Never A Bride

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

It was patently evident that the Misses Bellersby were sisters. Their hair was a similar shade of light brown and they both had dimples. The elder sister, Olivia, seemed the more intelligent of the two, but the younger one, Fanny, was the prettier. James smiled at them over his teacup and tried to imagine what it would be like to be married to either lady.

The discussion was about novels. Not clever works such as Pride and Prejudice, but novels of the more lurid kind, gothic romances and tales of horror. The Misses Bellersby had brought back several they’d borrowed from Kate. The books lay on a table. James put down his cup and reached idly for one slim calf-bound volume.

“And when the heroine was trapped in the dungeon, I vow I was so terrified I could scarcely breathe!” Olivia Bellersby exclaimed. “Fanny nearly fainted when I read it out to her.”

Fanny Bellersby nodded, her blue eyes large with remembered fright. She shivered.

“Are you afraid of the dark, Miss Fanny?” James asked. He thought he already knew the answer to his question.

She shuddered and nodded. “Oh, yes.”

He wondered what else she was afraid of. Many things, he suspected. There was an underlying timidity to her prettiness. Her blue eyes were as mild as her manner—and as unappealing. He must remember to tell Kate that he wanted a wife who wasn’t timid.

He opened the book to a page at random and read the first few lines. The castle stood shrouded in mist on the headland, hunched against the elements. Wind howled like a thousand mournful phantoms, wailing their grief through the broken ruin, and cold fingers of terror clutched at Matilda’s heart. He snorted softly. Did Kate really read such rubbish?

He chose another page, nearer the end. Matilda gazed upon the face of her beloved. Golden curls fell across Sebastian’s noble brow and his eyes were blue, a color as pure as the cerulean seas of Ionia. This time his snort was slightly louder. He closed the book firmly and placed it on the mahogany occasional table beside him and looked across at Olivia Bellersby. She wore a gown of pale yellow, trimmed with plaited ribbon. A locket nestled in the hollow of her throat.

James examined her thoughtfully. She had none of the timidity of her younger sister. “Tell me, Miss Bellersby,” he said. “Do you like to travel?”

Olivia Bellersby turned her smile on him. “I’m a terrible traveler. I become unwell even in an open carriage. Don’t I, Fanny?”

Her sister nodded.

“You have my sympathy,” James said.

“Oh, no,” Miss Bellersby said, with a merry laugh. “There are much worse afflictions. One of our cousins has the most dreadful squint and Mrs. Greeley in the village has fits! I count myself fortunate, I assure you.”

“Well?” asked Kate, when the Misses Bellersby had departed. She turned to him expectantly. “Do you like them?”

“You may take them both off your list,” James told her.

Kate frowned slightly. “Why?”

“Because I don’t wish to marry either of them.”

“Why not?” she asked. “They’re perfectly nice. And they meet all your requirements.”

“Fanny Bellersby is too timid,” James said.

“Timid?” Kate’s frown faded into an expression of confusion. “She’s a little timid, but I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

“I don’t want a wife who’ll be afraid of me,” James said.

Kate blinked. “But why should Fanny be afraid of you?”

He scowled at her.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. James, you have a truly ferocious frown!”

“I know.” It was the way in which his eyebrows slanted, or perhaps their blackness. Whatever the reason, when he frowned, people had a tendency to cringe. It had been a joke among his regiment that he could drive the enemy back just by scowling.

He looked at Kate and realized that she’d never flinched from his frown.

“Very well,” she said. “I can see that you’d prefer a wife who’s not timid. But what about Olivia Bellersby?”

“She’s a bad traveler.”

“So?”

“So I want a wife who enjoys traveling.”

“That’s not on your list,” Kate pointed out.

James shrugged. “I’ve just thought of it.”

“But can’t you travel alone?”

“It’s more pleasurable to have company.”

“Oh,” said Kate. “But . . . does it have to be a requirement?”

James looked at her. She stared back at him, her brow creased. He imagined showing her Italy. She’d be delighted with the countryside, the cypresses and the vineyards, the towers thrusting up from hilltops, and delighted too with the rocky coast and its clear, blue water. She’d laugh at the absurdity of Venice, and love its beauty. And she’d—

“Does it have to be a requirement?” Kate repeated.

“Yes,” James said firmly. He’d seen enough of the battlefields of Spain to last him a lifetime, but he’d love to rediscover Italy and venture into Greece. And he’d like to do it with his wife. A wife who’d enjoy it as much as he would.

“Very well.” Kate’s tone was resigned. “Are there any more requirements that I should know about?”

He shook his head.

Kate began to gather the books together. “Will you take me driving tomorrow?”

“Of course.” He paused. It was a request she’d never made before. “Why?”

“We can call in on the Inghams.”

“They have a daughter?”

“Yes. Dorothea. She’s very sweet.”

“But not timid.”

“No.” Kate glanced at him. “You can frown at her if you wish. To check for yourself.” There was a glint of amusement in her eyes. She held out a hand. “Could you pass that book please?”

James picked up the volume he’d flicked through. It was an absurd piece of nonsense. One corner of his mouth turned up as he recalled the hero’s noble brow and golden curls and cerulean eyes.

“What’s so amusing?” Kate asked.

He handed the book to her. “The hero. Sebastian.” He found himself grinning. “Is that what you like, Kate? Golden hair and sea-blue eyes?”

To his surprise, she flushed faintly. “No,” she said, adding the book to her pile.

James leaned back in his chair and looked at her. Curiosity overcame good manners. “What do you like?”

“Something darker,” Kate said, not meeting his eyes. She busied herself with straightening the pile of books. “What about you?”

“I prefer something darker, too,” he said, remembering the exotic beauty of the Spanish women, with their olive skin and flashing eyes and black hair. But then he recalled Maria Brougham, who had golden ringlets and blue eyes. Cerulean eyes. He’d thought her beautiful. And Bella, his pretty opera dancer, had been fair. James rubbed a thumb along his jaw, thinking of the women who’d shared his bed. There had been as many blondes as brunettes. Perhaps he didn’t have a preference after all.

He wondered what color Miss Ingham’s hair was.

Miss Ingham’s hair was a pretty shade of brown, but she was too girlish. James told Kate so once they were back in his curricle.

“Nonsense,” Kate said, as he tooled his team down the Inghams’ curving drive. “She’s twenty-one. She’s been out of the schoolroom for years.”

“She’s too girlish,” he repeated firmly. “And she giggles.”

“You have an objection to giggling?”

“In excess,” James said. “Yes.”

“Another requirement?”

“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t apologize. He’d come to the conclusion—while observing Miss Ingham—that girlishness would be an irritating trait in a wife. Kate was correct; Dorothea Ingham wasn’t timid. She wouldn’t be afraid of his frowns. On the contrary, she'd probably giggle and attempt to cajole him out of the sullens—which would only serve to aggravate him. She was sweet and diminutive and childlike, and not at all what he wanted. “And I’d like my wife to be taller,” he said.

“Taller!”

He nearly laughed at Kate’s tone of affront. “Yes, taller.”

They reached the road and he gave the horses their heads.

“You never said anything about height before,” Kate said, a slight edge to her voice.

“No.”

Mature oak trees lined the road. Sunlight shone through the boughs, casting rapid patterns of shade and light. James glanced sideways at Kate. She wore a blue pelisse trimmed with dark sable and a high-crowned bonnet. Bright ringlets escaped from beneath the bonnet’s brim. He watched as her eyebrows drew together and her lips quirked, her expression somewhere between thoughtful and exasperated. “How tall do you wish your wife to be?” she asked, after a moment.

“Tall enough for me to dance easily with.”

They came to a bend in the road and he slowed the horses’ pace. He’d been used to driving with a speed that bordered on recklessness, neck or nothing, confident that his skill was equal to any surprise the Fates could throw at him. The deaths of his father and brother last year had taught him caution. He’d been aware of his mortality on the battlefields, but that accident had shown him that sabers and cannons weren’t the only ways a man could die before his time.

“How tall is that?” asked Kate.

James thought about it for a moment. “Your height,” he said. “Or a few inches either side.”

Her tone was startled: “My height?”

“Or thereabouts. A little shorter would be fine. Just not as short as Miss Ingham.”

Kate was silent. James wondered whether she disliked the extra inches that made her stand taller than most ladies and quite a few men, inches that brought the top of her head higher than his chin. Probably she did. Her height could be seen as a flaw, but being tall himself, he’d come to appreciate tallness in a woman. It made many things easier, not merely dancing.

They rounded the bend. James let the horses pick up their pace again. It wasn’t just Miss Ingham’s figure that was dainty, her mouth was too. It was small and pretty and girlish, and not at all the sort of mouth that he wished to kiss. And damn it, he wanted a wife he’d want to kiss. But he couldn’t tell Kate that.

“Why has Miss Ingham not married?” he asked.

He saw Kate shrug out of the corner of his eye. “She’s the youngest of six daughters. I think her mother ran out of energy.”

They traveled in silence for a moment, apart from the jingle of the horses’ harnesses and the clop of their hooves. Six daughters. James experienced faint horror at the thought of all those ribbons and ringlets and frills—and all that giggling. No wonder Mrs. Ingham had run out of energy.

“Are there any more requirements you’ve thought of?” Kate asked.

A mouth that I want to kiss. “No,” James said.

“Taller.” Her tone was thoughtful. “Miss Orton is taller and she’s definitely not girlish.”

“Very well,” he said. “Show me Miss Orton.” He glanced at Kate and found himself staring at her mouth. He’d never noticed it before, but she had a surprisingly lush mouth. Its shape was generous, full and soft and inviting. It was a mouth made for kissing. He wondered what it tasted like.

James wrenched his attention back to the horses. He frowned over their ears and wondered what had gone awry in his world that he could want, even for a second, to kiss Kate Honeycourt.

“Today? Or would tomorrow suit you better?”

He turned to look at her. She was the perfect height for kissing. He cleared his throat. “I don’t mind.”

Kate spent the afternoon writing invitations for the ball on gilt-edged cards and discussing the upcoming event with the housekeeper and the cook. She had relegated Miss Orton to the morrow, claiming that she needed to plan for the ball, but the truth was that it disturbed her equilibrium to sit so close to James in the curricle, just the two of them. It wasn’t an outright lie; she did need to plan. Her life seemed suddenly to consist of lists. Sheets of paper were spread over the large desk in the library, covering its surface. The guest list, the list of comestibles to be ordered, the list of housekeeping tasks that needed to be completed prior to the ball, the growing list of James’s requirements and the shrinking one of eligible ladies.

She’d compiled the guest list last night and Harry had glanced at it this morning and given his approval, suggesting only that they not ask Mrs. Forster, because she’d complain if they danced the waltz. Kate had paid no attention to the suggestion; courtesy demanded that Mrs. Forster receive an invitation, as Harry well knew. And anyway, it wouldn’t be a ball if Mrs. Forster wasn’t there to stare balefully at the dancing couples and utter remarks about disintegration of morals and the laxity of today’s youth.

Kate looked at the list of tasks. The chandeliers needed to be cleaned and the ballroom floor polished and musicians hired, and she should go down into the cellars and see whether they had sufficient champagne. And how many card tables should be set up for those who didn’t care to dance? And, for that matter, did they have enough clean packs of cards? Playing cards, she wrote on the list. Hmm . . . Kate chewed on her lower lip and wondered whether she ought to order a new ball gown. Yes, she decided. “I may be bran-faced,” she said under her breath, as she wrote New ball gown on the list. “But I am not a dowd.”

Sir Thomas Granger had offered for the local justice of the peace’s fourth daughter, Priscilla, the day after Kate had refused him. Priscilla had a face like a horse, with a long nose and big teeth, but she had no freckles. And she’d accepted the offer. Kate looked at her lists and compared Sir Thomas to the ridiculous—and fictitious—Mr. Collins and tried to laugh, but she couldn’t. Bran-faced. Would James find her more attractive if she didn’t have freckles? “Of course he would,” she said.

Kate laid down the quill and closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands and wished, for a moment, that she wasn’t who she was. Then she managed a laugh and pushed the invitations aside and reached for James’s lists. She was a Honeycourt, and Honeycourts had freckles. The paintings in the Long Gallery upstairs attested to that fact.

She put a line through Dorothea’s name. That was three candidates crossed off. How soon could Lizzie be here? Not short, she wrote on the list of requirements. And, Doesn’t giggle too much. She should have remembered that last requirement. James had mentioned it to Harry. It was one of the reasons he’d given for not liking débutantes. And Dorothea Ingham certainly giggled a lot. Kate chewed on her lower lip as she stared at the sheet of paper. Lizzie giggled sometimes, but not in excess. And she met all the other new requirements. She was only a few inches shorter than Kate, was neither girlish nor timid, and her coloring was dark. Not that the latter was a requirement, merely a preference.

And Lizzie would love Europe. They shared a desire to travel, she and Lizzie. They’d planned wonderful trips together to places they’d only heard about, poring over maps and atlases, reading aloud to each other from the published journals of travelers. The places that James had mentioned—Venice and Florence and Rome—would send Lizzie into paroxysms of delight. And Greece. He’d spoken of Greece. Which meant Athens and Delphi and Corfu. Greece would be a dream come true. “Not my dream,” Kate whispered. “Lizzie’s dream.”

Envy came then, so bitter that she almost tasted it, like bile in her mouth. And on the heels of envy came shame. How could she be jealous of one of her dearest friends? She wanted James to marry Lizzie. Nothing could be more perfect. James would be happy. He’d laugh again—Lizzie would make certain of that. And if anyone deserved James’s love and all that came with it, it was Lizzie. Poor Lizzie, who dreamed of exotic travels and had never been out of Derbyshire.

Kate swallowed hard and rubbed a hand over her face. She stood, abandoning the lists.

The library was a beautiful room, with tall windows framing views of undulating parkland. Shelves brimmed with books, hundreds of them, thousands. It was here that memory of her mother was strongest. Kate stood, her hand clenched on the back of the chair, and stared at the shelves and recalled how her mother used to walk around the room, her fingers tracing a path along the rows of spines, how she would pull out a volume and open it carefully. It hadn’t mattered whether the binding was plain or colored or gilded, worn or new, her mother’s touch was always reverent.

The winters of her childhood had been spent almost entirely in this room, curled up in a leather armchair beside the fire, listening to her mother’s voice as she read aloud. Harry had always been there, his face rapt, and often their father too, watching his wife with a smile in his eyes. Together they’d listened, drinking in fairytales and histories, myths and legends, philosophies and travelers’ tales.

Kate released her grip on the chair. The library and its contents, books and memories, were precious to her. Of all the rooms in the house, it was her favorite. Harry felt the same; she was forever finding him here.

She shook her head to clear the memories and crossed to the east wall. A wealth of carved fruit and flowers decorated the wainscoting, but her fingers easily located the rosebud that opened the priest’s hole. There was no fear of finding herself trapped today. Harry and James had ridden over to the Home Farm and wouldn’t be back for hours.

Kate ducked her head and crept inside, reaching for the tinderbox and lighting the candle before she closed the panel. The priest’s hole was dark and cramped and uncomfortable, with a low ceiling and hard floor, but equally it was secret. Her brother knew nothing of it. He’d never find her diaries, as he had when she was a girl. Poor Harry. He’d meant it as a joke, there had been no spite intended, but she’d only been thirteen and she’d cried to think that someone else had read her private thoughts and foolish, girlish confidences—and Harry had been whipped.

That was long ago, and Harry was a grown man and would never do such a thing now, but it had taught her that nothing in her bedchamber was private. If not Harry, then a housemaid or her own maid, Paton. And not with any thought to pry; by accident perhaps, discovering a diary and wondering what it was, and opening the pages and reading . . . and then her secret would be known.

Kate uncapped the little porcelain inkpot and reached for her diary. I am not jealous, she wrote. I refuse to be. Nothing could be more perfect. If anyone can make James happy, it is Lizzie.

She held the quill between her fingers and read what she had written. There was a knot of something that felt like grief at the back of her throat. “I am not jealous.” Her whisper was loud in the cramped, dark space. “I am not.”

She just wished it could be different.