Chapter One
“You must meet our new curate,” Lady Chadbon declared.
It was an uncharacteristic greeting, uttered as soon as Kate walked into the salon where Her Ladyship’s guests had gathered before dinner.
Arriving alone to stuffy political parties was something Kate had got used to since her marriage.
But as the daughter of a baron and the wife of an increasingly prominent member of Parliament, she was surprised to be fobbed off on a mere curate.
However, it appeared no insult was intended, for Lady Chadbon linked arms with her as she spoke, an indulgent smile upon her lips, as if she were bestowing a treat.
“My dear, he is young, and truly something out of the ordinary,” she whispered as they approached the black-coated backs of three gentleman in a group with two bejeweled older ladies. “Mr. Grande!”
The tallest of the three men turned at once, and Kate felt her jaw drop. Then laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep within—all the fun of a mischievous childhood controlled only by the learned restraint of adulthood.
“Allow me to present our new curate, Mr. Grande, who is helping our vicar during his convalescence. Mr. Grande, my dear young friend Lady Ambrose.”
The curate was indeed something out of the ordinary, somehow both poised and indolent.
Humor gleamed in his very worldly hazel eyes, which crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her.
Straight, dark hair that was almost black had been carelessly pushed back from his lean, handsome face, probably by his fingers rather than a comb.
His expression was one of friendly interest, with more than a hint of unclerical appreciation.
“Lady Ambrose.” He took the hand she had apparently offered, bowing over it with careless grace. He glanced up, and for an instant, laughter blazed at her before his eyelashes swept down.
“Mr. Grande,” Kate managed.
Lady Chadbon beamed and bustled off to intercept new arrivals in the room.
Resisting the urge to seize him by the arm and drag him to one side, Kate merely stepped a little away from the nearest group, and he followed.
“What on earth are you up to here?” she demanded.
“I was invited.”
“Mr. Grande? The curate?”
“You should hear my sermons on virtue. In any case, who the deuce is Lady Ambrose?”
“The wife of Sir Gilbert Ambrose. Member of Parliament,” she added, for no good reason she could account for.
He blinked. “Seriously? Aren’t you too young to be married?”
“I am one-and-twenty!”
His eyebrows flew up, apparently in surprise. “I suppose you must be. I never heard that you were married. What’s he like? Where is he?”
“He had a previous engagement.”
“Just as well. I need to warn you not to throw my title about—not that I can really imagine you my lording me, for you never did that I recall, but still. Here, I am just Mr. Grande the curate.”
As distinct from her old neighbor and childhood playmate Lord Rupert Grande, son of the Marquis of Winster.
She tried not to peer at him too closely.
She had, in fact, heard that he’d been ordained and had laughed hugely, imagining his own amusement, while wondering at the same time if he minded.
Most of Society had been amused, for the mischievous boy had turned into a wickedly attractive rake, by all accounts, up to all the rigs and tricks of Town life.
Not that Kate herself had seen him for years.
But she had heard some of the talk, and the great joke that was Lord Rupert Grande as a churchman. The Irreverend Grande.
“I thought you’d be a bishop by now,” she said.
“That’s next year in my father’s schedule. How long have you been married?”
“Two years. Are you telling me you really are a country curate, and no one knows you’re Winster’s son?”
“Yes, so don’t blab, Katy, there’s a girl.”
She glared at him, incensed, and he grinned in quick appreciation and, perhaps, apology.
“Sorry. Of course you won’t.”
“Well, I won’t,” she murmured, taking his arm as Lady Chadbon began to lead everyone into dinner, “providing you tell me what you’re up to.”
He bent down to her, and she was suddenly aware of the strong, adult male he had grown into, the hardness of his arm beneath her fingers, the indifferent fabric of his coat, the scent of his skin, at once familiar and strange.
“Don’t mock,” he breathed in her ear. “I am trying to be good.”
She couldn’t work out if he was being rueful or apologetic or just teasing.
In any case, she was distracted by the fact that Marcus Otteridge was several places in front of them, a living reminder of her task here.
Oh well, if we have to be placed apart at dinner, there will still be the drawing room later. He’ll be more malleable by then…
Not that old Otteridge was known for malleability. But right now, that challenge seemed so much less urgent than the young man beside her, where he had been, and what he had done.
A row of maids in crisp black gowns with white aprons, collars, and caps were lined up along one wall.
One of them, an extremely pretty girl whom Kate recalled from the Chadbons’ London house, seemed to be looking directly at her—or perhaps at her escort.
Either way, it was bad form, although as even Lady Chadbon had noticed, Rupert was quite out of the ordinary.
“Very well,” Kate said low, when everyone was seated, the first course served, and the chatter rising up and down the table. “Tell me all. If you really are the curate, how did it come about?”
“I pestered the only bishop unacquainted with my father.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Didn’t want to shuffle papers and shine sermons for the archbishop. Or play politics at his palace.”
“Dear me, no,” she said, seriously, and he grinned, actually nudging her elbow in a friendly sort of way.
“Knew you’d understand. Now, tell me about this Ambrose fellow. Is he worthy?”
“Of what?” she asked, bewildered.
“Kate Hynde, of course.” He flummoxed her utterly by gazing seriously into her eyes. “Is it a love match?”
“Of course,” she said stiffly.
He dropped his gaze to his plate. “Sometimes we do things for the wrong reasons and then they still turn out be right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No idea. I’m trying to be serious, since the vicar warned me they entertained a serious set at the big house. I was surprised to be invited, even to make up the numbers, but you could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you.”
“Likewise,” she replied.
He turned to the lady on his other side—Miss Nye, sister of the Tory member of Parliament, Sir Colin Nye—leaving Kate free to converse with the gentleman on hers.
Much of an age with her husband, Mr. Newman was the youngest parliamentarian present.
He did not figure in the tasks set her by both Gilbert, her husband, and Lord Chadbon, her host, since his influence was not yet great enough, but he had always been friendly to her and his eyes held a definite twinkle.
“I’m so very glad to see you at this party,” he said fervently. “We are otherwise lamentably short of youth and beauty.”
Which was hardly fair on his wife, who sat at the opposite side of the table, currently bearing up under the braying lecture of Sir Colin Nye.
Nye was the “cuckoo” in their nest, the Tory member being courted to support Gilbert’s returning soldiers bill.
Mrs. Newman glanced across the table, meeting Kate’s gaze for an instant.
Kate smiled in subtle sympathy, but the other woman seemed not to notice.
“But we are not short of purpose, Mr. Newman,” Kate said lightly. “What is your impression of the bill’s support?”
“We’ll need more than Nye to get it through.”
“That is the whole point of getting him on our side. We expect him to work the same magic on his own party. He has a high degree of influence in both the Commons and the Lords.”
The pretty maid leaned between them, whisking away used plates and cutlery. Newman’s eyes strayed after her with considerable appreciation and yet returned to Kate as if he saw no one else. She wondered how serious he really was about politics.
*
Rupert Grande, temporary curate of Chadleigh Parish, was oddly disturbed by the sudden appearance of his childhood friend, Kate.
In recent years, when he’d thought of her at all, it had been as a laughing child in pigtails and a muddied dress.
Somehow it was jarring to see her as a fashionable lady, resplendent in low-necked, high-waisted gown of rose silk, trimmed with blond lace at neck and hem, and ruffled little puff sleeves.
She wore pearls in her ears and around her slender throat, and there was no sign of pigtails.
Instead, her soft brown hair was brushed upward and held in place by a small pearl headdress, from which a riot of curls fell forward over her forehead.
What on earth was she doing alone and unescorted among these deadly serious political fossils?
Surely Hynde couldn’t have married her to one of them?
He doubted these people were her chosen friends, although he watched her move among them with friendly ease, a bright young butterfly among the old stones who seemed delighted by her sparkling company.
Only, the bits of conversation he overheard as he moved around the drawing room after dinner, refilling his own glass or someone else’s, were without humor.
And Kate, the child who loved to laugh, not only held her own, she led, discussing manufacturing matters that she could surely never have seen, child labor, the care of soldiers still returning home after Waterloo without work or, in many cases, health.
She even discussed foreign affairs and alliances with mind-boggling familiarity.
It might have had him metaphorically scratching his head, but she didn’t seem confused in the slightest, almost as if she were working to a plan. Intrigued, he resolved to speak to her later, if he could. He wondered how long she was staying here.