Page 69 of The Marriage Debt
Theo looked over and she smiled sweetly at him and waggled her fingers in the kind of coquettish gesture she had always despised in other women.
Theo saw the little wave, reading it as a sarcastic gesture. He bowed in return, lifting his glass in a silent toast that was not lost on his companion who turned a haughty stare on Kat.
‘And who is she?’ she enquired coolly. ‘A tolerably pretty girl. I must admit, she can certainly dress.’
‘A friend of Cousin Fanny. Would you call her pretty?’ Theo enquired lazily, trailing one finger around the top of his wine glass.Good, Robert has recalled his instructions and is bringing champagne. Why the Devil he has also brought that prickly Scottish lawyer, goodness knows, unless he was not able to dislodge him.
Camilla was preening slightly at his apparent criticism of Kat. She was quite obviously expecting that, as the most eligible lady in the district, he would be making her a declaration before long. Even if he was free, such an assumption irritated him. ‘No, definitely not pretty. I would call her beautiful.’ Camilla’s smile vanished to be replaced with a pout.Kat never pouts.
‘Look,’ Camilla said brightly, with an edge which revealed her anger with him. There is Jack Waterlow and my sister Lucy. Jack! Jack, come and join us.’
Theo stood as the others reached the table. ‘Will you excuse me a moment?’
Kat was still alone. Across the room Robert was juggling a bottle and three glasses while Graham was apparently undecided on the best way to convey food for three people back to the table.
‘Kat?’ She was quite well aware he was there, but her start of surprise was masterly and his lips twitched.
‘Oh. My lord?’
‘Have you saved me a dance, Kat?’
She flicked open the card that dangled from her wrist. ‘As instructed I have kept my card free, awaiting your pleasure.’Oh no, Kat, awaitingyourpleasure…
‘That one.’ He picked up the pencil and wrote his name against a waltz half-way through the remaining dances.
‘Just the one?’ She sounded piqued, and then frowned, annoyed at herself for revealing it.
‘Just the one, Kat.’ He smiled and went back to his table.One is all I need.
Katherine drank two glasses of champagne, amazed at how it made even the haughtily-averted profile of Lady Camilla less annoying. It did not, however, make her husband’s behaviour any less mysterious. Was he teasing her? Punishing her for some offence she was unaware of? Flirting?
Flirting? She was not very experienced with such an activity, but surely that was a very strange way to go about it? A footman came up with a message for Robert who scrambled to his feet with a muttered, ‘Oh, lord. Cousin Timberlake is in his cups again. Please excuse me Ka…Miss Cunningham.’
Alone with Roderick Graham, and emboldened by the two glasses of wine, Katherine said, ‘Mr Graham, if you were to flirt with me, how would you go about it?’
He almost choked on a lobster patty and took several moments before he could reply. ‘You would like me to flirt with you, Miss Cunningham?’
‘Oh no, I am sorry. It is just that I am very inexperienced with things like that, and I am sure I would not notice if a gentlemanwereto flirt, and naturally, one should be awake to that sort of thing.’ Now she had embarked upon this Katherine was not at all sure how she was going to extricate herself. ‘And naturally, one cannot ask a man who one would not trust,’ she finished in a rush. Perhaps respectable Scottish lawyers, however youthful and good-looking, were not the right type of man to ask.
She had misjudged Mr Graham. ‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Firstly I think I would fill up your wine glass and hand it to you like this – and let my fingertips touch yours, like that.’
‘Oh.’
‘And then I would raise my glass in a toast to you – like this and hold your eyes while I did so.’
‘Oh.’ Katherine swallowed. ‘And then?’
‘I would tell you what very beautiful eyes you have. And what very long eyelashes you have.’ He paused. ‘Would you like me to continue? I have to say, it is a pleasurable employment, but Lord Seaton appears to be becoming enraged, and whilst I–’
‘No. Thank you very much, Mr Graham, that was most instructive.’ Well, if that was flirting, then Theo was not indulging in it with Camilla. On the other hand if he was annoyed by Mr Graham – and she was most certainly not going to give him the satisfaction of looking in his direction – then that was interesting in itself.
She refused offers of another ice and left the supper room with her escort. There seemed to be only one explanation for her husband’s behaviour: possessiveness and a strong protective instinct. Which was depressing, because she did not want to be regarded as a possession to be guarded or a feeble woman to beprotected.
But it was hard to hold on to such thoughts when she received a gratifying stream of requests for dances, to the point where she had to refuse the two before her waltz with Theo in order to escape and see Jenny.
Her maid clucked over a torn hem and made Katherine stand still while she knelt and whipped the seam. ‘And just look at your back hair.’ She relieved her feelings by jabbing in pins enthusiastically. ‘When do you dance with the Master?’
‘The next dance. Jenny, am I flushed?’
