Chapter Fourteen
On the day of the Brighton races, Kate scoured her wardrobe for something summery while Harriet fussed and fluttered over the clothes already laid out on the bed. ‘His Lordship will be here soon, Kate. Please make up your mind!’
What did people wear to the races? Kate had no idea, but in the end, she put on a yellow muslin gown and blue pelisse, then added a straw sun bonnet and a pair of dainty lace gloves.
Before she went downstairs she took one last look around her bedchamber, remembering Dan’s lovemaking three nights ago and his words to her just before he left.
We are enjoying each other’s company, aren’t we?
Too much, perhaps. This morning she had been awake since dawn, warning herself, you risk having your heart broken, Kate.
You are lying when you tell yourself you won’t miss him when he returns to London.
But then, a ray of early sunshine had crept through her curtains to fall on her aunt’s embroidered sampler hanging on the wall opposite her bed—just a small one, portraying a country cottage and the words, Find Where Your Heart Belongs.
She knew where her heart belonged. It belonged here at Clematis Villa, and her lovely aunt had realised it. All was not lost, she reminded herself, even when the summer was over and Dan went back to London.
But oh, how her heart skipped with joy when he arrived for her, driving an open chaise with a liveried groom perched on the back.
She strove to calm her racing pulse as Dan came up the path to greet her, looking wonderfully disreputable in a long tan-coloured coat, matched in its extravagance only by his blue-and-gold-striped waistcoat and his loosely knotted blue necktie.
As Kate went out to meet him, his groom was holding the horses but was no doubt watching them both, just as Harriet would be. So Kate merely nodded as Dan murmured, ‘My congratulations, Miss Summerby, on your choice of attire. You look very charming and also very respectable.’
She had to release a smile. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘thank you for the compliment, but I have to point out that you do not look remotely respectable. Though I imagine you would be crushed if I said that you did.’
He grinned as he helped her to her seat, then he climbed up beside her and took the reins in his skilful hands. ‘I would be totally crushed,’ he agreed cheerfully, ‘since it’s my aim in life to shock. You understand me all too well.’
They still had to speak with care because of the groom riding at the back, but all of Kate’s senses were fired anew by his warm body so close to hers. Do not expect too much, she ordered herself sternly. Enjoy the day and leave with happy memories.
As soon as they joined the long queue of carriages arriving at the site, she realised that, indeed, the races drew enormous crowds.
This setting high on Whitehawk Hill had glorious views, both of the Downs and of the sea to the south.
The crowds of racegoers were already in high spirits after spending time at the nearby fair, and they were making eager last-minute bets as the horses and jockeys prepared for the first event.
‘Many people travel down from London for the races,’ Dan told her. ‘They make a holiday of it. There’s probably a crowd of a thousand or more here already, so stay close.’
He made that instruction easy for her by constantly keeping his hand on her arm so they didn’t get separated in the crowds.
When the first race was about to begin, he led her to a slight hill where they could see it all.
‘I put a guinea on the chestnut gelding for you,’ he told her.
He pointed. ‘Do you see it? The horse looks promising.’
‘Fast, you mean?’
‘Indeed, but it’s not just a matter of speed in these races. In fact, the winners are often the ones best able to handle the slopes and the bends of the course.’
Kate watched, fascinated both by the beautiful horses and by the jockeys in their bright colours. By the time the race reached the climax of the final uphill stretch, she was cheering and clapping with excitement, because the chestnut was drawing ahead.
‘It’s won!’ she cried out in sheer delight as it reached the finishing line. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Dan, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘My horse has won!’
He laughed and kissed her back, lifting her off her feet. But they both sprang apart at the sound of a sneering voice cutting through the air behind them.
‘Well, well,’ a man was saying. ‘It’s the Earl of Rivington. How entertaining, Dan, to see you on such good—can I say intimate?—terms with your new neighbour. You appear to have won the bet we made at your house. My congratulations.’
Dan let go of Kate and swung round to see his former guest Angus Gascoyne. He said, ‘A bet? What the devil are you talking about?’ Kate was standing very still at his side.
‘Surely you remember,’ Gascoyne said. ‘We each wagered fifty guineas on which of us could make the most surprising amorous conquest of the summer.’
The man had a sly smirk on his face that made Dan want to knock him down.
But the worst thing of all was the way the memory came flooding back—the drunken night when Gascoyne had suggested they all stake money on that outrageous challenge.
Every one of Dan’s guests had put in fifty guineas and, devil take it, so had he.
As the implication of all this sank in, Dan knew that his barely formed hopes were about to come crashing to the ground.
‘That wager,’ he said harshly, ‘was made in a moment of madness. It has nothing at all to do with Miss Summerby.’
Gascoyne, damn him, was drawing nearer. ‘Are you trying to deny your victory? Good God, I saw the way the lady kissed you just now.’ He gave Kate an admiring glance. ‘I have to admit that I’m jealous. They say sexual intimacy makes a woman glow, and she really does look remarkably pretty—’
Dan floored him with a single punch to the chin. Gascoyne, clutching his bloodied nose, struggled to get up, and Dan waited till he was on his feet to say, ‘You bastard, Gascoyne. Say one more word and I’ll do the same again.’ Then he turned to speak to Kate—and found her gone.
He was aware instantly of a desperate sense of loss, but he saw her at last, heading for the gate that led from the racecourse to the road. Because she was limping a little, he caught up with her easily and took hold of her arm.
She tried to shake him away. She looked, he could see, utterly distraught. ‘Get your hands off me,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Leave me alone. Do not dare to touch me.’
‘Kate,’ he begged, ‘listen, please. That man back there is a scoundrel. I was a fool to invite him and those others to stay at my house, and I was heartily glad to see the back of them—’
She held up her hand for silence. ‘Just tell me.’ Her eyes were dark pools in the whiteness of her face. ‘Is his story of the wager true?’
Oh, dear God. He said, ‘It’s true, yes. All of us had been drinking and I have never thought about it since—in fact I’d totally forgotten. The wager had nothing at all to do with you, but I cannot deny that it took place.’
Two spots of red were burning in her cheeks now.
‘I presume this kind of cheap entertainment is normal between you and your male friends? Like collecting ladies’ garters or ribbons, to indicate how many women you have seduced?
’ She held up one hand to ward off his reply.
‘I have something to tell you. You remember the Viscount’s son, who pretended to be my admirer? ’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘One night, Dan, at a party, that man led me outside, and like a fool, I let him kiss me. I was happy, I was thrilled—and then I realised that all his friends had gathered in the garden to watch. They clapped and cheered, because it was a wager, Dan. The Viscount’s son had made a bet with them that he could steal a kiss from the Season’s chief oddity, the girl who couldn’t dance. And he had won.’
Dan was silent. He was thinking that she had never looked more beautiful than she did now, when she was slipping irrevocably from his grasp.
You must not let your bitterness over the past define you, she had told him. It was a maxim she clearly tried to live by because she was brave, she was strong. But he could see that this latest revelation was too much even for her to endure.
‘I am sorry,’ he said in a low voice.
‘I’m afraid that “sorry” isn’t enough this time.
’ She lifted her head to gaze at him, and he thought he saw tears glistening in those gorgeous green-gold eyes.
His fault, he thought desperately. All his.
She looked around and said, ‘It’s perhaps as well this happened when it did.
It puts an end to any stupid illusions I might have had that our relationship actually meant something to you.
I’m going home now, and I don’t expect we shall meet again. ’
He moved to stop her. ‘You cannot walk all the way to Clematis Villa. I shall drive you in my carriage and maybe we can talk tomorrow—’
‘Talk about what, precisely? There’s nothing really to say, is there?
You did warn me about your faults. You did warn me that you don’t deserve my respect, but I refused to believe you, so I’m to blame as much as you.
Whatever you choose to do with your life, it really doesn’t matter to me.
’ She looked around. ‘I’m not going to walk home, because I shall take one of the hire cabs—I can see them over there.
Goodbye, Dan. And I would certainly advise you to choose better friends in the future. ’
She was gone, and he stood there as his world broke into pieces around him. He had hoped… What had he hoped?
He had hoped Kate was beginning to feel the same way as he did about her.
After their night of intimacy, he had wondered if she was prepared to understand and maybe forgive his many faults.
He was even, after years of heedless living, beginning to realise that he may have found someone worth living for.
He stood there, feeling cold in the hot sunshine as the noise of the racecourse faded into nothing. He thought, she was prepared to give me perhaps her most precious possession—her trust. And I have betrayed that trust.
It was too late for regrets. But it wasn’t too late to deal with that fool Gascoyne, who he could see hobbling back towards the crowds.
Dan caught up with him, grabbed his shoulder to spin him round and grated out, ‘If you breathe one word of that stupid wager, or say anything at all about Miss Summerby, I will see you blackballed from your London clubs and personally ruined. Do you understand?’
The man blenched and wiped fresh blood from his nose. ‘I understand,’ he muttered.
Another race was underway and the cheering of the spectators filled the air. Angus Gascoyne went back to his friends—but Dan went home and started making arrangements to return to London.
He arrived at his Mayfair house three days later, in the afternoon.
Oliver was out, the servants didn’t know where, so Dan changed from his travelling clothes then visited his lawyer to tell him he wanted to sell the Brighton house as swiftly as possible.
After returning home he sat in his study, staring into nothingness.
He realised that he’d begun to have dreams about living in that house for good, with the scent of the salt breeze in the air rather than the city’s smoke and dust. He had dreamed of having the space to ride up on the hills or walk along the rural tracks without the endless racket of passing carriages and tradesmen’s calls.
Dreamed of the chance to find himself free from the pressures of Society and its endless demands.
And always in his dream he wasn’t alone.
He had a companion, a beautiful and loyal friend who never failed to speak the truth whatever the cost to herself, and who had faced the difficulties of her own life with courage and integrity.
Kate, who had dealt silently with her lameness and her awful debut and who thought herself plain—when to him, she was the loveliest woman he had ever met.
He had shared one magical night with her, a night of not only making love but of getting to know her and know himself.
He had been on the brink of trusting his own cynical heart enough to believe there might be a future for them both.
But the dream had been shattered by Gascoyne’s sneering reminder of that scandalous wager, and he knew that he would never, for as long as he lived, forget the look of betrayal on Kate’s face.
Gascoyne had not lied, so what could Dan have said to excuse himself? Absolutely nothing. His past had caught up with him, and he could not expect Kate to forgive him.
After an hour he heard Oliver arriving. His brother marched straight into the study, took one look at Dan and said, ‘So you’re back in London.
Is everything all right? No, stupid question.
I see everything is not all right. You’ve made another hash-up of things with Miss Summerby, haven’t you?
Honestly, what an idiot you are sometimes. ’
Dan indicated a chair for his brother then poured them both brandy. ‘I would appreciate it,’ he said, ‘if for once you’d tell me something I don’t already know.’
‘That is exactly what I’m about to do.’ Oliver accepted his glass but didn’t drink.
‘Now, listen. Next week I’m starting my new job at the War Office, but meanwhile I’ve had time to look through the boxes of our father’s correspondence.
Yes, I know you told me we should leave all that damned stuff alone, along with the memories of our childhood.
But I’ve found something rather interesting.
I’ve found letters to our father from our mother, in France. ’
Letters from their mother? Already Dan felt the shadow of early loss descending to darken his world again. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘that I want to read them.’
‘I wasn’t sure either. But I did read them, and I think you should too. Will you come and take a look?’