A Little Scandal (26 page)

“Why,” Kate asked, “can’t I go on living here?”

“Well, because people will talk, Kate. And we don’t want Isabel to find out, now do we?”

Kate looked back up at the canopy. It rather hurt her to look at him, naked as he was. He was still so powerfully attractive to her, despite the fact they’d made love … oh, so many times, she’d lost count. If anything, she was more attracted than ever to the marquis. For he wasn’t only a highly skilled, thoroughly enthusiastic lover. He was also extremely kind—every bit as kind, it turned out, as Mrs. Cleary had sworn he was. After he’d muttered that mysterious “mine,” he’d lifted Kate from the desk as gently as if she were a baby, and then carried her all the way up the stairs, to lay her, not in her own bed, as she’d thought he would, but in his.

Then the marquis himself—well, it wasn’t as if he could call a servant to do it, since it was after three in the morning—had heated her a bath, and made her get in it, and tenderly washed away, with his own hands, the evidence of their crime … though almost as soon as he wrapped her in a towel they committed that crime again, this time in his lordship’s massive bed.

Well, how was she supposed to help herself, when he kept on touching her the way he did, and saying that she was beautiful, and kissing her … God, how he kissed her! As if he couldn’t stop himself, half the time. As if her mouth had been put on earth for the express purpose of being kissed by the Marquis of Wingate. How was she supposed to resist? How was any woman supposed to resist anything, however sinful it might be, so utterly delightful?

But this … this was not delightful. This, she felt, she could resist without any trouble at all.

She rolled over onto her stomach and said, to the ornately carved headboard, “Then you’re saying …. What you’re saying, Lord Wingate, is that I’m not to see your daughter anymore?”

“For heaven’s sake, Kate,” he said, lifting a strand of her long blond hair, and passing it across his lips. “Call me by my name. Call me Burke.”

She said it, though it felt strange. “Burke, then. Not even to visit? Not even for an afternoon?”

But he wasn’t listening anymore. The sound of his name on her lips had a stirring effect on him, and he was reaching for her again, pulling her against him to kiss her some more. Kate’s mouth felt bruised by the ravaging it had already undergone that night, and yet she still couldn’t bring herself to stop him, because it was something, to be kissed by him. It was certainly something.

When he let go of her, however, just so that he could look at her a little more in the candlelight, she said, “So I’m not to speak to your daughter again. Is that it?”

He said, running a finger along her throat, “Well, I hardly think it appropriate, under the present circumstances. But you needn’t worry about Isabel. I’ll find her a new chaperone, so that you and I”—he put both hands on her shoulders, and playfully pushed her back against the mattress—”will have our evenings free for this.”

Kate didn’t have to ask what he meant by this, since he showed her, by lowering his mouth to one of her nipples, and caressing it with his tongue.

Kate, staring up at the canopy again, her fingers in his thick dark hair, said, “So I’m to sit all day in my new town house, and wait for you to come see me in the evening?”

He said something that sounded very much like “Hmmm,” but it was hard to tell, since he was speaking with his mouth full.

Kate said, “I should think I’d get bored. Not to mention lonely, living all by myself in a town house.”

He lifted his head and smiled down at her. It was a smile that made her heart ache, it was so beautiful. Men weren’t supposed to have beautiful smiles, and Kate supposed that to anyone else, Lord Wingate’s would not be. But to her it was, and she had to look away, because it dazzled her eyes.

“Lonely?’ he echoed. “You won’t be lonely after I hire you the best ladies’ maid in London. Not to mention cook, and butler, footmen, drivers …. I can see you, Kate, circling the park in a black phaeton, with yellow trim. Would you like a phaeton, Kate? With a matched pair of greys, to go with your eyes?”

She said, “I suppose so. I shan’t have anything else to do.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?” He chuckled, and kissed her again. “You shall have plenty to do, young lady. I’ll see to that. You have an obligation, you know, to keep me as happy as you’ve made me tonight, and that will be quite a time-consuming job. And as for being lonely, I shall pretend you didn’t say that, since I told you I shall be with you every chance I can. But”—he touched the tip of her nose—”if it really bothers you so much, all of this boredom you’re supposedly going to have to endure, I suppose I could set you up in a little shop. A flower shop, perhaps. Or better yet, a bookshop! I know how you love books. Would you like that, Kate? Would you like to own a bookshop? To be a business woman?”

She looked at him. She couldn’t answer him honestly, of course. If she had answered him honestly, she would have said, “No, thank you, I don’t care to be a business woman at all. What I would like to be is your wife.”

But of course she couldn’t say that, because he hadn’t the slightest intention of marrying her. Not now. Not ever.

And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known that, either. Freddy had told her months ago that the Marquis of Wingate had sworn off marriage, that he intended never again to risk his heart—and his good name—in marriage. She had known it, known it perfectly well.

What’s more, even if the marquis had proposed, she could not have said yes. How could she?

And yet she’d still gone and done the stupidest thing—really, the stupidest thing—she had ever done. The stupidest thing, perhaps, that any woman in the world had done, ever.

And she didn’t mean making love with the Marquis of Wingate. Oh, no. That was nothing.

What she’d done was far, far worse than that.

What she’d done was fall in love with him.

Stupid, stupid girl!

For years now, she’d been convinced she was incapable of falling in love. She had even doubted such a thing—love—existed. Oh, certainly, she had loved her parents, and she loved Freddy, too, she supposed, in her way. And she, like all girls, had suffered from the occasional crush, when she’d admired someone—like Daniel Craven—more than any other man in her acquaintance, for a time.

But this swoony, moony sensation Isabel was always professing to feel … this feverish compulsion to write page after page of dreary poetry, or worse, to compose a song …. No, Kate had been quite firmly convinced: other people, maybe. But not her. Not Kate. Her feet were planted too firmly on the ground. She was far too sensible, far too old at twenty-three to bother with such nonsense.

Oh, yes, certainly, it happened in books. But love? True love? Never in real life, except possibly to the very lucky ….

But now it had happened to her, and she didn’t consider herself lucky at all. In fact, she considered herself the most unlucky woman of all time.

“So very grave,” the marquis said, this time touching her lips with the tip of his finger, as he smiled down at her thoughtfully. “Such a serious expression. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look quite so stern before, my love. What are you thinking?”

But she couldn’t tell him. She was much too much of a coward. Because she knew that if she told him that she couldn’t stay with him, couldn’t do what he asked, he would only try to convince her … and it wouldn’t take much convincing, either. All he’d have to do was kiss her again. She was convinced she’d do anything in the world for his kisses.

Fortunately, she was spared from replying at all, when he said, “How stupid I am. You must be exhausted. Are you wondering if I’ll ever let you sleep? Well, I will. Here.” He sat up, and extinguished the candle. Then, leaning back down again, he gathered her to him, spooning his body around hers, until she lay with her back curled to his front, in a cradle he formed of his arms. “Sleep now,” he said, kissing her, but this time without the intention to arouse, on the top of her head. “There’s so much we have to do tomorrow, you and I, Kate.”

She lay with her cheek against the silken skin that covered his bicep—that bicep she’d so admired, yet never dreamed might someday serve as a cushion for her head—but she did not close her eyes. Not even when, moments after she’d thought he’d fallen asleep at last, he pulled her even closer, and whispered her name again, and gently kissed her cheek.

Just her name. And the softest of kisses imaginable on her cheek. And yet it made Kate want to cry—silently, so as not to wake him. But enough so that tears spilled out, and she was quite certain he was going to notice the wetness on his arm, and wake up.

But he didn’t. His breathing grew deep and even, and when, after nearly twenty minutes had passed, she lifted his heavy arm, to see if he would snatch her back to him, he did not, she slipped away, and padded, quite naked, since she couldn’t find her nightclothes, back to her own room.

It was close to dawn, and Cook woke at dawn, to begin preparing the elaborate breakfast his lordship liked, ham and bacon and kippers and scones and coffee and cream. Kate knew she hadn’t much time. She dressed hurriedly, and packed only what she could carry. She would send for the rest of her things. Lady Babbie, of course, was not the least bit happy about being stuffed into a basket, nor was she particularly calm when Kate lowered the lid of that basket down over the cat’s head. But there wasn’t much Kate could do about that. She only prayed no one would hear the cat’s caterwauling as she made her way downstairs.

At the threshold of her room, she turned, and looked back. She had left a letter—just one letter, addressed to Lady Isabel Traherne—on the bed she hadn’t slept in that night. She supposed Isabel would find it, when she came bounding into Kate’s room to discuss whatever plans they had for that day. The thought caused Kate’s eyes to fill again, and she quickly stepped out into the hallway, and closed the door behind her.

Out on the street, though it wasn’t quite five o’clock, there were plenty of people up and about, and Kate hadn’t the slightest trouble flagging down a hansom cab.

Burke sat down at his usual place at the head of the table, and reached for the newspaper Vincennes had left for him, neatly ironed and turned to the sporting pages, the only section the master of the house bothered reading. The news was generally depressing, and he preferred, for the most part, not to know it.

Only today, he felt he might actually be able to face it, and had flipped to the front page and was perusing it without the slightest qualm, when Isabel came into the room, and flopped into her chair at the opposite end of the table.

Burke, waited a beat, expecting Kate, as was her usual custom, to follow his daughter into the breakfast room, and take her place in the chair at the long table’s middle section. But when, after a minute passed, and Isabel, looking more particularly grumpy than she usually did of a morning, petulantly inquired why there wasn’t any haddock, he couldn’t help asking, “Miss Mayhew is sleeping in this morning?”

Nor could he keep from smiling as he asked it. Because, of course, it was his fault that Kate was so tired … his fault, and he wasn’t the least sorry for it. Nor did he imagine that she was, either.

“I wouldn’t know,” Isabel said coldly. “Miss Mayhew’s not here.”

He nearly choked on the sip of coffee he’d been in the act of swallowing.

“Not here?” he echoed, when he could speak again. “What do you mean, she’s not here?”

Isabel eyed the plate of haddock Vincennes presented to her with a flourish. “Precisely what I say. She isn’t here. She’s been obliged to leave us. No, I don’t want haddock. I’ll take the eggs.”

Burke, the newspaper forgotten in his hands, stared at his daughter in utter perplexity. “Obliged to leave us? Whatever can you mean, Isabel?”

Isabel looked up from the eggs the butler was piling onto her plate. “Didn’t she leave you a letter, then? She left me one.”

“No,” Burke said, beginning to feel a bit uneasy, “No, she did not leave me a letter.”

Nor had he expected her to. When he’d awakened alone in his room, he had assumed that she’d slipped off to her own, in order to avoid inviting gossip from the staff. It had never occurred to him …

Well, and why should it? How could she simply have left?

It was impossible!

“Oh.” Isabel took a bite of eggs, made a face, and put her fork back down. “Well, in her note to me, she explained that she was obliged to leave us for a bit, as she’d just got word that a relative of hers was quite ill. Though,” Isabel said, lifting her fork again, and this time using it to skewer a piece of ham, “how she contrived to get word of a sick relative before the first post, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Burke glanced at his butler. “Vincennes, did any messengers arrive this morning, with a letter for Miss Mayhew?”

The butler did not look up from the tea he was pouring into Isabel’s cup. “No, my lord,” he said.

“What’s even odder,” Isabel said, “is that Miss Mayhew never mentioned having any relatives to me. She told me her only family was her books.”

“Her what?” Burke said.

“Her books. She told me she hadn’t anyone left in her family who was still alive, and so her books were her family. Where this sick relative came from, I haven’t the slightest idea. Isn’t there any milk, Vincennes? No, I don’t want cream. I want milk.”

Burke said, with a calmness that frightened him a little, “Did Ka—Miss Mayhew say when she expected she’d return from, er, visiting this sick relative?”

“No,” Isabel said. She bit into a piece of toast. “But I don’t expect it will be anytime soon. She took Lady Babbie with her.”

Confused, Burke asked, “Lady whom?”

Isabel looked at him, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, really, Papa,” she said. “Don’t you know Miss Mayhew at all?”

He raised his eyebrows. Was there anything that he did not know about Kate Mayhew? Certainly he knew everything that was important to know about her. He knew how, when she addressed him, it was invariably with that sweet archfulness—bordering on the edge of impertinence, but never crossing fully into it—that had drawn him to her in the first place, despite the umbrella she’d been poking into his chest How, when she raised her gaze to meet his, he could read in those soft grey irises of hers the secret promise of embers needing only the slightest stoking before bursting into flames of heat and passion. He knew how, when he kissed her, those lips, which had fascinated and bewitched him for months, fell open in the most inviting manner imaginable. And how, when he entered her, she sucked in her breath, gasping each time anew at the size of him, and yet generously taking all of him into her much smaller frame ….