Robert glanced over to find Katherine staring at him, appraising as she ate and listened. “How many at the party?”
Matthew leaned back and seemed to be trying to recall. “It was the annual summer soiree. That has always been my mother’s crowning achievement. How many attend, Isabel? A hundred?”
“About a hundred and fifty earlier this year,” Isabel said. “I have not heard this story, so I am as on the edge of my seat as you are, Katherine.”
“So they tell me we are going swimming au naturale,” Robert continued. “Unsurprisingly, I am all for the idea. When offered the choice of something wicked or something staid—”
“Always choose wicked,” Baldwin finished with a side glance at his wife that turned Helena’s cheeks pink. “Not a sentiment I always agreed with but find much more merit in now.”
“We went to the lake and everyone ducked behind bushes. I had no idea why, but I stripped down to what God had given me and turned to see what in the world was taking everyone else so long…”
“Only to find my father and fifteen of his cronies standing there with drinks and cigars in their hands.” Matthew began to laugh. “Motherhatedwhen he smoked in the house, so she had banished his friends outside, and Papa was thrilled to show them the new boat dock that had just been built there.”
“Whichheknew about,” Robert said, pointing at Matthew with an accusing shake of the head.
“But the best part,” James said, his eyes watering from laughing so hard, “was Robert’s reaction. What was it you said?”
“Well,” Robert said with a wink toward Katherine. “I was standing there, shocked to have all these very proper, veryold, very disapproving faces looking back at me. What else could I say?”
“Did you apologize?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “What fun would that have been? I asked who wanted to join me and said the last one in lost a shilling. Then I got in the water.”
Katherine tilted her head back, and her peals of laughter filled the air with the rest of them. “The gall,” she said, swiping at the tears streaming down her face. “What Tyndale’s father must have thought!”
Matthew’s expression softened and he and gave Isabel a loving glance. “Oh no, my father had the best sense of humor of anyone. He turned to the group and asked if there were any takers. I think a few of the gentlemen considered it even. But eventually they went inside and we came out of the bushes.”
With that first story told, the table continued sharing their exploits of the past. Since, aside from Katherine and her aunt, everyone here was part of their greater 1797 Club family, there were things told that might not have been recalled in Society as a whole or with too many strangers in attendance.
Robert watched as Katherine took part it in all. She laughed at the right parts of every story or threw in a witty comment that brought the rest of the party to even more laughter. She asked questions and seemed truly interested in whoever was speaking at any given moment.
It was impossible not to like the woman. That was what he discovered as their supper went on. She was so sharp witted and unfazed by anything she heard. It seemed passion was part of her very nature. She laughed with it, she ate with it, she glanced at him and there it was, bright in her dark, sultry eyes.
And there was no denying her beauty. It seemed to increase the more comfortable she became with his friends. She relaxed, her walls dropped and there was a glimpse of the real woman beneath the shame she had carried into Society. The hesitation she showed with him.
The dessert plates were at last taken away and their party began to rise, separating off so that the men could take their port before they joined the ladies for whatever entertainment would follow that night.
Robert shook off his thoughts on Katherine as she stepped away, linking arms with her aunt as the ladies left in a giggling, chattering group.
“Hmmm,” Matthew said as he came around the table and nudged Robert with an elbow.
Robert jerked his attention from the spot where he’d last caught a glimpse of Katherine. Matthew looked awfully smug. “Hmmm? What hmmm?”
Matthew shook his head. “Oh, nothing. Just observing you, that’s all.”
Robert narrowed his gaze. “Oh, that’s all, is it? And what do your observations reveal, Tyndale?”
Matthew laughed as he gently shoved him toward the door. “Nothing I’m inclined to share yet. Now let’s get to the port, shall we?”
Robert fell into step beside his friend, letting Matthew talk about something to do with his estate as they followed their friends to James’s study for their drinks. But he felt a strange discomfort as he did so.
Like something had been revealed that he hadn’t wished to share. A genie had been let out of a bottle and he had no idea how to put it back where it belonged, nor what would happen now that it was on the loose in his world.
Katherine stood up from the chattering group of ladies and walked to the sideboard to refresh her glass of sherry. At least it gave her something to do. Since the men and women had separated, not even the lively, friendly conversation of her aunt and her new friends could adequately distract her.
She kept watching the door, anticipating when Robert would return. It was a strange thing. When she saw him the night of her return to Society in London, she had wanted nothing more than to flee from him. Her memories of the night on the terrace when her father had decided to marry her off added to other thoughts of Robert, things he didn’t even seem to remember, she had wanted distance.
And when she found out he had wagered on bedding her? Oh, she could have clawed his eyes out. But since then, since coming here, she had begun to see him in a different light. Of course, there was their passionate encounter in the parlor the night before to consider. But it was more than that.
