecile, of course, that it was anything but. He had been unable quite to unclench his teeth as he spoke.

“Pleasure you may call it, Montford,” Wrayburn said, making no attempt to smile or to look anything other than thoroughly irritated. “I call it a decided displeasure, being dragged half across England over roads that are a disgrace and past tollbooths that seem to have sprouted up every half mile or so and being talked to every mortal inch of the way. I am not in any way pleased, I would have you know.”

He frowned ferociously.

“We have come, Jasper,” Lady Forester said, “to take dear Charlotte away to a home where she will be properly cared for and carefully guarded until her come-out next year. We have come-”

“If I have to listen to one more of your rehearsed monologues, Prunella,” her uncle declared, cutting her off in the middle of a sentence, “I swear I will hire a post chaise without further ado and take myself off back to the sanity of my own home in London, and the whole pack of you will find the doors barred against you for the rest of my natural life. We have come, Montford, to settle this matter of Charlotte once and for all. Prunella and Clarence claim this is an unfit home, and they are like flies in autumn, the two of them, buzzing about one’s head and trying to fly into one’s mouth and up one’s nostrils no matter how many times one tries to bat them away. I have come to see for myself. I shall see and I shall decide and then I shall go home and hope never to set eyes upon a single one of you ever again.”

“Sir.” Jasper found that his good humor was being restored. “May I have the honor of presenting Lady Montford to you? Charlotte’s great-uncle, Katherine, Mr. Seth Wrayburn.”

Katherine curtsied and Wrayburn looked at her fiercely. She was looking more than usually beautiful in her creased green dress and with her hair down and one long piece of grass clinging to a lock of it behind one ear. She also looked like someone who had been recently tumbled in the hay.

“And have you met Stanley Finley, my father’s brother?” Jasper asked. “And Mr. Dubois?”

“An unfit home?” Uncle Stanley said, ignoring the introduction. He was looking thunderous. “An unfit home when my brother’s own son is heading it with his new wife, who is the sister of the Earl of Merton? Unfit in what way, I would like to know?”

He had turned his frown upon Lady Forester and Clarence.

“Where is Charlotte,” Lady Forester asked pointedly, “while her half brother and his new wife have been off… romping together?” Her eyes raked over them with haughty contempt. “And where are all the houseguests, including all the gentlemen?”

Katherine spoke for the first time since she had murmured to him to be civil.

“They are at tea in the drawing room, I do believe, ma’am,” she said. “All the very young people will be there with Charlotte as hostess for the occasion and Miss Daniels as her chaperone. Mrs. Dubois and Lady Hornsby will be there too-they have come with their daughters to stay with us. You must all be weary after your journey. Allow us to take you up there for some tea while rooms are being prepared for you. And welcome to Cedarhurst.”

“I am surprised, Lady Montford, that you are prepared to appear in the drawing room before guests looking as you do,” Lady Forester said.

“She does indeed look almost too charming, ma’am,” Dubois said. “I quite agree with you. But indeed, my wife and I are charmed by the beauty of all the young ladies here and delighted with the good manners and breeding of all the young gentlemen. It was a splendid idea to gather them all together here in the country for a bit of summer fun. Life can be lonely and dreary for the very young.”

“What makes this an unfit home,” Clarence said, as usual speaking when he really ought to know that the best policy was to maintain a silence, “is that everyone knows Jasper’s marriage is a sham, that he married only because society demanded it of him. And that he married a social upstart who is no better than she ought to be.”

That did it!

Jasper released Katherine’s arm and strolled forward until the toes of his boots almost touched those of Clarence, who could not step back because the carriage was still directly behind him.

“Clarrie,” Jasper said in the soft, pleasant voice he reserved for those with whom he was not pleased at all, “you are a nasty little beast and I have a few scores to settle with you when the time is ripe. That time, for the sake of civility, is probably not yet, alas. But if the time is not to be now, you will apologize to my wife with abject humility so that we may proceed into the house and make you and your mama comfortable as we do with all our guests.”

“You will make the apology, Forester,” Uncle Stanley said, “if you do not want me to knock every tooth in your head down your throat.”

“And make it quick, Clarence,” Wrayburn said, sounding more irritated than ever. “I want my tea even if it does have to be taken in a roomful of people, most of them very young. And silly, I do not doubt.”

Clarence looked at Katherine before allowing his eyes to slide off to one side of her.

“I am sorry, ma’am,” he muttered.

Jasper moved his face half an inch closer.

“With abject humility, Clarrie,” he said in the same quiet, pleasant voice. He was slowly swinging Katherine’s bonnet by its ribbons.

“I beg you will forgive me, ma’am,” Clarence said, his eyes darting at her and then away again. “What I said was uncalled for.”

“How lovely it is,” Katherine said before Jasper could object further, “that Charlotte is to have her family about her for her birthday the day after tomorrow. Do come inside, all of you. You look very weary, Mr. Wrayburn. May I take your arm?”

He still looked irritated, but he allowed her to do so and they proceeded up the steps. Jasper offered his arm to Lady Forester, raising one eyebrow as he did so.

So here he was welcoming Clarrie and his mother beneath his own roof. Because Katherine had asked him to be civil. And because they had had the forethought to bring Wrayburn with them.

Perhaps the moon was made of cheese after all.

Clarence had a new, quite unbecoming bend in his nose. If he did not want another, he had better learn to keep his tongue clamped between his teeth, by Jove.

Jasper hoped fervently that he would not do so.

Provoke me, Clarrie, he thought. Please?

But there had already been provocation enough. There was no need for more.

All there was need of was the right time and place.

The conversation in the drawing room had obviously been lively enough to prevent anyone from noticing the arrival of a new traveling carriage beneath the window. It was still merry with the sort of chatter and laughter only the very young were capable of producing.

Charlotte at first looked thunderstruck when she saw her aunt and cousin appear in the doorway. Then she got to her feet and hurried across the room.

“Lady Forester and Clarrie have come to join in your birthday festivities, Char,” Jasper said.

Katherine noticed that Stephen had also got to his feet, his hands balling into fists at his sides, his eyes fixed upon Sir Clarence.

“Aunt Prunella?” Charlotte smiled at her and curtsied. “Clarence?” She nodded to him with an only slightly fading smile. “How lovely!”

“Charlotte?” Lady Forester looked about the room as if she were gauging the ages of all the gentlemen present. They paused for a moment upon Stephen. “We have come to rescue you.”

Katherine caught Stephen’s eye and shook her head slightly. But Meg already had one hand on his arm, and his hands had relaxed at his sides.

“And here is your great-uncle too, Charlotte,” Katherine said.

“Great-Uncle Seth?” Charlotte’s eyes widened, and then she smiled radiantly. “You have come to see me? You have come for my birthday?”

He looked sourly at her.

“So you are Charlotte, are you?” he said. “And a parcel of trouble you have been to me, girl, though I daresay you are not to blame for that. You are a pretty enough little thing.”

She blushed.

“Oh, thank you, Great-Uncle,” she said. “You must be tired. May I pour you a cup of tea?”

What she ought to have done was offer to introduce him to everyone else in the drawing room. But it appeared that she had done the right thing.

“One small splash of milk and two spoonfuls of sugar, slightly heaped,” he said.

“Let me have the pleasure,” Katherine said while Charlotte went darting off to the tea tray, “of introducing everyone to you, sir. And to you, ma’am, and to you, Sir Clarence, if there is anyone here you do not know.”

She proceeded to do so even though outrage over the arrival of two of them warred for the main part of her attention with a terrible awareness of how she looked-and of how Jasper looked without his coat and with her bonnet still dangling from one of his hands. She did not believe she had ever felt more uncomfortable in her life. She also had a ghastly urge to burst into laughter. She dared not look anywhere near Jasper’s face.

Civility, though, had been preserved. How they had managed it, she and Jasper, she did not know. But she felt somehow as if they had just passed one of the first great tests of their marriage and their position as lord and lady of Cedarhurst.

She could not pretend to be delighted by the unexpected, and uninvited, arrival of three new guests. She could not pretend that she had not been deeply insulted by the words Sir Clarence Forester had uttered out on the terrace. And she could not pretend either that for one shameful moment when Jasper had left her side to stride over to him, she had not hoped he would knock him senseless and evict him from his land without further ado.

But civility had called for better, and they had both risen to the occasion. She was proud of them both.

Katherine forced herself to relax as afternoon turned to evening-especially after she had finally been able to escape to her room to change her dress and repair her appearance. There was really nothing to which Lady Forester and her son could take exception. Almost all the female guests were girls more than young ladies. Almost all the male guests were well below the age of majority and were boys more than men. Even Sir Nathan Fletcher, who was a friend of Stephen’s from university, was only twenty-one. Stephen himself was not quite that.

And the young people were very well chaperoned indeed. The Countess of Hornsby, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, Uncle Stanley, Miss Daniels, not to mention Jasper and Katherine herself-all of them kept an eye upon their own charges and everyone else’s. No, Lady Forester would have nothing about which to object.

She found something anyway.

It happened in the drawing room after dinner, just before the gentlemen joined the ladies. Someone in the group of young ladies that had gathered about the pianoforte mentioned the fete and the ball. The older ladies were gathered about the fireplace, conversing about something else.

“Mr. Shaw and Mr. Thane,” Hortense Dubois said, “are going to join in the tug-of-war at the fete. I do not know if any of the other gentlemen will find the courage to join them. I can scarcely wait to see it.”

“I would join in myself,” Jane Hutchins said, “if I could be sure of being on the winning side.”

There was a gust of girlish laughter.

“Girls-ladies-are not allowed,” Lady Marianne said, pulling a face. “We might get muddy. Men have all the fun.”

“But just imagine, Marianne,” Araminta Clement said, “losing the pull and being dragged into a mud bath. In one’s best dress.”

“But everyone who is to be in the tug-of-war and in the mud wrestling,” Louisa Fletcher said, “is to bring old clothes to wear. And then, if they get muddy-or when they get muddy if they are wrestling-they are to swim in the lake to clean themselves and change into their good clothes.”

“Not on the bank in full sight of everyone, I hope,” Beatrice Finley said, fanning her face vigorously with a sheet of music.

“Oh, my!” Alice Dubois exclaimed, a hand over her heart. “Perhaps I can persuade Michael to join the tug-of-war.”

There was another flurry of girlish giggles.

“Fete?” Lady Forester said sharply from the other group of ladies. She looked at Katherine. “Fete? What fete?”

Katherine smiled.

“Jasper and I have decided to revive an old tradition of holding an annual summer fete and ball at Cedarhurst,” she explained. “There has not been much time to organize it this year, but everyone for miles around has pitched in to help so we are able to combine it with the celebration of Charlotte’s birthday the day after tomorrow.”

Lady Forester’s bosom had swelled.

“Ball?” she said. “In the ballroom? For girls who are not even out yet?”

It will be the only room large enough,” Katherine said. “All our neighbors will be attending as well as the houseguests. And all ages, too.”

“There cannot be that many people of genteel birth living close enough,” Lady Forester said.

“Everyone has been invited,” Katherine said.

“Everyone?” Lady Forester’s bosom swelled even further. But she was prevented from making any other comment by the arrival of the gentlemen from the dining room.

It was a few minutes before everyone had settled with their tea and Alice Dubois had taken her seat at the pianoforte with her betrothed standing behind her to turn the pages of her music. But as soon as everyone had settled and before the music could begin or any sustained conversation, Lady Forester spoke up again for all to hear.

“Uncle Seth,” she said, “did you realize that instead of a discreet birthday party here the day after tomorrow for dear Charlotte’s birthday, there is to be a fete and a ball?”

“I did not, Prunella,” he said with a scowl. “But thank you for the warning. I shall be sure to spend the day in my room-with the window closed.”

“Everyone is invited,” she said. “Everyone. That includes tenants and laborers and shopkeepers and other such, I presume. And Charlotte is to be allowed to dance in the ballroom during the evening. Surrounded by riff-raff. And there is to be mud wrestling and a tug-of-war over mud. Is this a fitting home for your great-niece and my niece and my dear dead brother’s daughter?”

“Clarrie,” Jasper said pleasantly, “there is room for another man or two on the tug-of-war teams, I believe. I daresay we can find you a place at the back of one of the lines-or at the front if you prefer.”

“Uncle Seth,” Lady Forester said, “my brother banned the annual fete when he married Charlotte’s dear mother. He banned it because it was vulgar. But more than that, it was sinful. He took a moral stand and refused to have Rachel and Jasper and Charlotte exposed to something so wicked.”

“I believe, ma’am,” Jasper said, “you would wish our guests to understand that your esteemed brother had the state of Rachel’s immortal soul in mind and mine when he announced the ban, but not Charlotte’s. It would have been nothing short of scandalous if she had been in existence at the time, just after his marriage to my mother.”

Mr. Dubois laughed aloud, and Mrs. Dubois silenced him with a pointed look. The young ladies all blushed and the young men looked interested.

“For the love of all that is wonderful, ma’am,” Uncle Stanley said, sounding thoroughly exasperated, “what Wrayburn did do with his pious ways was kill all the joy that had ever existed at Cedarhurst and besmirch my brother’s name. All in the name of a god of wrath I would not worship even if he heated up hell ten times over for my benefit.”

“Our papa,” Arnold Fletcher said from the far side of the pianoforte, his voice shaking slightly, “has told us so many grand tales of the Cedarhurst fetes that I can almost imagine that I had been at one. I cannot wait for the day after tomorrow.”

“Katherine and Jasper have worked very hard,” Margaret said quietly, “so that everyone in the neighborhood from the youngest child to the oldest grandparent can have a day of pure enjoyment.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“It is too bad, Prunella,” Mr. Wrayburn said, “when a man may not enjoy his after-dinner tea without being talked to and appealed to when he has said that he will make his decision in his own good time and with his own perfectly capable powers of observation. I’ll be damned before I leave home again.”

“Perhaps, Miss Dubois,” Katherine said, “you will play for us now? You always do it so well. And, Jasper, I believe Lady Hornsby and Miss Daniels would like to play cards if there are two gentlemen wishful of joining them. Sir Clarence, perhaps? And Mr. Gladstone? Is anyone ready for more tea?”

Lady Forester pressed her lips together and said no more. Margaret sat beside her and engaged her in conversation. Mrs. Dubois joined them.

Katherine was standing by the window in her bedchamber later that night, brushing out her hair, when Jasper opened the door from the private sitting room without knocking. He had seen beneath the door that a candle was still burning.

She was wearing the nightgown she had worn on their wedding night.

Come to me tonight, she had said out on the hill.

Well, here he was.

He propped one shoulder against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest, his bare feet crossed at the ankles.

This afternoon had been just an appetizer. He wondered if she realized that.

She smiled at him, and the brush stilled in her hair.

“Is this what women who are no better than they ought to be do to entice their lovers?” he asked.

“You ought to know the answer to that better than I,” she said.

“Minx!” He pursed his lips and pushed himself away from the door frame to advance farther into the room. “Did that charge hurt you? And the accusation of being a social upstart?”

“I can be hurt,” she said, “only by people I respect.”

Which was probably as big a lie as she had ever told. It had made him see red.

“And you do not respect poor Clarrie.” He took the brush from her hand, turned her to face the window again, and drew it down the back of her head and all the way to the ends of her hair at her waist. “I did not avenge you very thoroughly, did I?”

“I found myself wishing,” she said, “that you would punch him in the nose, as Stephen once did, and hoping that you would not. It is precisely what Lady Forester and her like would expect you to do. I am glad you rose to the occasion and played the well-mannered host instead-though you did call him a nasty little beast. Which he is.”

She laughed softly, and he drew the brush through her hair again.

“I will avenge the insult,” he promised her.

“The baser part of my nature is glad to hear it,” she said. “But there must be no violence here, Jasper. It would be unseemly. And it might be the very thing that will cause Mr. Wrayburn to decide that this is indeed an unfit home for Charlotte.”

He set the brush down on the windowsill, moved the heavy column of her hair to one side, and set his lips against the back of her neck. She was warm and smelled of soap.

“Mmm,” she said, lifting her shoulders.

“There will be no violence,” he said. “Not, at least, anything anyone would classify as wanton viciousness. I have just the plan.”

“Oh, what?” She turned to face him, all eager curiosity, the bloodthirsty wench, and, when he did not step back, she set her hands on his shoulders.

“You will know when the time comes,” he said. “It will be quite unmistakable.”

And reasonably satisfying since he could not in all conscience use his fists while Clarence was a guest in his home. Quite satisfying, in fact.

“But you are not going to tell me now,” she said.

“I am not.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But must we talk about Clarrie Forester? I seem to recall that I had other plans when I came here.”

“Did you?” she said. “What?”

He smiled at her and kissed her mouth softly as he grasped the sides of her nightgown and lifted it up off her body. Not to be outdone, she pulled free the sash that bound the waist of his silk dressing gown and it fell open. He was wearing nothing beneath it.

“This, I believe,” he said, tossing her nightgown aside and shrugging out of his dressing gown.

“Ah,” she said and set her hands on his shoulders again.

Whatever had once made him believe that he liked heavily voluptuous women best when there were slenderly curvaceous, long-legged women like Katherine in existence? With gold-flecked hair that smelled of soap?

He drew her against him and ran his hands down her back from her shoulder blades to her buttocks. He opened his mouth over hers and she kissed him back.

I love you, he had told her this afternoon, and she had told him there was no need to say the words. She did not believe that he meant them.

And did he?

Would he be in any doubt if he did ? But did it matter anyway? He was committed to her happiness for the rest of his life. He might as well call it love. What else could he call it?

“Jasper,” she said when he was kissing his way along her throat, “take me to bed.”

He raised his head and smiled down at her.

“Ah,” he said. “I had almost forgotten again. That is why I came to your room.”

And he scooped her up in his arms and strode toward her bed.

He followed her down onto it after dropping her there.

“I love you,” he said just before engaging her mouth with his own again.

“Oh, silly,” she said.

Well. Monty the great lover-silly!

“There has to be punishment for that insult,” he said.

“Show me.” She pulled his head down to her own.

She was laughing.