Chapter Ten #2
Lady Havisham’s garden party had commenced in early afternoon, and Kate had done beautifully thus far.
Despite the attention Elliot had garnered—which had been considerable—Kate had held her own amongst those who had approached them.
Her notebook was stuffed into her reticule alongside her freshly-sharpened pencil, and though she had scarcely had a moment to spare to write within it, she had made it a point to ask thoughtful questions of those to whom they had spoken.
But Elliot didn’t think she had much enjoyed it.
The rush of ladies eager to introduce themselves had only died down when Lady Havisham’s staff had brought out the cake to be served, and it had been made abundantly clear that he was not the only one to favor it so.
“You’re not going to eat that, are you?” Elliot asked as he surreptitiously steered his fork toward Kate’s plate in an effort to snatch up a bite of her cake.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, yanking her plate away from the tines of his fork. “Get your own!”
Elliot pulled a face, affecting a pitiful expression. “I’ve had three slices already,” he said, “and Lady Havisham’s staff won’t give me anymore.”
Kate’s brows lifted in shock. “Three! How are you not bursting at the seams?”
“I’ve long suspected I’ve got an extra stomach exclusively for sweets,” Elliot said as he struggled to drag his gaze away from the bit of cake that remained upon Kate’s carefully-guarded plate.
Probably he was faster with his fork than she could be with her plate.
Probably, too, she would gleefully stab him to prevent the theft of that last tiny piece. “But can you blame me?”
Kate swiped up the last bit of cake and popped it into her mouth, her eyes closing in pure pleasure. “I suppose not,” she admitted reluctantly. “I would do terrible things for more of this cake.”
“So would I,” Elliot said with a sigh. “But I suppose I have got to draw the line at marrying for it.”
Kate chortled as she set her empty plate aside on the nearby table. “Have you?” she asked. “You did not seem altogether too certain of that, when last we spoke of it.”
“A man has got to have some principles,” he said. “Besides, Lady Havisham’s daughters are rather…young for my taste.”
“Not so very young,” Kate said. “Thomasin is two and twenty, and Christiana is a year her senior.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Elliot said. “The both of them giggled straight through your conversation. I could hardly make out a word.” He eyed Kate speculatively. “How many slices of cake have you had?”
“Just the one.”
He heaved a sigh of relief. “Good. Go ask for another, and we’ll split it.”
Kate’s mouth dropped open. “Elliot! Requesting more would be dreadfully rude of me.”
“I did. Twice.”
“But Lady Havisham is angling for you for one of her daughters. You’re to be allowed an extra indulgence, whereas I—”
“You are my dearest friend, and Lady Havisham has likely already heard the gossip and will want to stay in your good graces.” Elliot clasped his hands before him in a desperate entreaty. “Katie, please. I will beg.”
By the wistful glance she cast to the empty plate she had set upon the table, probably she coveted that slice of cake every bit as much as did he. “A man has got to have some principles, you said,” she muttered.
“I did.”
“Well,” Kate sniffed, “so has a woman, and I must draw the line at finessing extra bits of cake from my hostess by preying upon her hope that she might win you for one of her daughters.” Her gaze sharpened in the distance. “Oh,” she said. “There’s Mama. But who is that with her?”
Elliot stuffed down his disappointment over her blanket refusal and turned to look.
Some distance away still, Mrs. Littlefield had one arm threaded through that of a young woman as the two crossed the lawn toward them.
“Miss Applegate, I believe,” he said absently as he spotted the plate held in Mrs. Littlefield’s free hand.
A plate containing a large, thick slice of cake.
Still untouched. Practically calling his name.
“Are you familiar with her?”
“In a manner of speaking. We’ve danced once or twice.” Mrs. Littlefield was not, to his knowledge, a particular connoisseur of sweets, and hope soared in his chest that another slice of cake might be in his future.
“Katie, dear,” Mrs. Littlefield said as they approached. “Have you met Miss Applegate? She was kind enough to escort me when I lost my way on my return from the retiring room.”
“I was happy to do it,” Miss Applegate volunteered with a sunny smile. “Your mother is pleasant company, Miss Littlefield.”
“I have always thought so,” Kate returned, managing a pleasant smile of her own.
“Mrs. Littlefield,” Elliot cut in, “I wonder if I might trouble you—”
With an exaggerated roll of her eyes and a resigned sigh, Mrs. Littlefield extended the plate to him. “You are terribly lucky that I have got no taste for sweets,” she said as he snatched the plate from her hand.
“You are an angel,” Elliot said with a surfeit of feeling as he grabbed up the fork. “A paragon among women. A veritable saint. A—”
“He’s had three pieces already,” Kate interjected as she folded her arms across her chest. “And I haven’t the slightest doubt he’ll be seeking another when he’s done with this one.”
Miss Applegate muffled a shocked laugh behind her fingertips. “Well,” she said, “it really is excellent cake. If I could have got away with asking a second slice, I might well have done.” But the tone of her voice had conveyed the belief that four was beyond excessive.
With a little shake of her head, Mrs. Littlefield said, “As little taste as I have got for sweets, I have still less for watching a grown man consume so much cake.”
“You did offer it,” Elliot reminded her, only barely managing to remember to swallow in advance of speaking.
“I did, more’s the pity,” Mrs. Littlefield said. “Katie, will you join us? I should like to return Miss Applegate to her family before they begin to worry.”
“Yes, Mama, of course,” Kate said as she made to join her mother. And as they turned to go and leave him to enjoy his cake in peace, Elliot heard Kate ask, “If I may ask, Miss Applegate—would you say you prefer the city or the countryside?”
∞∞∞
Dinner had proved a quiet affair thus far, with only the faint clink of utensils and the rhythmic scratch of Kate’s pencil to be heard. “That’s an awful lot of notes,” Elliot observed casually, between bites of fish.
“Hm,” Kate returned absently, bent over her notebook, her brows scrunching as she continued writing away.
She’d been at it all throughout the meal, her pencil scribbling furiously across the pages.
Just occasionally she had paused to take a bite of her food, hardly even lifting her head to do so.
It had been endearing, really, her unshakeable attention to the work he’d assigned her.
Especially because as dinner had progressed, her mood—which had already begun rather grimly as she had first flipped the notebook open—had noticeably devolved.
He’d introduced her to three ladies at Hyde Park today and still more at Lady Havisham’s garden party, and clearly, she had had thoughts.
A great number of them, all pouring from her brain onto the pages before her at a frantic pace.
And she was muttering to herself as she wrote.
Not so loudly that he could hear every word, but he had most certainly seen her lips form the words dowry of ten thousand as she had continued that frenetic scrawl.
Mrs. Littlefield cleared her throat, patting daintily at her mouth with her napkin. “Kate, darling,” she said.
“Hm,” Kate responded again, with the sort of bland, monotone sound that one made when one wished to convey that one was listening, despite the fact that she was most certainly not.
Elliot swallowed back a snicker and disguised his amusement with another bite of fish.
Mrs. Norris had outdone herself this evening, despite the fact that the house was understaffed.
The cod was tender and so faultlessly poached that he could have cut it with a spoon, and seasoned to perfection with fresh dill and lemon.
Flaky and soft, it melted in the mouth. Kate, in all likelihood, had not noticed, given that she had taken each bite with absent attention at best.
“Kate,” Mrs. Littlefield said again, the hint of a growl only just restrained behind her polite smile.
The fine hairs at the nape of Elliot’s nape lifted.
It was a tone of voice he hadn’t heard from Mrs. Littlefield in a good, long time.
Not since he and Kate had been children, on the rare occasions that Kate had been into some bit of mischief that had merited calling out.
Generally it had been employed with the use of Kate’s full name—Katherine Mary Littlefield.
But the distinctive tone was still capable, it seemed, of putting the fear of God into him.
And into Kate. Her pencil stilled abruptly and her shoulders pinched as she lifted her gaze at last. “Yes, Mama?”
“Lord Elliot has been kind enough to grace us with his presence for dinner,” Mrs. Littlefield said, a touch too sweetly. “It is the least we can do to be pleasant dinner companions and to make conversation.”
“Do you know,” Elliot said reflectively, “I cannot recall the last time anyone considered themselves graced by my presence.”
Kate made a strangled sound beneath her breath, like a laugh had caught in her throat—but at last she laid down her pencil and closed the notebook.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mama,” she said as she settled back in her chair and picked up her fork once again.
“I wanted to get my thoughts down while they were still fresh.”
Elliot tore into a fluffy roll and slathered the bit of bread with butter. “What were they, then?”
“I beg your pardon?” Kate asked, blinking at him, her fork—tines piercing a bit of cod—suspended before her lips.