Catherine couldn’t help herself, particularly since she knew no one would recognize her. Then again, she thought with a giggle, since that was the case, censure was bound to fall on the Marquis’s head instead, since he was her escort. That thought greatly tickled her fancy. The flicker of daring grew until it filled her whole being, and there was no gainsaying it. Without warning, she turned Gwyneth off the road and urged her into a full gallop across the greensward. A wild, uninhibited laugh burst from her lips. People on the footpath followed her progress with shocked expressions. Gathering her reins in one hand, she raised the other in salute. Gwyneth moved easily underneath her, flying lightly over the lush terrain.
Catherine finally turned Gwyneth’s head back the way they came, slowing her to a proper hand canter. She was exhilarated and at peace with herself for the first time in weeks. Carriages and other riders were stopped in their perambulations and joined in little knots to comment and speculate on her headlong gallop across the park. The knowledge that her identity was unknown gave her a heady sense of power. She slowed Gwyneth to a walk, inclining her head to the curious crowds she passed.
Only the Marquis was alone. He sat his horse, waiting for her return, seemingly at his ease, one hand resting on his thigh. It was not until Catherine drew near that she realized his expression told another story. It was a stony mask, his eyes granite gray and as cold as winter’s fiercest winds. Catherine drew in a deep breath and sat straighter in her saddle, determined to buffet the storm of his righteous ire as well as she did any storm of nature’s creation.
“You were correct,” Catherine said lightly when she pulled up before him, “Gwyneth was in shocking need of exercise. I have been terribly remiss.”
Slowly his rock-gray gaze traveled over her, chilling Catherine more effectively than any words of remonstration could. He touched his heels gently to his mount, urging him forward into a trot. Chagrined, Catherine fell in beside him.
“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked at last, now more than a little nervous.
He turned his head, emptiness in the cold stare, then turned back to the road. “What would you have me say?”
She fidgeted in her saddle, her nervousness transferring to Gwyneth, who sidled as a sudden windblown broken branch skittered across their path. Swiftly, like the falcon diving for its prey, the Marquis’s hand clamped around her bridle, pulling Gwyneth up short and nearly pitching Catherine forward onto her neck.
“Stop that!” she yelled, furious at his interference. She raised her crop to swat his hand away until something in his expression made her stop in mid-motion. She slowly lowered the crop, her breathing coming faster. Never was she more thankful for the face-obscuring veil hiding her confusion and embarrassment. Her cheeks felt warm, and there was a suspicious blurriness to her vision. She flung her head back, staring at him though she knew he couldn’t see her face. She blinked back the moisture that filled her eyes, save for the few drops that coursed down her cheek.
Slowly he released his iron grip and Gwyneth tossed her head, jangling her bridle. He sat back in his saddle, some of the harshness fading from his visage. Silently, of one accord, they urged their horses forward.
A large sigh escaped the Marquis. “For reasons I do not pretend to comprehend, you continually succeed in angering me, and I continue to allow you to do so. If it weren’t for the love I bear your uncle, I swear I would pull you off that horse and give you the thrashing that you so richly deserve.” He flicked a glance at her. That small, telltale damp spot on her veiling which had so unmanned him was now dry. “I choose, however, to be magnanimous and make excuses for you since you have not ridden in what must be weeks. I will not be so forgiving in the future.”
Though she recognized her behavior as shameful, Catherine’s chest heaved at his effrontery to pass dispensation to her, then claim he would not do so in the future, as if he had any say over her actions. “You odious, arr?—”
“To prevent a recurrence of your reprehensible behavior,” the Marquis continued, ignoring her interruption, “we shall ride every afternoon. As this will be our daily habit, and as those seeing us leaving and returning to Harth House will soon ferret out your identity, you will in future dispense with the veil."
"Just who are you to dictate to me!” Catherine exclaimed hotly, urging Gwyneth forward, ready to return peremptorily to her aunt’s home.
The Marquis’s hand was once again holding her bridle. “I am the gentleman,” he said, “who knows who you are, who sees behind the masquerade. I am the gentleman who appreciates your talent, your wit, and your tenacity. I am the gentleman who can make or break you, and while doing so, break Burke’s as well. Remember that, my headstrong miss, when next you think to defy me.”
CHAPTER 10
As promised, Stefton appeared before Harth House every day at four o’clock. Most days, he and Catherine rode in silence, for every time Catherine saw him dressed for riding, a wild tingling surged through her, choking words from her throat. In retaliation, she’d whip up the anger she thought she should feel and practiced treating him with cool politeness.
When her identity became known among the ton and tongues wagged over the headlong gallop across Hyde Park, there was renewed interest in her among the young bucks. In the clubs, they claimed her ‘a great go’ and muttered it was a deuced shame that she’d not the fortune, face, nor charm to complement her talent on horseback. Still, speculation ran rife as to the Marquis’s continued interest in her until it was observed at the balls, soirees and routs both attended, that though he danced with her, it was always a country dance, never a waltz. He extended the courtesy to all the Shreveton cousins and therefore did not single Catherine out for any more particular attentions than their afternoon rides. It was also noted that Catherine Shreveton did not use any flirting wiles upon the Marquis. She seemed to accept his limited regard with studied coolness and never pressed to further his attentions.
This did have Society puzzled. Several young ladies who desired Stefton’s notice began to wonder if perhaps failing to try to capture his regard wouldn’t be more successful than the stratagems they currently employed: bullying their male relatives for an introduction, dropping their handkerchiefs in front of him, or artfully twisting their ankles upon his doorstep. Accordingly, some did try to pretend he didn’t exist, and his acquaintance was of no account. Unfortunately, all that was achieved by aping what was seen as Catherine’s stratagem was the reflection on Stefton’s part that the current Season was refreshingly free of feminine devices and schemes. The Earl of Soothcoor rapidly disabused his friend of this notion by elucidating to the stunned Marquis the nature of the new schemes. For a long moment, Stefton was nonplussed, a condition in which, the Earl later told friends, he never remembered seeing the Marquis. A slow smile spread across the face of the intended victim of these devious plans. He gave a great shout of laughter and collapsed limply in his chair, continuing to laugh until his gray eyes turned into liquid silver. This also was a condition the dour Earl had never seen grip his friend and so told his enthralled auditors.
Redoubtable Society matrons were determined to solve the mystery and descended upon the Countess of Seaverness like locusts. That lady was equally redoubtable and held court in the drawing room with arrogant composure, even when she accidentally knocked the cane out from under doddering Lady Quillerton’s hand, spilled tea in the Honorable Mrs. Peckworth’s lap, and knocked Lady Jersey’s bonnet askew.
In hushed and quite scandalized tones, she implied that the Marquis’s interest in her niece was due to some mysterious obligation he owed Catherine’s maternal uncle. When questioned on her niece's elegant habit and horse, she replied that she often observed that horse-mad people were wont tospend far beyond their means in getting and keeping horses. The ladies obliged Lady Harth by nodding sagely in agreement and passed on the observation that it was a great deal too bad Miss Shreveton was squandering what tiny portion she had in a profligate manner.
Naturally, it was eventually discovered that Gwyneth was a Burke horse. Some people were awed by Catherine’s ability to ride what was obviously a high-strung creature, but most, fueled by Lady Harth’s sad comments about the spendthrift nature of the horse-mad, merely shook their heads.
Catherine was aware of the furor she was creating in the way one would be aware of bees buzzing--a nuisance, nothing more. She was expending her energies in shoring up the walls of her masquerade, despite Gwyneth and the habit. She was quite content to allow her aunt magnanimously to excuse it as an eccentricity of the horse-mad. Her mind had more critical problems to mull over, like her unaccountable reaction to the Marquis, the insidious pleasure she took in their afternoon rides, and her studious endeavor to remain cool toward him.
In a move that she proudly thought of as a stroke of genius, she insisted they include Susannah and Captain Chilberlain in their afternoon outings. She informed Stefton that she wanted to further her cousin’s romance with the dashing Captain in a fashion Lady Harth could not object to. For herself, she saw their company as chaperonage to protect her from the uncomfortable feelings Stefton roused in her breast. Unfortunately, her scheme backfired. Instead of company for Catherine, Susannah and her Captain always fell behind, leaving her alone again in Stefton’s company. This circumstance caused no end of amusement for the Marquis, much to Catherine’s chagrin.
But the worst consequence of the Marquis’s attention was the interest it generated in one gentleman in particular: Sir Philip Kirkson. He began to pay assiduous suit to Catherine, amusedthat good breeding prevented her from refusing to converse, if somewhat stiltedly, or refusing to dance. To irritate Catherine further, he began to make it a habit to approach her for a dance when he knew a waltz to be next on the program. For her part, Catherine quickly learned to be gone repairing a torn flounce at just that time.
So the game continued. Until the day the Marquis of Stefton met Raymond Dawes in the street and accompanied him back to the Burke offices.
“Relieved I am to run into you, my lord,” Dawes said heavily as he escorted his guest to the chair by the hearth. He fidgeted a moment, poking the fire and adding more lumps of coal. “Considered calling on you.”
The Marquis of Stefton drew his thick brows together and leaned forward in the chair. He knew Raymond Dawes well enough to know it would not do to push the man for information. He was the type to tell his story in a taciturn manner in his own good time. Knowing that, however, did not curb Stefton’s growing sense of unease.
“Recall that day you were at Fifefield?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
