Sally James (10 page)

'There is nothing whatsoever to discuss!' Kate said fiercely. 'I will not marry you, and as for the money you can have it and welcome. Aunt Sophie and I will go back to Oxfordshire, I will write novels, and we can carry on living there as we have always done!'

'Kate, my dear, not so hotly,' her aunt put in, but Kate paid her no heed and raged on.

'I never expected anything from my grandfather, indeed he treated Mama despicably, and I am only sorry that his age and infirmities made me regard him a little more fondly these past few days. He did not change after all.'

'Kate, spare me these hysterics,' Adam commanded abruptly. 'The trust will administer your fortune and pay to you, or rather to Miss Byford as your legal guardian, the income from it until you marry me. In the meantime I think it would be to everyone's advantage if you were to be sent for a few months to a suitable academy for young ladies - '

'School? You want to send me to school?' Kate interjected in utter amazement. 'You fiend! You shall not! I will not go. I left the schoolroom months ago. How dare you suggest something so - so outrageous?'

'In order to learn the necessary accomplishments of an heiress and future countess,' Adam continued imperturbably, 'including a sense of decorum and the proper manner of conducting yourself. Perhaps then you will be able to control yourself in a more becoming fashion. Mr Hulme, do you know of some reliable establishment which might accept Miss Byford?'

Kate stared round at the others. 'Aunt Sophie, surely you won't permit him to do this to me?' she asked.

Miss Byford sighed. 'I think you are over-reacting,' she said slowly. 'You have spoken without thought, and perhaps a few weeks will help you to reflect on the advantages of such a match.'

Kate stared at her in dismay. She hadn't expected her aunt to fail her, to betray her in such a fashion. She swallowed hard.

'Mrs Rhydd, Ma'am, can't you persuade him it's a ridiculous notion?' she went on.

'I don't want you to feel compelled,' Mrs Rhydd said slowly, but Kate could see that Adam's mother was as opposed to the marriage as she was herself. She'd said he ought to marry a girl from a good family, one accustomed to Society. Equally she saw clearly that neither lady would be able to sustain an argument with Adam. He refused to listen to her, and for the moment she accepted defeat. But only for the moment, she vowed as she rose to her feet.

'Since you think you have every right to dispose of me without the slightest regard to my wishes, I decline to remain here and listen to your plans,' she announced with a creditable assumption of a calm she did not feel.

She turned, her head held high, and swept towards the door. As she stretched out her hand for the knob she found to her fury that Adam, with long easy strides, had reached the door at the same time. She braced herself for battle but he was not about to detain her. With a sardonic smile, his scar lifting one eyebrow quizzically, he opened the door for her and bowed slightly as she moved hastily past him and flounced out of the room.

Kate spent the remainder of that day and all of the next in her room, taking her meals on trays and refusing to accept the comfort her aunt attempted to offer.

'My dear, I do feel for you, it is exceedingly high handed of him and preposterous, and possibly there is a way out if you really do not care to marry Adam. Though I hear that he is regarded as one of the best catches on the marriage mart,' Aunt Sophie said tentatively on the first occasion she came to discuss it with Kate.

'Who says so, his doting mama?' Kate asked in a scathing tone. 'He is arrogant and insensitive and I cannot imagine anyone wishing to marry him.'

'There you're wrong,' Aunt Sophie opined. 'He is rich, he was comfortably off before he inherited this fortune. Now he's even richer, as well as titled, and handsome. And it is not just his mama who says so. I hear from Mrs Sutherland, who was a very dear friend of mine when we were both girls, and who came to call on me a few days ago, that he is the despair of doting mamas. He is regarded as a desperate flirt, for he pays marked attentions to a girl for a week or so and then for no apparent reason cools towards them and hardly notices them.'

'He hasn't even paid attentions to me!' Kate muttered.

Those kisses didn't count. On the first occasion he hadn't known who she was, and had thought he was amusing himself, taking advantage of a simple country girl who'd been impertinent and laughed at his misfortune. The time at Vauxhall had been a deliberate and foolish attempt to teach her some sort of lesson. She shivered at the recollection of her feelings then, her lack of willpower, her longing to submit. She'd never permit him to hold such sway over her again.

'Not that I want him to pay me any attentions,' she went on hurriedly. 'I can imagine nothing more odious! Aunt Sophie, what can I do?'

'We must wait and see,' her aunt advised. 'He has this notion that his promise binds him, but I am sure that when he has had time to reflect he will see the impossibility of being forced by a dying man to do something neither of you wishes. Or it is possible that he may meet some other girl and fall in love with her, and wish to marry her instead.'

For some peculiar reason Kate was not at all pleased by the suggestion that Adam had no more wish to marry her than she had to marry him, but she could scarcely object to it. She laughed scornfully at the very idea that so self-opinionated a man could ever genuinely fall in love.

'Can he insist that I go to his horrid school?' she asked plaintively.

'I suspect he can, and although I do appreciate that you feel his actions are a trifle high handed, just think for a moment. Even a few months at a good school will give you all sorts of opportunities you would never have otherwise,' she said encouragingly. 'You can learn to dance, and have painting and singing lessons, and ride, and meet other girls. Things I could never afford to pay for.'

'I don't want to do any of those things,' Kate protested, but less vehemently than before. 'And in any case, now I can afford to pay for them if I should happen to want them.'

She was silent for a while, then glanced cautiously at her aunt who was sitting with a dreamy expression in her eyes.

'Grandfather said it would make no difference to him, there was no one else,' Kate said a low voice.

'What do you mean?'

'When he was making Adam promise. He said there was no one else. I suppose he meant that Adam favoured no other girl. At the time I hadn't the slightest notion what he was talking about but I've been trying to recall all he said, and I remembered that.'

'What else did he say?'

'That there never had been anyone else suitable. Yet you say Adam is a notorious flirt.'

'But he has never paid serious court to a girl, that must be what your grandfather meant.'

'If there was no one suitable, did he mean there is someone unsuitable? Aunt Sophie, you've heard the gossip. Might Adam have a
tendre
for someone unsuitable? Do you know if he has a mistress?'

'I'd be very surprised if a man of his age and attractiveness hadn't had several,' Miss Byford said candidly. 'I have no idea whether he is currently enjoying some liaison. But you should not be concerned with that. Even when - if you were married to him you should never mention such matters, especially to him.'

'That won't happen, so you need not be concerned for my impetuous tongue!' Kate snapped.

She was silent for a moment. Her aunt might think it was more dignified for a wife to ignore any mistress her husband might have in keeping, but she didn't agree. She would marry for love, if she married at all, and if her imaginary husband even cast languishing glances at some other woman she would make him regret it!

She had a vision of Adam in the arms of some harpy, someone like his beautiful companion Annabelle. She gritted her teeth angrily before reminding herself that as she was not going to marry him, whatever harpies and loose Society women he chose to consort with was none of her business.

'Grandfather said he was asking Adam to pay for his own mistakes,' she said slowly. 'I suppose he meant the way in which he treated Mama. But if he wanted to make that right - not that she can benefit - why not simply leave me the money, or even a much smaller sum? Why make it all so complicated with stupid arrangements for a marriage neither Adam nor I want?'

If Adam's hand had not been forced, as it undoubtedly had been, Kate was thinking, he would never have thought of marrying her. Was it solely to acquire the whole of the late Earl's fortune that he was so determined on the marriage? Was it his sense of honour, the promise he had made a dying man in order to ease his going, that made him so insistent now? Or, and she ground her teeth again at the notion, was it a cunning ploy to seem determined in a way that would alienate her and ensure that she rejected such an unflattering proposal, knowing that it had been forced on Adam?

She would make him regret it if that was his motive. For the time being she would annoy him most effectively, and perhaps confuse and even worry him, if she appeared to go along with his plans. It was possible, with his contrary nature, that he'd forget the idea of a school if he thought she was being accommodating.

As a result, when the new Earl requested Kate's opinion she threw herself wholeheartedly into the business of selecting a suitable school, demanding to know every detail of the buildings, the curriculum, and the teachers employed there.

'When you are settled,' Adam said one day with an exaggerated air of patience, as Kate objected to yet another school because they did not offer tuition on the harp, 'I propose taking my mother to Malvern Court, in Lincolnshire. This house can be cleared of all the old fashioned furniture your grandfather clung to and then refurbished ready for us to move into once we are married. What do you think?'

Kate entered into his plans for decorating schemes with enthusiasm. She demanded the most fashionable and expensive furniture, insisting that the servants' quarters in the attics and basement be thoroughly refurbished too, and the old fashioned open range in the kitchen be replaced by the very latest Bodley closed range.

Adam's attitude towards her puzzled Kate. Although he was careful never to touch her more than to hand her into a carriage or lead her into the dining room, he seemed to be making an effort to charm her. He paid her lavish compliments and once, to her amazement, even referred to the times he had kissed her.

'If we go on as comfortably as this we could make our marriage a success,' he commented. 'I have enjoyed our previous kisses, as much as I think you have. When you are my wife I shall enjoy making love to you, teaching you skills other than those you will learn at school.'

Kate glanced at him, eyes brimful of merriment. 'Don't they teach young ladies those sort of skills at your precious academies? she asked.

Adam's lips twitched. 'That sort of instruction is deemed best left to husbands,' he replied reprovingly. 'Which of these fabrics do you prefer?'

'How do you suppose husbands learn them?' she pondered. 'Is this a part of the curriculum at boys' schools? Or are youths provided with female tutors, rather like dancing masters? What are they called? Teachers of seduction?'

'A wife does not enquire too closely into her husband's previous life,' he returned, trying to suppress a grin.

'I will - would always insist on the truth!' Kate declared.

'Then admit you enjoyed my kisses,' he challenged.

'They were passable, I suppose,' she conceded, and picked up the fabric samples.

'And you were ready for more than kisses,' he said softly.

About to repulse his suggestion Kate suddenly recalled her new tactics of complaisance. Besides, if she were honest, she had enjoyed the kisses. Her treacherous mind was distracted from comparing the different merits of gold or green curtain fabric for the drawing room winter curtains, as she began to wonder what even greater delights married intimacy could provide. Hastily she dragged her attention back to what they were supposed to be doing.

'The gold, I think. It's far more expensive but it will give the illusion of sunlight.'

'If you insist on such drastic changes at Malvern Court and Rhydd Grange you'll soon run through your inheritance,' he said lightly.

'My inheritance? Why mine? You will pay for this, they are your houses.'

'Oh no, the refurbishment and all the new furniture and everything above the basic necessities will be charged to you,' he replied. 'I have few needs, and could live very simply on my own. After all, it's at your insistence we are changing everything.'

'You can't do that!' Kate protested.

'I have done so. All of these bills are being sent to Mr Hulme, to be paid out of your income, and if that is insufficient, as I fear it will be, out of your capital.'

'You can't touch that!' Kate gasped. 'I wouldn't be able to spend it, so why should you? It isn’t even your money, yet!'

'But it will be, when we are married, so why not use it now to make the house as you wish it to be? As I've said, that will be mainly for your benefit.'

Kate forgot all her resolutions, her devious plots to deceive Adam, and rose impetuously to her feet.

'I'm not going to marry you!' she declared furiously. 'I won't be coerced, and I insist that if you've stolen any of my money you pay it back immediately. I'm going straight to Mr Hulme, and if he won't pay me back I'll go to the courts, I'll find some way of making you give me what's mine.'

He strode across the room and seized her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly.

'So it was all play-acting, as I suspected,' he said. 'You thought you'd lull my suspicions, trick me. You clearly need another lesson.'

Kate stared into his eyes, dark and mysterious, and began to tremble as she recalled what had happened the last time he'd held her so. After a few moments Adam released her and turned away.

'On Monday you'll go to that Academy in Kensington, harp lessons or no,' he stated flatly. 'I will make the arrangements.'

Chapter Nine