The Bishop's Daughter

  Kate caught her breath in a furious hiss. She snatched up a Sevres vase from the mantle as though she would fling it at his head.

  Harry grinned. "Do go ahead and throw it, Kate and I will know you completely adore me."

  For one second he thought she meant to take him up on that suggestion. But with a frustrated cry, she replaced the vase, trembling with the effort it cost her.

  Harry sprang to his feet. Thinking that all would be well if he could only get her back into his arms, he crossed the room to her. But she ducked behind a Hepplewhite chair, using the fragile piece of furniture as a barrier.

  "Don't you come near me," she said, through clenched teeth.

  Harry stopped, but he said in aggrieved tones, "You need not act though I was some sort of a Bluebeard. It was you who kissed me; then I got slapped for it."

  "Don't you dare mention that kiss to me! You knew I was not myself. If you had been a gentleman, you would not have encouraged me."

  "It would have taken more than being a gentleman," Harry retorted. "I would have had to have been dead."

  "You could pretend you were," she flung back bitterly. "You seem to be remarkably good at it."

  Comprehension dawned upon Harry at last as to the true source of her anger. But he was not in the least disturbed to discover that his beloved believed him capable of perpetrating such a dreadful jest. Truthfully when the devil of mischief was upon him, there were some people upon whom he would not have minded playing such a joke. But never his Kate.

  That she was so enraged by her belief only afforded Harry further proof that she did care for him very deeply, more so than she was willing to admit. It was all he could do to control the ebullience of his own spirits and say to her soothingly, "Come, Kate. You are far too overexcited. Come back and sit beside me and we'll—"

  She vehemently shook her head. Harry felt at an extreme disadvantage, trying to offer explanations with the chair between them, but he did not wish to upset her further. At least some of the color had come back into her cheeks.

  "I did not pretend to be dead, Kate. I don't know how this infernal misunderstanding came about. I just arrived home today."

  She gave a scornful sniff. "How convenient that you should have arrived just in time to attend your own dedication."

  "Yes, it was convenient— I mean, it was the most dashed coincidence." Harry studied her stony profile with a sinking heart and realized she did not believe him."I don't pretend that in the past I might not have been capable of serving up such a trick, but never to you, Kate. Good Lord, what are you even doing here in Lytton's Dene? I had heard that after your father died that you had gone to live with your grandmother near Lewes."

  "I moved to Lytton's Dene six months ago."

  "To be closer to me?" Harry asked coaxingly.

  "No! Mama admired a cottage in the village. After our period of mourning was at an end, I thought it would be good for her to still be near her old friends from Chillingsworth."

  "Then why not just stay in Chillingsworth?"

  When she compressed her lips together, refusing to answer, Harry smiled. "After that kiss, are you still going to deny you love me?"

  "I don't intend to deny anything, because I don't ever intend to speak to you again." Kate drew herself rigidly upright. "Now if you will excuse me, my lord, I am going home."

  "Kate . . ."

  "What have you done with my gloves and bonnet?" She came from behind the chair to search the room in a distracted, ineffectual manner.

  Harry had some vague recollection of having taken off her bonnet and flung it down upon the hillside during his first effort to rouse her from her faint. One of her gloves lay discarded by the sofa's claw leg. Harry grabbed it up.

  When Kate stretched out her hand for it, he held it just out of her reach.

  "Even the cruelest of ladies will let her knight have some token of remembrance," he said, hoping to wheedle a smile from her.

  "A knight, certainly, but not a knave." She refused to come any closer to retrieve the article. With a stiff shrug, she said, "You may as well keep it. You appear to have lost the other one."

  Turning on her heel, she stalked away. But when she reached the door, the brass knob refused to yield beneath her grasp. She rattled it and then looked accusingly at Harry.

  He held up the key with an apologetic glance. "I had to do something to keep away that pack of hen-witted females. When you first fainted, Julia and the rest of them nigh suffocated you beneath a pile of silk fans."

  "Unlock this door at once, sir."

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think I shall," he said, "until you listen to what I have to say."

  "You open that door right now!" She stamped her foot, then turned and tugged at the knob. "You open it or I--- I will—"

  In frustration, she struck her palm against the unmoving barrier of oak. Her shoulders sagged, and she rested her forehead against the grain, the tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks.

  "Oh, lord," Harry exclaimed in horror. "No, here now, Kate. Don't do that." He rushed to her side. "I would rather face a field of bayonets all over again than make you cry."

  Peering down at her, he slapped futilely at his waistcoat. He never seemed to have a damned handkerchief about him. He attempted to check the flow of crystal drops with his fingers, but she averted her face and produced her own pristine square of lace-edged linen.

  Harry rested his hands on her shoulders. "Please don't cry, Kate. You know I was only teasing you. I'll unlock the blasted door at once if that's what you really want."

  "I want to go home!"

  "And so you shall. In my own carriage."

  "No, I don't need— I came with—" But Kate appeared to think twice about what she had been about to say. Dabbing furiously at her eyes, she said with as much dignity as she could muster, "Thank you, my lord. I am most grateful for your offer. I should like to ride in your coach . . ."

  "Alone," she added pointedly.

  Harry sighed. How had she guessed that he fully planned on accompanying her, continuing to plead his case in the privacy of the carriage? He started to argue with her, but one glance at her tear-swollen eyes, the genuine distress marring the serenity of her features, and Harry held his tongue.

  He was being a selfish brute. Kate had received a dreadful shock whether it had been of his making or not. She was clearly overwrought. Although it took all of his self-restraint, he realized the best course would be to send her home, allow her some time to compose herself. Kate was a most fair-minded woman. When she was more herself, she would be willing to listen to him. He hoped.

  As she dried the last of her tears, Harry unlocked the door. When he swung the barrier open, he was considerably startled when his cousin Julia all but tumbled across the threshold.

  Julia's gaze flicked from Kate's reddened eyes to Harry. His cousin subjected him to a basilisk stare. "What have you been doing to this poor girl, Lytton?"

  "You ought to know," Harry said dryly. "Or did the thickness of the door prove too much for you?"

  Another woman might have blushed at the implication she had been eavesdropping, but it was not so easy to discompose Julia. Ignoring Harry, she descended upon Kate.

  "My dearest Kathryn, I have been so anxious about you. I would have been at your side, but between Lytton and his odious butler, I was not permitted to get near you."

  Harry raised his brows in frowning surprise. When had his Kate become Julia's "dearest Kathryn"? He feared that Kate would cast herself beneath Julia's protection, closing ranks in that manner women had when they feel they have been much abused by the male sex.

  But Kate only murmured something indistinguishable and shrank back, showing no pleasure in Julia's solicitude. Julia rounded on Harry.

  "I see that your behavior has not improved in the time you have been away, Lytton. You still have no more notion of propriety than the kitchen cat. Did it not occur to you that you could have utterly ruined Miss Tower's reputation,
keeping her closeted with you in that fashion?"

  As Kate blanched with dismay, Harry could have wrung his cousin's neck.

  "Fortunately," Julia continued. "I had the foresight to direct the squire and his wife and all your other guests into the front salon where they are having refreshment. No one is aware of how long you and Kathryn have been alone together."

  "Thank you, Julia," Harry said grimly. "It is such a relief to have you so busy upon my behalf."

  She peered down the length of her nose at him. "I did not do it for you, cousin. I fear nothing will save you from the consequences of your folly this time. The latest prank of yours, appearing at your own memorial, is bound to raise such a scandal that—“

  "Later, Julia," Harry broke in, observing Kate wearily touch a hand to her brow. "You can ring a peal over me as much as you please, but now I must fetch my carriage round for Kate. You can see she is still not well."

  "Your carriage!" Julia said. "Kathryn came with me."

  But Harry had already tucked Kate's arm beneath his own to lead her toward the curving oak stair descending into the main hall. Although Kate did not lean on him for support, neither did she attempt to pull away. Harry had the feeling that she was as relieved as he was to be escaping Julia's clacking tongue.

  But Miss Thorpe was not so easily vanquished. She trailed after them, insisting she would take Kathryn home. Harry, however, had had long experience in fobbing off Julia's attempts to order him about, and he prevented her from riding roughshod over Kate as well since she seemed in no state to defend herself.

  By the time Harry led her out to the gravel drive circling Mapleshade's front lawn, Kate looked exhausted from Julia's badgering. He handed her into the recesses of his most comfortable and well-sprung coach. At the last second, one of the gardeners came rushing up with Kate's bonnet.

  Leaning in through the carriage's open door, Harry passed it up to her, the garment much the worse from his previous rough handling of it, the poke front crushed beyond redemption.

  Kate took the bonnet from him without a word. "I shall come to call upon you soon, Kate," he said.

  Kate stared stonily straight in front of her. "I fear I shall not be at home, my lord."

  "What! At two in the morning?"

  This sally did not produce so much as the quiver of a response. Harry sighed. He hated letting her go this way. Swallowed up in the vastness of the coach, she looked so small, so prim and obstinate, so completely adorable, he longed for nothing more than to gather her up in his arms.

  "I don't suppose this is a good moment to beg you again to marry me?" he said wistfully. At her reproachful glare, he threw up one hand in a peacemaking gesture. "One cannot hang a man for asking, Kate."

  Making her his best leg, he closed the door and stepped back, giving the coachman the signal to whip up the horses.

  "And now that I am convinced you love me," Harry muttered. "I will ask you, Kate. Again and again, until one of these days you are going to forget yourself and say yes."

  Shading his eyes, he followed the coach's progress down the long drive until it disappeared into the line of trees fronting the park. Harry turned back toward the house. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of his parting with Kate, he moved with a lighthearted spring to his step, feeling far different from the man, who only a matter of a few hours ago, had trudged past his empty fields.

  Hope was a heady draught, and Harry felt nigh drunk with it. With his hands on his hips, he paused to stare up at his home, feeling somehow that he had never fully appreciated the old hall. At one time a medieval manor house, two projecting wings had been added after the Restoration, along with hipped roofs and a balustrade. But the original brickwork, although now considered unfashionable, remained untouched, and Harry vowed that it would continue to be so during his lifetime. It gave the hall a much warmer glow than those modern facing tiles of silvery white.

  Imagining the day when he would bring Kate across the threshold as his bride, Harry doted upon every brick of the old place. He doted upon the huge stone lions that stood guarding the forecourt, upon the unspoiled expanse of lawn. But his present rush of good humor did not quite extend to doting upon the tall fair-haired man who awaited him in the manor's open doorway.

  Although not fond of Reverend Thorpe, Harry did not dislike his cousin either. At times he even thought Adolphus was not a bad sort, except when he appeared to be half-choking on his clerical collar. As Harry strode up the steps to join the vicar beneath the portico, he noted with half-humorous dismay the way Reverend Thorpe tugged at his starched neckband as though to draw attention to the badge of his authority.

  "Cousin Harry," he said sternly.

  "Cousin Adolphus," Harry replied pleasantly.

  "My lord, I scarce know what to say to you—"

  Being familiar with Adolphus, Harry was damned sure he was going to think of something. "Whatever it is, I am sure it can keep till later. I am done in. It has been, saving your presence, one hell of a day."

  "Others might say the same. You should go to your stepmother at once and beg her pardon for the distress you have brought her. She is prostrate, my lord, completely prostrate."

  "A man is only entitled to have one female swoon in his arms per day, Adolphus. I have already had mine. You may feel quite free to take on the next one."

  "My lord!" the vicar explained in outraged accents.

  "Believe me, Adolphus," Harry said. "I am not being totally unfeeling. For me to go to Sybil would be like exposing an already sick woman to a case of the pox. She will be much more ready to receive me when she has recovered a little."

  Harry managed to edge past the vicar, slipping inside the hall, only to run dead into Julia. He was not surprised this time. Julia was frequently to be found hovering at her brother's elbow.

  She glowered at Harry, apparently still annoyed with him for having whisked Kate out of her clutches.

  "Lytton, I must speak to you. Your conduct—"

  Harry stopped her with an upraised hand. "My dear Julia, I know I promised you the pleasure of giving me a setdown, but I fear it must once again be deferred. I must have a word with all those guests you so obligingly herded into the front salon, perhaps even raise a glass with the squire. Timothy Keegan informs me that English memorial services are sadly wanting, and I feel I should do something to raise our reputation."

  Having effectively rendered both of the Thorpes speechless with indignation, Harry strolled on his way, whistling cheerfully.

  Although the gathering in the salon never reached the proportions of what Keegan would have termed a passable wake, the atmosphere became much more convivial with Harry's entrance. The ladies fussed over him and called him a naughty rogue; the squire swearing that by god, even if his lordship did keep refusing to sell those hunters, the squire was damned glad to see the lad home safe again.

  The only ones of the party to leave early were the Thorpes. The vicar's barouche rumbled down the drive at a great speed as though eager to distance itself from the hall and the return of its incorrigible master.

  Julia stared out the coach window, her flawless profile as hard and unyielding as if carved of marble. She bore the dubious distinction of being acclaimed the loveliest spinster in the shire. Her beauty had never been enough to compensate for her lack of fortune or her fixed belief that she could improve the character of any man she met.

  She even felt that she could have redeemed her cousin Harry if he had ever asked her to be his wife. But as his lordship had never shown the good sense to make her an offer, Julia had long ago washed her hands of him. She was not so ill-natured as to wish that Lord Lytton had died at Waterloo, but his return promised to be a great nuisance, especially from what Julia had already observed of his attentions toward Kate.

  It was not that Julia was in the least jealous on her own account. The chief source of her vexation was that she had already marked Miss Kathryn Towers down for her own brother. As the carriage rattled past the park gates, Julia tu
rned to the vicar seated opposite her and broke the rigid silence they had maintained since leaving the hall.

  "Well! Now that Lytton has returned, you may be assured, he will be stirring up some mischief."

  "There is nothing new in that, my dear," Adolphus said.

  "I fear he may have already begun . . . with Kathryn Towers." Julia observed her brother closely for his reaction.

  "Why, I thought that was one of Lord Harry's more commendable actions today, his solicitude for Miss Towers."

  Solicitude! Julia pressed her hand to her eyes, the degree of her brother's naiveté as ever confounding her. Only a blind man would have mistaken the lover-like way Lytton had swooped up Kathryn in his arms and charged back to the house with her as being mere solicitude. His lordship had appeared suitably distraught and heroic enough to set several more young ladies off into a swoon.

  "Lytton's attentions to Kathryn were most improper," Julia said. "As her friend he should have allowed me to take care of her. He actually thrust me aside. I could not hear all that he said to her when they were alone in the Hunt parlor but—"

  "Julia! You were never eavesdropping."

  "It was my moral obligation to do so. Lytton was practically holding the poor girl a prisoner in that room."

  "I cannot believe that even Lytton would seek to molest a respectable young woman beneath the roof of his ancestral home."

  "He was not molesting her. I think he is trying to fix his interest with her."

  "What! On such brief acquaintance?"

  "He had met her before," Julia explained with strained patience. “Two years ago in Chillingsworth. There were even rumors that Lytton wished to marry Kathryn, but the bishop would have none of it."

  "Oh." Adolphus blinked.

  Julia found the single syllable as a reply most unsatisfactory.

  "Is that all you have to say?" she demanded, "when I have just told you that your ne'er-do-well cousin may be planning to steal your intended bride."

  Adolphus's lips curved in a deprecating smile. "I would not dare call Miss Towers so. We are not on such terms as that."