Page 24 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“My goodness.” Mama blinked, entirely bewildered. “And you agreed to this?”

Kate grimaced and ducked her head. “He is my dearest friend, and he has asked for my help,” she said. But the prospect was not particularly appealing, for some odd, unknowable reason. Perhaps several of them, all tangled up in a ball in her mind like a mess made of fine yarn. Detangling those separate skeins would require time, effort, and attention, and she had the sinking suspicion that there would soon be little enough of all three to put toward it. “He doesn’t want to marry a woman he hardly knows, or someone who might turn out not to suit.”

“I cannot fault him there. Marriage is the most important undertaking of one’s life. All of one’s future depends upon choosing the right spouse.”

Kate threw up her hands. “He wants me to pick his wife!”

“Remarkably prudent of him,” Mama observed mildly, folding her hands in her lap, the hint of a smile tugging at the right-hand corner of her lips.

“Mama!” Kate chided.

“All I meant to imply, dear, is that you have always been sensible. Thoughtful, practical, and discerning—and Lord Elliot has known you long enough to be entirely aware of these qualities of yours. Probably he had deduced that he could hardly hope to do better on his own than you might.”

Kate rolled her shoulders again, striving to ease that wretched knot of tension that lingered still between her shoulder blades. Her hands drifted down from their agitated lift, settling back over the notebook. “I don’t know, Mama,” she said, grimacing as she looked down at the notebook sheltered beneath the cage of her fingers. “I thought I was meant to—to advise him, or something of that nature.” Like any friend would do, to offer an opinion when it was solicited of her. “But to choose the woman myself…I just don’t know. What if I choose wrong?”

“Darling,” Mama laughed, patting Kate’s hand with her own. “That will not happen. Besides, Lord Elliot is unlikely to marry a woman for whom he has no liking, regardless of your opinion of the woman.”

Mama was right, of course. It wasn’t as if Elliot had to marry a woman of Kate’s choosing. If he did, it would be only his own choice, because he had developed a fondness for her. Perhaps even because he had found a kindred spirit in her.

A woman he could love.

Perversely, the thought—which by all accounts ought to have been reassuring—only served to twist that knot in her back even tighter. As she strove to find a more comfortable position, her gaze lifted from the notebook, searching for Elliot amongst the throngs of people milling about the park.

She found him some distance away. He had been easy to spot, with his mop of unfashionably-long gold hair fairly glowing beneath the sunshine as the breeze ruffled the once-tidy strands. He and the footman were managing the horses, leading them back toward Kate and Mama.

Two women—a mother and a daughter, Kate thought—walked beside him, matching his sedate, leisurely pace. There was a proper distance set between them, but it was obvious they had been conversing.

Elliot was smiling. That dimple which often appeared in his cheek when he was amused was visible even at this distance. Kate’s hands flexed above the surface of the notebook on her lap, her nails finding those same impressions they had left only minutes ago and sinking into them once more.

Oh, Lord. This was it, then. The strange and unusual courtship of Lord Elliot Holbrook had begun in earnest.

∞∞∞

Lady Havisham’s garden party had commenced in early afternoon, and Kate had done beautifully thus far. Despite the attention Elliot had garnered—which had been considerable—Kate had held her own amongst those who had approached them. Her notebook was stuffed into her reticule alongside her freshly-sharpened pencil, and though she had scarcely had a moment to spare to write within it, she had made it a point to ask thoughtful questions of those to whom they had spoken.

But Elliot didn’t think she had much enjoyed it.

The rush of ladies eager to introduce themselves had only died down when Lady Havisham’s staff had brought out the cake to be served, and it had been made abundantly clear that he was not the only one to favor it so.

“You’re not going to eat that, are you?” Elliot asked as he surreptitiously steered his fork toward Kate’s plate in an effort to snatch up a bite of her cake.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, yanking her plate away from the tines of his fork. “Get your own!”

Elliot pulled a face, affecting a pitiful expression. “I’ve had three slices already,” he said, “and Lady Havisham’s staff won’t give me anymore.”

Kate’s brows lifted in shock. “Three! How are you not bursting at the seams?”

“I’ve long suspected I’ve got an extra stomach exclusively for sweets,” Elliot said as he struggled to drag his gaze away from the bit of cake that remained upon Kate’s carefully-guarded plate. Probably he was faster with his fork than she could be with her plate. Probably, too, she would gleefully stab him to prevent the theft of that last tiny piece. “But can you blame me?”

Kate swiped up the last bit of cake and popped it into her mouth, her eyes closing in pure pleasure. “I suppose not,” she admitted reluctantly. “I would do terrible things for more of this cake.”

“So would I,” Elliot said with a sigh. “But I suppose I have got to draw the line at marrying for it.”

Kate chortled as she set her empty plate aside on the nearby table. “Have you?” she asked. “You did not seem altogether too certain of that, when last we spoke of it.”

“A man has got to have some principles,” he said. “Besides, Lady Havisham’s daughters are rather…young for my taste.”

“Not so very young,” Kate said. “Thomasin is two and twenty, and Christiana is a year her senior.”