Page 7

Catherine carefully schooled her expression to a serious mien and returned a faint good morning to Maureen before taking a seat. She kept her eyes downcast in a modest and unassuming manner.

“Catherine?” Maureen’s voice shook.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“Why, eating my breakfast.”

“Don’t play May games with me! Why are you dressed in that hideous fashion?”

Catherine put down her fork and, for the first time, looked Maureen in the eyes. “Because I wish to be,” she answered softly.

Maureen blinked rapidly. Catherine watched her as a series of conflicting emotions crossed her round plump face.

She felt sorry for her. Maureen took her responsibility so seriously and was well aware, as was all of Umberfife, Catherine thought with a grimace, that she was being sent to London to contract a brilliant alliance.

Catherine watched her chaperone come to a decision.

She braced herself; she was not to be swayed--not now.

“Well, it will not do at all. What would your family say if they saw you so rigged? You go right back upstairs and change into one of those nice costumes Mrs. Scorby made up.” Maureen moved her hands before her as if to shoo Catherine up the stairs; however, Catherine stayed where she was and placidly sipped her coffee.

“No.”

Maureen gasped. “Now see here, Miss, I am in charge of you, and I want none of your hoydenish manners. You’ll do as you’re told and very prettily.”

Catherine sighed. “I suppose it is from being married six years that you have developed this dictatorial manner. Nevertheless, may I remind you that you are a scant two years older than I, and frankly, I cannot think that makes you responsible for me. I am legally my own mistress, and I shall do as I please, and it pleases me to dress as I do.”

At that last, Catherine felt a twinge of conscience but pushed it aside.

Maureen’s jaw dropped and she sat there gaping like a landed fish.

Catherine was hard-pressed not to laugh.

She knew Maureen meant well; however, she would not let anyone ride roughshod over her any longer.

They had gotten her to go to London; beyond that, she dug in her heels.

She was determined to have a say in her own affairs.

She smiled demurely at Maureen and returned to her meal.

While made of resilient northern stock, Maureen did not know how to handle this different Catherine; however, she was not at a standstill. She hurriedly rose, her napkin falling to the floor, and scurried out the door in search of her husband.

Unfortunately for her peace of mind, she did not find the looked-for help in that quarter. Dawes, upon hearing his nearly hysterical wife’s account of the last few minutes, merely took her arm to walk around the courtyard, much as he would have walked a horse, allowing it to cool.

“You’re not to worry yourself,” he said, after some minutes. “She was bound to take some queer start."

“Raymond Dawes, how can you say that?” asked his much-exasperated mate.

“Stands to reason, ain’t been broken to harness yet."

“Not bro—she is not a horse! It is past time she was married. She’s too fine a girl to be a spinster.

She’ll not get a nice gentleman looking like that!

” Maureen’s chest heaved and her cheeks flushed from righteous indignation.

She made to move away from her husband back to the coffee room, but Raymond held her fast.

“Stay. Early days yet. All this fuss just put her back up more. Give her a long rope, she’ll tire. ’Sides, that aunt of hers will have something to say about how she dresses. Bound not to let her look the poor relation.”

Maureen halted and looked up at her husband. That for him was a long speech and he did make sense. “But it isn’t right!” she wailed.

“Not saying as how it is or it isn’t.”

“Do you really think her ladyship will set things right?"

“Bound to. That Shreveton family, they set great store by appearances. Except for Viscount St. Ryne, they always buy showy horses. Ain’t much on wind or length of limb, but they look grand.”

Maureen sighed, and Raymond turned her around and led her back to the coffee room.

It could not be said Maureen was totally mollified, but she could admit defeat for a while.

Catherine was glad to be spared further recriminations, though she was curious and a bit piqued by Dawes’s unconcern.

She was suspicious, yet try as she might, a logical explanation eluded her.

She endeavored to push it out of her mind. Still, it was a long way to Grantham.

The Marquis of Stefton sat sprawled sideways in the scarred and scratched wood chair in the best private parlor offered by the Lion’s Mane Inn.

One leg dangling over the arm of the chair swung restlessly.

The substantial remains of an evening repast, offered by the obsequious innkeeper to his illustrious guest, were pushed negligently away from the space set before him.

The Marquis sat, idly twirling a wineglass between strong tapering fingers.

His stone-gray, heavily lidded eyes were turned away to gaze out the first-floor private parlor window that fronted the inn and overlooked the courtyard below.

There was little activity of note. Once, a dog ran across the courtyard followed by a young boy, but the Marquis scarcely noticed the pair. He was lost in his brooding thoughts and stared unseeing at the vista before him.

He was dressed all in black, and his Hessians gleamed in the flickering light of the candles.

The Marquis’s black hair, cut shorter than fashion preferred, was disheveled and curled around his brow like a satyr’s wild locks.

The strong planes of his face, square jaw, and prominent blade nose were not handsome in the classic Adonis sense, yet his visage set aflutter the hearts of women, young and old.

His handsome, swarthy features were now marred by a pronounced scowl that drew his thick black brows together, creating deep furrows in his high forehead, and etched brackets by the corners of his firm mouth.

It had not been a promising day. First, there had been Panthea absurdly clinging to him; and then that damned outside wheeler throwing a shoe, and as luck would have it, not only did the landlord have no extra horses to lend him, but the only farriers in miles had been called to some country squire’s estate for the day.

Probably to attend the shoes of some sluggard of a beast, the Marquis thought laconically.

Finally, the crowning irritation had been the discovery that the sole inn around also housed that bastard Kirkson and his cronies. No, it had not been an auspicious day.

The Marquis tossed off the last of the wine in his glass and bent to the table to grab the bottle, his mind returning to the person he perceived as the authoress of the day’s misfortunes.

Damn the woman! Did she think no one would see her?

That she wouldn’t set tongues wagging? Or did she hope to compromise herself in the eyes of the beau monde and thereby force him to offer for her?

She was deluding herself if that was her game.

He hadn’t cut his eyeteeth yesterday, and she was no virginal ingénue to cry over lost innocence.

She’d played the footloose widow too long, and too many eyebrows had been raised by her behavior in the past for there to be fear of ruination.

Done that years ago, chuckleheaded female.

She had been an amusing, decorative mistress; now, she was beginning to bore him. That the lady wished to sink her claws in deeper and be the Marchioness of Stefton and the next Duchess of Vauden was obvious. Bets were laid at White’s as to the odds of her success.

Stefton knew he must one day marry; however, the idea of Panthea Welville in his mother’s position was highly distasteful. When she heard he was to leave town for a fortnight, what must she do but pay an unwarranted and highly irregular visit to his home.

Panthea clung to him, begging him to stay in London with her or take her with him wherever he was going.

She even manufactured a fine sheen of tears in her eyes and set her lower lip trembling as she spoke with heartfelt accents.

She should have taken to the boards. Not for once did she deceive him, for she had forgotten how on one occasion she’d affected such a pose for their joint amusement.

Her manner nauseated him and caused him to leave the metropolis later than he cared to.

In his black humor, he had pushed his horses to their limit to make up for lost time until one of the horses threw a shoe a half-day’s journey from his ancestral home, and he was forced to put up for the night and present himself at his parents' home on the morrow.

Fortunately, despite all her protestations and ardent coaxing, Stefton had not told Lady Welville where he was going. It would have been like her to appear on their doorstep unasked, and that was one circumstance he wished to avoid.

Stefton shook himself out of his reverie, once again drained his glass and reached for the bottle.

Perhaps, he mused, it was best the nag threw a shoe. It gave him time to vent his anger and present the loving son to his parents, unmarred by other matters.

So deep was he in his thoughts, he scarcely noticed the carriage as it drove into the courtyard and might not have given it more than a cursory glance had it not been for the magnificent team of horses pulling the equipage.

Perhaps new guests were the diversion needed to lift his spirits.

He stood, sipping his wine thoughtfully as he closely studied the carriage, the long-tailed black horse led by the groom riding behind, and the coach’s occupants.