Blame It on Bath: The Truth About the Duke Page 21

  “I daresay you’ll meet Lady Swinton soon enough,” said Mrs. Woodforde. “She’s rather proud, but she attends the Assembly Rooms, particularly if there is a concert. The countess is very fond of opera.”

  “Oh,” said Mama with a light laugh of chagrin. “I did not realize you were acquainted with Lady Swinton! Forgive me, Mrs. Woodforde.”

  “I’m acquainted with nearly everyone in Bath, and most of Somersetshire, too. I’ve lived here all my life and spent these last forty summers in Bath.” She gave a firm nod. “One tends to meet everyone over time.”

  Most of Somersetshire? On impulse, Kate asked, “Have you ever met a gentleman by the name of William Ogilvie?”

  Mrs. Woodforde’s brow wrinkled. “Oh my. I don’t think I ever met him, but years ago there was a scoundrel by that name in Bath. Not a very proper person, my dear; I believe he tried to sell shares in a trading company or some other obvious fraud. But that must have been . . . Goodness, decades ago, before you were born. Lady Darby might remember better. That’s the only Ogilvie I can recall.”

  That sounded like it might be the same person. Kate smiled to hide the cautious excitement bubbling inside her. “Thank you. That is very helpful.”

  “Whatever could you want with such a person, Katherine?” exclaimed her mother.

  “Perhaps nothing, Mama,” she said calmly. But perhaps something vital. She resolved to find out more from Lady Darby.

  The admiral returned to claim his wife then, and after polite introductions and farewells, Kate let her mother take her arm and lead her toward the pump. “I don’t know what’s come over you, Katherine,” said her mother in quiet upset. “Asking about scoundrels? Refusing to call on family relations? You were once such a biddable child.”

  “Once.” Kate took two glasses of the mineral water and handed one to her mother. “I feel more assertive, Mama.”

  “That is not an attractive quality in a woman,” chided Mama. “I hardly know you anymore. What happened?”

  Kate sipped the warm, strong-smelling water, and felt healthier at once. She set the glass down, ignoring her mother’s reproving look. Once she would have dutifully finished the glass to please her mother; now she merely smiled. “I blame it on Bath.”

  Chapter 20

  Mama quickly tired of Kate’s company. It had always been that way, but for the first time Kate felt simply relief and none of the previous sting. No doubt it was because she had Cora, and the Darbys and Woodfordes among other newly met acquaintances and friends, to occupy her time. Their table routinely hosted army fellows of Gerard’s, along with their wives and sisters. They went out nearly every evening, to the Assembly Rooms or the theater or to parties. She walked with Cora during the mornings, so much so the hills no longer seemed steep. Even Birdie grew accustomed to them, and finally remarked to Kate that Bath was rather a pretty town, after all.

  They still saw Mama and Lucien, of course. As usual, Mama was surrounded by gentlemen wherever she went. One gentleman, Lord Worley, seemed to be constantly at her elbow, and Kate even wondered if her mother might have set her cap for the handsome earl, only to learn there was already a Lady Worley. But Mama seemed happy, and Mama was a delight to know when she was happy. Lucien appeared to be applying himself to finding an heiress; he condescended to dance with a number of ladies even though Kate knew he viewed dancing as frivolous. She was able to meet him politely and even feel a bit of sympathy for him now that she wasn’t subjected to his presence every day.

  The only dark cloud was the Durham Dilemma, which had already reached into every drawing room in Bath. Kate heard snippets of it at every event they attended although she ignored each mention of it with cool civility. Those rumors didn’t bother her much, as she had expected them. The gossip about her husband escorting another woman, however, was another story.

  Mama inadvertently revealed it one morning over tea. “Lucien does wish you might persuade Captain de Lacey to speak with him,” she said. “He tried again yesterday when he met the captain out riding with Lady Stanley, and the captain was very cold and refused him.”

  Kate paused. She didn’t know Lady Stanley, but she knew of her. She was a very handsome, very bold widow with a nice fortune. She was also very energetic and renowned for her passion for riding—both horses and men. “The captain surely means what he says to Lucien.”

  “Lucien was afraid, my dear, that he interrupted something between the two of them. He said they were deep in warm conversation when he came upon them. He returned quite embarrassed about the matter.” Mama sipped her tea. “Won’t you have a word with Captain de Lacey?”

  Kate’s hands were cold around the teacup. She set it down. She’d been wrong the last time she saw him with a woman, that day in Milsom Street when he walked with Cora. Gerard hadn’t mentioned Lady Stanley, though, and he told her all about Cora. “I will think about it, Mama,” she murmured in response to her mother’s question.

  Mama smiled. “I knew you were still my sensible Katherine in spite of these new ways of yours. Lucien will be so grateful, my dear.”

  After Mama left, Kate returned to the sitting room. She told herself there was no evidence Gerard was seeing Lady Stanley. He still escorted her out every evening and slept in her bed every night. They talked more as well, and Kate felt they were happy together; she certainly was. If he was having an affair, he must be doing it very quietly. But . . . warm conversation? In spite of herself, a tear slipped down her face. Why did her mother have to mention Lady Stanley?

  The door opened, and she leaped to her feet, scrubbing her cheeks dry. She met her husband in the hall as he took off his hat and gloves. “Did you have a pleasant ride?” she blurted out.

  Gerard glanced at her in surprise. “Yes. A most excellent ride.”

  She nodded. Terrible images of him and Lady Stanley scrolled across her mind, no matter how hard she tried to stop them. “Did you ride with anyone?”

  “Yes. Carter went out with me.”

  “Only Lieutenant Carter?”

  His head came up. “Why do you ask that?”

  The blood was pounding in her cheeks. She told herself she was a fool, and still she heard herself asking the question, bluntly and harshly. “You weren’t riding with Lady Stanley?”

  His face gave the reply. Kate turned and hurried up the stairs, filled with hurt and jealousy. Even if Lieutenant Carter rode with them, Gerard had been out with another woman, and he’d not told her.

  He caught her in the dressing room as she searched in the wardrobe for her shawl. “Kate,” he said in the firm, patient tone of someone addressing a lunatic, “don’t be upset about this.”

  She shook her head, refusing to look at him. “Why should I be upset? Have you done something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so, no.” Which wasn’t an absolute denial.

  “I’m sure you had a very good reason for riding out with another woman and not telling me about it.” She gave up searching in the wardrobe and closed the door. Perhaps the shawl was still downstairs.

  “Yes, I did,” he snapped. “If you will listen, I will tell you.”

  In a better mood, she would have listened calmly. Unfortunately his tone of voice—short and a bit annoyed—sounded eerily like her first husband’s tone when he brushed her aside. Suddenly she felt again like Katherine Howe, dull, insipid creature who was always the last to know what her husband was doing. She turned around to face Gerard, her hands clenched at her sides and her expression stony.

  “I met Lady Stanley on the downs one morning a week ago. When she discovered we both like to range over the hills, she began coming out every morning.”

  Her hope that this would turn out as innocently as when she saw him walking with Cora on Milsom Street was squashed. Gerard had been riding with the woman for a week.

  “Sometimes Carter comes out, too, sometimes not,” he went on. “But I soon realized a very strong benefit of riding with her.” He hesitated. “I
didn’t tell you because . . . well, because it’s not particularly pleasant to tell. You remember we talked about my father’s mystery.”

  “Yes,” she said tonelessly. “Lady Stanley can help solve it?”

  His mouth thinned. “Perhaps. And if she can, I’ll not hesitate to use her to do so.”

  “You’re prepared to have an affair with her so she’ll help you . . . do what? Find the man blackmailing you?” Kate shook her head with sharp, angry jerks. “How will she do that?”

  “Damn it, Kate, don’t cut up at me,” he growled. “I’m not having an affair with her. Merely . . . flirting a bit. Harmless innuendo. She hears everything in town, and I need to know who hates my family enough to want to ruin us. I’ll be damned if I lose my good name because I wouldn’t trade wit with a woman when nothing else has produced anything of use!”

  Kate flushed. Whether he meant it or not, she felt the sting of that last phrase. After Mrs. Woodforde said she’d heard of a man named Ogilvie, Kate asked Lady Darby, who in turn asked her friend Mrs. Humphries, who had lived in Bath for over sixty years. She reported back that a man named Billy Ogilvie had indeed once caused a stir in Bath before being run out of town. She thought he’d been a speculator, or a radical, or something repugnant. After some thought, someone supplied the town of Allenton, a hamlet roughly a dozen or more miles away, as his possible origin. Gerard had cautioned her not to get her hopes up, but Kate sent off a letter anyway, just in case. So far there had been no reply, but she had tried. Apparently she should have thrown herself into society and embraced all the gossip instead. “I see.”

  He threw up his hands. “What’s got into you about this?” His eyes narrowed. “Was your mother here?”

  “How I heard about it is no importance,” she said stiffly. “I hope Lady Stanley satisfies your every expectation.”

  “You’re being irrational,” he warned. “Kate, I’m not having an affair with her. I’m not going to have an affair with her. I came to Bath prepared to do a great deal worse in order to find this blackmailer. I didn’t tell you because there’s been nothing to tell—nothing’s come of it yet, and nothing may. She’s quite a dull woman, to be honest.” He shook his head, looking greatly irked. “This is a pointless conversation.”

  Mortification mingled with anger rushed through her veins, obliterating any relief that he didn’t want Lady Stanley. “I trust Lady Stanley knows she’s being used.”

  His face darkened. “Sometimes one has to do whatever is necessary to get what one wants. Break a rule, bend a law, tell a lie—even by omission—because the end is too important to throw it away through propriety. No, I haven’t told her; I let her think what she likes, but I have no intention of deviating from my plan. I’m looking for a blackmailer, Kate, not someone honest and decent who would be glad to meet me in Lady Stanley’s drawing room for a civil conversation. Sometimes you have to fight underhanded to get what you need. Have you ever considered that?”

  “Have I?” she exclaimed in fury. “I got you, didn’t I?”

  Gerard’s eyebrows flew up. Kate’s eyes widened as the echo of her words registered. She whirled away, wishing she could vanish into thin air.

  For a long, terrible moment there was silence. “What do you mean by that?” he finally asked.

  She flinched at his cautious but steely tone. “Nothing. I spoke in anger. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Kate.”

  She was shaking. Oh please God, what could she say to extricate herself from this moment? She lowered her head. “I’m not lying. I lost my temper and spoke without thinking. Please forgive me for being rude.” Her mouth was dry, and the words came out in a whisper.

  His footsteps seemed loud as he came closer. “You didn’t mind being curt when you thought I was having an affair with Lady Stanley. When you speak without thinking, I find you often tell me more than when you pause to compose a suitable, bland reply.” He traced a line down the nape of her neck, and her whole body tensed in response. “What did you mean, you fought for me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she tried, but he was still touching the bare skin of her back, stroking along her shoulder blades.

  “That’s what you meant.”

  She didn’t want him to know. It was bad enough that he thought she’d asked him because he needed her money, and she needed his strength. It was bad enough that he viewed her as his odd, amusingly awkward wife. She could live with that. But for him to know she had asked him because she’d been infatuated with him for years . . . to know that she’d dreamed of him when he didn’t even remember her face . . . that would be intolerable. Only pathetic lovelorn fools did that. Only if he had loved her back, even slightly, would Kate have admitted how much she cared for him.

  Now she tried to pretend it was Howe asking her something. Howe had never been more than mildly interested in anything she thought, and that interest always passed if she refused to tell him. Gerard couldn’t make her say it, she told herself; she was sure he wouldn’t strike her. She simply had to keep her wits about her, and he would never discover it. She inhaled a calming breath and forced her shoulders to relax, despite the light touch of Gerard’s finger still tingling along her spine. Slowly, deliberately, she turned to face him. “I meant nothing,” she said in a placid voice. “Please don’t pay any heed to it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Do you know how I hate it when you do that?” he asked in a conversational tone.

  She couldn’t look him in the face for more than a moment. “There’s nothing else to say. It was a foolish remark.”

  “I do so dislike . . .” He paused. “No, I absolutely detest it when you lie to me.”

  “It’s not a lie,” she protested, staring fixedly at his cravat pin. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  He sighed. “Ah, Kate. We still don’t understand each other yet, do we? I’m quite unable to let it go simply because you don’t want to tell me. You didn’t really think I would forget that you asked me to marry you, did you, or that I would never wonder why you chose me?”

  “You know why.”

  “Yes; death, Lucien, or me. But I cannot decide why you chose me, of all the penniless, handsome men in London you might have approached.”

  She wet her lips. She didn’t like lying to Gerard. It was hard to form the words, denying she cared anything at all for him when her heart jumped every time he smiled at her. Carefully she edged backward, hoping a few feet of distance would help. “Does it matter why I asked? You said yes, which must mean you were glad I asked.”

  He touched her chin, making her look at him. “It matters.” He paused, studying her. “If you don’t tell me, I shall have to seduce the answer from you.”

  Chapter 21

  Her eyes popped open at that alarming threat. “It’s really not worth all that! You—I—Truly, you are making much of nothing.”

  “Not worth pleasuring my wife? Why, madam, you do yourself a grave injustice.”

  “It’s wrong to use seduction as punishment!”

  “Punishment?” His smile was dangerous. “You won’t feel punished, I promise.”

  Her breath came in anxious pants. She knew she wouldn’t feel punished; that was the trouble. He knew just how to make her body feel alive, infused with fire. In fact, it was anticipation of all that which kept her feet stationary when she might have run for the door and escaped his questions.

  His fingers traced a sizzling path down her throat to the swells of her breasts. She could feel her nipples rising, growing hard and sensitive inside her corset. Kate bit back a moan and made herself turn away; she was a fool to think she could brazen this out. Unfortunately she had left it too long. Gerard’s arm snaked around her waist, pulling her against him so she could feel his arousal pressing hard against her back.

  “You tell me you wish to be a good wife.” His low whisper rumbled through her. His fingers traced the same path down her chest, and gooseflesh rippled over her skin. “Do you r
eally?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was a thin squeak.

  “Why did you try to lie to me? I can’t abide it, Kate.”

  “It wasn’t important,” she gasped. His fingers were running along the inside edge of her bodice. He knew her breasts were exquisitely sensitive, and he was making the most of it.

  “No?” His wandering touch paused. “I think it is—to me. I’ve wondered from the start why you proposed to me. Today you were jealous of my affections. Now you say, in a bit of reckless temper, you fought for me. How so?”

  “I—I asked you.” He slid one palm down her body, pausing to fondle her breast. Kate quaked as his thumb rolled firmly over an aching nipple. “Normally a woman waits and hopes a gentleman will propose to her . . .”

  “Hmm, yes.” He kissed her neck, a feathery touch of lips that sent sparks through her. “I like a bold woman.” His hand drifted down her belly. “But you’ve never quite satisfied me on one point: why me?”

  Her brain went blank as his fingers curved lightly but unmistakably into the furrow between her legs. Even through her dress and petticoats she could feel his touch, the soft stroke of his fingers finding that hidden point of pleasure with unerring accuracy.

  “I wanted you,” she whispered. Her hips moved helplessly, but she was caught. If she pressed backward, he was hard and promising against her bottom. If she moved forward, his fingers were there to drive her mad. She trembled from the effort of holding still.

  He knew it, too. The heel of his hand bore her backward, and he flexed his hips. The pressure of his fingers between her legs and his erection at her back sent lust spilling through her. She wanted him, too much. She groped blindly for the table in front of her, not sure if she meant to balance herself or use it as an anchor point to pull away from him, but he forestalled both.

  “Then you shall have me.” With one step forward, he brought her right to the edge of the table. With one last biting kiss on her shoulder, he pushed her down until her hands hit the polished surface of the table. “Why lie about that? If you wanted me in your bed, you only had to ask.”