Then Comes Seduction

He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, leaving his curls more rumpled than ever.

“I knew you would refuse,” he said, “and I don’t blame you. I would in your place. I told Elliott you would refuse, and he said of course you would. But the thing is that perhaps you ought at least to see Monty and listen to what he has to say. If it is known that he made the offer but that you refused, then perhaps things will look a little better for you. I am not sure they will, but-”

“I am not interested in things looking better,” she said. “I am not interested in things at all, Stephen. And I do not care what anyone thinks. I want to go home. I want my life back. I want to forget that any of this happened.”

“But it did happen,” he said. “And I don’t think you will forget. I doubt anyone else will either.”

“Kate.” Margaret had sat back down. She was paler than ever. “Stephen and Elliott are right, you know. You have done no wrong in any of this. We know it. But the truth does not seem to matter in this new world we moved into three years ago when Stephen inherited the title. Only respectability matters. Lose that, and it seems you lose everything. Perhaps you ought to see Lord Montford and listen to his offer and then refuse it. Elliott has considerable influence. Good heavens, he is a duke. And Stephen is an earl. Together they can put it about that you behaved with the utmost propriety but that you had the courage to declare your i

Katherine gazed reproachfully at her.

“Besides,” Margaret added, “if you refuse to receive Lord Montford, Kate, it might be perceived that Elliott and Stephen could not bring him up to scratch, that they were unable to defend your honor as they ought.”

“And they defend my honor by marrying me to a heartless scoundrel?” Katherine said.

She was being unfair. He was not that. It was Sir Clarence Forester who deserved that description.

But her brother and sister had said their piece, it seemed, and had nothing to add. They looked at her, both faces still pale with misery.

And all this was not just about her, Katherine realized suddenly. This was about all of them. Even if she could go slinking off back to Warren Hall, or even all the way back to Throckbridge and somehow pick up her life where she had left it off there soon after Valentine’s Day more than three years ago-and it was a big if-but even if it could be done, she would be leaving Meg and Stephen and Nessie to live with the consequences of this horrible scandal.

And she was not entirely blameless.

Her family was, though.

She still could not see quite how she could help her family by seeing Lord Montford this afternoon. She really, really did not want to do it. She never wanted to see him again.

But Stephen thought she ought. So did Elliott.

And so did Meg.

“Very well, then.” She looked defiantly from Meg to Stephen. “I will receive Lord Montford this afternoon and I will listen to what he has to say. I will say one word in reply-no! But I will see him.”

“I do think you ought,” Stephen said. “Though my knuckles still itch to go at his face.”

“Kate,” Meg said, twisting her hands in her lap. “Oh, Kate, I let you down. I ought to have stayed with you in London three years ago, and what happened then would not have happened. Neither would everything that has happened this year.”

Katherine closed the distance between them, grabbed her sister about the shoulders, and hugged her tightly.

“Meg,” she said, “you have been the best of sisters. The very best. I am not going to have you blaming yourself, even if I have to marry Lord Montford to prevent it.”

Not that it was going to come to that.

But the very idea of Meg trying to shoulder the blame, as she always did when something threatened any one of them!

13

IT had occurred to Jasper that since Merton had not yet reached his majority, it might be more to the point to speak to his guardian first. But when he had arrived at Moreland House late in the morning, he had found the two men together.

It was just as well. It had been a dashed uncomfortable interview, but at least it did not have to be repeated once it was over.

No punches had been thrown and no gauntlet dashed in his face, though both men had looked murderous enough and Merton had grabbed him by the neck when he first appeared in the ducal library and raised his fist. Jasper had expected a bulbous nose to match Clarence’s-and had had no right to defend himself, by Jove.

The ensuing interview had been brief, hostile, deuced uncomfortable, and relatively civil. And the result of it was the afternoon call he was about to make.

Was there any way he could have predicted all this twenty-four hours ago? Would that damned weasel have dared open his mouth last night if he had gone to that infernal soiree instead of leaving the field clear for Katherine Huxtable-who also had not been there?

But dash it all, there had been rumblings of gossip even before Clarence had orchestrated them to a veritable roar.

Hell and damnation! His mind followed up that mild begi

He felt not one whit better when he arrived outside Merton House.

He half expected that he would be tossed from the door by some burly footman hired for that express purpose and that that would be that-reprieve, freedom, and a guilt that would doubtless nag at him for at least the next decade or two.

Damnation!

When had he developed a conscience? At Vauxhall on a certain memorable occasion? It was a dashed uncomfortable thing. He did not like it at all.

He was not tossed from the door or even informed politely that he must go away as Miss Katherine Huxtable had decided not to see him within the next billion years or so.

He was admitted and shown into the library just as if this were any afternoon social call-the same library where he had seen her for the first time in years when she had let herself into the room to greet Con.

A fateful evening, that. If he had not accepted Merton’s invitation to come here for a drink… If she had stayed upstairs and been content to wait a day or so before seeing Con… But fate had been playing one of its fiendish little games. He might as well add that if he had not invited his friends back to his house on his twenty-fifth birthday, then he would not be here now.

And if his father had not met his mother… Or his grandfathers his grandmothers…

But there was no time to go all the way back to Adam and Eve with his reflections upon the vagaries of fate, and no time to collect his thoughts and rehearse one more time the words he must speak. He discovered in some surprise that she was in the room before him.

Alone.

She was standing in front of one of the long windows, between the desk and one of the bookcases-in almost the exact spot, in fact, where he had stood that evening, feeling rather like a rat caught in a trap. She was not even standing with her back to the room, pretending to admire the view. She was facing the door. Her eyes were fixed steadily on him.

She was dressed in white muslin, an unfortunate choice today, perhaps, as it offered no contrast to her pale complexion. Her hair had been brushed ruthlessly back from her face and twisted into a knot behind her head.