Page 14 of Whiskers and Wiles

She should have had a maid to assist her in dressing. Indeed, the club provided every sort of maid to assist the ladies residing there. But Kat despised help of any sort. Not only had experience taught her that other people were unreliable and too often concerned only with gaining their own advantages, she hadn’t trusted a single maid to come anywhere near her since Mary.

She would not make herself vulnerable to anyone, master or servant, ever again.

Though it did make for a lonely life. Many had been the time she had wished for someone she could trust to talk to and share her heart with, aside from her dearest friends. They all had lives of their own to contend with, though. Being alone was safe, but it had weighed on her heart more than she wanted to admit to.

Then again, that was why Napoleon, and his predecessors, were such ideal companions.

“If he attempts to undermine my mission this evening, I shall eviscerate him,” she told Napoleon, reaching awkwardly behind her to fasten the ties of her gown. “If he thinks for so much as a moment that he can humiliate me in company again, he will have another think coming.”

Napoleon finished his bathing and stood to stretch his feline limbs.

“Yes, I quite agree,” Kat said, as if Napoleon had expressed his feelings on the matter with his movements. “My mission this evening is clear. Lady Thistlewhite must be convinced to attendthe ball. I will not allowthat manto trivialize my aims or make me seem weak and ineffective before the others.”

Even as she spoke, Kat remembered the painful emotions she had lived with for far too long in the immediate wake of Waldorf’s deception and defection. She was furious with herself for opening her heart to the man to the point where he had caused such long-lasting damage.

“It was my own fault,” she spoke her thoughts aloud, to Napoleon, as she finished securing her gown and moved to her dressing table to style her hair. “I never should have given my heart away so readily. I was young and deeply foolish.”

And in love, she added to herself.

She had been so in love. She had never known anything like it. Waldorf had been her ideal man. He had been a bit older and had more experience of the world. He was a dazzling wit and a charming conversationalist. Whereas other men courting her friends had spoken down to them and treated it as a given that they wanted a man to deign to give them attention in return for unearned adoration, Waldorf had always had a care for her thoughts.

He hadn’t treated her like a potential ornament, like he was choosing a bauble from a box filled with them. He had approached her as an equal from the start. He had taken her to lectures and debates that few women attended. He had not balked in the least when the two of them stayed up late drinking at any of the Oxford pubs that allowed women. And he had not treated her as some fainting violet when the flame of their passion rose to the point where they felt the urgent need to do something about it.

“How could a man who was so right in so many ways turn so wrong?” she sighed, gazing at her reflection once her hair was in place.

Her heart squeezed with old misery at the question. Twenty years, and she did not have an answer. She had thought Waldorf to be perfect in every way, but he had turned out to have feet of clay. Twenty years, and she could not decide whether he was a deceptive fool…or if he had been deceived by a too-clever trickster.

Waldorf Godwin was not the only man that Kat would never forgive.

A soft knock sounded on her door, and Kat gasped and sat straighter. “Come in?” she called, uncertain whether she wanted any sort of company.

The door opened, and Regina, the Oxford Society Club’s head footman, poked her head around the door. “My lady, your carriage is here,” she said.

Kat smiled and stood, leaning to the side to retrieve her reticule. “Thank you, Regina.”

As Kat headed toward the door, blowing a kiss to Napoleon as she went, Regina asked, “Would you like assistance with your gown, my lady?”

“No, I—” Kat bit back her instinctive refusal, then asked, “Have I done it up wrong?”

“A bit,” Regina said with a kind smile.

A twist of regret pulled at Kat’s heart as she turned to let Regina refasten her ties. Lack of trust might have kept one’s heart safe, but it caused a myriad of other problems.

Kat longed for a life where she could trust, but that life had vanished before her eyes one spring day in Oxford.

She thanked Regina for her efforts once the woman was done, then hurried downstairs to where the hired hack was waiting. Lord and Lady Thistlewhite’s townhouse was just a bit too far from the Oxford Society Club for Kat to walk the distance alone at night. She regretted the expense of hiring a carriage, butfortunately, Queen Matilda paid her well, so it was not a strain on her finances.

She arrived unfashionably early for the party, thanks to a dearth of carriages on London’s streets. There would be so many more later in the evening, and in a fortnight, once Joint Parliament actually began. Lord Thistlewhite’s butler welcomed her into the house regardless, with apologies for the ladies of the house not yet being ready to receive her. He showed her into a lovely, if somewhat old-fashioned, parlor instead.

There were advantages to being alone in the parlor of the woman she was charged with influencing in a direction she might not wish to go. Kat busied herself perusing the room, attempting to gauge what sort of books Lady Thistlewhite favored, what other sort of entertainments she enjoyed, and if she was lucky, perhaps discovering which shops the woman favored on Oxford Street. Any small bit of information could be used to formulate an argument to convince the woman Lady Ryman’s house was where she wanted to be on Friday.

She had just discovered a book of the poems of William Wordsworth, which Lady Ryman herself had recently become enamored of and spoke about to anyone who would listen, when the subtle sound of a man clearing his throat behind her caused Kat to straighten and turn to the doorway.

She expected to find the Thistlewhite’s butler announcing a new arrival. She did not in any way expect to be faced with none other than Lord Anthony Headland.

“Good evening, Lady Katherine,” Lord Headland greeted her with a smile that could only be described as triumphant. “What a remarkable surprise to find you here as well this evening.”

He took a few steps deeper into the room, and Kat immediately seethed, “Do not come another pace closer to me, you villain.”

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