Then Comes Seduction

“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 pla

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 pla

“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?”