Scandal At The Midsummer Ball: The Officer's Temptation / The Debutante's Awakening

‘I am rather busy, Colonel Kennedy,’ she said. ‘I would like to complete preparations for the musical evening before setting out on today’s mystery tour, so if you will excuse me...’

She turned her back on him. Fergus held the door wide open. ‘Leave us, if you please,’ he said firmly to the butler.

She waited until the last of the footmen had closed the door in the butler’s wake, before she turned to Fergus with raised brows.

Fergus leaned back against the closed door, eyeing her appraisingly. ‘I wish us to speak plainly.’

‘I suspect that is more of a command than a wish,’ she replied with a shadow of a smile. ‘May I assume, Colonel Kennedy, that this plain speaking does not involve a proposal?’

Her expression remained aloof, but in those china-blue eyes, there was a tiny hint of fear. There could no longer be any doubt that her snubs had been deliberate. Oddly, Fergus found this reassuring. ‘You may indeed,’ he said, crossing the room towards her and pulling out a chair from the stack waiting to be set around the pianoforte, waiting until she sat daintily down upon it before sitting astride another, facing her. ‘What I want to know, Lady Verity, is not whether or not you’ll accept my hand, but why you agreed to consider a proposal from me in the first place.’

He watched her closely, the struggle between prevarication and truth well disguised but there, none the less, in the tightening of her clasped hands, the way her eyes roamed restlessly around the room. Finally, to his relief, she seemed to reach a decision, straightening her shoulders and meeting his eyes unwaveringly.

‘It is not that I find you in any way objectionable, Colonel. On the contrary, you have borne my appalling behaviour with admirable restraint.’

She smiled then, a reserved smile, but a genuine one, allowing him a glimpse of the attractive woman behind the ice-maiden façade she routinely presented to him. He could, finally, understand why her admirers were legion, but knew too that he would never be one of them. There was still an element of calculation in the way she teased, something in her manner, a sense of entitlement that made his hackles rise. Lady Verity was lovely, and she was charming, and she knew it.

‘It is not I, but your uncle who will mete out any punishment when he discovers we are not willing to make the match he has engineered between us.’

Lady Verity blanched. ‘I fear my uncle will be furious with me.’

Fergus cursed under his breath. What a selfish oaf he had been, so caught up in his own dilemma that it hadn’t occurred to him that his were not the only strings being pulled by the twin puppet masters. ‘I apologise. I have been so concerned with the implications for my own fate that I had not thought of yours.’

‘What implications, Colonel?’

‘My posting to Egypt will be cancelled. My career as a tallyman of numbers will be extended indefinitely.’

‘How ironic. It is the posting you desire so very much which is precisely the stumbling block for me, you see. I confess that I have, to my surprise, found you to be honourable, and intelligent, and—yes—extremely attractive,’ Lady Verity said, blushing faintly. ‘Colonel Kennedy, under different circumstances, I am sure we would suit very well, for you are clearly a man whose star is on the rise, and without false modesty, I believe I would make an excellent diplomatic helpmeet, were you to be posted somewhere civilised like Paris or Rome. But Egypt! Heaven forfend, that does not suit me at all. I simply won’t be despatched to some fly-blown outpost. There, is that plain enough speaking for you?’

Completely taken aback, Fergus laughed. ‘Plain, and very unexpected. It is ironic indeed, that my idea of heaven is your idea of purgatory.’

‘No doubt you think me shallow. Perhaps I am. I prefer to think that I recognise that this particular English rose would not flourish in the desert, would rather wither and die. I know my limitations, Colonel.’

‘One of which is an inability to speak as frankly to your uncle, or even your aunt.’

Lady Verity sighed. ‘You don’t understand. I owe the duke and duchess a great deal. Since my mother died, I have been treated as the child they could not have. I have already turned down several advantageous proposals. I am testing their patience to the limit.’

‘And so this time, rather than incur your uncle’s wrath once more, you thought to shift the blame on to me.’

‘I am sorry. I had no way of knowing how much it meant to you. It is easier to think only of oneself when one is not actually acquainted with the other party.’

It was a very uncomfortable truth. ‘You are quite right,’ Fergus said, ‘it is a chastening thought.’ He got to his feet and began to pace the room. He ran his fingers across the strings of a harp, producing an appropriately discordant, jarring sound. There was no getting around the facts. He could not marry Lady Verity. The loss of his precious posting made his heart sink, but almost at once, his mood felt lighter. The uneasy feeling he’d been carrying about with him since he arrived at Brockmore Manor was quite gone. After all, a posting was hardly a lifetime’s commitment, while a wife—lord, but he’d had a narrow escape.

‘I do wish you would stop pacing, Colonel. I feel as if I am up on some sort of charge.’

‘I fear that will be my fate, when Wellington hears—but that is none of your concern.’ Fergus resumed his seat. ‘I wish I had not agreed to come here, but now that I have, and the eyes of your uncle and his guests are upon us, I think the worst possible course of action would be for me to leave, and leave you exposed to the inevitable gossip and ensuing scandal.’

Lady Verity shuddered. ‘No. Good grief, no.’

‘Aye. Well, in that case I suggest we pay lip service to our allotted roles. We’ll be polite to one another—you’ll stop publicly snubbing me—but there’s an end to it. And at the end of the week, I’ll speak to your uncle and tell him that I don’t think we’ll suit. I’ll make sure he understands that the failure to do his bidding lies at my door and not yours.’

Lady Verity flushed. ‘That is very good of you. I wish—I do sincerely wish, Colonel, that I was brave enough to shoulder the blame myself, but...’

‘There is no need for you to feel guilty.’

She smiled tightly. ‘I am afraid that if I try hard enough, I won’t. You make me rather ashamed of myself, Colonel.’

‘It was not my intention.’

‘None the less.’ Lady Verity got to her feet. ‘You are a good man. A most admirable one. I hope that the Duke of Wellington can for once overlook his ego, and award you the posting regardless. His loss would also be Egypt’s.’

‘But not yours?’ Fergus said, smiling.

She laughed. ‘I am a good deal less sure of that than I was this morning, but I suspect that matters not a jot. You would not have offered for me, Colonel, had I set out to charm you from the beginning, would you?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’ He frowned, running his hand through his hair. ‘I came here with every intention—at least, I thought I did, but—it’s such a cold-blooded way to make a match, is it not? I think we’ve both had a lucky escape. Best leave it at that.’

‘Unflattering as the sentiment is, I am forced to agree. I can only hope that the next suitor my uncle produces for me feels quite the opposite.’

‘Perhaps you should consider finding your own suitor.’

‘A novel thought.’ Lady Verity extended her hand.

Fergus brushed her fingertips with his lips. ‘It is indeed.’

* * *

Slipping her feet into a pair of soft leather slippers, Katerina quit her bedchamber. The house was quiet in the lull between the flurry of housework and the laborious preparations for dinner. The duke’s guests were, according to the Programme of Events, off on a mystery tour. Descending the stairs to the main guest floor in the hushed silence, she felt the eyes of the ancestral portraits which lined the walls around the stairwell on her, and succumbed to curiosity. Each painting was neatly labelled and in chronological order. The illustrious history of the Brockmore family was laid bare in picture form, from the first earl, his countess and their nine children, through to the current, fourth duke and his duchess.

Bloodline and pedigree, those most valuable things to the aristocracy—of their children and their horses, Katerina thought sardonically. And after that, power and influence. Oh, and wealth, of course, though that seemed to come a poor third. Pomp and circumstance, those were the things that mattered when a match was made. There was no place for love, and as to desire—desire, as she well knew, was sated in less formal relationships, with those who could not claim blood or pedigree, or whose blood and pedigree, no matter how revered in their own world, was not revered in the right world.

It did not matter what one was, but how one came to be. A mere accident of birth, yet in the Duke of Brockmore’s world, which was also Fergus’s world, her birth excluded her for ever, no matter how much of an aristocrat she was in her own right. The guests at Brockmore Manor might look up to her on the tightrope, but they would look down their noses if they encountered her on the ground. More likely, they would not even recognise her. Should she make the unforgivable mistake of trying to enter their world however, that would be a very different thing. Not that she would try. Not that she wanted to.

The space next to the portrait of the current duke and duchess, unlike all the others, was not filled with smaller portraits of children. Instead a painting of a weak-chinned man in his forties was hung just below their images. Katerina peered at the label. ‘“Robert Penrith,”’ she read. ‘“Nephew to the Fourth Duke, and Heir to the Brockmore Title.”’

Pity stirred in her breast, looking at the painting, for it starkly drew attention to the Brockmores’ childless state. A very galling state for such a dynasty, she suspected. So much power and influence, so much wealth, so much pomp and circumstance the Brockmores had, yet they were forced to expend it on nephews and nieces and cousins.

Perhaps one day Fergus’s children would adorn the walls here, if he married Lady Verity. It was an unpalatable thought. Turning away from the gallery, Katerina ran lightly down the central staircase, across the polished chequered tiles of the reception hall, through the ballroom and on to the terrace. The blue waters of the lake were irresistible. Crossing the velvet green of the lawn, a flutter of scarlet silk caught her eye. The statuesque beauty clad in her habitual crimson, Lillias Lamont had not joined the mystery tour and nor had her companion, also dressed in red silk. Sir Timothy Something. They made a very odd pair as they disappeared into the maze. Proof that opposites could attract.

Katerina did not need proof of that. She and Fergus were not so much opposites, as from opposite worlds. In many ways they were so similar, yet in that most important regard they were utterly different. Fergus and Lady Verity, now they ought to be a perfect match, yet that scene between them this morning—if she had not witnessed Lady Verity’s transformation herself, she would not have believed it. Had they resolved their differences? Fergus had been furious when he’d gone after her, but Fergus had an enormous amount at stake. Enough to force him into obeying orders, no matter how unpalatable?

He was, as yesterday’s conversation in the maze had proved, an honourable man, and at heart, above all, a soldier who loyally carried out orders. But marriage to a woman who for reasons quite unfathomable, did not understand how fortunate she was? He deserved better.

Turning the corner of the boating house, she saw the subject of her musings standing on the edge of the jetty, staring out over the water and quite lost in thought. He had changed out of the clothes he’d worn for this morning’s acrobatics. His black boots were so highly polished they shone like mirrors. Since his coat lay over one of the pier’s bollards, Katerina had the opportunity to admire the way his sand-coloured pantaloons clung to the taut contours of his rear, and she took unashamed advantage of it. The back of his waistcoat was fawn-coloured silk. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, as they had been the first time she’d met him, displaying tanned, sinewy forearms. There were golden streaks in his hair that she’d not noticed before.

As she stepped on to the jetty, Fergus turned around. He had been frowning, but the instant he saw her, his expression cleared, his mouth softened into a smile that made her stomach lurch, and he held out his hand in welcome.

‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said, ‘and here you are.’