The Bishop's Daughter (18 page)

"Very likely because you were too busy making calf's eyes at my cousin."

Kate flinched as though he had struck her. Never had she known Harry to say anything so deliberately cruel. Yet it gave her a clue to his anger. Was it possible Harry could be jealous? It seemed the most likely answer. Her plan to marry the vicar and put an end to Harry's pursuit had appeared so simple a solution. What a witling she had been to think that Harry would stand idly by while it happened.

She longed to return a sharp answer to Harry's caustic remark, but much to her annoyance, a flood tide of guilty color rushed into her cheeks. Harry's mouth thinned to a taut, white line. "Ah, so I see there is another reason for your continued refusals of my offer of marriage. Do you expect me to wish you joy, Kate? I will see Adolphus planted in his own churchyard first."

"You are being ridiculous, my lord. If you wish me to continue this dance, pray speak of something else."

As though he sensed her urge to break away, Harry tightened his grip upon her hand. She could feel the heat of his other palm against the small of her back, seeming to sear her through the filmy gown. Kate stumbled slightly. She had but learned to waltz only that morning, and dancing with Harry was nothing like her practice with the dancing master her grandmama had produced. The willowy Mr. James had not been so rock hard, nor had he looked ready to eat her alive. Harry's gaze dipped down the front of her gown, and his scowl assumed an even blacker hue.

"Where the devil did you get that frock?"

"Grandmama gave it to me," Kate said, raising her chin with more defiance than she felt.

"I detest it," he growled.

"I did not wear it with any thought of pleasing you, my lord." Kate felt her own temper stir. "I expected you to be seeking some less mild diversion tonight with your friends."

"I wondered how long it would take before you flung Folly into my teeth."

"It is you who brought up Mr. Ffolliot's name, sir, not I."

"I would try to defend the poor fellow to you, but I doubt it would do a damned bit of good. And I am not about to try to justify my friendship with the man."

"No one asked you to!" Goaded beyond endurance, it was all Kate could do to keep up the semblance of waltzing. "I am sure I do not care if you choose to sully your good name by associating with such unworthy companions who encourage you to play so deep you lose your best horses and—"

"What!" Harry missed a step and another couple nearly crashed into them. His eyes blazed so strangely that she was nigh afraid to speak, but she continued valiantly, "It is well known how you had to sell your hunters to meet your gambling debts."

"It is indeed? By who? Who told you such a thing?"

"Well, I—I . . ." Kate hesitated. Beneath the roiling of Harry's anger, she detected a flash of pain, but not a trace of guilt. Harry was not the sort of man to dissemble. Kate suddenly felt no longer so sure of herself.

"Never mind. It doesn’t matter who," Harry said in flat tones. "The important thing is that you believed it."

He lapsed into a stony silence, but beneath the grim facade, Kate caught hints of a deep and abiding hurt. She had the sinking feeling that she had somehow wronged Harry yet again.

The waltz seemed to drag on forever, the lilting music a mockery of the numbing unhappiness and shame Kate felt seeping through her. When the dance ended, Harry no longer looked angry, merely tired, a soul deep weariness dulling his eyes.

"I will escort you back to your grandmother," he said.

"My lord . . ." She trailed off. Now was hardly the time to be asking him for explanations that she should have sought much sooner instead of being so quick to credit Julia's tale.

He offered her his arm, stiff and unyielding. She rested her fingertips against the crook, feeling the distance widen between them as though they had been separated by miles.

To add to Kate's misery, they had not taken many steps when they were accosted by the squire. He greeted Harry in his usual bluff fashion, and what must the wretched fellow do but go nattering on about what a magnificent run he had enjoyed that morning on Harry's own hunter.

Harry tried for an expression of polite indifference but could not quite manage it.

The squire clapped him on the shoulder. "No need to look so glum, sir. I paid you a handsome price for those horses and from what I have heard tell, you are putting the money to good use. What you invest on your lands you will get back tenfold, to say nothing of making the Huddlestons happy as mud-larks."

"The Huddlestons?" Kate asked.

The squire chuckled. "Aye, his lordship's tenants these days are likely to dub him 'Saint Harry.' "

"What a parcel of nonsense," Harry said, appearing both annoyed and embarrassed. He tugged at Kate's arm. "If you will excuse us, Mr. Gresham—"

"The lad has been dropping a great deal of his blunt," the squire continued, ignoring Harry. "Fixing up the Huddleston's roof and new drains for the old Stratton place."

Kate closed her eyes, the full impact of exactly how wrong she'd been striking her like a thunder-clap. Dear God! Not gaming debts. Harry had used the money to fix up his tenant's farms, those selfsame tenants she had accused him of neglecting.

The squire rattled on, warming to his subject with great relish until Harry interrupted him. "I don't think Miss Towers is much interested in roofs and drains."

"Isn't she?" The squire peered fiercely at Kate from beneath his bushy brows. "Why, I think you mistake her, my lord. I've always said Miss Kate was a cut above these other mutton-headed females. A most sensible girl."

"Indeed I am not," Kate whispered. "I am the greatest of fools."

Neither of the men seemed to hear her as the music struck up again. The squire declared he must seek out Mrs. Gresham for the next dance. "After all these years, I am still her favorite beau." Giving a broad wink, the burly man moved off in search of his wife.

Without his looming presence, Kate felt as though she had been left entirely alone with Harry. She didn’t knew how to face him or what to say. Harry gently disengaged his arm from hers.

"I believe Lieutenant Porter is coming to claim you, Miss Towers. So I will simply bid you good night."

"Harry," she faltered, but by the time she could bring herself to look up, Harry was already gone. She caught a glimpse of him disappearing beneath the archway.

The genial lieutenant was doomed once more to be left without a partner, for Kate plunged after Harry. She paused in the hall's open doorway, the cool night air striking against her heated cheeks. Her heart torn with remorse, Kate watched Harry head for the nearby inn yard. In another moment, he would vanish into the night.

Kate hesitated, biting down hard upon her lip. Bishop's daughters did not race in pursuit of young men beneath the light of the moon. But she simply couldn't allow Harry to leave this way. Hitching up her skirts, she started after him.

Harry cleared the ground with long swift strides, obliging Kate to run to catch up with him. Breathlessly, she planted herself in his path.

"H-harry. Please do wait."

Moonlight sculpted his features, throwing the strong hard lines of his profile into sharp relief. His eyes registered neither welcome nor censure, only emptiness.

"Go back, Kate," he said dully. "You should not be out here alone with me. Think of your reputation."

Kate drew an unsteady breath. "The devil with my reputation!"

At least her vehemence produced some reaction, his brows arching upward in astonishment. She laid her hand against his chest as though that light gesture could somehow stay him.

"I—I am sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you, to ever believe— But when I heard about the sale of your horses I could not imagine—"

"That there could be any good reason for my actions." Harry finished for her. He looked away, his jaw working painfully. "Damn it, Kate. I am well accustomed to the world cheerfully believing the worst of me, but you! When you join them, it tears me to flinders."

Kate's heart constricted, and she was possessed of a reckless impulse to do anything to make him amends, banish the pain she heard threading his voice. Fully realizing it was not the wisest thing to do, she stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss along his cheek.

"I am sorry," she whispered again.

It was as though she had set a match to tinder. With a low groan, Harry caught her hard against him, burying his face against the pulse beat at her throat. Kate knew she should protest, but somehow her arms wound about his neck and she clung to him.

But moments before Harry had nearly given in to despair. When Kate had leveled her false accusation, so full of righteous indignation, he had heard the old bishop speaking. Harry's quest to win her seemed impossible. She would ever be her papa's daughter.

Yet no trace of that prim creature now remained in the woman who so tenderly sought his pardon, the warmth of her arms the gentlest of consolation. Harry meant to do no more than hold her, but the longings of the past two years proved too much for him. The scent of her, the feel of her, all the softness, the sweetness that was Kate drove him nigh to madness.

He began to trail fire-ridden kisses along the column of her neck, the delicate curve of her jaw, her temple, her eyelids. Even if she had resisted, Harry was not sure he could have stopped. But she did not resist, tipping up her face like a rose seeking the warmth of the sun.

"Kate . . . Kate," he murmured between kisses. "I cannot be patient any longer. Will you marry me?"

"I don't know. Oh, I don't know. I feel so confused."

Harry sought to add to that confusion by claiming her lips. He kissed her without mercy, ruthlessly plundering her mouth until she sagged weakly against him.

Papa had warned her, Kate thought, about the dangers of moonlight and a man like Harry. And Papa had been so right. She shivered with the delicious fiery sensations coursing through her. Caught between despair and rapture, she held Harry tighter, her lips pleading for more.

It was left to Harry to be the one first coming to his senses. Just as his own passion threatened to burst the bounds of reason, he caught the sound of some drunken revelers staggering down the steps of the nearby inn.

In another few moments, he and Kate would be discovered at their moonlight tryst. "The devil with it," Harry thought, bending over her for another, kiss, an evil voice seeming to whisper in his ear, that if they were caught in a compromising situation, Kate would have to marry him.

But he did not want her that way, anymore than he wanted her coming to him out of some misguided notion of duty. With a heavy sigh, he summoned up all his willpower and thrust her from him.

She looked momentarily dazed, then hurt and bewildered. Even within the shadows of darkness, he could see the blush that heated her cheeks. Harry forced a smile, speaking in mock sternness.

"This behavior would be outrageous, Miss Towers, even if we were betrothed. You might be ready to consign your reputation to perdition, but I have turned respectable."

Kate gave an indignant gasp and then one of those unwilling gurgles of laughter that so delighted Harry. He took her by the arm, nudging her back toward the hall.

"I would as soon not exchange greetings with any of those gentlemen heading toward the stables. And I mistake not, they have already shot the cat."

"No! Truly, Harry?" Kate glanced back with a look of horror.

"It is only an expression, sweetheart. It means they are quite inebriated."

"Oh," Kate said with such an innocent relief Harry longed to kiss her all over again. He paused at the steps leading into the assembly hall, hating to take her back inside after all that just passed between them, so much left unsaid.

Kate seemed reluctant,too. She rested her hand upon his sleeve. "Harry . . ." She gazed up at him, her violet eyes earnest and troubled. "I have been so unfair to you."

"No, Kate. No more apologies—"

"I do not mean just about the horses," she went on quickly. "But also about what I said awhile ago when you asked me to marry you.
I don't know
. Such a foolish answer."

"On the contrary, it was a most delightful answer." He caught her hand, kissing her wrist but only lightly, playfully lest he once more be carried away. "You give a fellow cause to hope."

Her lashes fluttered down as though she could not meet his gaze. "I thought I had made up my mind, that I knew what I must do when I came here this evening—"

"If you go near Adolphus Thorpe again other than to hear a sermon—" Harry started to growl.

"I won't," Kate promised with a gentle laugh. "I know that I could never marry him now."

"Kate!" Harry nearly forgot everything, starting to pull her toward him again. But a more formidable threat than the drunkards hove into view. He could see Julia making her way toward the open doorway.

"Damn!" Harry swore.

"It is just as well." Kate said. "I need time to reflect, and I have more than a few words to say to Miss Thorpe."

The fierceness of Kate's expression as she took the stairs and marched back into the hall left Harry gaping with astonishment. If she had been a man, Harry thought he would be offering to be her second. Although he had no clear idea of her quarrel with Julia, he hastened after Kate, intrigued to hear what she would say.