“Coincidences so often are not,” he offered.
Coincidences.
The tension in her middle twisted. “Is civilization lost to us here, then?”
“There is no such thing as civilization,” Emily stated, “only vanity and greed cloaked in imperial arrogance.”
Kitty deposited her napkin upon the table and made her way up the stairs to her bedchamber, to lock herself in and not come out until the thaw. It seemed the safest course of action.
Chapter 4
Far from the comforts of Mayfair, a diminutive brown creature scurried across the boards of Kitty’s bedchamber in the full light of midday. She closed her book, stepped gingerly, and shut the door behind her, the inch-high crack beneath it notwithstanding.
Lord Blackwood and Mr. Yale lounged in worn chairs before the hearth. The earl’s long legs stretched out before him, coat scrunched up around his shoulders, hands clasped atop his waist. His eyes were closed as though he dozed. Mr. Yale dandled a pack of cards on his knee. The stable boy sat bowlegged on the floor, a dog’s head filling his lap.
She descended the steps. “You appear a contented lot.”
Lord Blackwood opened his eyes, and touched by that lazy regard, Kitty simply foundered.
She must find occupation as soon as possible, away from him. But the inn was odiously small. The kitchen must do. He would not enter there and she would not find her insides turning to jelly. She would learn to bake, perhaps a Christmas pudding into which she might sink her head and not come out until Easter, or at the very least when he departed.
Mr. Yale stood and bowed. “Care for a game, Lady Katherine?” He gestured with the deck.
“Thank you, no. I have had my surfeit of cards.” For three years now since she had given up her dogged pursuit of Lambert’s ruination, games of deceit had not interested her. She played only when her mother wished.
“Ah, then, the rustic amusements of the country must suffice, whatever they may be. But I understand you have an excellent hand.”
“How is that, sir?”
“Blackwood told me.”
He did? “And do you trust him on this?”
“On anything. With my life,” the young man said lightly, swiftly.
“That is quite a tribute.” She chanced a glance at the Scot. “Have you earned it, my lord?”
“Cubs weel speak sic nonsense whan aff their feed.” Now he did not look at her, and Kitty could not ignore her fluttering pulse. Lord Blackwood played cards almost as often as her mother, but Kitty had never played against him. She socialized with politicians and literary people, men and women more interested in conversation of substance than gossip—a rather different set than the Scottish earl enjoyed. She’d never seen him since that night at the masquerade three years ago. But when she arrived yesterday, he remembered her.
“The gov’nor let me run his bitch, mum.” The boy flashed a jaw full of prominent square teeth.
Kitty welcomed the intervention. “How far did she run in such weather, I wonder?”
“To the river and back. Capital race. She’s a right quick goer.”
“I have no doubt. Ned, where is your mistress?”
“I’ll fetch her for you, mum.” He leaped up and went into the kitchen. The dog sighed and laid its muzzle on the floor. Kitty moved to the window. From her bedchamber, she had watched the snow begin falling again and met the sight with both hope and unease. The longer she remained away from London, the more opportunities Lord Chamberlayne would have to press his suit. And Emily’s absence from home might serve to frustrate her suitor. But Kitty could not like the situation entirely.
“We shall be trapped here for days, and our servants stranded on the road who-knows-where,” she murmured.
“They’ll hae found a farmer’s cot, lass. Nae tae worry.”
How could her skin feel him looking at her?
She glanced over her shoulder, purposefully arching a brow. “Perhaps I am merely concerned for my luggage. I have but this one gown.”
His gaze slipped along her body, from the high neckline of her modest carriage dress to its hem.
Mr. Yale bowed gracefully. “It is all charm on you, my lady.”
“Thank you. Are your servants likewise separated from you?”
“We haven’t any. We travel light this journey, on horseback.”
Kitty could not help it. She must look at the earl again. She was drawn like a cat to milk.
Not milk.
No cat.
Moth to flame.
This could not continue. At five-and-twenty she had danced and dined and driven with men of rank and power. In society since her nineteenth year, unmarried all that time, she had rarely flirted, maintaining instead a cool, distant mode. A few persisted with sincere attentions, despite all, but she put them off smoothly. In the intimacy of familiarity lay danger, a lesson Kitty had learned at a tender age. She’d now had her moments of giddy curiosity, but they must cease. She would nip this in the bud.
Dark eyes partially lowered, he was staring at her without any attempt at concealment.
“Lord Blackwood, can you not manage to keep your eyes to yourself?”
Like a big dog, he shook his head slowly, his gaze scanning her from brow to toe once more, this time lingering about her waist. Kitty’s breaths shortened. His brow creased, as though he were perplexed.
She knew she oughtn’t to ask. “What is it? Have I a smudge on my gown? Why do you look at me in that manner?”
His eyes shifted upward and a hint of a grin played about his lips.
“Be there ony manner in which A might look at ye that ye woud approve, lass?”
Mr. Yale chuckled.
The earl’s gaze slipped downward again. “’Tis the dress.”
“My gown?” The finest, thinnest woolen carriage dress she’d ever owned, sewn with tiny beads and embroidered about the collar and wrists, all in the loveliest shade of green imaginable. “What do you mean to say is wrong with this gown?”
A single dark brow rose. “’Tis a wee bit snug, nae then?”
Kitty’s cheeks went hot, her palms damp.
“It fits remarkably well, in fact.” She should turn and walk away. She should not encourage this impertinence. She could not stop looking at his eyes. “What do you know of ladies’ gowns, my lord?”
He shrugged, a rough, careless gesture.
“Nothing,” she supplied, “of course.”
“Maun be the girl in it, than.”
Kitty got warm—deep and central. He called her a girl. No one had called her a girl in years. She was Katherine Savege, redoubtable spinster, and gossips remarked on it regularly, in parlors and in the columns. They wondered why her brother, the Earl of Savege, had not wed her to one of the few suitors who dared pursue her despite her stained character, no doubt for the dowry attached to her marriage. They questioned why her mother had not insisted on it. And endlessly they speculated: she flouted convention merely to fortify her vanity; she preferred salons and political meetings to the joys of the nursery; she was secret mistress to a great man.
Only some accusations bit. A nursery was never to be her joy, not according to the doctor Lambert had taken her to see after so many months when she did not conceive, just before he pointed out to her in the park the daughter he had fathered upon a former lover.
And no married man would ever call her mistress. Watching her mother suffer the indignity of taking second place in her husband’s life after his mistress had assured that.
She peered at the earl, apparently lazy yet not in fact when one looked carefully. Instead, unnervingly still. Far too still for a man of his supposed habits and character.
He was wrong. She was not a girl. A woman who had sent a man into exile could not be so called.