And with a thrill he’d felt smack in his groin, he had seen it. He had seen her pupils go the size of pennies. He had planted a seed in her imagination, and his cursed ego quietly thrilled to this. He knew how to nurture that seed. Hewantedto nurture that seed.
He really ought to go to the devil for it.
He’d said it because he’d suddenly had a stabbing premonition of how she would look at him if she knew the whole truth of him. Certainly not with that starry-eyed, shy adulation, or that frank, undisguised admiration for his manly physique. And he’d said it in part because something in him wanted todemonstrate both to her and to himself what a fine line there was between innocence and... whatever he’d become. And how very, very easy it was to stumble across that line. One little word like “bed” at a time.
A hero would not have done that to ease his own discomfort. A hero wouldn’t want to protect a woman as badly as he was tempted to corrupt her.
Then again, disliking himself was not a new sensation. He was indeed a bit of a bastard. After all, twice in as many days someone had hurled something at him—a lamp, a fist—and it had not escaped his ironic notice that the common denominator in both circumstances was him.
But he never lied to women. He never made promises. There was a satisfying simplicity in this, and a relief in knowing that the ending of his every liaison—and they were hardly legion, regardless of what the gossip sheets implied—was essentially foregone the moment it began.
The trouble was, the pace here at this bloody boardinghouse was gentle and rhythmic. He was held fast in one place for the first time in as long as he could remember. And this captive domesticity was blurring his sharp, hard edges. Today, during a difficult meeting with a constituent he’d caught himself calling to mind the way Keating’s face lit when she saw him the way another man might reach for a shot of whiskey.
In her presence, he felt increasingly unfamiliar to himself, which made him uneasy. Her naivete and depth and her wit and her sweetness all wrapped in her unconscious natural sensuality wreaked havoc with his surefootedness. Shimmering somewhere outside of the reach of his reason were memorieswhich seemed to hold the answers, but when his thoughts brushed too close to them, his chest tightened with an odd atavistic fear, the sort prey has for predators.
It would have shocked anyone who thought they knew him to discover he was afraid of anything.
He decided to abandon for the night his attempts to write anything better than what he’d already written. He’d send the package of books to Leo tomorrow.
He got into his nightshirt and climbed into the absurdly comfortable bed and surrendered his head to the bosomy pillow. He wasn’t looking forward to a repeat of last night: he’d awakened with a start from a dream that his bed was on fire.
But he would rather let Farquar hit him again and again in front of a cheering audience than let anyone know that he sometimes still soothed himself to sleep by imagining he was a little boy in Wales again, stretched out on a cool, soft bed of clover, on a scrubby, unprepossessing hill, in the shelter of a boulder. The sun and breeze on his skin. Keating’s quiet humming evolved into the hum of bees as sleep took him under.
Chapter Ten
At the Southam assembly—the Earl and Countess of Southam were their hosts—Catherine began to recognize the many people she had seen at previous balls and yet hadn’t met, and the many men she hadn’t yet danced with and might never. Perhaps all of these people never, never tired of each other’s company. She certainly would love an opportunity to discover why, if that was so.
Instead, her social circle remained stubbornly unexpanded. She stood again with Lucy, Miss Bernadette Seaver, and Mr. Hargrove while Lady Wisterberg gambled a few rooms away. She hoped the dowager was at least winning, because someone ought to be.
Tonight Miss Seaver wore a dress of lilac satin, trimmed at the bodice with little satin roses. It was so pretty Catherine’s heart ached.
“Oh my goodness. You look like the personification of spring,” Catherine told her. “That color is so beautiful.”
Mr. Hargrove, flatteringly and unfortunately, seemed enchanted by this assessment. He beamed at her. “The personification of spring! How magnificently put. Why, she does, indeed. You do have an interesting way of seeing, Miss Keating.”
She smiled at him carefully, given that the othertwo young women were watching her like hawks, their expressions tense.
“Thank you. That is very kind of you to say, Miss Keating,” Miss Seaver replied. “Are you saving your nice dress for the Shillingford ball? I mean your nicest dress?”
Catherine stared at her for a full two seconds. For heaven’ssake.
“I do plan to wear a nice dress to the Shillingford ball,” she decided to say, with great, great patience.
Apparently the Shillingford ball was the event of the season.
It seemed improbable that she’d even be included on such a personage’s invitation list, too, but, as Lady Wisterberg had said, complacently and intriguingly,Even Earls and Countesses have need of fresh blood, dear, and I know a lot about everybody. They were happy to include you and Lucy.
“Oh! I’ve something exciting to tell you, by the way, Miss Keating.” Miss Seaver’s eyes were alight with news. “That is, I hope you find it exciting. I wasn’t certain whether I should say anything. But I heard from a friend... who heard from a friend... who heard from another friend... that Lord Vaughn said he would like to be introduced to you. Do you know who he is?”
Catherine’s heart gave a little skip. My goodness, if this was true, her season was about to go off like a roman candle.
Because Lucy had indeed pointed Lord Vaughn out to her. He was remarkably handsome and artfully groomed. And while he seemed pleased with himself—he had every reason to be, she supposed, given that he was the heir to an earl, and given theface that looked back at him from the mirror—his general air did not seem to be too cool or haughty. One never knew, of course.
“Well,” she managed to say casually. “How very gracious of him to say so.”
“Do you recall what he said, precisely?” Lucy was eager to help, both for Catherine’s sake, and likely for her own. Certainly the attentions of an earl-to-be would trump Mr. Hargrove’s any day.
“I was told that he inquired about the ‘pretty blue-eyed girl in green,’” Miss Seaver said. “And”—she lowered her voice and scrunched her nose sympathetically—“you are the only one in green tonight. So I drew my conclusions. But I loved that shade, too!” she hurried to reassure her. “In 1817.”