Follow the Heart (30 page)

Kate’s chin quivered, but other than that small sign of emotion, she kept a strong hold on herself. “If I tell anyone . . .”

“You know I have no one to whom I can carry tales.” Nora tried to keep her voice light, carefree, teasing. “And if you are concerned that I would tell Christopher, I promise you, I will keep whatever you tell me in the strictest confidence.”

Kate tossed the stem of the denuded flower to the floor. “Lord Thynne is going to make me an offer of marriage.”

Nora had inferred that from several statements Christopher made in his letters. “But you do not love Lord Thynne?”

“No.” One word, one syllable. Yet filled with anguish and longing.

“You love someone else.”

Kate nodded.

Nora thought for a moment. “You are in love with Andrew Lawton.”

Kate’s throat worked as she swallowed twice. Her blue eyes rose to Nora’s, imploring. “No one can ever know.”

Nora thought she understood Kate’s reasoning. “You are afraid if Lord Thynne discovers you do not love him that he will not offer marriage?”

“He knows I do not love him. At least, I know he doesn’t love me. But he is a good man. A man willing to take on the burden of my family. Who else would do that? For that kindness I owe him the respect of never admitting that I am in love with another man.”

“And you plan to live the remainder of your life with the regret that you chose Lord Thynne over the man you truly love?” Nora’s heart ached for her friend.

“I have no other choice.” Kate looked down and wiped her hands together as if dusting them off. “When your family needed you to help support them, did you refuse? Did you tell them it was not what you wanted to do, that you would rather make your own choices, follow your own path?”

“You know I did not.”

“Was teaching or becoming a governess the choice you would have made if your family’s financial welfare had been no consideration?”

“No. I wanted nothing more than to marry and raise my own family.”

“Then you can understand how I am forced into this choice by my family’s circumstances.” Kate’s eyes met hers again, this time searching—for an answer or approbation, Nora wasn’t certain. “Has the life you’ve chosen been intolerable? Have you hated it? Do you regret the choices you made?”

Nora considered the last twelve years of her life. “It has not always been wonderful. There were moments, especially in the early years, when I cried myself to sleep and wished my life could go back to how it had been before my parents sent me away.”

“And now?”

“Now I know why God led me on this path. It was so I could be here, in this house, when you and your brother came from America to stay. It was so I could meet Christopher.” Heat flared in Nora’s cheeks at admitting, for the first time, her belief that God might work in such a way.

Kate leaned back against a table, gripping the edge of it with both hands. “So whom did God send me here to meet? Andrew or Stephen? And if God truly did bring me here, why would He have put both men in front of me and forced me to choose between my own happiness or what’s best for my family?”

“Perhaps . . .” Nora paused, knowing she was unworthy to speculate on God’s ways and plans. But the words came unbidden. “Perhaps it is not God forcing you to choose between two men, but instead forcing you to turn to Him, to ask Him for guidance in what decision you should make. Have you ever considered that it is your happiness He wants and that He might want you to trust Him to care for your family’s needs rather than trying to do it on your own?”

At Kate’s prolonged silence, Nora regretted her words. “I am sorry. I did not mean to offend by speaking of things about which I have no knowledge or expertise.”

“No, no. Do not apologize. I think . . . I must consider what you have said. And then I must do something at which I am no good.” She gave Nora a half smile. “I must not only pray for God’s guidance, I must accept it and follow, even if it isn’t what I want to do.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
O
NE

K
ate stared into the cheval mirror. Katharine Dearing stared back at her, cinched and curled and coiffured until she looked like the viscountess she was to become.

Prayer turned out to be a pointless pursuit. She’d tried the prayers she’d learned by rote as a child. She’d tried using her own words, beginning as humbly as she could, then devolving into begging God to show her what she was supposed to do, what choice was correct. When she received no answer, she decided she would continue on as before, and take it as a sign if Stephen proposed and Andrew did not.

“’Tis good Miss Bainbridge had time to finish this dress and send it over. Otherwise, it would have been the yellow rose dress for you.” Athena fluffed the fringe dangling from the short, pleated sleeves covering Kate’s upper arms. In nature, Kate loved the color green. On herself, she didn’t like it at all. At least on this gown, the darkest green was relegated to the swag-style floral motif woven—or perhaps embroidered, she knew nothing about such things—into the pale silver-green silk.

The color of the gown had given her a good excuse to wear greenery in her hair instead of ribbons or feathers. Athena had taken hours, it seemed, to twist, roll, and pin Kate’s hair into the elaborate fall of curls that started at Kate’s crown and cascaded down her neck to bounce between her shoulder blades. Ivy and white jasmine flowers peeked out through the curls and were tucked under the thin braids that created a coronet at her crown.

“You will be the most exquisite woman at the ball tonight. Miss Buchanan will be beside herself with jealousy when Lord Thynne dances with you every set.”

Of Edith’s jealousy, Kate had no doubt whatsoever. Stephen, however, set more stock by propriety than to dance with Kate more than three times. Or at least she assumed he did.

The only reason Kate looked forward to Stephen’s proposal was to see the expression on Edith’s face when their engagement was announced. Her treatment of Kate—and that of her friends still in residence—had gone from ignoring her to outright hostility . . . though veiled in biting flattery and mocking deference.

Fingerless lace mittens completed Kate’s outfit, and she turned away from the mirror, but not before she caught a glimpse of Athena’s concerned frown reflecting back at her.

If Kate did marry Stephen, she would ask him to let her bring Athena with her as her lady’s maid. Unlike anything else in the last two hours, that thought generated a little smile.

At a knock on the door, she and Athena exchanged quizzical glances. Athena opened it and, Kate thought, hid her shock well at seeing Lord Thynne’s valet standing in the hall.

“M’lord sent this for Miss Dearing.” He handed Athena a box, bowed, and walked away.

Athena closed the door and carried the intricately carved wooden box to Kate. With trembling hands, Kate slid up the small brass latch and opened the lid. Inside, nestled on a bed of black silk velvet, lay a beautiful diamond-and-emerald collar necklace with matching drop earrings.

Her breath caught in her throat. She could not accept such a gift. But Athena had already removed the simple gold chain and earrings Kate had chosen and set the new necklace around the base of Kate’s throat. “Won’t be long now, miss, until you’re a viscountess.”

Kate hooked the earrings into her lobes and, holding her breath, turned back toward the mirror.

Surely Queen Victoria herself did not have jewels so exquisite. And Queen Victoria would never wonder how much they were worth and think about how that money would be put to better use in helping her family.

Athena fluffed Kate’s sleeve fringe again. “You’re all ready to go, my lady.” She grinned and bent her knees in a shallow curtsy.

“Oh, don’t call me that!” Kate shuddered. She hated the formality required by her current position. How would she cope with the additional deferential treatment of being one of the aristocracy?

Arriving downstairs, she almost laughed at the irony of worrying about deferential treatment in the future. As soon as Edith caught sight of the jewels sparkling at Kate’s throat and ears, her mouth drew into a pucker, her eyes narrowed, and she turned her back, ushering her friends into the parlor without a word to Kate. Perhaps deferential treatment would be better after all.

“You are so beautiful.” Florie’s breathless voice made Kate turn. The young woman still wore her day dress, and the longing in her blue eyes made Kate’s soul yearn to be in her position again—fourteen and her biggest concern being not attending a ball because she wasn’t out yet. No responsibility. No anguish over the possibility of marrying one man when she had feelings for another.

Kate did her best attempt at a court-presentation curtsy, having seen Dorcas and Florie practice it so often. “Why, thank you, Miss Florence.”

Florie giggled, then reached out a hand to help steady Kate when she came back upright a bit wobbly. “Lord Thynne will not be able to keep his eyes off you tonight. Nor will any other man in the room.”

Kate reached up to touch the necklace that pressed the base of her throat.

Because this ball was not in her honor, Kate attended as a guest, which meant she did not have to stand in the parlor in the receiving line. She moved into the gallery and accepted the salutations of those she’d met since her arrival in England. Unlike Edith and her friends, all the other guests acted as if she were already viscountess—a few acknowledging her with bows and curtsies. She held her head a little higher and pretended to enjoy such attention. It was the least she could do for Stephen’s sake.

Kate had almost reached the end of the long room when a discernible change in the demeanor of the guests and a buzz of whispers caught her attention. She excused herself from Lord and Lady Someone and turned to look back toward the entrance.

Stephen, his white waistcoat and cravat glowing in the light of hundreds of candles, received the deferential greetings of those nearest the door with his usual grace, moving purposely into the room, yet not in such haste that anyone could construe it as rudeness.

Kate’s pulse pounded, and the necklace and earrings weighed heavily.

Those standing around her split their attention between watching Kate and watching Stephen. It did not take him long to traverse the room.

He bowed to Kate.

She curtsied.

He lifted her right hand to his lips.

She trembled.

He tucked her hand under his elbow.

She walked sedately beside him and greeted each person introduced to her with the decorum and serenity she imagined a viscountess—or a potential future viscountess, in her case—needed.

Because Kate wasn’t the guest of honor—nor officially the fiancée of a viscount—Edith Buchanan had the honor of leading off the dancing.

Without asking, Stephen led Kate out for the waltz. Behind them, before the music drowned them out, whispers swelled, confirming the rumor that Lord Thynne intended to marry Sir Anthony’s American niece.

“I am pleased you did not change your mind and choose a different gown to wear tonight.” Even though the corners of his lips hardly rose, his eyes crinkled in a smile. “I went to great lengths to ascertain what color you would be in so I could choose jewels to match.”

“Thank you for these, Stephen, though I should never have accepted them.” Kate’s skirts flared as they whirled around to make their way up the room in the thronging circle of dancing couples. “I do not deserve such generosity.”

“Do not presume, Miss Dearing, to tell me of what you deserve. You are deserving of all the world has to offer. And once I put my question to you, I will endeavor to try to lay that world at your feet.”

Once, as a girl, Kate fell into a patch of stinging nettles. The tingling in her skin now reminded her of that feeling. “And what if my answer is not what you expect?” She managed to force enough of a teasing tone into her voice that he did not look at all concerned.

“Then I shall put the question to you now and see how you respond.”

Kate’s body went numb. Had it not been for the support of Stephen’s arms and his expertise as a dancer, she would have been on the floor in an ignominious heap.

“Katharine Dearing,” he said without pausing or faltering in his steps, “will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Was this the sign Kate prayed for? Could God have remained silent, deaf to her pleas, because there really was no choice but this?

Every fiber of her being urged her to break away from his arms, to run from the manor and down the gravel drive to the cottages, and to tell Andrew Lawton she wasn’t afraid of hard work, that she was indeed using her family as an excuse and a shield.

“Stephen,” she said as though the words were no effort at all, “it would be my honor to become your wife.” Her throat burned with the desire to deny what she’d just said, to take it back. Tears pricked the inside corners of her eyes. But she’d committed herself. She could not take it back.

“Shall we have your uncle make an announcement tonight?”

And let word get back to Andrew while she still had the chance of running into him and telling him herself? Not a chance. “Do you mind if we wait until . . .” When? She did not want to overshadow Dorcas’s presentation, yet the sooner they married, the sooner she could end her father’s anxiety—not that he deserved it after what he’d said to her. “Do you mind if we wait until the dinner my uncle is giving the week after we arrive in London? There will not be as many people present, but it will suffice for a public announcement, will it not?”

“And we can have it put in the
Times
for the following day. My mother will not arrive in town until after Easter. But I am certain she will want to hold a celebration in your honor.”

The music ended, and they bowed and curtsied to each other.

“Shall we tell your uncle the question is settled?” He extended his arm to her.

“Yes. But please ask him to tell no one until the dinner.”

“Not even your cousins?” Stephen gave Edith, now dancing with Oliver Carmichael, a pointed look.