Scandalous Miss Brightwells [Book 1-4]

“She’s just worried about Diana, I’m sure.” His voice carried in the cold air behind her. How she wished he would

just go.

“And what would you know about such concerns, George?” Katherine snapped. She could feel the tears starting behind her eyes and hated that George should witness her weakness.

“I feel concern, Katherine. I feel concern for you, though you might not think it.”

Katherine breathed in through her nose. “Really, George. Do you? Then find a way to get Lady Hale out of my life so I can keep Diana in it!”

Suddenly he sounded urgent. “You could marry me, Katherine. That would solve that problem. Lady Hale wants you to have a husband who can steer both of you in the right direction. She’s concerned by your propensity to court scandal, that’s all and—”

“Oh, shut up, George! I did not court scandal. It was thrown at me like a.…mud pie.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I just asked you to marry me, Katherine.” His voice was softer, and his eyes held something she’d not seen before and which she couldn’t identify, until he put a hand to his heart. “I’ve loved you all my life, Katherine.” His voice was soft; his words surprisingly heartfelt.

“A strange way you had of showing it,” Katherine responded warily. She really didn’t know what to say.

“You know I wanted you. You did, Katherine. Do you remember when you were preparing for your come-out and we’d practise dancing? You knew how much it meant to me that I could hold you on the dance floor. How I hoped we could be more than just cousins.”

“But…” Katherine shook her head. “How could I take you seriously, George? You were so young and…always trying to cause trouble for me.”

“I wanted to cause trouble for anyone who might have a superior claim to your heart.”

“Like Jack?”

“You still love him?”

The words hung between them; their answer like a portent of doom. Katherine had only to admit it, and he’d wring every last drop from her. He’d make her suffer.

But how could she suffer more than she suffered now?

She felt her shoulders slump. “Jack is to marry Odette. He told me just now. Nothing will change his mind.”

“You could marry me.”

She shook her head.

“I know you don’t love me, Katherine, when that is all I ever wanted, but if you can’t marry Jack, what will you do? You need to marry to keep Diana. I heard Lady Hale. Yes, she thinks you’re loose and dangerous without a strong man to guide you, and that you’ll be swept up into worse scandal than the scandal that ensued when you recklessly eloped with Freddy—”

Angrily Katherine shook her head. “I did not recklessly run off with Freddy. I didn’t know it was Freddy. I thought it was Jack who sent that carriage. I thought he’d changed his mind, and that with the delay caused by the storm, he was offering me one final chance to brave everything to be with him. And I was willing to do that. I didn’t need the glitter and comfort of all this!” She was crying as she encompassed Quamby House and its manicured grounds with a sweep of her arm. “I only wanted Jack. And I still only want Jack!” She began to walk. The rain was heavier now, and the wind had gathered momentum. She raised her skirts to step over the puddles that had formed in the path but George moved quickly to waylay her, gripping her upper arms and pushing his face into hers.

“Marry me, Katherine!” he cried. “Marry me, and all this will one day be yours. You’ll be Lady Quamby, not some ordinary domestic housewife with an estate that has been bought through trade. That’s all Jack could have offered you!”

“Good God, I’d rather marry Derry if that was all the choice I had, for I would never… no, not in a thousand years, marry you, George!” She slapped away his hands and began with greater purpose than ever to walk towards the house, turning to cry out as he tried one final gambit, “Get out of my sight. I can’t bear to look at you, George. You always were so filled with malice that this must be meat and drink to you. To see me brought so low. To see me so reduced that if the world ended right now, I’d be happy not to suffer a moment’s torment more of what I’m suffering. Now get out of my sight!”

She’d hoped to make it silently to her bedchamber where she could cry her eyes out in private, but her mother waylaid her in the passage and brought her into the drawing room where her father was solicitous, and her mother tried to say soothing words.

Some while later they heard loud stamping in the hallway and the sound of slamming doors, and when Lady Fenton asked what the commotion was about, she was told that Master George was in a fury and had gone out riding.

“In this weather?” Lady Fenton queried for the rain was teeming down from an almost black sky. “George isn’t one for exercise even in the most clement of conditions.”

“I hope he breaks his neck,” Katherine muttered, unable to bear a moment more of anyone’s pleasant or unpleasant temper as she stepped out of her mother’s orbit and headed towards the door. “Goodnight, Mama. I think I’ll have an early night. Please offer my excuses at dinner.”

Chapter 27

George hated the rain. He hated riding in the rain, and right now he hated everything in this world except Katherine.

Even though she hated him. Oh, she’d made that clear enough. She’d hated him her whole life, it seemed, and no doubt she’d be happy to hear the news that he’d broken his neck.