She smiled a little wanly. “How kind you are, but I must decline.”
Kent could feel his face falling. He had not realised until that moment how much he had depended on seeing her there. “There will be no pleasure in the evening if you are not there,” he said glumly.
“I believe you exaggerate, sir.”
“No, indeed, for if I cannot depend on you to protect me, your cousin will attach herself to me like a limpet, and there will be no getting rid of her. Since there is to be dancing as well, I shall not even be able to escape to the safety of the card table.”
Colour flared in her cheeks again, and this time there was a definite chill in her voice. “Mr Atherton, you are cruel to tease me in this way.”
“Tease you? No, no, I do not mean to tease you. Pray forgive me if I have offended you, but I speak the absolute truth. Do but consider my doleful situation, Miss Parish. I am obliged by my position as a young, unmarried male to do the pretty to young, unmarried females. Normally, this makes such evenings an exercise in tedium, and listening to an endless stream of inanities on the subject of bonnets and lace and ribbons and then more bonnets. What is it about bonnets that so fascinates girls of that age? And why should they suppose that the subject is of the slightest interest to me? But with you, Miss Parish, I can spend the evening talking about beam engines and the price of wool and brown lung disease and… oh, a thousand other subjects far more interesting than bonnets.”
She threw him an amused glance. “Perhaps I am interested in bonnets, too, Mr Atherton.”
“Ah. Now I am appropriately chastened, for I have never asked you about bonnets, have I? Very well. If you will dine at Corland Castle on Friday, I shall pledge myself to talk about bonnets all night, if that would please you.”
She burst out laughing. “No, no! That would indeed be too tedious for words. I should sooner talk about… oh, almost anything. The Duke of Portland, the French alliance with Russia, the Oystermouth Railway… you do not know about the Oystermouth Railway? Then that is what we shall talk about on Friday.”
A burst of happiness ran through him. “Then you will come?”
“I will come, but no dancing, if you please. I do not dance.”
“Why not, when you have all the requisite limbs and lungs for the exercise? You are out of mourning, after all.”
“I do not know the steps.”
“Does no one dance in Branton? Are there no balls, no assemblies, no carpets enthusiastically rolled up on a whim?”
“Of course, but it is only simple country dances and reels and the like. I have never been taught the elegant movements of your sort of dance. I love to watch, but that is all.”
“But if there were to be a reel… would you dance a reel with me? Please?”
There was the blush again, and the delicately lowered eyes, but he thought she seemed pleased. “If there is a reel, and… and if you should ask me, then yes, I would.”
He cheered so loudly that his horse half reared in alarm, and he was hard pressed to control it.
***
Katherinewassobubblingwith happiness after this exchange that she could not wait to inform Aunt Cathcart of her change of plan. Learning from Davis that her aunt was in the still room, she went straight there.
“Aunt, I have been thinking about the invitation from Corland for Friday, and if it will not be too much trouble, I should like to go after all.”
Her aunt looked up from the jar she was examining, and said expressionlessly, “It is too late for that. I have already sent my response, refusing on your behalf, and undoubtedly Lady Alice has now made alternative arrangements. There is a deal of planning goes into an occasion like this, and it would be such an inconvenience if guests were to change their minds whenever they liked.”
Katherine’s excitement drained away in an instant. “Oh. Of course. I beg your pardon.”
Her aunt smiled at her. “There now, do not look so sorry for yourself. You cannot know, brought up in the casual way that you were, how things are done in a more superior society. There will be other invitations, I make no doubt.”
Bobbing a quick curtsy, Katherine crept away to her room and sent for Daisy to help her out of her riding habit. How stupid of her to imagine that she could simply change her mind. In Branton, no one would have minded a bit — in fact they would have said how glad they were that she could come after all. But she was not in Branton any longer, and must play by different, stricter, rules now. Lady Alice had no doubt already invited someone else to fill her place.
It was a pity she had listened to Mr Kent Atherton. Had she been more circumspect, she would have said that she would ask her aunt… could not say for sure… and such like. Instead, she had as good as promised, and now she would not be there and what would he think of her then?
Could she possibly get word to him that she would not be there? She could not write to Mr Atherton herself, but a note to Lady Alice… or Lady Olivia, perhaps? But how presumptuous of her that would be, when her acquaintance was of the slightest, and they were so far above her in rank. She could have wept to have all her hopes crushed in an instant.
But Aunt Cathcart was not a person to let go of a subject, and especially not when there was a possibility of instructing Katherine in the ways of her betters. When they were all gathered at the dinner table that evening, she related the story to the entire family, not to mention the butler and footmen standing impassively in the background. Katherine was mortified to be so publicly discussed, but her aunt was impervious.
“I suppose she wants to see Mr Kent Atherton,” Aveline said waspishly. “She is violently in love with him, after all.”
“Enough,” Uncle Cathcart said, frowning at her. “Such personal remarks ill become you, Aveline, nor is this discussion a fit topic for the dinner table.”
