Page 62 of The Marriage Debt
‘Then the riding is going well?’
She wrinkled her nose, ‘Very well, provided we only walk. Although I have to confess to thinking I might venture to trot soon. The reason I came over today is because I wanted to ask if there is anything I can do to assist with the preparations for the ball.’
‘Not a thing, my dear, but it is good of you to ask.’ The duke nodded in the direction of the pale man who was sitting silently beside Katherine. ‘Jeremy has everything entirely under control as usual. Ah, perhaps I have been remiss. Can it be that you have not yet been introduced? Mr Greene, my secretary. Jeremy, Lady Seaton.’
‘Ma’am,’ he murmured, blushing.
‘Are you resident here?’ Katherine asked. He was very self-effacing, but surely she would have noticed him before?
‘No, ma’am. I live in the village with my mother, who is widowed, and his grace is good enough to allow me to come in daily–’
He broke off with a start as the door opened and Theo strode in looking thunderous. ‘Katherine. So here you are.’
Chapter Twenty One
‘What the devil are you doing jauntering about the countryside by yourself without a word to anyone?’ He appeared to become aware of the other occupants of the room. ‘Cousin Fanny, I beg your pardon. Well, Kat?’
A swift glance in the duke’s direction warned her that he was about to take exception both to his son’s entrance and his speech. She said brightly, ‘Oh, did Paulson not tell you I was riding over here?’
The duke relaxed and sat back in his chair. Katherine had the distinct feeling that he was amused.
‘You could have broken your neck.’ Theo was not about to be appeased.
‘I had a groom with me,’ Katherine riposted with sweet reasonableness.
‘And what good would he be if you fell off?’
‘He would have helped me up, I trust. And I am pleased I came over today, as I have just met Mr Greene.’
The shy secretary appeared to be attempting to wriggle backwards out of his seat. Katherine favoured him with a warm smile which made her husband’s eyes narrow. He said abruptly, ‘May I join you, sir?’
‘Please do,’ Robert begged, before their father could speak. ‘You are giving me acid indigestion fuming just behind my shoulder. Here, have some sirloin and stop lecturing Katherine, we do not want you putting her off coming to see us.’
‘Have your tailors gone?’ Katherine asked with what she hoped might be seen as a proper wifely concern.
‘Yes, we were slightly delayed as one of them thought he had swallowed a pin. I cannot imagine why.’ He was teasing her, so he had forgiven her. Whether she was quite ready to be easy withhim was another matter.
‘Extraordinary,’ Katherine agreed solemnly, biting her lip so as not to smile at the teasing twinkle in his eyes. It was quite impossible to resist Theo when he looked like that. ‘Perhaps he had a shock?’
‘Katherine,’ the duke remarked to his elder son, ‘has been dutiful enough to come over especially to offer her assistance with the preparations for the ball, a courtesy which neither of my sons has seen fit to extend.’
Robert did not rise to the bait, merely dropping one lid in the ghost of a wink at Katherine. Theo too had his own way of dealing with provocation. ‘Sir, unless things have changed greatly since I have been away, any attempt to interfere with your plans to present Seaton Mandevilleen fêtewould be spurned.’ He passed the secretary the mustard. ‘Naturally, had I known you wished me to, I would have hastened over and ordered flower arrangements, or decided on the order of dances.’
Surely the duke would respond in kind, make some light remark? Instead his eyebrows rose haughtily and he said, ‘As it happens your assistance is not required.’
Katherine felt the set-down as acutely as if it had been directed at her, and she felt her cheeks colour. She glanced under her lashes at Theo, but he seemed unmoved, only the ironic twist of his mouth telling her that he too had felt the touch of ice. But of course, he must be used to it, expect it. This was the way relations between father and son had always been.
She continued making conversation with Mr Greene and listened with every appearance of fascination to Lady Fanny recounting how amazing it was that she had thought to put in her own ball gown when she had packed. ‘Quite a miracle, so providential, because of course I had no reason to suppose…and I only put it out by accident. Such a scatter-brained thing to do,was it not?’
It was difficult to answer that without discourtesy. Katherine said warmly, ‘But providential, as you said.’ Her mind was somewhere else entirely. Could she do anything, say anything to help reconcile Theo and his father in the days she had left at Seaton Mandeville? And what influence could an embarrassment of a daughter-in-law, one who was soon to be set aside, have in any case? The duke had been kind to her beyond her desserts, but he would not welcome presumption, of that she was convinced.
The days before the ball passed for Katherine with a sense of unreality. Theo appeared to have recovered from whatever alarm her riding without him had produced and taught her to trot. Katherine was very proud of herself, when she had stopped falling off, and Theo had not laughed at her once.
She had also forgiven him for the ball gown, sensibly realising that it was the most beautiful garment she would ever wear and to spurn it would be ungracious, and at this late stage, impractical.
Nothing was said about that moment when they had stood in his room, her anger transmuting into sensual awareness, and she began to wonder if, after all, he had felt it too. And anyway, she scolded herself, what if he had? Feelings of physical desire were far removed from love, and love was the only possible reason she could think of for a marquis to stay married to a nobody who had wed him out of her own extremity.
On the afternoon of the ball Theo’s new valet Cuthbertson and Jenny transported their burdens of carefully-wrapped evening attire, accessories, brushes and colognes and installed themselves in Theo’s suite and the adjoining rooms at the House. Theo had announced that it would be much simpler if they dressed for the ball there and spent what would remain ofthe night as well.
