“You thought I made a habit of it? You will remember that that night I wasalsoattending the ball under an assumed name. I was hoping to steal a bit of amusement for myself. Given how that went, I didn’t try it again. I’ve lived quite a sheltered life.”
“Except for the French novels.”
“God bless French novels.” Her eyes, however, were back on the page.
He thought of her reading such material and nearly groaned aloud.
“And what kinds of things do you learn in these French novels?”
She looked up and fixed him with that mischievous grin. “All kinds of tricks. I doubt even the most abandoned rake would have anything to teach me.”
“Well, well.” He leaned towards her. “That’s quite a challenge.”
He was so close to kissing her. Their faces were only inches apart.
She raised her eyebrows.
And then he realized what he had been resolving, only an hour earlier.
He leaned back.
He broke eye contact with her.
“Catherine, I apologize. What happened last night between us can never be repeated. We can’t enter into something we both know to be doomed. It will only distract us from what we really need to do.”
He looked back up at her. He expected her eyes to narrow in anger, or storm in hatred, but—instead—she kept her expression neutral. Her only reaction was that her irises went a touch darker.
“Of course, Your Grace,” she said, cool but not cold, keeping their eye contact. She sounded both lighthearted and definitive, her tone cutting through his heart with its casual indifference, even though he had been the one to refuse anything further.
She had forgotten to call him John but he didn’t correct her.
Maybe, after all, they did need a little formality.
Chapter Eleven
Catherine and Johnrode to Lulworth in silence.
On the inside, Catherine was boiling, but she had promised herself that she would maintain her equanimity. It helped that her poise seemed to rattle him. When he had told her that what had happened between them at the inn could never happen again, he probably expected her to rage or cry or, at least, pout. Instead, per her plan, she had agreed without protest and gone back to her book. Never mind that she had mostly mimed the act of reading for the rest of the journey, her thoughts racing. Shewouldkeep her apparent composure at all costs. After all, she told herself, she hadn’t endured years of emotional deprivation and general hardship to fall to pieces in front of her enemy—or whatever John Breminster was to her.
Shewasangry with him but she could keep that to herself. His manner did help, a little. John did seem pained in his refusal of her. She even believed that he wanted her. Nevertheless, like every other man she had ever met, he clearly didn’t want herenough. Whereas she had been ready to lose herself in his arms (and, well,haddone), he was always the one to pull back. And that just about said everything, didn’t it? In the end, his desire for her meant very little, if he always ended up recoiling and walking away.
Most of all, she hated how he kept on being kind to her, despite his rejections. More than anything else, his kindness made maintaining her calm difficult. Why, for example, did he have to remember about her book? She had mentioned it seven years ago and somehow he had remembered. Or his paying herfive hundred bloody poundsto answer that ridiculous question about her virginity. She couldn’t tell if he had really wanted to know or if it was just pity, a way to shovel money in her direction in compensation for his rejection.
Now they had reached Lulworth. John had asked whether they should stop at the local inn to ask for directions to the Hampton estate cottages, but Catherine had visited her old nurse before and knew the road to take. John directed his coachman, Marcel, down the appropriate lane and they soon pulled up to the little thatch of cottages that Catherine remembered from her visit years ago.
For the first time in forty-eight hours, her heart pounded for a reasonotherthan John Breminster. Suddenly, she felt nervous at the prospect of finding some real answers about her aunt.
Catherine did not notice many signs of activity. A local landowner had most likely hired everyone to cut hay. That or a local livestock auction had emptied out the place. She only hoped that Martha, elderly as she was, hadn’t gone with the others.
“I think it’s best if I go alone,” Catherine told John. “It will be easier if I don’t have to explain to her who you are.”
“Very well,” John said, sounding nettled. “I’ll wait here.”
Catherine exited the carriage and nodded at Marcel, who sat above the horses. He was a stoic young man, with a face marked with smallpox scars, and he followed John’s every command with a military dedication. He must be only eighteen or nineteen and Catherine could see why John had picked him out as his most loyal servant. Other than leaving her with the impression that he hero-worshiped John, the coachman had been so unobtrusive as to be almost invisible. She tried a smile in his direction, but he only looked confused. The poor man was probably already deeply bewildered by the situation in which he found himself. He must wonder why his employer was traveling under an assumed name with a strange pretend-wife who, now, was heading towards a rabble of humble cottages.
Pushing John and Marcel from her mind, she walked towards the cottages. She knew the one closest to the road was Martha’s. Her stomach flipped as she thought about seeing her old nurse again—and what she might discover when she did. Once more, she thought of how she reallydidn’twant to find her aunt. She wanted the money from John but she had no desire to see Mary Forster again. It was strange to search for someone you didn’t actually want to find.
When Catherine knocked on the little cottage door, no one answered. She tried it again and called out Martha’s name, pressing her ear to the door. Nothing. No one was home.
