Chapter Four #3
As far as Kate was concerned, this unfolding scene was a total disaster and she could have wept with annoyance.
In fact, she could have howled, because despite her resolve to appear calm and unflustered, the wretched man had arrived to see her teetering on that footstool like an idiot and now he knew she’d been making a pathetic attempt to understand property law.
Maybe she shouldn’t have made those comments about his clothes—but then again, no man should preen like a peacock, even if he was spectacularly good-looking!
Her spirits sank further. That, of course, was the real trouble.
He was attractive and he knew it, just like the Viscount’s son and just like her vain brother-in-law too, though thank goodness she had kept him at bay.
She pointed him to a chair, but instead he took that book over to the desk and began flicking through it, presenting her with a view of his broad shoulders that really had her staring—until he turned to her with a half-smile that almost knocked her off her feet.
‘This is a hefty volume you’ve got here.’ He indicated the book. ‘Did you find it interesting?’
She answered loftily. ‘I really haven’t had time to study it. Maybe my aunt read it all, but unfortunately, I would guess that my aunt’s legal knowledge was nowhere near enough to outsmart you, my lord.’
Once more he gave that maddening half-smile and strolled across to sit in the chair she had indicated, lounging there in his unbuttoned coat and stretching out his booted legs then casually flicking some speck of dust from his riding breeches.
Kate remembered Harriet whispering, He looks like a pirate.
She also remembered that tattoo on his back and felt an uncomfortable surge of heat.
Good lord, this man was a rogue, and there was an absolutely maddening curl at the corner of his mouth as he reached inside his coat to pull out a packet of papers then rose and passed them to her.
‘Here you are, Miss Summerby. You will see all the relevant legal documents and also the name and address of your aunt’s solicitor, whom you must have spoken to concerning her will.
But I’ve been thinking—surely, he must have explained to you about the sale of the land? ’
She gripped the papers and tried to remember. Mr Freeman hadn’t mentioned anything about the sale, had he? But—oh dear—he had definitely suggested she read all those documents he’d shown her in his office, only she’d been in such haste that she had barely skimmed them.
The Earl was watching her a little curiously. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Perfectly,’ she declared. ‘Yes, indeed. I shall take these papers over to the desk, where the light is better.’
‘Of course.’
She sat at the desk and put on her spectacles to study them, but the print was tiny, the legal terms baffled her, and she didn’t have to look at him to know that he would be watching her like a hawk studying its prey.
Somehow, she ploughed on through the details of the sale of two acres of land by Jemima Summerby to Daniel Carstairs, the Earl of Rivington, until at last she pushed them aside.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Your comments?’
She rose to her feet to face him. ‘It does look, my lord, as if there was nothing improper about the transaction. But I need to know what kind of pressure my aunt was under, that forced her to make a decision which goes against everything I ever knew about her!’
Those cool blue eyes of his widened. ‘Are you trying to imply that your aunt sold the land to me against her will? That I perhaps used some kind of force to make her agree to my demand?’
‘How else am I to interpret an action that I know must have been completely alien to her? Plainly, Lord Rivington, you are used to getting whatever you want, but what tricks or threats did you concoct to get that piece of land from her?’
He walked over to the desk. Towering over it—and her—he said, ‘I put your aunt under no pressure whatsoever. I can only express my surprise that she didn’t tell you about it herself—but oh, I forgot.
You haven’t visited her for…how many years is it, I wonder?
Did you even bother writing to her? And before you tell me lies, I know the answer already.
She told me that you never wrote, and it distressed her.
Nevertheless, she was desperate for you to inherit her house—but of course, you wouldn’t know that, would you? ’
There was a lump in her throat. ‘I did write to her. I did! I sent long letters with all my news, but I never heard back from her!’
‘Your aunt wrote to you regularly. She told me so. You really disappointed her, you know.’
Kate was distraught. She hated him for this. She’d had no money for the journey, but she had still written to Jemima, regularly—and yet this man was saying that her aunt had never received her letters?
Her father used to deal with all the household post, so it was possible that he had intercepted the letters from Jemima and stopped hers from being sent.
But why would he act so meanly? Whatever the truth of it, there was no point in suggesting this to Lord Rivington, because he had clearly assumed her to be guilty of ingratitude and neglect regarding her beloved aunt, and any further protests would only confirm his cynicism.
She said, ‘My lord. Regarding the sale of the land, these documents do appear to show you have right on your side. But I have only your word for it that my aunt actually welcomed your offer!’
‘Are you really suggesting that I somehow forced her?’
‘I don’t know! Only you can be sure of what actually happened when you persuaded her to sell!’
‘I assure you, she accepted my offer gladly.’ The coldness of his words cut into her anew.
‘I have many faults, but no one has ever had cause to doubt my honesty, and I suggest you don’t test me on the subject further.
I also suggest that this meeting is going nowhere and should be concluded.
’ He was reaching to gather up his papers from the desk when he stopped and said suddenly, ‘Miss Summerby?’
‘Yes?’
The Earl simply pointed to where a small pool of black liquid was spreading ominously around the inkpot on the desk.
‘Oh, no!’ Kate snatched up the pot, thereby getting ink all over her fingers ‘Oh, what a mess. I must fetch blotting paper…’
‘I shall fetch it. Otherwise you’ll more than likely get the ink everywhere.’
She nodded miserably. She could have wept. ‘There is some in the bureau, over by the door.’
She stayed where she was, quite cast down. All her efforts at calm competence had been in vain. Even the inkpot had become her enemy, and just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, she heard the front door opening and Harriet calling out, ‘Kate. Kate! I’m back from the market!’
Kate moved hastily, intending to halt Harriet in the hall, but she was too late. Already the door into the parlour was flung ajar and Harriet was there. ‘Has the Earl gone, Kate? Do you still think the man is a crook?’
Because the bureau was just beside the door Harriet had opened, it had caught the Earl’s shoulder and he only just managed to steady himself against the wall. ‘Harriet!’ Kate was pointing desperately in his direction. ‘Harriet, please…’
Harriet gasped as the Earl stepped forward. ‘Oh, dear,’ she whispered.
The Earl walked back to the desk and laid down the blotting paper with an air of finality. ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘I shall make my departure. But I have one final comment.’ He looked straight at Kate. ‘You accept, I trust, that my purchase of the land is proved correct by the documents I’ve shown you?’
By now Kate was really in despair. ‘As I’ve said, I see no obvious reason to doubt the legality of your purchase, my lord. But…’
He held up his hand. ‘No “buts”. Might I suggest that you accept the situation and refrain from causing further trouble for yourself? Your attempts are likely to achieve nothing but enmity in certain quarters.’
With that, he left, and Kate felt a shiver run through her veins, because his words had sounded very much like a threat.
Harriet just stood there, looking utterly dismayed, while Kate went to the kitchen and began fiercely scrubbing ink from her hands. After a few moments Harriet joined her. ‘Oh, dear,’ she was saying. ‘Oh, goodness gracious, I didn’t realise that the Earl was in the room. What must he think of me?’
Kate rinsed her hands in the sink. Whatever must the Earl think of both of them? ‘I don’t know, Harriet.’
‘But why was he hiding behind that door?’
‘He wasn’t hiding. He was looking for some blotting paper in the bureau.’
‘Blotting paper! Oh, heavens. And I said to you, in front of him—I said…’
‘To be precise, you said that I believed he was a crook.’ Kate had turned to face her. ‘I doubt it now. But I still do not trust him in the least.’
Harriet sighed. ‘He is so very handsome, though. His clothes must be amazingly expensive, but he wears them as if he really doesn’t care what he looks like. I’m sure he must have lots of adventures with pretty women—’
Kate turned to face her. ‘Harriet, how can you even think of such things? Is it because of those frivolous romances you keep devouring?’
‘Well, you were swooning over Lord Byron and his Childe Harold when it came out in March! And Lord Byron is a rake, is he not?’
‘Yes, but Lord Byron writes wonderful poetry and… Oh, all right.’ Kate, drying her hands briskly on a towel, had to admit defeat. ‘But I cannot accept what Lord Rivington has done to my aunt’s property, and I shall continue to oppose him.’
‘You can’t make him pull his house down, though, can you?’
‘Hardly, but I still have doubts about the whole business. The man is clever, and I believe he must have taken advantage of my poor aunt’s declining health when he persuaded her to sell her land. Now I must go and make sure I’ve cleaned all the ink from my aunt’s desk.’
‘Yes,’ said Harriet humbly. She brightened up again. ‘And I shall make us some tea.’
Kate went back into the parlour, sorely troubled.
She had come across plenty of men in London who were considered handsome, but the Earl was in a different class.
Those dangerous blue eyes of his unsettled her mightily, and he must realise it.
No doubt he would be laughing about her with all his friends tonight.
She hoped she’d made it clear that she found him obnoxious. But what if he’d guessed that last night, as he had emerged half-naked from the lake and taken that woman in his arms, she had found herself thinking, what if I were in his arms instead?
She put her hands to her cheeks, because during their confrontation just now, while he was being fairly hateful to her to be honest, she’d had to keep dragging her gaze away from his mouth.
Though his lips could deliver icily cutting words, they also suggested a silky softness that made her wonder about his kisses…
Kate Summerby, she scolded herself. When have you ever paid the slightest attention to a man’s mouth, for heaven’s sake?
When the Viscount’s son had paid court to her was the answer, and that had proved disastrous. For the second time in her life, she was experiencing the pull of physical attraction and her temporary weakness terrified her.
She wiped fresh blotting paper over the desk, which fortunately had suffered no permanent damage, then she sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose where her spectacles had chafed.
This afternoon, Lord Rivington would have come to the same conclusion as her sister, Monica—that Kate was a social failure, destined to spend her life alone despite the hours her sister had spent during Kate’s Season plotting to find a husband for her.
‘The younger son of a baronet would do—either that, or a wealthy businessman like my Edward!’ Monica would remind her as they arrived at yet another party where Kate was doomed to sit by herself, feeling as though she might as well have a large sign hanging around her neck—Wallflower, up for offer.
Marry a man like her brother-in-law, with his lecherous eyes? Never.
As for the Viscount’s son, Monica was thrilled when he began to pay attention to Kate.
But Monica knew nothing of Kate’s humiliation on realising she had been the target of a wager between a group of callous young aristocrats, and in fact she had been seriously angry when Kate refused to attend any more social events.
But Kate was adamant and had lived quietly with her father until he decided to marry—which was when Monica had come up with the idea that Kate should live with them, as a convenient childminder.
Harriet came in with a tray of tea and some biscuits too, so Kate felt obliged to try one.
But oh, dear—as she tried to bite it, she discovered it was as hard as rock.
Harriet was watching her anxiously. ‘Have I overcooked them? I was afraid the oven was too hot. I am sorry! I must ask Tilly to give me some hints. Joseph says she knows everything about baking.’
‘That’s a good idea. I remember she was always bringing my aunt delicious cakes.’ Kate tried to smile. ‘And don’t worry about these biscuits, but I wish you’d brought them in earlier, then I could have offered one to the Earl. Trying to bite into it might have silenced him for a while.’
That got a smile from Harriet, who took the tray back to the kitchen once they’d finished their tea.
Kate, meanwhile, decided to put the heavy law book back where she’d found it, but as she did so she spotted on the shelves a familiar book she had once loved, a guide to birds.
As a child she had pored over it for hours, memorising the names and delicate pictures, and when she opened its faded pages, a note dropped out.
Dearest Kate, it said. I knew you would find your way here, whatever the obstacles. Welcome to Clematis Villa.
Kate held it tightly, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, because she recognised her aunt’s beautiful writing and could almost hear her kindly voice. Whatever the obstacles? It sounded as if Jemima had known that her letters never reached Kate, and this was her way of welcoming her.
Kate had to dash away the tears that threatened. Yes, she was here, but she hadn’t counted on making a powerful enemy so quickly and so disastrously.