Wed at Leisure(The Taming Series)

CHAPTER ELEVEN



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Kate rejoined the party in a daze. Dishonorable intentions. Who would have thought those words would ever make her feel anything but fear? Instead, her body seemed to purr at the mere echo of them, as if they could conjure the touch of Peter’s lips on her skin.

She watched people move about and interact as if going through some dance, four people congregating here in one figure, then separating and congregating anew with another three elsewhere. She spotted Bianca in tête-à-tête with her friend Alice. And by the refreshments there was Mr. Dore and her father. Her father looked furious.

Curiosity pushed her toward them but then Graughton was there, taking her arm and insisting she join everyone at archery.

Only a half hour earlier she would have been happy to take up bow and arrow and pretend that the target was Peter. Now . . . now the target was merely a blurry mass in the distance.

The afternoon turned into evening in that same blur.

Everyone seemed out of sorts, as if they were all merely reflections of Kate’s internal turmoil. Bianca, her father, even Mr. Dore, the tutor. Lindley, too. Only Peter was a constant. Peter with his gray eyes everywhere she turned, meeting her gaze.

With his dishonorable attentions. When she was not trembling in remembrance of his touch, she was trembling with fury.

She dressed carefully for dinner, even though Lindley no longer seemed to be a suitor, had seemed to back off as soon as he thought there was the slightest competition for her affection. She dressed as if the clothing were a mask, or an entire person. As if her dress would flirt and dance and be merry even while her human form retreated.

When she entered, the drawing room was already humming with conversation. With that particular sound of society spreading some salacious tidbit, of pretending at being scandalized even as it thrived on the gossip.

“Miss Bianca . . . in a most compromising position with Mr. Dore!”

Kate stopped and turned to see who had spoken.

“Excuse me?” Henrietta said. “What did you just say?”

Miss Stanbury flushed. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Mansfield. I don’t know . . .”

“Lord Reginald,” Henrietta demanded.

“I am afraid that Miss Bianca and Luc, were . . . ah . . . I believe they are closeted with your husband now. I expect an engagement will be announced tonight.”

Bianca, engaged. To the tutor? Kate struggled to make sense of what she was hearing.

The conversation went on around her.

“The tutor?”

“He isn’t a tutor. Mr. Dore is really Viscount Asquith!”

“Your cousin, Mr. Bagley? Really?”

“Shocking!”

It was shocking and impossible. What was a viscount doing masquerading as Thomas’s tutor?

“But how much more if he had truly been a tutor?”

“Did they know?”

“What a strange event.”

“Scandalous!”

She looked about the room blindly, and then realized that others were looking at her. Her gaze stopped on Lindley, on the expression of amused interest on his face, as if this were all happening to some distant family, not to Kate. He met her eyes and his expression changed to something like pity.

Of course he would pity her.

Her sister had just caused a scandal. Kate couldn’t even understand it.

But already it was clear. People would look at her differently.

She slipped back out of the room.



Peter caught one glimpse of her devastation before she was gone. By the time he reached the hall, there was no sight of her. Where would she have gone?

He walked through the house, peeking into the public rooms, through the guest quarters, then finally into the family wing, past the upstairs maid who looked curiously but did not stop him, busy as she was cleaning the rooms while their occupants were away. He could hear footsteps on the floor above and the sound of childish laughter. The youngest Mansfield, Thomas, likely. What did he think of his erstwhile tutor being revealed as a titled lord?

There was one closed door and behind it what sounded suspiciously like choked sobs. He knocked before he thought better of it.

After a moment’s silence, he heard Kate’s voice.

“Who’s there?”

A servant would have scratched lightly at the door, if not simply have entered. The rest of the family was below, ignoring that the entire balance of power at the park had been upset, likely beginning to celebrate, or pretending to celebrate, the engagement that had been thrust upon them, even as the rest of their guests decided whether to seize upon the hint of scandal or allow their hosts to continue the fiction of “All’s well that ends well.”


“Orland.”

Her footsteps were quick and when the door opened, he was met with her incredulous, tear-stained face.

“You! Can you not allow me some privacy?”

He shook his head at the idea. But, of course, Kate clung to the notion that he hated her, pursued her as a form of torment. “Catherine.”

She let out her breath in a shuddering sigh and looked away. “No? Charity, then? A way to assuage your guilt?” But her words lacked conviction. Did she see then, in his visage, what he had no words to say?

He reached out, cupped her cheek in his hand, and tilted her head back to face him. She stared. Then blinked, tears welling in her eyes. Her skin was achingly soft beneath his fingers and he moved his thumb to run the pad along the line of her lips. He knew he was taking a liberty, that the scandal of him being here, on the threshold of her bedroom, touching her so intimately, would rival or exceed that of her sister’s, but none of that mattered. He wanted to kiss her, and he would, here or in plain view of all the guests, propriety be dammed. No, propriety was not what stopped him.

“Why does it matter to you so much? Your sister. Marrying first.”