Page 12 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“They are, er—a bit more fashionable, I suppose,” Elliot said. “People in town keep later hours than is usual in the countryside, and there are more guests, more courses served. But it is mostly the same otherwise. Dinner and conversation.” From the weak smile she gave, he knew this had not reassured her. “We’ll start small,” he said, and reached across the table to pluck a letter from the stack he’d returned to her. “This one is tonight.”

“Tonight!” Her shoulders went taut again, stiff with strain beneath the worn fabric of her dressing gown. “But so soon? And without warning to your intended hosts?”

“They’ll forgive me,” he said. “Richard and Rebecca—that is, Lord and Lady Crewe—are my closest friends here in London. And, incidentally, I saw Richard in passing evening last at my club. Of course, he reprimanded me for haring off to the countryside without so much as a by-your-leave, when I had not yet given my answer—”

“Of course he did,” Kate said primly, tipping up her nose.

“—But when I informed him that I had brought you back with me, naturally he assured me that the invitation was now extended to you and your mother as well. I gave him my acceptance then and there.”

“Oh, Lord,” she sighed. “Mrs. Norris was right. You are an incurable gossip.”

“A gossip! I merely apprised Richard of my situation. And so he will inform his wife.” Elliot drew in a short breath. “Likely Rebecca will have words for me,” he acknowledged. “For burdening you with my personal affairs.”

“She sounds lovely,” Kate drawled dryly, a touch of wry amusement clinging to the corner of her lips.

“Does she? I had hoped she would, particularly because she’ll be taking you and your mother to the modiste today.”

“What!” Kate’s jaw dropped open, appalled by the suggestion. “You cannot mean for me to prevail upon the kindness of a woman who does not even know me.”

“Well, I can’t take you,” Elliot said, in what he had hoped was a reasonable tone. “But Richard assures me she had no particular plans until the evening—the dinner party, you know—and she will be thrilled to meet you—”

“Thrilled to meet me?” With a quizzical cant of her head, Kate frowned at him in confusion. “Why?”

Ah, hell. Elliot crammed a massive bite of toast into his mouth and chewed to buy himself time to avoid the truest answer: Because he had spoken of her so often, and Rebecca had taken supreme delight in the tales he’d carried back to her. She had liked Kate on principle from the very first, had hoped to meet her someday—and now she would at last. They would be fast friends. He was certain of it. At least, he hoped. Desperately, he hoped.

He swallowed, and the dry toast scraped his throat on its way down. “She’s personable like that,” he said. “And very fashionable. There’s no one I’d trust better to see to your wardrobe.” Although now that he spared himself the time to consider it, he wasn’t entirely certain he trusted her to hold her tongue where it mattered most. As lovely a woman—a person—as Rebecca was, she had the occasional tendency to say more than she was meant to.

He was reasonably certain she wouldn’t betray the exact nature of his feelings. But he was also reasonably certain that she and Kate would get on like a house on fire. If she should switch her allegiances to Kate…

No. There was no sense in borrowing troubles. Besides, if Rebecca liked Kate half so well as he thought she might, then she could prove his closest ally.

Kate fiddled with the edge of her dressing gown, drawing the fabric tighter about her as if she might recede into it altogether. “What if she doesn’t like me?” she ventured.

Elliot suppressed a snort. “Rebecca likes everyone. There’s more danger in her liking you too well,” he said. “For if she does, then I suspect I will be hard pressed to pry her from your side even long enough to attend an evening event.” The dubious expression that flitted across her face suggested she had not been entirely convinced. “Katie,” he said. “You need have no worries. Rebecca is a lovely woman. She’ll like you.”

A wisp of a sigh slid across Kate’s lips. “I suppose,” she said begrudgingly, “I must trust your judgment.”

Elliot’s lips twitched. “You could sound just the tiniest bit more confident of that, you know.”

But it wasn’t truly him she doubted. It was herself. Until now, her place in the world had been a small one. A grassy hill; a small flock of sheep; a cottage shared with her mother. Only at his pleading had she stepped out of it, into a larger world. A crueler one at times, but one he knew she could have at her feet if she wished.

Just as he had always been. Even if she did not yet know it.

Chapter Six

I feel like an interloper,” Kate murmured to Mama over her cup of tea as they waited for Lady Crewe to arrive. Her eyes darted about the elegant, high-ceilinged drawing room which she had been far too queasy to take much note of evening last for the scant half-hour she had been within it.

Far from the homey, inviting atmosphere of their own small sitting room, the duke’s drawing room was all gilded opulence, with a pianoforte tucked into one corner, lovely dark blue curtains embroidered with shining gold thread wreathing the windows, plush rugs laid across the parquet floor, and intricately-carved furniture shining with the dedicated polishing it no doubt received from the staff.

“Like royalty might come calling at any moment,” Mama whispered back with a little smile tucked into her cheek.

More than that, Kate thought. Like any sound above a whisper threatened to disturb the finely-wrought majesty of the room. Perhaps even that their very presence disturbed it; as if they themselves were out of place and poorly fitting.

Austerity was steeped into the very walls, stitched with precision into the ornate and ancient tapestries that hung high upon the walls and painted with careful brushstrokes within the landscapes and portraits interspersed throughout. A sense of gravity lingered here that lent itself to the sensation that the long line of dukes had left indelible marks upon it with each set of hands this house had passed through. Elliot had descended from those very dukes, but it seemed a difficult thing to reconcile Elliot as she had always known him fitting comfortably here.

She simply could not imagine the Elliot who had run along with her and their ragtag band of village children sitting politely upon a couch with a stylishly-knotted cravat and his coat buttons done up properly, indulging in idle chatter about how fair the weather had been or inquiring after everyone’s health. He hadn’t—in her experience, at least—the temperament for such civil rituals, was always too ready with a joke or a quip.

From the doorway, Hodges cleared his throat and Kate’s heart knocked into a rapid flutter in her chest. Without the room, she heard the hurried click-click-click of shoes upon the floor, and knew Elliot’s female friend had arrived.