Chapter One #2
“I think I’ve amused you quite enough already,” Elliot said as he rubbed at his neck and winced as if he’d put quite the crick in it.
And probably he had, if he’d slept on the hard earth all night.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” he said glumly as he climbed to his feet at last and extended his hand to help her to hers once more. “Devon tossed me out on my arse.”
“What?” Kate said, marveling. “From Longthorpe Manor?”
“Where else? He could hardly eject me from my lodgings in London.” Elliot raked a hand through his hair, which served only to bring more chaos to the already-disordered strands.
“He’s determined that I should be leg-shackled, and he tried to send me straight back to London.
” He flashed a cheeky grin and waggled his brows at her in that devil-may-care expression to which she had long been accustomed. “I went to the tavern instead.”
“And yet you walked back home? Knowing it would be barred against you?” With only one boot, even!
“Well, the tavern hadn’t any rooms available. Truth to tell, I thought I might at least find a bed of hay and a blanket in our stables—but the ale got the better of me halfway up the hill.” He gave a sheepish shrug.
“Not for the first time,” Kate chided.
“Besides,” Elliot added, having decided in his benevolence to ignore her taunt, “I knew you’d be along eventually, with the sheep. You always are.”
“The sheep have got to eat,” Kate said blandly as she collected her crook. “The lambs have got to frolic.”
“Yes, and they do it well. It’s so bloody pastoral out here in the countryside,” he said, planting his hands upon his hips as he gazed out into the distance, taking in the lambs cavorting over the hill, the mist that clung to the pastures dissipating in the sunny warmth of the new dawn, and the peachy sunrise still lingering over the horizon. “I always miss it when I’m in London.”
“Do you? Then why go to London for the Season at all, if you’ve no desire to take part in it?”
“Cake,” he said decisively, with a firm nod.
“Cake?”
“Cake. Lady Havisham’s cook does the finest cake I’ve ever had the privilege of tasting. Something with cinnamon, I think,” he said as he reached down to pull off the lone boot that would otherwise render his gait awkward. “I’ve yet to get the recipe out of the woman, but I remain ever hopeful.”
Kate let out a surprised bark of laughter at last, and the abashed grin that clung to the corners of Elliot’s mouth widened.
Sometimes, she thought he said outrageous things only to make her laugh.
“You will have to take a wife eventually,” she said as she meandered toward the sheep grazing in the field. “You’re not getting any younger.”
“I beg your pardon,” Elliot sniffed, with a haughty lift of his chin.
“Devon has got to marry. I can go about as I please indefinitely. I’m not even the spare, you know, Katie, so there isn’t the least need for me to go about the business of producing heirs to carry on the family name.
” He lifted his long, elegant fingers and rubbed at his chin, his brows drawing as he fell into step beside her, his boot tucked beneath one arm.
“But Devon has put me in a hell of a bind at the moment. I do have to go back to London, as I’ve nowhere else to go at the moment. ”
“Nowhere except your London lodgings,” she said crisply, her voice faintly sardonic. “Poor Elliot indeed. What a dreadful life you lead.”
He reached out and tugged her plait, just as he had hundreds of times when they had been children.
“Don’t mock, Kate. It has been dreadful of late.
I had to escape London in a hurry, or else find myself the victim of some matrimonial trap or another.
I might not be in line to inherit, but I’ve still got a healthy fortune of my own even without Devon’s allowance, and the Holbrooks enjoy considerable social status.
” He heaved a disconsolate sigh. “I haven’t had a decent cake in weeks. ”
“What, not even Lady Havisham’s?”
“She’s got two daughters of marriageable age,” he said mournfully. “I couldn’t risk it. Even I don’t know what I might do for the promise of more of that cake. I might well have ended up married.”
Kate snickered beneath her breath and asked, “Are you so weak-willed as that?” But it needn’t have been a question, really. Elliot’s sweet tooth was legendary.
“When it comes to truly excellent cake? There are no lows to which I will not stoop.” Another massive sigh wrenched itself from his lungs, and he raked both hands through his hair, wincing as he pulled at the tangles and bits of grass lodged therein.
“It’s a rather long ride back from London,” he said. “I had plenty of time to think.”
“Oh, dear. That hardly bodes well.”
Elliot slanted her a harassed glance, the corner of his mouth tilting up in a wry grin. “Promise me you’ll hear me out. That you won’t refuse out of hand.”
Kate’s steps stuttered, and she braced herself with the tip of the crook as she paused. Shading her eyes against the sun with one hand, she squinted up at Elliot in rank suspicion. “Refuse what, exactly?”
“Well…”
“Elliot.”
Elliot heaved a sigh, tipped his head back, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I came to the determination that there is simply no getting around it,” he said.
“I have got to go back to London, and, if Devon has his way—which, as you know, he generally does—I’ll be married before the end of the Season.
And if I must be married, well, then, I desperately need help. ”
“Help?” Kate repeated, thoroughly confused. “My help?”
“Of course, your help.” Elliot sighed, and turned that pleading gaze to her. A puppy’s sad, plaintive eyes, begging shamelessly. “Katie,” he said, “I need you to come to London with me. To find me a wife.”