pondered on just what it was about his provoking wife that made him want her so badly. And more than want her physically. True, she was beautiful, whatever she said to disparage her looks—but then he had experience of diamonds of the first water. True, she was brave, intelligent, resourceful and devastatingly unconventional when circumstances called for it—was that enough to make him lie awake at night wondering how to make her laugh, how to please her?
She had shared his bed twice, lain in his arms and left him as innocent as she had joined him. That, certainly, was provoking enough of sensual longings. But there were women aplenty to take care of inconvenient physical urges. Startled, Nick realised that the thought of being with any other woman was not so much repulsive as utterly impossible to conceive of. It was as though he was thirsty and someone had suggested he drink sea water. A shiver ran through him with the realisation that nothing was ever going to be the same again, whether he lost her or made her his.
‘My lord! I beg you to be still.’ Cuthbertson, flustered by almost taking a snip out of his new employer’s ear, stepped back hurriedly. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, it was my own—’
‘No, I moved. Have you finished? You may shave me when I have had my bath.’
‘That will be the footmen with the water now.’ The valet put down the scissors with a tremulous hand and hastened to the door. To send a marquis to a ducal ball with a cut ear! He would never have lived it down, never.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Katherine started nervously as the clock struck the half-hour, to be followed by a tap on the door. ‘It is only me!’ Lady Fanny called coyly.
‘Urn …’
‘I had better let her in,’ Jenny said, rolling her eyes heavenwards as she went to open the door. ‘You’ll have to go down some time, you know.’
‘I know.’ Katherine took a steadying breath and stood up as her chaperon fluttered in. Lady Fanny was wearing a surprisingly elegant, if subdued, gown of dove-coloured silk and a headdress that clearly proclaimed by its ruching and feathers that she was amongst the chaperons and dowagers for the evening.
‘My dear Katherine!’ She stopped in the middle of the room and threw up her hands. ‘Oh, my goodness!’
‘Is something wrong?’ She should have known—something was unsuitable, or insufficiently elegant or …
‘You look ravishing, Katherine, positively ravishing. Oh, to be twenty again.’
‘Thank you, although I have to confess to being rather more than twenty.’ Cheered, Katherine managed to smile despite the cloud of butterflies in her stomach. ‘Your gown is lovely, Lady Fanny.’
The spinster patted the silken folds tenderly. ‘I have to confess to a weakness for evening gowns and treat myself to a new one every year.! She made it sound as though she were revealing a serious addiction to gaming. ‘But truly, my dear, that gown is quite inspired. Is it only from a Newcastle modiste?’
‘Yes, one Nicholas recommended.’ Katherine began to pull on her long kid gloves, holding out her arms in turn for Jenny to fiddle her way down the row of tiny pearl buttons.
‘Well, I never.’ Lady Fanny looked positively roguish. ‘Of course, he would know all the most fashionable establishments.’ She fluttered a little under Katherine’s startled gaze. ‘You must know he was quite the rake as a young man—so good looking too, although I have to confess he has grown even more so. All the girls were after him, and not just the respectable ones, if you follow me. Still, he sobered up when he fell for that Somersham chit—not that that lasted long when Cousin Lionel came to hear of it. Still, that is all in the past now and here he is home to become respectable again.’ She beamed happily, apparently forgetful of Katherine’s ambiguous position in Nicholas’s redemption.
‘Why was she so unsuitable, the Somersham girl?’ she asked curiously.
Lady Fanny shrugged. ‘The family was well to do enough, but not good ton, you understand—gentlemen farmers for the most part. And her father was always in and out of debt; apparently a fatal tendency to gaming of all kinds.’ She handed Katherine her reticule and twitched her own skirts into order. ‘Now, where did I put my fan? Oh, yes, here it is. A very pretty child though, Annabelle, or Arabella, I cannot recall exactly. Big blue eyes, golden curls and she always looked helpless. Men seem to like that.’
There was plenty in that to digest, Katherine thought grimly as Jenny fussed round her. ‘Will you come back up after dinner, Miss Katherine?’
‘Yes, thank you, Jenny,’ she agreed absently. So, the Duke had disliked an alliance with the daughter of a gamester and had disapproved of a girl from a gentry family. That could be me, if one substitutes brother for father, she acknowledged. It was as she had known all along, her instinct that this marriage could not stand was well founded. But this evening I am not going to remember that and I am going to make very certain that Nick is going to recall more about a brown-eyed, practical lady than he does about a blue-eyed helpless one.
‘Shall we go down?’ she suggested, following one step behind her chaperon as an unmarried girl should.
Nick was standing in the Crimson Salon, the main reception room that led into the larger of the dining rooms, parrying the questions, subtle and not so subtle, that old acquaintances, neighbours and almost-forgotten friends were asking.
It was not an easy task to reveal very little while at the same time not creating an air of mystery that would provoke even more gossip.
‘Yes, indeed, Lady Jarvis, I have to confess to fighting as a common trooper; a most instructive experience.’
‘Brave man,’ the dowager barked, rapping him painfully on the forearm with her fan. ‘Eccentric, but at least you weren’t gadding about like so many young officers seem to. At Waterloo, were you? Bad affair that, for all that we won. What does the Duke say about it, eh?’
‘I believe he would agree with you in categorising my behaviour as eccentric, ma’am.’ Nick smiled and passed on to greet another guest.
‘Lady Fanny Craven, Miss Cunningham,’ the footman announced as Nick turned to look at the door. At first he did not see her; several of Fanny’s old friends had turned too and moved to greet her.
Then the space between him and the doorway cleared. There was Kat and he was back in the Assistant Governor’s office in Newgate with the force of that first impression catching the breath in his throat. And as he had seen then, she was beautiful. Huge brown eyes, wide cheekbones tapering to a pointed chin, a mass of dark blonde hair caught up into elaborate coils in a gilt net—lovely, terrified, brave.
He doubted anyone else could see the fear she was controlling so firmly, but he knew his Kat. At least, he corrected, staring at the slender figure in its exquisitely simple gown, he knew several Kats, but not this one. Not this poised, lovely young lady who was following her chaperon obediently over to greet his father. He had seen a cheetah once: beautiful, sleek, apparently passive to its handler’s leash, until it had stood up and walked towards him with a grace that spoke eloquently of its power and its danger.
It was not the domestic cat, the docile single miss that she was pretending to be that he saw, but a strong, resolute, unconventional
