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C atherine fairly marched up the steps before Harth House and let herself in before the footman could move from his position by the door. She did not look back. She dared not, for she knew Stefton was watching her.

How dare he? How dare he try to lecture her on the care of her horse!

It was no business of his whether she rode, walked, or stayed indoors!

And talk about role-playing, hah! The pot was calling the kettle black.

The insufferable arrogance of the man. How could Uncle Gene suffer him to be his friend?

No, she knew the answer to that.

In her uncle’s eyes, Stefton’s superb horsemanship would compensate for any deficiencies of character the man possessed.

Well, it wouldn’t with her. Her intuition worked well, sending those warning tingles through her.

Her physical reaction to the man was entirely understandable.

He was surely a—a Jack Sharp! A man to be avoided at all costs.

She would not allow herself to become one of his flirts, even if it did increase her credit with Society.

Society was blind not to see him for what he really was. Well, she did and . . .

Abruptly she halted her internal ravings and the set frown on her face relaxed into a chagrined smile.

She was not being fair. That niggling knowledge had been there since she first opened her mouth to refute his words. In all her plans and schemes, she had signally failed to remember Gwyneth. Her beloved horse became the innocent victim of her machinations.

Catherine had raised Gwyneth, touching her, feeding her, getting her used to her presence since the day she first stood upon wobbly legs splayed awkwardly, her knees too big for her slender black legs, and her dark eyes large and wide as she blinked and looked about her new world.

Gwyneth was the first horse she schooled on her own, and she was the only rider ever to mount Gwyneth.

Now it was over two weeks since Gwyneth had been ridden and Catherine felt guilty for ignoring her.

Still, she railed at the Marquis for his presumption in the matter.

It was none of his business. She was glad she had not told him of her plans to ride her horse as soon as she received her new habit from Madame Vaussard.

He might think what he wished, but he was not going to ride roughshod over her.

Truthfully, she was looking forward to the day she would once more be up on Gwyneth’s back.

The difficulty would be in preventing Gwyneth and herself from indulging in a dead run across the park.

Such actions would undoubtedly call censure down upon her head.

Funny--a day or so past she would have welcomed the rebuke if it sped her back to Yorkshire.

Now she was not so inclined to hasten her departure from the city, but she could not fathom the reason for her change of attitude.

It was perhaps many things. Things she could admit to herself and things that were better off ignored.

Lady Oakley’s ball was the fulcrum for her change in thought.

The gentlemen were not all gazetted fortune hunters; at least none that she met gave that impression, and the ladies were not so caught up in home and hearth that their conversation turned only on one’s looks, family, or estate.

She actually enjoyed herself at the ball, and that was not a circumstance she’d considered possible.

Catherine sighed and began to trudge up the stairs to her room.

“Miss Catherine,” Pennymore called softly to her as he carefully closed the doors to the drawing room. “The countess requested that on your return I ask you rejoin her and the other young ladies.”

Catherine nodded. “Very well, I’ll just be a moment.” She sighed again and gathered her energies to continue up the stairs. She felt fatigued, more mentally than physically; still, the effects were the same. The beginning of a headache pulled at the corners of her brow.

This was his doing, she told herself fretfully. She couldn’t allow him to dominate her life in this way. She wouldn't allow it! With that thought, she continued up the stairs, her head held high, a determined expression on her face.

“There you are, Catherine,” Lady Harth said with exasperation when she entered the drawing room some twenty minutes later. “You missed saying your farewells to Lord Soothcoor and Captain Chilberlain, but I trust we sufficiently extended them in your absence. Now, come and greet our new visitor.”

Mechanically, Catherine looked in the direction Lady Harth indicated with the broad sweep of her hand. She froze, a gasp cut short in her throat. Blood drained from her face, leaving her feeling chilled.

“There’s no need to introduce me to Miss Shreveton.

We met during her journey to London.” A sneering smile twisted the lips of Sir Philip Kirkson as he walked toward her and bowed.

“I trust you are quite recovered from the exigencies of that trip? When last we met, you did seem a trifle out of sorts. I felt it behooved me to pay a call to see how you’re getting on. ”

“That is very good of you, Sir Philip,” Lady Harth said, smiling benignly.

Catherine winced. “Very,” she echoed. She threw her head up, her chin leading, and stared coldly at him, belying the cordiality of her words. “I’m amazed to have a place in your memory. It was such a brief encounter and fraught with confusion.”

“The confusion I felt was in the brevity of the encounter. I have every hope of continuing as we began.” He raised her hand to his lips, keeping her hand captured an unconscionable amount of time.

Catherine snatched her hand away, turning bright red as the implications of his words percolated into her mind, bearing with them the memory of his arms holding her tightly against him as his lips ground unmercifully against hers.

“Sir Philip,” said Lady Harth, “you are all gentlemanly consideration. We are planning a small theater party for this evening and would enjoy your company, wouldn’t we, Catherine?”

“What? I—I wouldn’t presume upon our short acquaintance,” Catherine demurred.

“Nonsense,” retorted Lady Harth, glaring at her then turning to smile regally at Sir Philip.

A slow, wolfish smile spread across Sir Philip’s face. “I shall be honored to attend.”

“Mrs. Reginald Howlitch, Mr. Peter Howlitch, Sir Richard Chartrist,” Pennymore said from the doorway.

Lady Harth’s eyes lit up. “Oh, isn’t this all that is famous!”

“If you’ll excuse me, Lady Harth, I must take my leave now.

I have some appointments in the city that cannot be put off,” Kirkson put in smoothly, not giving the countess a moment to respond.

He kissed her hand, bowed to the other ladies in the room, and took himself off without greeting the other visitors as they entered.

It was not to be supposed that Catherine anticipated the theater party with any degree of equanimity.

That Lady Harth decided to match her with Sir Philip Kirkson became painfully obvious in the extreme.

Her aunt raved about what a nice, well-set-up man he was and how he possessed a modest yet eminently respectable fortune.

She called Catherine a sly puss and quizzed her on her meeting with the gentleman, to which Catherine blushed furiously, though not for the reasons Lady Harth surmised.

She searched her mind frantically for some tale to tell but luckily was spared the telling for her aunt decided that young girls would have their secrets, and this could be Catherine’s.

Even Lady Iris and Lady Dahlia looked more favorably upon her.

With a definite suitor for Catherine, their feelings of jealousy abated and they could unbend so far as to agree they had Catherine to thank for introducing them to the Marquis and his friends.

Lady Iris decided she bore a partiality for the Earl of Soothcoor.

Whether her partiality was for the gentleman or his title was a moot point.

She made it her avowed aim to turn the head of this dour peer and have him at her feet.

The self-assured prattle of Iris’s plans and goals disgusted Catherine, and she would have felt sorry for the Earl if she hadn’t had faith that the gentleman was well able to stay free of her coils.

Lady Dahlia decided she would pursue the Marquis when the opportunity arose and charged Catherine most faithfully that should he approach her again, she would bring her dear cousin Dahlia into the conversation.

Feeling as angry with the Marquis as she did, Catherine thought there would be no further occasion for conversation; nonetheless, she vowed she would do as her cousin asked, caustically deciding it was just revenge on two obnoxious people.

Only Susannah looked at her sadly and with a touch of fear in her eyes. “Oh, how will you bear it, Cousin!” she exclaimed later that night when Catherine came to her room for a comfortable evening coze.

Catherine shrugged. “What else is there to do? I believe Kirkson is merely looking for some form of revenge. If I allow his reprehensible behavior in the past to affect me now, then he has won, for that is what he desires. If I choose to forget the incident, as I charged the odious Marquis to do, he is stalemated, and the game is done. He will wander off to other pursuits.”

“I’m afraid Sir Philip is not a man to accept a stalemate.”

Catherine furrowed her brow. “Possibly, but to what purpose would continued attentions be?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. But for some reason, that man frightens me. His eyes, they are so empty.”

“Now you are being fanciful,” Catherine said, laughing.

“If he should decide he truly wanted you, I don’t believe he’d stick to fair means to win you,” Susannah said slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“Never go driving with him. I’m not certain you’d come back.”