Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

“Lord and Lady Blakely,” she said primly, “are welcome here.” She stared forward fixedly and let out her breath.

She said nothing of Louisa or her husband. Kate and Louisa had seemed on their way toward friendship when Ned had left. Clearly, a great deal had transpired in Ned’s absence.

When Kate inhaled again, she straightened. It was as if she’d taken in a lungful of sunshine. Her face lifted, her eyes relaxed, her shoulders lost their rigid cast. If he hadn’t seen her unease just seconds before, he might have believed her expression genuine. “Unexpected houseguests,” she said. “What a pleasure this will be.”

And, handing the horse she had been leading to a groom, she walked in.

CHAPTER THREE

KATE HAD DRESSED FOR BATTLE, donning her finest pink muslin morning dress. With lace at her wrists and mother-of-pearl buttons at her throat, instead of that itchy servant’s cloak, she felt capable of matching wits with anyone.

And yet she could not make out the conversation coming from the morning room a few yards distant, where the guests had been ensconced. She only heard the low murmur of voices, echoing down the wood of the hall. Her company was waiting, and the sound they made reminded her of thunder lurking on the horizon.

It was a good thing she was wearing her mother’s pearls. With those clasping her neck, she felt as if she could conquer anything. Harcroft would mock her, no doubt, if he knew her thoughts. He’d dismiss her attire as frills and furbelows—a woman’s only armor. Idiocy on his part.

There were a great many problems that could be solved with a visit to the mantua-maker. And fine gowns or no, this meeting promised to be a war, however politely and subtly it was joined.

Kate took a deep breath and readied herself to enter the room.

“Kate.”

The voice behind her—that deep, now too-recognizable voice—pierced through her gathering sureness. She whirled around. She felt a strand of hair fall out of her carefully pinned coiffure as she did so, to dangle in untidy fashion against her neck.

“Ned.” Not even his name; the nickname his intimates gave him escaped her in a breathless rush. She’d meant to use a careful, distancing surname. Kate cursed that betraying slip. He could probably hear her heart hitting her ribs in staccato emphasis, revealing every last emotion she wanted hidden. Likely he was taking note of the blanch of her cheeks, the pinch of her lips.

“I thought you’d gone ahead.” She’d intended the words to come out an accusation. But to her ear they sounded unfortunately breathy. “I was sure you would hurry to greet the Marquess and the Marchioness of Blakely, if not Harcroft himself.”

“I did hurry.” If he had, though, his breath came evenly. Kate felt as if she were gasping for air.

He didn’t seem the least out of sorts to find her here. In fact, he smiled at her, almost as if he knew a joke that she did not. “But I had to shave.”

“I see that.”

It was half the reason her heart had accelerated to this unsustainable pace. With his beard shorn, Kate could see every last feature—chin, lips and, worst of all, that assured smile. She could find only the roughest sketch of the man she had married. The man Kate had married had been scrawny, a youngster barely out of adolescence. That youthfulness had made him seem sweet.

The intervening time had washed the youth from her husband’s features. His jaw was no longer set in awkward apology; now it was square, and he looked at her in clear command. His nose no longer seemed too sharp, too piercing. It fit the look of canny awareness he’d developed.

Once, he’d seemed clumsy, constantly tripping over feet that were too large for the rest of his body. But over the past years, he’d grown into those feet. What had once seemed a surfeit of bumbling motion had transmuted into a restless economy, a sheer vitality highlighted by the sun-darkened gold of his skin.

Her husband had stopped being safe.

“Shall we go in together?” he asked, holding out his elbow.

Even that slight motion tweaked her perverse memory. Where once he’d apologetically claimed the space he needed, constantly pulling his elbows into his side, now he seemed to fill an area far beyond his skin. It seemed an act of bravery to reach out and set her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He radiated an unconscious aura now—as if he were more dangerous, more intense. Give this man a wide berth, her senses shouted.

Instead, she closed her hand about his finely woven wool coat. She could feel the strength of the arm underneath.

“I don’t think we’ll fool any of them, coming in together.” She forced herself to look up, to meet the intensity of his gaze. “If anyone knows the truth about our marriage, it’s the people in the room in front of us.”

His head tilted to one side. “You tell me, Kate. What is the truth of our marriage?”

He did not smile at her, nor did he waggle his eyebrows. His question was seriously meant. As if somehow, he did not know. His ignorance, Kate supposed, must have been bliss for him. For her, however, it sparked a deep ache beneath her breastbone.

“Our marriage lasted a few months. Once you left, what remained faded faster than the ink on the license. And what’s left…well, it could blow away in one tiny puff of wind.”

“Well, then.” He spoke with an air of certainty. “I’ll try not to exhale.”

“Don’t bother. I stopped holding my breath years before.”

Even when he’d been a young, deferential boy, he hadn’t truly been safe. He’d hurt her when he left. Now she felt a stupid surge of hope at his words. A damnable, irrepressible whisper of a thought, suggesting that something might yet come of her marriage.

The real danger wasn’t the strong line of his jaw or the powerful curve of his biceps under her fingers. No; as always, the real dangers were her own hopes and desires. It was that whisper of longing, a list that started with, step one: find a night rail….

Those old girlish wants would return unbidden if she gave them the least encouragement. It wouldn’t matter how lightly he breathed.

And nowadays, she had far more important secrets to occupy her worries than a little scrap of silk.

“Well,” he said, “let’s give it a go anyway. Our guests expect us.” Without waiting for an answer, he set his hand over her fingers, clasping them to the crook of his arm. The gesture was strong and confident. He didn’t know what awaited them. Kate ignored the queasiness in her stomach and walked with him into the room.

After the dimness of the hall, blinding white morning light filled her vision. All sound ceased, swallowed up by an immense shocked silence. Then fabric

rustled; a flurry of lavender blurred across Kate’s vision, and before she could blink and get her bearings, a silk-clad form cannoned into Ned beside her, breaking Kate’s contact with her husband.

“Ned,” the woman said, “you ridiculous man. Not a word of warning, not one hint that you’d arrived. When were you planning to tell us?”

“I just landed,” Ned said. “Late last night. You’ll find the missive on your return.”

The woman was Jennifer Carhart, the Marchioness of Blakely. She was Ned’s cousin’s wife, and as he’d explained to Kate after their marriage, also one of Ned’s dearest friends. “I missed you,” Lady Blakely was saying.

Lady Blakely was pretty and dark-haired and clever, and Kate felt a prickle of unworthy resentment arise inside her. Not jealousy, at least not of that sort. But she envied the easy friendship Lady Blakely had with her husband.

When the marchioness pulled away, her husband, the marquess, took her place. “Ned.”

“Gareth.” Ned clasped the offered hand. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I know my good wishes are much delayed, but I only just had the news from the solicitor this morning.”

“My thanks.” The marquess glanced at Kate, briefly, and then looked away without meeting her eyes. “Lady Kathleen.”

Naturally, Ned did not notice that little dismissal. Instead, he clapped his cousin on the shoulders. “I do wish you’d hurry up and spit out an heir, though. It’s uncomfortable dangling on your hook.”

“No.” Lord Blakely spoke directly, almost curtly. But his gaze cut to his wife, who poked him. “No,” he amended with a sigh. “But thank you for the sentiment. I’d much rather have children than an heir. I’ll keep my girl—you and yours can have the damned marquessate when I’m gone.” His gaze flicked to Kate again, as if it were somehow her fault she hadn’t burst forth with twin sons, with her husband half the world away.

Kate should have been playing the hostess here, setting everyone at ease. Instead, she felt as if she were an interloper in her own home, as if she were the one returning after a bewildering absence of three years. And perhaps her feelings had something to do with the precariousness of Louisa’s situation. But this gap, this feeling of not belonging, had arisen long before she had even known the danger Louisa was in.