“Miss Catherine?”
“What? Oh, sorry, Raymond. I just thought I should like to see a sale in London,” she babbled. “I’d like to see who gets my dears. Isn’t that a client you should attend to?” She gestured jerkily in the stranger’s direction and began to back away toward the house.
“Who? My lord!” Dawes exclaimed, striding over to the Marquis. “I beg your pardon. Have you been standing here long?”
Catherine took that opportunity to run toward the house in a very unladylike fashion.
The Marquis of Stefton, assuring Dawes he had not been standing long, watched her flee with a masculine appreciation for her slender yet nicely curved form. She would indeedbe a handful, he acknowledged to himself before turning his attention to Raymond Dawes.
Entering through a side door,Catherine was met by a young footman who told her Lady Burke was desirous of seeing her. Receiving this intelligence, she did not go directly to her aunt’s sitting room. Her mind in turmoil and uncomfortably aware of her attire, she skipped nimbly up the backstairs, taking some steps two at a time. She called to Bethie, one of the housemaids, to fetch hot water to the little room allotted to her. Though her dear relations grudgingly consented to her wearing breeches to ride in, she did not wear the offending garments in the house and kept a few muslin dresses at Fifefield. She shuddered at the thought of what their reactions would be if they knew a visitor had seen her in her breeches.
When she learned her mother and grandmother were below with Aunt Deirdre and Uncle Eugene, she rapidly washed and, with thinly held patience, suffered Bethie to dress her glowing auburn curls in an artful knot on top of her head with trailing ringlets. A regular family conclave, Catherine thought with a hollow laugh. She impatiently fidgeted while Bethie laced up her yellow sprigged muslin gown, much as the big bay had pranced when she stroked him. Bethie, laughing, begged her to stay still a moment, and she’d be done in a trice.
When Catherine entered Deirdre's sitting room some minutes later, the room's conversation ceased abruptly, and four pairs of eyes turned to her. Catherine felt uncomfortably like a small child discovered in a prank but could not think why. There was her mother looking distressed, her grandmother with her bland expression that always spelled trouble, her UncleEugene giving her a curiously intent look. Of them all, only Aunt Deirdre seemed her usual self. It was she who broke the silence Catherine’s entrance caused.
“Catherine! You’ll never guess!” Deirdre giggled and patted a space on the yellow brocade sofa next to her. “Come here, for we have the most fabulous news!”
Catherine could not resist the infectious gay quality of Deirdre's voice and crossed the room to sit by her aunt.
Deirdre clasped both of Catherine’s hands in her own and looked intently at her. “You must know, we have all felt a little guilty of depriving you of a London Season, as by rights you should have had one years ago. We are so complacent here we forget we have all seen London and the sights, whereas you have not. Happily, we may now bury our guilt because you are to go to London!”
Catherine tilted her head to the side. “Are we going to London?”
“Not we, dear,” broke in her grandmother despite Deirdre's warning glance. “Just you.”
“Yes, yes,” put in Mary breathlessly. “Your father’s sister has asked for you to come to London so she may present you.”
“But, Mama,” Catherine said, “we have been through this before. I have no desire for the frivolities of London."
“But dear, think of the many young gentlemen you will meet,” Mary said.
Catherine blushed and stood up stiffly.
Gwen, cursing her own interference, wished Mary to perdition and wondered again how she ever came to have such a gentle ninnyhammer for a daughter.
“I do not desire to be wed. There is too much to be done here.” Catherine swept an accusing glance around the room. “Now, if you will excuse me. . .”
“Hold!” Sir Eugene said from his place by the window.
His dark face held rare black anger that caused Catherine to blink and take an instinctive step backward as he approached her.
“You are displaying a marked disrespect for your elders, which I do not like,” Sir Eugene said, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look up at him.
He spoke in an even tone, but Catherine knew she had erred badly in her hasty words, and no matter how much he let her wind him around her finger from day to day when he was displeased, it was best to make what amends one could.
“Now sit down and keep a civil tongue in your head,” he ordered.
Deirdre giggled then, and Catherine sank back down to her seat as all eyes were turned from her to Deirdre.
“Oh, really, my love, it is not as bad as that. Now, look what you have done! We will be lucky to get a peep out of her, now.” Deirdre patted Catherine’s hand soothingly, knowing full well that no matter how repressive her dear Gene could be, ultimately Catherine would not stay silent.
“Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the drollest thing has occurred, though I must admit, neither Gwen nor Mary see it quite in the same light as I do, but no matter. Anyway, the Countess of Seaverness says four Shreveton girls have not been presented, and she would like to make a grand gesture and present all four to Society at once in a single Season. I dare swear the woman has no idea what she will be letting herself in for, to have four young women in her home with all the problems of shopping for four, the entertaining, the suitors. Why I do think it would be vastly fatiguing. But I must confess, my dear, what positively has me in whoops is that it’s obvious by her invitation she thinks you have never been to London because you are too poor and very plain! I believe that is what has put Gwen and Mary in queer stirrups, but I see how she came to have such a mistaken idea.”
Catherine’s mind was in a whirl, but she knew she could not make any more untoward comments. She was somewhat piqued at the cavalier manner of her aunt, of all people, and gasped slightly when she read the letter Deirdre placed in her hand.
“Is it not plain from this she thinks of me in a different light than my cousins? I am sure she would not care if I did not take her invitation. It seems only a gesture. Besides, she would be sadly disappointed in me. I have no desire to be wed, and I think I have reached the age where a woman must realize her situation in life and take it with good grace,” she said, trying to assume a mien of quiet dignity. “I—” Catherine broke off abruptly when she caught sight of her uncle’s flushed countenance.
“Enough! We will have no more discussion,” Sir Eugene said angrily as he paced the floor. “You will go to London because I say you will go!”
