Wed at Leisure(The Taming Series)

CHAPTER FIVE



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Peter had called a truce but he needled her all the same. Only now there seemed to be no malice in it, merely well-chosen or unfortunately chosen statements that stabbed at her soul. No, stabbed was not the correct description. It was more as if her soul were a harp and he plucked at it, filling it with a song of longing. How maudlin and ridiculous.

Still, it was true. Peter seemed to find all the most yearning parts of herself. The parts that were forever weepy, nostalgic for a future she did not know and a past that was so lost as to be merely a figment of an idea in her mind.

And maybe that was why she continued to follow his terms, which was merely the condition that she dine with him, ride with him, give him a chance to make amends. Amends for his past behavior, though he did not specify and she longed, and feared, to ask him to.

So at seven the next morning, Kate stood in front of the mirror in her room and stared. She was wearing her favorite riding costume, its color a deep forest green, and she knew very well what she looked like in it, with the jaunty little matching cap that her maid had fastened to her hair. However, what had her frozen was the idea that everything was upended.

She had had this thought before many times since leaving home for her first Season. But away from Hopford, it was as if living a different life, being a different person, nearly an actor upon a stage. Here at home, she was forced to reconcile who she preferred to be and who she was. Who she had been.

She was being forced to question her perspective and her choices. It was unsettling.

Peter was unsettling.

He acted like he knew her. Not the Kate of London or the Kate of Watersham, but both, or something deeper. Something she wasn’t even certain she herself knew. Which meant he didn’t know her at all.

She shook her head, the movement making her feel more decisive, more in control, and she left the looking glass behind.

He was waiting for her in the entry hall, looking handsome and familiar. It was the familiarity that made her feel such warmth in her chest. The way one might feel at a known face in a crowd of strangers, even if that person were normally an enemy.

A truce.

“Good morrow, Kate.”

She giggled. Giggled. How ridiculous.

“My name is Catherine.”

“I do like Catherine,” he said. “And I like Kate. They both fit you. The regal and the common.” He took her arm. “Shall we?”

She let him guide her out of the house, to where their horses and grooms waited.

“Are you calling me common?”

“Only if I am calling you regal, as well.”

“Hmmph.” She slipped her arm off of his and mounted her mare, Clara. Then looked back at Peter to find him still on the ground, looking up at her.

“No, Kate, there is nothing common about you.”

There was a look of physical admiration in his gaze. She knew it, had seen it before in others’ gazes, had taken it as her due, as the triumph of her fight for social approbation. But now for some reason the warmth of his gray eyes made her uncomfortably hot. She laughed. “How kind of you. Not that you were forced into such a compliment. I know it was positively spontaneous and natural.”

“And you would be correct. You may be petite, but your spirit is quite large.” She watched him accept his groom’s help, mount the horse whose brown flank was still lightly damp from the ride over.

Once he had seated himself comfortably, she guided Clara over to him. “Is that a compliment, Your Grace?”

“Naturally.”

“You admire a large . . . spirit?”

He laughed. “Are you flirting with me?”

“You did call a truce, did you not? Why be so shocked?”

“I believe I like flirty Kate. Brighton and London might have been more enjoyable.”


“I thought you enjoyed all of our exchanges,” she contended.

“Yes. Flirtation of a different sort.”

“Flirta—” She looked at him incredulously. “A strange man you are.”

“Not regal?”

“Hah. Not the first word that comes to mind. Though I suppose by definition you are ducal. Not that that flatters dukes in general much.”

“Ouch, Kate. If this is your truce, I am afraid of your war.”

She flushed. “Old habits, I suppose. But it is rather fun to poke you. I hadn’t realized till just now that I enjoyed it.”

“The way you continually abused my poor valet.”

“He deserves the abuse. That man is a criminal for what he does to you. How a man could be regal, let alone ducal, while wearing the most clashing colors and patterns, I do not know.”

“He suffers from Daltonism . . . he cannot see certain colors.”

That stopped her. She’d maligned the man for something out of his control. “And yet you keep him as valet. I knew he had been of service to you during the war but I hadn’t imagined. Oh, Peter. That is rather good of you. But perhaps a different position, more fitted to his talents?”

“Talents. He had a talent for war. Shall we ride to the grove?”

From flirtation to seriousness, the conversation had shifted again, and as they thundered over the earth, eating away at the verdant rolling ground, she had the very odd idea that here in Watersham she had fought many a battle and perhaps she had a talent for war, as well.