Chapter Sixteen

"Well, good evening, you old Charred Ruins you. Ha ha!" Lord Coopersmith, a bluff and hearty Whig, handed Kirke a brandy as he maneuvered his way into the library.

"Very amusing." Kirke sardonically raised the glass to him.

It seemed everyone had read the gossip this morning:

Word in the Commons is that the reason Lord K's recent speech was significantly less fiery than usual was because his most recent affair de coeur went up in flames—literally. At this rate, Lord K's entire career will be in charred ruins by the time the next election rolls around—because the on-dit is that another young lady is already distracting him.

All in all, quite a noxious little paragraph from start to finish, and a little closer to the bone than such items usually were. Every bloody word of it incensed him. The bit about the speech bothered him because, well—he agreed with it. And the implication that he might be distracted by another woman set his teeth on edge. It might have just been pointless blathering, and he hadn't gone near Keating in public since he'd danced with her, but he was prepared to draw blood if anyone dared insinuate anything about her directly. No one at all had mentioned her to his face since he'd danced with her. He knew better than to believe it was because everyone had forgotten.

And now it seemed clear that Marie-Claude had either not crossed the Channel as previously reported—or had managed to foment mischief before she did. How else would a connection be made between her and the fire at his house? The only person he'd told was Keating.

It occurred to him with an unwelcome jolt that she might be the only person he currently trusted as much as he trusted his man of affairs.

"An affair de coeur and another one in the wings." Farquar, who was standing in the opposite corner, drawled and shook his head to and fro wonderingly. "How do you do it, Kirke?"

"How do I do it? If your father didn't have the talk with you when you were a lad, Farkie, I fear I'm a bit too bashful to explain it to you. Does anyone here want to enlighten Farquar, and put his poor wife out of her misery?"

Much ribald laughter here and rude suggestions ensued. "Ask your wife, Farkie! She'll show you wear to put it!"

Farquar reddened. But curiously, his gaze didn't waver.

"I meant how do you have time to do your job, Kirke?" Farkie said evenly. "Seems like your constituents might start worrying about it."

Kirke thoughtfully regarded Farquar through the smoke in the library.

He seemed to be... gloating.

Suspicion prickled the back of his neck.

He sighed. "Oh very well. I'll tell you," he said mildly. He casually maneuvered through the crowd to Farquar, who tracked him the whole of the way, wearing a smug little smile.

He stopped mere inches from the man. And for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, he lightly, conciliatorily tapped his brandy glass against Farquar's and murmured, "How much did you pay Marie-Claude for information about me, Farkie?"

Farquar went rigid with shock.

His eyes darted back and forth like a trapped mouse between a cat's paws.

Kirke didn't so much as twitch a muscle. But he could feel a near transcendent fury spill into his veins.

Because this explained everything, including how Farkie had gotten any information about so-called by-blows. Marie-Claude must have somehow read his letter from Anna while he was sleeping.

Farquar turned away and swallowed.

"I guess an equally important question would be how your wife would feel about seeing your name in the gossip columns in connection with your new mistress," Kirke mused between clenched teeth.

Farkie blanched and his head whipped toward him. "You wouldn't—Marie-Claude is not—she won't—"

"Oh, I see how it is," he said with a slow, sympathetic little smile. "Marie-Claude might be greedy and perfidious, but she always did have excellent taste in men. A word from the wiser: once you give her something, she'll never stop asking for more." He leaned in and murmured, "And I know you're fond of your wife, Farkie, so you'll want to keep the gossip sheets out of her hands from now on. I sell more newspapers than you do by merely existing, and I will. Not. Let. This. Go."

He backed away, and raised his voice a little. "And don't attempt to say ‘perfidious' when you're drunk." He winked, and Farquar flinched as though hot water had been flicked in his face.

"Have you ever shot a man?"

As fate would have it, both Catherine and Lord Vaughn had been invited to Lord and Lady Coopersmith's private assembly. And if this question, asked as they were rotating in a waltz, surprised young Lord St. John Vaughn, it scarcely merited an eyebrow twitch. "I haven't. It strikes me as the sort of thing one can avoid if one really tries."

This was so dryly put that Catherine smiled. "I suppose if you were a soldier, you wouldn't be given much of a choice," she challenged.

"I suppose not. I'm aware that I'm exceedingly privileged."

It was the matter-of-fact tone with which he'd said it: it wasn't a brag—and she had indeed heard that sort of brag from more than one young man over the course of the past week, as several had taken pains to assure her that they were so wealthy and comfortable they would never be required to do anything so gauche as go to war.

She officially liked him. His wit was dry and he didn't natter on about himself. He didn't, in fact, natter at all. He had a tendency to attempt to smolder, which she was not immune to. She appreciated the effort. His features were sculpted and even, and his bottom lip had just enough sensual droop to be interesting. His hair was dark, his eyes blue. And he seemed a bit bemused by her. "I'm not terribly intriguing," she was wickedly tempted to tell him. "I just seem different because I'm from the country. That's what you're sensing."

"What if someone challenged you to a duel?" she pressed.

"That also seems like something one can avoid."

"People are unpredictable, Lord Vaughn. You never know when someone might take offense at something that seems perfectly harmless. Perhaps you might say, this cheese is delicious and they might reply, no, it isn't, sir. How dare you insult my taste. My seconds will call upon yours."

He listened to this madness, eyes alight with amusement.

She had quite uncharacteristically drunk nearly three cups of ratafia, which she suspected had been enhanced with something stronger. The waltz was making her dizzy, and not in a good way.

Lord Vaughn hadn't seemed to notice that she was foxed, thankfully.

"Then I would just apologize for offending him," he said simply. "Because I don't want anyone to shoot at me."

This was difficult to argue with, and yet seemed all wrong.

"Why the questions about shooting? Are you feeling in need of defense, Miss Keating?"

"Well, I do like to be prepared should my honor be besmirched."

"I see. Well, to reassure you, I'm a fair shot. However, I'm learning to play the violincello, and some men might prefer to die than hear me play, so I suppose I might retaliate that way."

She laughed. "Are you indeed? Can you play any recognizable tunes? I know a jolly one with clapping in it."

She was at once sorry she'd mentioned it. Because when she did, Kirke thundered into her mind as vividly and swiftly as the first night she'd seen him, when she'd summoned him by singing that song at the top of her lungs.

Her legs suddenly felt leaden.

Lord Vaughn eyed her as though he wasn't certain whether she was jesting. "Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Keating?"

"Well, yes. I do. I am not Mozart, but I can acquit myself passably well."

"I am attending a house party in Richmond a fortnight hence and I will have an invitation sent to you care of Lady Wisterberg, if you will agree to attempt a duet with me. I would be so pleased if you could join us."

Well!

Lady Wisterberg might very well need smelling salts when she told her this little bit of news.

Yet Lord Vaughn had not yet responded to his invitation to Lady Wisterberg's party. Perhaps he was busy that evening. Perhaps he was undecided.

Her newly invigorated chaperone had, in fact, been full of information about Lord Vaughn earlier.

"Lord Vaughn's parents would prefer him to marry someone with a title," Lady Wisterberg had told her frankly in the carriage on the way to the ball. "His sister, Lady Lillias, who was quite the belle of the ton at one time, apparently married an American—an American! With no title!—and hied off to the wilds of New York. They are all putting a brave face on it and claim that they're pleased about it and that he's a very fine fellow. But it suggests to me that should his son fall madly in love with an untitled girl who has only a very modest dowry, the earl might be amenable to a match. They are a very good family. In other words, Lord Vaughn is not a waste of your time, and he has asked you to dance twice now. I should be my most charming self, if I were you."

Catherine wasn't certain what her most charming self was. Did Lady Wisterberg perhaps think she was keeping something in reserve? And she didn't love the mention of her "very modest dowry" any more than she loved the mention of her old dresses.

She couldn't wait until the ton saw her in that blue gown at the Shillingford ball—mere days away now.

"Although, granted, the on-dit is that Lord Vaughn has shown no inclination to marry at all," Lady Wisterberg had concluded, somewhat reluctantly. "See if you can change his mind."

Catherine was amused at the notion of changing any man's mind about anything.

She knew St. John Vaughn had never shot anyone—and he was right in that it did indeed, upon first consideration, seem avoidable for someone who wasn't a soldier—because he'd never been challenged. And he'd never been challenged because he'd never sought challenge, unless the violincello counted. Or put himself in the way of challenge. Would never, ever need to do it. And that he was so well-bred, so free of ragged edges or unexpected angles, that he'd likely maneuver his way out of a duel as easily as a china cup would slide out of wet hands. He would just apologize, and his honor wouldn't twinge and his reputation would suffer no nicks. And while he was very attractive, which came with its own perils and lots of attention, he was male and an heir and would likely suffer few consequences even if his name were to appear in the gossip pages.

His point of view was reasonable and seemed as peaceful to her as a walk down a country lane.

And didn't she enjoy country lanes?

There were more things she'd like to know about him.

But unlike "Have you ever shot a man?" she could hardly ask Lord Vaughn, "Have you ever traced a circle around a woman's nipple with your thumb?"

Unfortunately, she had liked that very much.

Lord Vaughn was a magnificent catch from any standpoint—Lord Kirke had even endorsed him, she thought with some bitter irony—and if she were to capture his affections, let alone a proposal, her father would probably consider it the gift of a lifetime. He would ultimately die a happy man, knowing she wouldn't be alone. Knowing that her life would be comfortable and safe and even luxurious.

She so very much wanted to be able to give her father this kind of peace of mind before she lost him.

Suddenly her throat was tight.

Mere days ago, if a soothsayer of some sort had revealed her destiny was to go to London and become some sort of lady, perhaps a countess, she would have been ecstatic. Well, and also a bit nervous. There wasn't much about being a doctor's daughter that prepared one for being a countess, but if she could do things like manage a household budget and help sew the tip of a man's finger back on, she was confident she could adapt.

Go to London and make all the young men fall in love with you, her father had said.

But she was afraid now. The things she thought she knew about love were warring with things she had never anticipated.

Like how it felt when a man drew trembling fingers along her throat as though he scarcely believed he had the right to touch her. As though, for that moment in time, she was the precious, beating heart of his universe.

Or a man's fleeting expression of pain when he'd come upon in a moment of despair, her face in her palms. As if her distress was his distress.

The ways he said her name: urgently, when he'd found her in distress.

And then with wonder... and surrender... against her lips in the carriage.

The way he'd gathered her up and laid his coat across her shoulders.

He not only wanted her.

He cared.

Didn't he?

Unlike Lord Vaughn, Lord Kirke had been willing to lay down his life for his beliefs in a duel.

He was willing to offend, he was willing to provoke, he was willing to stand up before the world and do it day after day even as the odds were against him. He was made of passion.

She had never anticipated how much her whole being craved it.

She might never have known if she hadn't met him, and this unnerved her, too.

But he had held her at a distance from the very first, she was realizing. It was one of the reasons he called her by her last name only.

While she could indeed prepare a household budget, she could not reconcile all of these things in her mind: The lust and the tenderness. His fierceness and his flashes of vulnerability. Her exhilarating fear of him, and her desire to protect him, and the distance he was imposing, and all of the rumors that hovered about him. His intimidating worldliness that never devolved into condescension. The way he listened—with all of his being.

She didn't know that one person could make the rest of the world seem flat and false by comparison, like so much stage dressing. Perhaps she could put it all down to her own inexperience. Perhaps it meant little.

She had not anticipated coming to London for suffering.

Probably everyone looking at her tonight—and people did indeed seem to be looking at her a good deal, even though her goldenrod-colored silk dress was more than two years old—would think: That young lady hasn't a care in the world! Look at her dancing with the heir to an earl! Her future is bright and assured.

"I should love to go to your party," she told Lord Vaughn, who remained gratifyingly ignorant that her thoughts were spinning like the waltz. "Thank you so much for the invitation. I look forward to our duet."

He smiled at her with his beautiful teeth.

On the second floor of the Coopersmith town house, near an arrangement of large green plants arrayed next to French doors, Kirke smoked and thought in relative quiet. Perverse man that he was, his mood had lightened just a little now that he knew who his enemy was, because Farkie simply wasn't very bright. He solved problems by throwing money at them.

The prospect of a fight or a problem to solve generally stirred his blood. The need to develop a strategy of any sort generally filled him with zeal. But he was still angry and disappointed with himself at a time when he felt he was fraying at the edges.

Seared on his memory was Keating's stunned, white face when he'd told her two days ago about his mistress and his house fire. He could not keep his mind from visiting this scene again and again. He still wasn't certain whether he'd told her more for her own good or his. But it was both.

It was just that he seemed unable to be anything other than baldly honest with her. She had the bravery born of innocence—she hadn't learned circumspection, or how to be afraid of answers to the questions she was asking—but she also had a fundamental, quiet integrity that was essentially the same as courage. He thought she could probably withstand anything.

And God. He hadn't realized how unnervingly liberating it was to speak to someone that way.

Keating had got hold of some thread of his being, and had walked away with it, and now, somehow, he had the sense that he was unraveling. He had no idea who or what would be left when this was done.

He'd lit a cheroot to have something to do, because she wasn't here. He had seen her dancing with Lord Vaughn as he went up the stairs.

They'd made a beautiful couple.

He closed his eyes, as if they were in front of him right now.

He aimed a stream of smoke at the ceiling and noticed, uneasily, how lonely it was to be alone now, when before it had only been a relief.

On his way back to the ballroom, he veered past the refreshments table, aiming to join a few MPs over in the corner, when a splash of bold yellow color out of the corner of his eye stopped him short near an arrangement of ferns. His heart kicked.

But Keating wasn't hiding, thankfully; her expression was bright and alert, as though she was expecting someone to collect her for the next dance.

Despite himself, he was fiercely pleased that she seemed happy.

Before he could move swiftly on, she turned around as surely as though he'd tapped her on the shoulder.

And her face illuminated like a lamp.

"Lord Kirke! You're here! I didn't know you'd be here, too!" She sounded almost giddy.

He eyed her cautiously, as this was not the sort of reception he'd been expecting after their last conversation.

"Good evening, Keating," he said politely.

"I'm just waiting for Mr...." She glanced at her dance card. "Barret. Mr. Barret and I will be dancing!"

He frowned faintly. If he was not mistaken, Keating was un peu foxed.

She beamed back at him. She was clutching a cup of ratafia.

"Excellent. Mr. Barret is a fine fellow. You're vivid tonight in that flattering shade of goldenrod." He knew he couldn't risk lingering here to speak to her.

"Goldenrrrrod," she repeated, rolling her "r" extravagantly in a perfect imitation of his Welsh accent.

He blinked, taken aback.

"I wish my name was Rowena, or Rebecca," she said wistfully.

"How much ratafia have you had?"

"I wish my name was Ratafia," she replied, mournfully.

He stifled a laugh. "Quite a lot, apparently."

"Because your ‘r's' are so pretty," she said, again wistfully. "They roll like the hills. Rrrrrollll like the hillllls."

"I'll just take that, shall I?" He divested her of her cup.

Whereupon she went very serious. "Say my name."

"Keating," he indulged.

"My name is Catherine."

"I recall."

"I know why you won't say my name."

And just like that he was rigidly wary. How about that. Drunk Keating was also dangerous.

Because an epiphany arrived like a slap: he suddenly realized why he wouldn't say it, too.

Damn her and her unnerving astuteness all cunningly disguised in beautiful softness.

He felt cornered.

"Say it now," she suggested softly. Insistently.

How ridiculous would it be if he refused? Or blustered and obfuscated? He was capable of arguing nearly anyone into the ground. He knew he wouldn't do it to her, however. He just hadn't it in him to lie to her.

After a moment he said, "Catherine."

He felt at once raw and exposed. Because they both heard it: the softness, bordering on shyness. It was how the word would sound if he murmured it to her while she was one pillow over. The way he would speak to a woman he knew intimately, and cared for, and desired.

Stripped of glibness or caution or formality. Purely himself.

He knew he would never be able to say it another way.

The casual, chummy "Keating" was a sort of wall he'd instinctively erected between them from the very first.

As if there had ever been any safety behind it for him.

She would have been entitled to do it, but she didn't raise her eyebrows.

But her expression was complicated: hurt and sympathetic, sorrowful and confused.

He felt as though his chest might crack in two. It ached from a sort of stifled, resentful fury at being stripped bare in a ballroom.

Finally, she said, "Horse Chestnut?" As she would turn to him and say, "Dominic?"

Drunk Keating was turning out to be one of his favorite things in the world. Also the most terrifying.

"Yes?" he said tersely.

"People fight when they're afraid, is that not so? Isn't that what you said?"

"That sounds like me."

"But... you fight all the time." She said it as though it had only just occurred to her.

He was speechless.

"What would happen if you didn't fight everything?" It sounded like a serious question.

He stared at her. He could not think of a single thing to say.

But she moved away from him swiftly when she saw her dancing partner heading toward her.

She put on a bright smile for the young man.

Kirke remained frozen for a time, for a moment, unseeing.

And for the next few minutes, out of the corner of his eye, everywhere in the ballroom, it seemed, was goldenrod. Like the sun always rising on the periphery of his vision.