he might ask Nick for his opinion before obeying her orders. But when she hurried downstairs in her flowing habit the groom was waiting patiently, Lightning and his own hack by his side.
He gave her a careful lift into the saddle with cupped hands under her foot and waited while she settled herself. Katherine felt a momentary stab of nerves: was she really ready for this without Nick?
‘We will walk the entire way, please,’ she said, missing the look of relief on the groom’s face. He did not want to be the man in charge when the mistress fell off, that was for sure.
In the event the ride was completed successfully and Katherine toyed with the idea of asking Nick to teach her to trot soon. When they were talking again, that is.
Heron assured her that it would not be the slightest inconvenience if she partook of luncheon and ventured that he expected his Grace downstairs at any moment. Katherine hastened along to the small dining room, concerned not to be late and irritate the Duke. In the event she arrived at the same time as virtually the entire household, including Lady Fanny and a pale young man she did not recognise.
‘My dear, you are joining us. Delightful.’ His Grace seemed pleased to see her.
‘Thank you, your Grace.’
Robert pulled out a chair for her on the Duke’s right hand and beamed at her. ‘I have not seen you for what seems like an age. Where has Nick got to?’
‘He is at the Dower House with his tailor,’ Katherine helped herself to bread and butter. ‘I rode over with a groom.’
‘Then the riding is going well?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Very well, provided we only walk. Although I have to confess to thinking I might venture to trot soon. The reason I came over today is because I wanted to ask if there is anything I can do to assist with the preparations for the ball.’
‘Not a thing, my dear, but it is good of you to ask.’ The Duke nodded in the direction of the pale man who was sitting silently beside Katherine. ‘Jeremy has everything entirely under control as usual. Ah, perhaps I have been remiss—can it be that you have not yet been introduced to Mr Greene, my secretary? Jeremy, Lady Seaton.’
‘Ma’am,’ he murmured, blushing.
‘Are you resident here?’ Katherine asked. He was very self-effacing, but surely she would have noticed him before?
‘No ma’am. I live in the village with my mother, who is widowed, and his Grace is good enough to allow me to come in daily—’
He broke off with a start as the door opened and Nick strode in, looking thunderous. ‘Katherine! So here you are.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘What the devil are you doing, jauntering about the countryside by yourself without a word to anyone?’ He appeared to become aware of the other occupants of the room, but his frown did not abate. ‘Cousin Fanny, I beg your pardon. Well, Kat?’
A swift glance in the Duke’s direction warned her that he was about to take exception both to his son’s entrance and his speech. She said brightly, ‘Oh, did Paulson not tell you I was riding over here?’
The Duke relaxed and sat back in his chair; Katherine had the distinct feeling that he was amused.
‘You could have broken your neck!’ Nick was not about to be appeased.
‘I had a groom with me,’ Katherine riposted with sweet reasonableness.
‘And what good would he be if you fell off?’
‘He would have helped me up, I trust. And I am pleased I came over today, for I have just met Mr Greene.’
The shy secretary appeared to be attempting to wriggle backwards out of his seat. Katherine favoured him with a warm smile that made her husband’s eyes narrow. He said abruptly, ‘May I join you, sir?’
‘Please do,’ his brother begged, before their father could speak. ‘You are giving me acid indigestion fuming just behind my shoulder. Here, have some sirloin and stop lecturing Katherine, we do not want you putting her off coming to see us.’
‘Have your tailors gone?’ Katherine asked with what she hoped might be seen as a proper wifely concern.
‘Yes, we were slightly delayed as one of them thought he had swallowed a pin. I cannot imagine why.’ He was teasing her; obviously he had forgiven her—whether she was quite ready to be easy with him was another matter.
‘Extraordinary,’ Katherine agreed solemnly, biting her lip so as not to smile at the teasing twinkle in his eyes: it was quite impossible to resist Nick when he looked like that. ‘Perhaps he had a shock?’
‘Katherine,’ the Duke remarked to his elder son, ‘has been dutiful enough to come over especially to offer her assistance with the preparations for the ball: a courtesy that neither of my sons has seen fit to extend.’
Robert did not rise to the bait, merely dropping one lid in the ghost of a wink to his sister-in-law. Nick too had his own way of dealing with provocation. ‘Sir, unless things have changed greatly since I have been away, any attempt to interfere with your plans to present Seaton Mandeville en fête would be spurned.’ He passed the secretary the mustard. ‘Naturally, had I known you wished me to, I would have hastened over and ordered flower arrangements, or decided on the order of dances …’
Surely the Duke would respond in kind, make some light remark? Instead his eyebrows rose haughtily and he said, ‘As it happens, your assistance is not required.’
Katherine felt the set-down as acutely as if it had been directed at her, and she felt her cheeks colour. She glanced under her lashes at Nick, but he seemed unmoved, only the ironic twist of his mouth telling her that he too had felt the touch of ice. But of course, he must be used to it, expect it. This was the way relations between father and son had always been.
Biting her lip, she continued making conversation with Mr Greene and listening with every appearance of fascination to Lady Fanny recounting how amazing it was that she had thought to put in her ball gown. ‘Quite a miracle, so providential because of course I had no reason to suppose … and I only put it out by accident. Such a scatterbrained thing to do, was it not?’
It was difficult to answer that without discourtesy. Katherine said warmly, ‘But providential, as you said.’ Her mind was somewhere else entirely. Could she do anything, say anything, to help reconcile Nick and his father in the days she had left at Seaton Mandeville? And what influence could an embarrassment of a daughter-in-law, one who was soon to be set aside, have in any case? The Duke had been kind to her beyond her deserts, but he would not welcome presumption, of that she was convinced.
The days before the ball passed for Katherine with a sense of unreality. Nick appeared to have recovered from whatever alarm her riding without him had produced and taught her to trot. Katherine was very proud of herself, once she had stopped falling off, and her husband had not laughed at her once.
She had also forgiven him for the ball gown, sensibly realising that it was the most beautiful garment she would ever wear and to spurn
