Wed at Leisure(The Taming Series)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN



* * *





“Well.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Peter growled. As he had again and again for the fifteen minutes of the ride that he was cooped up with his brother in the dark carriage. He was angry. No, furious. At Reginald, Bianca, Luc. At himself.


He wanted to turn the carriage around and go back to Hopford. Find Kate and convince her to forgive him. To talk to her until he found the right words, the ones that conveyed everything he felt. That made everyone’s stupidity irrelevant and unimportant.

To kiss her again as he had in her bedroom. To go back in time and keep her there. Hell, to go back in time further, four years back, and leave that flask at home. To kiss her by the river and remember. To make her his then and now and forever.

But she had needed him to leave and the part of him that was rational understood that. He would return tomorrow, survey the situation, make his apologies, and profess his love.

Yes, his love.

“I’m going to marry her.”

Reggie’s gasp was audible even over the noises of the carriage. “You cannot. Your life will be hell. She’s demanding and ill mannered.”

“Hardly ill-mannered. Her relationship with her family aside . . .”

“And you would then be family,” Reggie stressed. “For God’s sake, I would be family.”

“I know a different Kate than you.”

“Mother won’t have it.”

Peter laughed. As if his mother could control his actions. He had stopped letting the opinion of his parents sway him the day he left to join the army. He afforded his mother the respect he was due, but . . .

“I am the duke. She has no say in my choice of wife.”

“I never took you for a fool, brother. You’ve chosen the wrong Mansfield girl. She’ll make your life miserable. Make all of us miserable. When you’re hen-pecked and tired of her demands, you’ll tell me I was right.”

Peter had never wanted to punch his brother before. Shake him, yes. Pound some sense and fiscal responsibility into him, yes. But physically hurt him? This was new, all of the anger and frustration wanting an outlet. But Peter relaxed his fists and let the force of his displeasure show in his voice.

“Reggie, stop it. If Catherine will have me, despite the stupidity of my younger brother and the way he perpetrated a masquerade upon her family, then she will be my duchess. And you will apologize to her.”

“I will do no such thing,” Reggie said hotly. “I’m off for Brighton tomorrow.”

Peter squinted at his brother. He had always thought his brother irreverent, carefree, and rambunctious. A bit of a bumbling jokester. He had never thought there a layer of maliciousness beneath. But this was a different Reginald he saw by moonlight and the knowledge unsettled him. Perhaps Brighton was a good thing.

Kate was impetuous and she had learned to rein in her behavior. Aside from his one great moment of obstinacy, disobeying his father’s wishes, Peter had always been in control. But his emotions were no less wild and the way he felt about Kate proved that to him.

Why her? Why now? Had it always been there but it took Reggie’s prank to make him look past the fears that held him back?

For that he could forgive his brother.

“Do as you will,” he said simply. “And I shall, as well.”



Kate awoke with the sense that some disaster had occurred. Then she remembered. She’d let Lord Lindley win at chess, and if he’d noticed that his victory was unearned, he hadn’t said a word. She’d done it to spite him. Because he had not even put up a fight. He’d bowed out when he’d thought Peter pursued her. Hah!

The sound of breathing caught her attention.

“Is that you, Jane?”

“Yes, miss. I brought you some tea and toast.”

She had thought to go down to breakfast but clearly she had overslept.

“How late is it?”

“Your father and mother have broken fast already. Many of your guests, as well. He took the men out to shoot.”

“And the women?”

“In the morning room.”

It all sounded so normal. So like the original plan.

“Some have left already.”

“The Wildwoods and Lady Vane and her daughter, I presume.” It made the most sense. And while Miss Stanbury was equally young and presumably impressionable, her brother was not such a careful guardian that he would think to leave.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And what of Mr. Dore . . . I mean, Lord Asquith?”

“He will be moved to Lady Vane’s room once it has been aired.”

Interesting. She would have forced him to go to an inn. Or thrown him on Lord Reginald’s mercy. After all, the Colburns were the ones to introduce him, to initiate the fraud. But her father had never done well with conflict. He would bend over backward for a peaceful home.

Then, as she prepared to leave her room, she stopped in front of the glass once more. There had been another disaster. Bianca. Like a bit of knitting that had come unraveled and kept unraveling, events were out of control. The way they had been years ago.

She took a deep breath. She could hardly bend the world to her bidding, no matter how hard she tried. All she could do was to act as if she didn’t care, as if no one should care.

She stepped out into the hall. Walked its length, then down the stairs. She half-expected to see Peter and Reggie there, to relive the experience the way she still felt the pain in her chest.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Why go to the morning room? Why pretend? Why not go back to bed?

“There you are, Kate. Your guests have been asking about you.”

Kate blinked at Bianca, who had appeared as if from nowhere, spouting off nonsense as if nothing untoward had occurred the night before.

“You were with them?”

“Why shouldn’t I be? They wished me well on my engagement.”

Kate stared at her in amazement. She had never known a time that she hadn’t had to be careful with everything she said and did. First, her mother had criticized all of her actions and then society had scrutinized. Every mistake Kate had ever made had been one she had had to work to overcome. Not so her sister. “You’re completely shameless.”

“You should be happy for me,” Bianca said, “I’m marrying an earl. You don’t need to be embarrassed. And beyond that, I’m in love. You should be happy for me but you’re not. All you care about is yourself. And despite your attempts to ruin my life, I’m living one anyway. Without benefit of a Season. It must just eat at you inside, doesn’t it? Something you couldn’t dictate.”

There were two Kates listening to this speech. One, the hurt child, the one who needed approbation, who loved her sister, who wanted everything to be perfect. And the other, the woman who would never let anyone see weakness or hurt her. So nothing Bianca said mattered. The words flowed off Kate’s skin like water. She didn’t need to hear this.

But as she walked away, she did hear it. Over and over again. The same way she had stared at herself in the mirror. The way she had determined never again to be the woman who would choose a ball over a brother.

She heard everything.



It was like watching a stone wall crumble, a fortress crack. As Kate walked away, he could see the softening of her shoulders, the hesitation in her gait. He glanced back at Bianca.

She, too, bore the wounds of the exchange. She might have achieved her goal but she looked harder in some ineffable way.

“You want to say something, say it.” At Bianca’s tired words, Peter stepped forward from the shadows. Embarrassment at having been caught listening was not as great as his anger, as his sense of injustice.

“She doesn’t deserve that. Your sister loves you.”

“What do you know of it, Your Grace? You think because you’ve spent a handful of days with her that you know the real Catherine Mansfield? I’ve seen her now, in action. She has her society face and then there is the one beneath.”


“And the one beneath that. There are depths to Kate that you have never imagined. She may have her flaws, her jealousy, her need for admiration, for being . . . in control of everything around her.”

“Perhaps you do know her better than I thought if you are not completely blinded,” Bianca muttered.

“Do you know how your mother was to your sister? The way she found fault in everything she did? I can see you didn’t. Because she treated you very differently. It was much the same in my home. If you ask me to describe my brother to you, you would not recognize Lord Reginald. The way a sibling sees another . . . it is not the way the world sees him. Or her.”

“And that is the most unfair of all.”

For the first time since he had returned to Watersham, Bianca Mansfield had said something with which he had to agree.