Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 (17 page)

And all because she was certain she was going to turn a corner or peek her head up over a bookshelf at work to find him standing there, grinning at her, judging her.

But apparently, he wasn’t a very dedicated stalker.

Kate knew that for a fact. She’d checked around the little cafe where she’d agreed to meet Lady Lovelace and Anne, taking two unnecessary trips to the restroom to make sure he wasn’t posing as the waiter or as one of the large, leather-clad motorcycle gang members having scones over by the front window. He wasn’t there, just like he wasn’t in the break room at work, filling the water cooler in a gray jumpsuit or standing on her doorstep yesterday morning hoping to bring her the word of God.

Look at her
.
That man was making her act downright ridiculous—and in all her years of adherence to the Regency Society and with her cat curled up underneath her Victorian furniture, she’d never once considered herself ridiculous.

“Don’t you look nice today,” Anne said with a smile as she slid into the booth. Lady Lovelace was right behind her, wearing a hat so large and floral it looked like someone had affixed a garden patio to her head. Of course she sat right next to Kate, pushing her into the corner of the booth with the hat’s brim. It bobbed and weaved ominously near Kate’s face.

“I hope you’ve ordered the high tea,” Lady Lovelace said, her voice low with warning.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kate felt compelled to answer. The cafe, Briar Rose, was known for its high tea, plates full of scones and clotted cream as far as the eye could see. It was also known for the women who ordered it, be-hatted and bedecked in English finery.

This meeting hadn’t been her idea. After the date with Duke, Kate was more determined than ever to get Cornwall Park for their event, and the last thing she needed was Lady Lovelace’s hysterics trying to convince her otherwise.

A smile twisted at the corner of her mouth. The date with Duke.

She usually had Jada on hold for a post-mortem after all her first dates, and it took her friend’s rough sense of humor to pull Kate up from the still, brackish waters of the current dating pool. But she hadn’t even told Jada about meeting Duke or agreeing to meet him at his house for dinner. It broke all the rules, to meet a man on his own turf, but she’d done it anyway. And it was a good thing too. She now knew Julian for what he really was.

Which was…what, exactly? Daring and reckless and comfortable with spying on an intimate dinner for two?

When she’d first seen the dark figure standing beside the big tropical tree near the terrace, she thought he was a bodyguard of sorts—that Duke Kilroy wasn’t just a rich, pretty face, but a rich, pretty face that had some sort of importance to national security. But when she’d realized it was Julian, she’d almost grabbed her wineglass and hurled it right at his stupid grin.

One of the first things Duke said to her, right after he whisked her into his marble foyer, slabs of pink, veiny rock pointing straight up to Heaven, was that she needed to watch her back around Julian. Not that she needed the warning—she would have worn a sign around her neck stating that very thing if she hadn’t already slipped her favorite cameo necklace on. She hadn’t thought to introduce Julian into the conversation at all, seeing as how they were supposedly on a date, but Duke seemed vastly interested in his movements.

“We’re feuding over a tract of land,” Kate had said laughingly. There was no other way to explain it.

She’d tried to elaborate on their predicament as Duke took her on a tour of the house. It was gorgeous, that place, an emulation of a stately English manor, right down to the portraits lining almost every wall. She doubted they were all his ancestors, even though he’d claimed kinship to the entire lot. In fact, there was a series of faces above the grand piano that looked suspiciously like the Romanovs.

“But that’s absurd!” Duke cried, pounding out a quick rendition of chopsticks on the piano.

“Yes, it is,” Kate agreed, still looking up at the portraits. That was Tsar Nicholas II’s mustache. She was sure of it.

“We’ve often had the Games here at Kilroy Hall—in fact, I already told Julian he was more than welcome to use our grounds this year. I was on my way to his house to see if he’d made a decision about it yet. That is, before I was so charmingly interrupted, of course.”

Kate spun. “What did you say?”

“That you’re charming. I can’t remember the last time—”

“No, no. Before that. About Kilroy Hall.”

He waved his hand as if the matter wasn’t at all important. But it
was
important—suddenly, nothing in the world seemed more so. She grabbed his hand and forced it to be still.

“Say it again.”

“There’s no reason why Julian should be making such a big deal of Cornwall Park, that’s all. I have all the equipment for the Games and more than enough space here.” He shrugged. “Now, shall I show you the library?”

Kate nodded and followed, though without much enthusiasm. The prospect of the library in a house like this should have been enough to fuel her literary fantasies for years, but she couldn’t even summon up a glimmer of excitement.
The bastard.
Storming around like Kate was single-handedly ruining his career, waxing poetic about honor among men—and the whole time, he had this incredible place for the asking.

And as if her resolution hadn’t been curled and set in that moment, Julian had the audacity to ruin her date. To eavesdrop and try to gain an even bigger advantage.

Well, she’d shown him.

“We’re obviously here to discuss the issue of the Fauxhall Gardens,” Lady Lovelace said ominously, forcing Kate’s attention to the task at hand. Great. More complications. It seemed the road was paved with them, sealed in a thick tar of irritation.

A waiter came by with their tea, which was served on a platter the size of a coffee table. He fussed over them for a few minutes, making sure everything was in order. The moment he turned his back, Lady Lovelace grabbed some of the jams and floral-shaped pats of butter and slipped them into her purse, which Kate could have sworn contained a layer of plastic wrap smuggled in for just such a reason.

“Things are progressing quite nicely,” Kate murmured, dropping a few sugar cubes into her tea and stirring it with the tiniest spoon she’d ever seen. “There have been…new developments.”

“What I don’t understand is why there are so many problems with this.” After the incident with the invitations, Lady Lovelace had been keeping a rather strict watch over Kate’s handling of the affair. Kate couldn’t blame her.

“What does this young man of yours have against the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society?”

“He is not my young man,” Kate managed, her teeth clenched on the rim of the porcelain teacup.

“Mama, it’s come down to a matter of principle now,” Anne interrupted. “Kate is only doing what needs to be done.”

Kate flashed her a grateful smile. That woman had more patience in the tip of her little finger than Kate might hope for in a lifetime. Lady Lovelace was a great resource for all things Georgian and Regency, but the woman sometimes forgot she lived in the twenty-first century. And that made her very hard to talk to about anything other than the crafting of a fine lace fichu.

“Isn’t there someone you can talk to? Or a permit to get?”

“I looked into it,” Kate confessed. “It’s one of those places you can’t reserve but is free to use, so it’s all a matter of timing. Apparently, the SHS has been the only group using it for so long, people sort of assume they own it.”

Kate had felt a twinge of guilt over that phone call. In terms of fairness, Julian did have more of a right to Cornwall Park than she did. But owning the land in fact and owning the land in machismo condescension were two entirely different things.

“And why are we fighting this so much?” Lady Lovelace asked with a heavy sigh.

Anne, bless her heart, intervened. “Think of it as our own Jacobite Rising. Kate has everything in order—the tents, the food, the entertainment—but these Scottish ruffians are trying to foist her out with a Young Pretender. We’re merely playing the role of the English. It’s only natural, of course.”

This was a language Lady Lovelace spoke well. She thumped on the table eagerly, causing the plates to jump and clatter, several biscuits finding their way to the floor.

“That’s marvelous!” she cried. “Ought we to have a battle re-enactment at the Fauxhall Gardens? I’ve seen the Civil War groups do them before. They’re divine—all those guns and soldiers. Why, give me a man in a red coat—”

Kate choked on a strawberry tart. “I don’t think Julian will agree to re-enact a mass slaughter—even in jest.”

Lady Lovelace pursed her lips. “No? You think not?”

“Anyway, it’s not exactly historically accurate, is it?” Anne pointed out calmly. “From a purely chronological standpoint, that is.”

Kate nodded in agreement, forcing herself to look solemn. All she needed was a free rein over this plan. She didn’t care how many Jacobean analogies had to be drawn out and tortured in order to get there.

Lady Lovelace pursed her lips. “You’re certain you can make it all work out? I’d take over the planning myself, but you know what the doctor said about keeping away from undue stress. Ever since that night of the ball—” She broke off, and Kate had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she would very soon regret.

Anne gave her mother a reassuring pat. “There, there, Mama. Why don’t you go freshen up in the ladies’ room for a moment? Don’t you remember? They have those lovely lavender satchels in there. Very calming.”

The older woman ambled off, grabbing two more pastries and shoving them deep in her purse before heading to the back of the cafe. She looked back at Kate, her eyes heavy with suffering and drama. Kate bit her cheek harder.

“I’m sorry, Kate. You know what she’s like.”

“I know she means well,” Kate agreed. Overbearing mothers weren’t all that foreign to her. She’d had to move across the state to get away from her own.

“So, the newspaper ad didn’t go off as well as we’d hoped, then? Should I be doing something else to help?”

“I’m not sure. The catering is all lined up and ready to go, and the lectures are confirmed. If it weren’t for this stupid park, everything would be falling into place.”

“Well, take heart.” Anne laughed, patting her hand reassuringly. “At least my mom’s on board now that she thinks we’re waging a Jacobean war effort.”

Kate dropped her head to the table, accidentally dumping the contents of her purse on the floor in the process. Her wallet, lip gloss, keys, breath mints, two romance novels and a crumpled copy of the drag-show ad went flying in every direction.

Anne crouched to help her pick it all up, eyeing the ad with a smile.

“How’d he take it, by the way?”

Kate’s lips twitched. “He threw my shoes out the window.”

“So we are getting closer, then.”

“Closer, yes. But we’re going to need to step up our game. We’re going to need to think big.”

“How big?”

Kate’s mind instantly traveled to the image of Julian looming in the background of her date with Duke, a few inches shorter than her dinner companion but so much larger in his general presence. He’d looked good dressed head to toe in black. Very Johnny Cash, but with a rusticity that was beginning to invade her every waking thought.

Kate sighed. “Not just big, Anne. Huge.”

There were a few dozen tasks on Kate’s to-do list, which was laid out on her counter, a perpetual reminder there was more to her Fauxhall Gardens task than getting Julian out of her way. No fewer than five messages were on her answering machine, all requiring her immediate attention. Work was beckoning too—she’d been taking her managerial role a bit too lax lately, leaving the bookstore to run at the hands of a few semicompetent employees. Who was she kidding? Her entire life was falling by the wayside while she gallivanted about, having tea and crumpets and plotting her enemy’s demise.

But when she got home that evening, a glass of Chablis in one hand and her to-do list in front of her, making phone calls and employee schedules were the last things on her mind. In order of importance, the priorities flashing through her brain were the vibrant white tent that would serve as the focal point of the Fauxhall Gardens, her cat’s sadly empty food bowl, and Julian standing at the bluff of Cornwall Park, wearing only a kilt wrapped around his waist. In her imagination, it whipped in the wind, threatening to billow off into the sunset like a scarf in a French film.

She narrowed her eyes and took a generous gulp of the wine. Fine. Maybe that wasn’t the exact order of importance. Gretna and his hungry mews came first.

Once the cat was fed and purring contentedly, Kate gave up the premise of work altogether. She might as well go out to measure the field at Cornwall Park. She still hadn’t determined exactly how to set up the layout, and the pyrotechnic guys had to have at least three hundred feet of empty space in order to put on the Friday and Saturday night fireworks displays.

It was a good reason to go. Perfectly legitimate.

Equipped with only a tape measure, some graph paper and a pair of flat gladiator sandals that had so many tiny buckles even her small fingers had a difficult time getting them on and off, she arrived at Cornwall Park.