James paced, his boots squelching in the mud outside the blacksmith’s forge. He and Enfield and the coachman and footman and the horses and the carriage itself had been stuck in a Kentish village five miles from Ffoulkes Manor for the last hour. Something to do with the axle. Well, he would rather it was that than one of the horses.
He was restless. As always, he longed to do something. He should be grateful he had had a reason to get out of London this morning, immediately after last night’s encounter with Catherine Lovelock. The woman who hated him almost as much as he lusted for her.
But he needed still further escape, further distraction. From himself. From his failings.
The blacksmith had demanded payment in advance once he had heard that James was headed for Ffoulkes Manor. Curious. But James had brought plentiful coins for wagers on cards so there was no problem there. The blacksmith had put the coins quickly in his pocket as if he feared they would be taken away again.
The blacksmith and James’ coachman were working together now, dismantling the axle. The horses had been stabled, temporarily. Enfield was sitting and reading a small book. The footman had wandered off to the public house to look at the local girls.
“We’re only five miles from Ffoulkes Manor, you say?” he called out to the blacksmith.
The blacksmith straightened up for a moment. “Well, three miles by how the crow flies.” And he pointed a broad finger to the east.
Three miles. He could be there in an hour.
“I’m going to walk it.”
Enfield looked at the sky. “It could start raining again at any time, my lord.”
“What’s a little water, Enfield? A day in a coach makes me so cramped and edgy. Let me stretch my legs so I can feel a little more human.”
“Let you, my lord?” Enfield said with a grave face. “I would never interfere with anything that you wished to do.”
“Yes,” James said and put on his hat, “let’s maintain that fiction.”
He had been walking for about ten minutes when it did indeed begin to rain again. It had been rather rough-going already. This crow of the blacksmith’s flies over some pretty uneven ground, James thought. He found himself sloshing through quite a few puddles and staggering up some fairly muddy and slippery hills. However, the stiles were plentiful and that made quite a difference as he didn’t have to vault any fences or walls.
After about twenty minutes more walking, the downpour lessened to mizzling. A fog rolled in. Ahead he saw a small figure in a red tartan coat. Some poor child caught in the rain. He couldn’t tell from behind if it was a girl or boy. Oh, yes, a cloak and not a coat, it must be a girl. Well, he mustn’t startle her. Hopefully, she would be able to tell that he was a gentleman by his clothes and not be fearful.
He was coming up on her rather quickly. She was walking very slowly.
“Ho, there!” he called out.
Rain fell as Catherine’s carriage came up to the front of Ffoulkes Manor. Her lady’s maid Wright, who had traveled with Catherine inside the carriage, laid hands on the umbrella she had brought for just such a likelihood, but one of Sir Francis Ffoulkes’ footmen was ready with his own umbrella to shield Catherine as he helped her from the carriage.
Sir Francis, looking tired, was standing in front of the entrance, at the top of the stairs, protected by his butler’s umbrella. He held out his hands to her.
“Mrs. Lovelock, you are most welcome.”
Catherine put her gloved hands in his, and he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She was surprised. Sir Francis was normally so reticent and proper. To kiss her in front of his butler and his footmen? It promised that Sir Francis would be more relaxed and at ease in Kent. This was a very good start to the visit.
Sir Francis folded her arm under his and drew her into the house proper, away from the rain. “I am most anxious for you to see the estate. It’s not at its best today because of the weather but I am assured by those expert in the matter that the next several days should be sunny. And now, something warm to drink? Some tea or chocolate? That will give your maid time to arrange your things in your bedchamber.”
It was an echoing grand front hall with a high, arched ceiling decorated with a cherub-laced fresco and underfoot, a dark and light marble chess board pattern.
“Beautiful,” Catherine murmured.
Sir Francis leaned down. “Not as beautiful as you, my dear.”
Better and better.
He took her into a large drawing room, filled with upholstered furniture and hung with velvet drapes. A couple—he, in his forties with silvered temples, and she, red-haired in her twenties—Mr. and Mrs. Swinton. They were well-traveled and sophisticated and apparently mad for whist. Did Mrs. Lovelock play cards? Not much? They hoped they could persuade her because with a lively party, it could be so diverting.
The Marquess and Marchioness of Painswick. Yes, she had met them before. How lovely to see you again, my lord, my lady. And the Marquis René Dubois, the ambassador from France. A hobbling gait even with the use of a walking stick. She curtsied.
The marquis bent low over her hand.
“Enchanté. I am most delighted to meet you, Madame Lovelock. You are as lovely as Sir Francis promised.”
There was something in his voice. Deep and mellifluous. Familiar. She started, almost imperceptibly. Had he been one of the passersby outside the alley last night? She dreaded even to begin to dredge up that recent memory given how enraged and humiliated she had been—no, no, it had not been him, but she felt like she had heard his voice recently.
A beautiful young woman, Mademoiselle Isabella DuMornay. Smooth olive skin and almond-shaped dark eyes, dark hair. And what was she wearing? Oh, yes, definitely. An amethyst-purple Madame Beauchamp gown. Lovely.
And a man was in the far corner of the room, playing the pianoforte, face hidden by the music in front of him. He was quite good, some showy flourishes as he played. He finished and the others applauded him. Catherine joined in the clapping, ready to meet this talented friend of Sir Francis.
He rose from the pianoforte bench and started to walk toward her. She recognized his strut before she recognized his face.
It was Roger.
Roger Siddons.
The man who had twisted her, made her beg, made her do things— She could not think on that.
She was still an actress. She relaxed her face and put on a mildly amused smile.
“Cath!” he said as he came forward. He looked the same. No, there was some wear there, some lines around his eyes and forehead and by his mouth. But the same thin lips. Same aquiline nose. Same dark eyes and sharp cheekbones.
And same wrenching pain in her midsection. But only pain. Not desire. No, at least she was spared that. The lust demon was consumed by the unobtainable James. Distracted by its pretty new toy, far away in London, out of reach.
Siddons bowed. She inclined her head slightly. Sir Francis was at her side. “I’m so glad to see old friends meeting again,” Sir Francis said heartily, smiling.
Catherine smiled up at him and then at Siddons. “Mr. Siddons.” She kept her hands at her sides, relaxed, still.
“Cath and I knew each other in our youth, didn’t we? Before she went off and married that banker. Lawdy, you landed in a puddle of trifle there, didn’t you? And never a word again to your friends once you left us.”
Catherine continued to smile.
Sir Francis frowned. “I think that Mrs. Lovelock prefers to be called Mrs. Lovelock, Mr. Siddons.”
“Oh, yes, of course, my apologies, Mrs. Lovelock.” And he stuck his tongue out at her and winked.
A large tea trolley was rolled in and Catherine was able to break away and have a small cup of chocolate handed to her by the butler. It was hot, creamy. Both sweet and bitter. Bracing. She gulped down her cup as quickly as she could without being unseemly and replaced it on its saucer.
“Sir Francis, thank you for the refreshment. I think I will go to my room and make sure all is well . . . with my clothes. And have a rest.”
“Of course, my dear. I know ladies cannot be comfortable until they are sure that all their precious things are in place. I’ll have Rowley show you to your bedchamber.”
On her way out of the drawing room with the butler, she was stopped by Siddons. He did not touch her but he leaned close and said, “It does me good to see you, Cath.”
She could smell the oil of roses on him.
She almost broke in that moment.
The room she was taken to by the butler Rowley was an elegant one, with an extensive view of the grounds. Wright was there already with the trunks, clucking and unfolding tissue-wrapped gowns, lost in her own world.
Agitated, Catherine walked to the window and looked out. It had stopped raining.
“Have you unpacked my other cloak yet, Wright? And the boots I brought in case I went along for the shooting?”
“No, Mrs. Lovelock, but I can.” Wright looked at Catherine’s face for the first time. “Mrs. Lovelock, are you quite well? You are pale.”
“I must get out of here, Wright, outside and away. Alone. Can you get me the cloak and the boots?”
Wright did as her mistress asked and put the red tartan cloak around her shoulders.
“Mrs. Lovelock, I have never seen you— Is there anything that can calm you?”
“A walk, Wright.” Catherine laced one boot while Wright did the other. “Now show me the servants’ entrance.”
Catherine walked far away from the house. And then she picked up her skirts, wet and heavy at the hem, and tried to run. But the wet grasses clung to her and pulled her down so that she could not run and instead she had to content herself with walking as quickly as she could and pulling in great gasping lungfuls of air.
She. Would. Not. Cry.
Roger Siddons couldn’t hurt her. She was strong. Stronger than she had ever been when she was with him. And even if he could hurt her, she would not show him that. She still had her stagecraft. She could pretend anything.
The rain started up again and she held her face up to the sky. No tears for her. Never any tears.
She turned around and started back. Not because of the rain but because she didn’t want to worry Wright and she needed time to dress and primp and get her bloody hair dry before dinner. She wanted to look her best so that Sir Francis would have no regret about asking her to marry him. Roger’s presence here changed nothing. If anything, this ghost from her past should make her even more determined in her course.
A mile from the house, she tried to run again and she fell face forward. How foolish. She went to get up and felt pain in her left ankle. Wretched ankle. It was the one that had been weak ever since she had twisted it two decades ago when she had played Imogen in Cymbeline and done all that fencing onstage.
She managed to get up and take a few steps but the ankle hurt dreadfully. If only she could find a branch for a crutch. But there were no trees in this rolling field.
The rain had slowed but she was already so very wet. And very cold.
She heard a voice call out to her. Rescue at last. Catherine turned, wincing as her left foot made contact with the ground and she put some weight on it. She saw the gentleman approaching.
No.
No.
First, Roger. Now, him. Evil, cruel happenstance.
He stopped ten feet from her, took off his hat, and bowed. “Mrs. Lovelock.” Staying out of range of her fist, she imagined.
“Lord Daventry.” She nodded, unable to curtsey. He replaced his hat.
“I’m so sorry to have to break my promise to you, what?” He smiled and his eyes crinkled. “You are, despite your wishes, seeing me again sooner rather than never.”
He had gone out of focus again. This was the old James, the one she had craved in her dreams, not the one who had driven her mad with desire and rage. James as a boyish jester.
“What are you doing here?”
“I am on my way to Ffoulkes Manor. And you, Mrs. Lovelock? Why are you in Kent? Here to see St. Botolph’s Priory? Or Hadleigh Castle?”
Catherine’s teeth chattered. “Those sights are in Essex, as I am sure you are aware.” James smirked. “I am also a guest of Sir Francis, Lord Daventry.”
He stepped closer to her and took off his greatcoat. “You are cold, Mrs. Lovelock, what? We can’t have that when I happen to know that you are a very warm creature, at your bottom.” He sniggered and Catherine then did grow warm with embarrassment, remembering how he had held her last night, under her dress. He threw his greatcoat over her shoulders. It dragged on the muddy ground.
He stepped back and saw her stance for the first time, one leg bearing all her weight, the other bent at the knee so that only the toe of her boot touched the ground.
Catherine observed it then. The shift. It took a matter of a quarter of a second. The jester was gone and someone else had taken his place. Someone . . . effective. Devastatingly effective.
He was down on his knees in a flash, in the mud, saying, “Permit me?” and raising the hem of her dress and unlacing her boot and removing it with utmost delicacy so that he could lay his warm hand on her left ankle. “Does this hurt when I press here? And here?” She put her hands on him to steady herself and felt the muscles of his back and shoulder girdle flexing and moving as he examined her. After a minute, a minute in which Catherine discovered his touch thrilled her more than ever, he put one arm under her knees and one arm on her back, so that when he stood up, she came with him in one easy motion.
“Upsidaisy,” he said.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was the only means she could see that she had to get back to the house. She had no choice. He smelled of rain and something else—something that was him. Something James. Some essence of man. To her mind, it was the smell of paradise.
But it was maddening to be so helpless on so many fronts, all at once.
In his arms, she was inches from his face as he started walking through the mist, carrying her. She saw the transition at close range, his lids dropping to half mast, his lips curling into a sardonic smile. The jester was back.
“What? No maidenly protests? I am shocked, shocked.”
“I am not a maiden, Lord Daventry.”
She steeled herself for a barrage of innuendo or blatant lewdness, how she had certainly not been a maiden last night, har-har, what fun. But the joking never came.
James felt this was very hard going.
Carrying Catherine was easy. She fit perfectly into his arms. His hat was keeping the mizzle off his face for the most part. He didn’t miss his coat as he was quite warm with walking. He was having no physical difficulties whatsoever.
But he was having a very hard time controlling his thoughts. Even when he was assessing her ankle, he had imagined raising his hand higher up to those soft velvet thighs he had felt yesterday but had not seen. Or even higher still.
Stop.
He had become the lecher he played. A woman in distress and he could only think of fondling her. How foul he was. How angry he would be if someone like him carried one of his sisters with these thoughts racing through his head.
But how glad he was that Catherine was not his sister. Even if she loathed him.
He thought that she might put her arms around his neck, but she didn’t. She kept her arms by her sides, her hands folded over her abdomen. But to have her body so warm against him now. Her breasts and her lips so close to his mouth. Even though she was stiff with rage.
A terrible thought rocked him. “Mrs. Lovelock?”
“Yes?” she answered sharply. “Are you fatigued, my lord? I might be able to walk the rest of the way.”
“No. I just wondered . . . what was your name before you married?”
“I was born Cooksey but changed it to Cooke for the stage.”
“Catherine Cooke.”
“Yes, that was my stage name for thirteen years.”
James said nothing more for the rest of the walk to the manor.
