sly comments and overfamiliar touches whenever he could force himself closer to her by using the crush of guests as an excuse and if she didn’t get away from his damp, cruel hands and hungry eyes soon she was going to be sick. Eventually she disgusted herself by taking to her heels and fleeing his far-too-persistent and public pursuit, even resorting to the ladies’ withdrawing room where even he wouldn’t have the gall to follow her.
Sure the man would think nothing of compromising her into marriage if that was the only way he could get his repellent hands on her fortune, she quit her temporary sanctuary and trespassed into the private part of the house to plan a rapid retreat to Derbyshire and the safety of Kit’s fearsome protection, if her determined evasion of Mr Bestholme didn’t persuade the human leech she wasn’t going to be tricked, pressured or just plain forced into marriage.
It seemed a coward’s way out even to her, but it sounded so tempting after the last few weeks of disappointed hopes and mistaken dreams. To be in Derbyshire with spring softening even the starkly beautiful peaks with its lovely bounty, to breathe in good clean air and be able to ride all day without having to be civil to a soul if she didn’t choose to meet one, seemed like heaven just at the moment. And what a relief it would be to escape the nagging feeling that three years ago she’d turned away the one man who could have made leaving her beloved Wychwood for a new life as his wife and mother of his children a wonderful adventure, rather than an impossible sacrifice.
Yet even while she was searching through possible excuses for running away, mentally planning her journey and thinking up a story that would convince Kit and Miranda when she got home that she was perfectly well and happy, just jaded with London and the social Season, she knew she couldn’t do it. There were her detractors to outface and, more important than any of them, there was Izzie, who would be here very soon—how could Kate not be here to witness her little sister’s social triumphs and enjoy her lively company once more? It might hurt far too much that Edmund had decided to look elsewhere for a bride and a lover, but she was an Alstone and would not turn tail and run at the first setback put in her path by unkind fate.
There was Eiliane to consider as well, of course, and, come to think of it, she was oddly distracted tonight and unlike her usual sharp-eyed self for some reason. Her chaperon had hardly seemed to notice Bestholme’s increasingly bizarre behaviour tonight and Kate frowned as she wondered belatedly if there was something seriously wrong with her dear friend and mentor. Then she had her two newest friends to see safely wed, of course, and Amelia Transome had gallantly deployed her most determined chatter on Kate’s behalf tonight in a selfless way that commanded equal loyalty. Even Mr Cromer had put his stalwart silence between her and Mr Bestholme as often as he could without seeming too particular himself, but nothing had put the awful man off his single-minded pursuit of her fortune.
Kate could practically hear the ill-natured gossip breaking out all around her if she went back into the ballroom to make sure her chaperon wasn’t sickening for something. Awarding herself five minutes of peace and quiet would do no harm, she assured herself cravenly, and stole on through the half darkness of the private rooms of their host and hostess’s town house with a guilty sense of playing truant from reality and fortune hunters, as well as intruding on their privacy.
Edmund eyed the assembled company and almost wished he’d stayed in Herefordshire this Season after all. Yet the fine hairs on the nape of his neck were prickling as if trying to warn him of some danger the rest of him was slow to pick up. Lady Tedinton, with her silly pretence that he had already been her lover and would shortly be so again, was a damnably inconvenient complication he’d certainly not bargained for and he’d had to waste far too much time tonight avoiding her very obvious lures and any hint he might be susceptible to them. He did his best not to meet her gaze as he searched the room in vain for a glimpse of Kate’s glorious red curls, but something told him he’d soon have to take the time and trouble to convince Selene Tedinton once and for all that she meant nothing to him and never would, in terms even she couldn’t misinterpret as part of the game she so loved to play.
‘Something’s amiss,’ Cromer informed him brusquely as he joined him with a worried frown on his face.
‘There’s always scheming afoot at affairs like this one,’ Edmund responded coolly, even if his friend’s unease only added to his own.
‘Miss Transome claims that Lady T. and Bestholme are up to something,’ Cromer said with resigned acceptance that Amelia’s sayings and doings were more important to him than he’d dreamed they could be until recently.
‘Any idea what?’ Edmund asked, suddenly very interested in them as well.
‘Don’t know. Unholy pair at the best of times. Welcome to each other, except the Tedinton woman keeps looking at Miss Alstone as if she’d like to kill her slowly, then stamp on her grave. Miss Transome’s convinced the woman’s hatching a scheme to put Miss Alstone out of the picture for good so far as you’re concerned.’
‘She’s mistaken her adversary then,’ Edmund said curtly.
‘Or her quarry.’
‘Yes, she couldn’t be more wrong there,’ Edmund replied softly.
‘Going to stand here gossiping all night, then?’ Cromer prompted.
‘No, I’ll deal with the harpy in my own good time, after I’ve tracked down Miss Alstone and seen her safely back to her chaperon’s side once more.’
‘Aye, she’s been gone too long for her own good. You go and find out where she’s up to and we’ll cover your backs as best we can.’
‘Thank you, the confounded woman is a damned nuisance at the best of times and this isn’t one of them,’ he said grimly. ‘Sometimes I’d like to strangle her.’
‘Better marry her as soon as possible instead—obviously made for each other,’ his friend said with understated irony that was currently wasted on Edmund as he fumed at Kate’s protracted absence.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Edmund said tersely and with a casual look about him to locate the Marchioness of Pemberley and Bestholme, who was, luckily for him, still in the ballroom and not pursuing Kate around the half-lit gardens or goodness only knew where else she might be hiding herself.
Satisfied Kate’s chaperon was engrossed with old friends now and blissfully unaware that anything was amiss, he left by way of the card room as if he hadn’t a care in the world, even as he fought an irrational fury that Kate hadn’t come to him for help instead of bolting for the shadows. After searching the quieter rooms of their host’s residence, he was beginning to think trouble existed in Miss Transome’s overheated imagination when he caught the faint, unmistakable scent of Kate Alstone lingering in an otherwise deserted corridor leading towards his host’s library. He stilled his already near-silent footfall and listened for any further sign of the elusive, overly independent female.
Despite knowing very well she should return to the ballroom and prepare to endure a whole evening of dodging Bestholme as stoically as she had it in her to manage, Kate had wandered furtively on through private rooms she knew very well she shouldn’t intrude into. The farther she got from the ball, the more she felt like a hind with the noise and threat of hounds and huntsmen fading behind her and the harder she found it to turn about and go back. She scoured a dark room for unexpected fortune hunters and allowed herself a huge sigh of relief once her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she still found no sign of the repulsive creature—nor any hidden galleries or dangerously secluded corners he might spring out from.
Sinking into a snug high-backed chair by the unlit fire, she wondered if the lady of the house sat there to embroider or read whilst her husband laboured
