Page 47 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

As she stripped out of the gown and the stays and the voluminous petticoats beneath, she did breathe a bit easier. A fraction; a hair. But every time she caught sight of herself in the cheval glass tucked into a corner of her room, she found herself searching her reflection therein for…some elusive something, something she could not put a name to.

It occurred to her only after she had donned her nightgown and wrapped herself into her dressing gown that she had been looking for a change in her reflection because she felt changed. This evening something within her had changed so severely, so utterly, that she had been certain down to the bottom of her soul that it would show upon her face, or else upon her person as if it might as well have been scrawled upon her skin in ink.

She did not look changed…but she was changed.

It wasn’t the gown and stays which had been too tight. It was the bubble of riotous emotions roiling and expanding in her chest which had caused that wretched constriction. It was her heart, beating so hard she could see her pulse pounding in her throat, hear the rush of her blood in her ears.

Tea. As a proper Englishwoman, Kate had yet to encounter a problem which a good cup of tea could not solve. Or at the very least served to settle one’s humors enough to go about solving said problem oneself. Barefoot, she crept from her room and padded down the long hallway toward the library.

The light which peeked out from beneath the closed door suggested that Hodges had come and gone already in that eerie efficiency which all of the duke’s serving staff seemed to possess. A tray sat upon a little table near her favored reading chair; a lovely large overstuffed thing that one simply sank into upon sitting. A teapot, a single cup, and on a small plate of its own, the thoughtful addition of a pastry leftover from this morning’s breakfast.

You smell like Mrs. Norris’ walnut pastries.

Kate’s pulse jumped. With trembling fingers, she sloshed a measure of tea into the cup and cast back the near-scorching liquid in one swallow. At least the burn of her tongue distracted from the lingering tingle of her lips.

She drew in a deep breath, caught the familiar, comforting scent of old books and binding glue. This library was a good deal smaller than the one at Longthorpe Manor, but no less well-tended. Tall shelves wreathed the room, climbing straight up to the ceiling and packed to the gills with volumes. The dowager duchess’ romances were tucked into the corner on a shelf all their own, owing to the sheer number of them. Kate had devoured a few of them already during her time here in London, either out in the garden when the weather was fair or tucked away here in the library when it was not. Even the rigorous demands of the Season left her with an hour or two of freedom each day to escape into a book, and there was something remarkably soothing about lazing about with a book in hand, rather than reading in the frenzied bursts of a few pages at a time that she had had to manage at home.

She could benefit from that sort of respite now. A book was just the thing to soothe her from such a profound disquiet. Her fingers traced the spines; a mix of cloth and leather bindings. How many of these had Elliot read himself?

Good Lord, what was wrong with her? Plucking a book from the shelf at random, Kate scurried back over to the abandoned chair and cast herself into its plush seat. There. Comfortable at last, for the most part. The chair had been fashioned to accommodate larger frames than her own; her toes dangled a few inches above the floor, peeking out from beneath the hem of her dressing gown.

But the room was toasty warm, and her velvety dressing gown was soft and sleek. She poured herself a fresh cup of tea and settled back into the chair, wincing as a pin jabbed her in the back of the head. Blast. She’d not thought past changing from her gown, hadn’t bothered to pull the pins from her hair. Her fingers snarled in the mess of her curls she made as she rooted about for the hairpins, pulling them free one by one and laying them upon the table beside the tea tray.

That damned curl drifted before her eyes, staunchly resisting all attempts to puff it back. Why was it that no lady in London had the sense to arrange her hair in a simple plait? It was unfathomable. Kate reserved a single hairpin to wrench back that unruly curl that plagued her, secured it with a ruthless jab of the pin into the untidy mess of loosed curls, and let the book fall open upon her lap at last.

There was something so lovely about reading, about watching a story unfold in one’s mind’s eye. How, with the judicious arrangement of words upon a page, one could be transported to somewhere else entirely; changed into a visitor in a stranger’s life, peering in from the margins of the pages.

Temporarily, at least. It took only a few minutes before reality began to seep in at the edges, coloring the fiction in shades of her own experience. Page by page, the fair-haired hero began to resemble Elliot in her imagination.

The tea ceased to soothe; the book ceased to transport her. She closed the cover, pursing her lips against the strained sigh that threatened, and set the book aside upon the table. Another book, then; a different one. A different author, even.

Her feet slapped the floor in determined steps as she plodded once more to the bookshelf and perused the shelf with a sense of trepidation. At random, she selected a half-dozen new books, amassing a tidy little stack of them her arms. Surely they couldn’t all turn into Elliot, she thought as she retreated once more to the chair and settled into it. Surely.

∞∞∞

“Lord Elliot,” Hodges said as he opened the door, clasping his banyan robe closed at the throat. “It’s well past midnight.”

“I’m aware, Hodges,” Elliot said as he slipped in through the crack. “You needn’t have bothered to let me in; I have got a key.” One that Devon had probably long since forgotten about, given that Elliot had had his bachelor’s lodgings going on six years, now.

“But at this hour!” The crisp, condemning syllables were meant to shame him straight out the door again, no doubt.

“Oh, come,” Elliot said, offering his cheekiest grin. “I’ve had Kate back past two in the morning three days this week already. It’s still early by comparison,” Elliot said. “Is she still awake?”

Hodges offered a grouchy harrumph, his bushy brows descending into a scolding frown. “I believe she is,” he said. “I brought tea to her in the library perhaps an hour ago. I was just on my way to see if she’d like a fresh pot before I turn in for the night.”

“I’ll do it,” Elliot volunteered cheerfully. “She requested a book of me this evening; I only came to drop it off.”

“A book! At such a time of the evening!”

“When else has she got the time to read?” Elliot asked. “I have kept her rather busy of late, you know.”

A surly grunt of assent, which Elliot took to mean he still had not yet been forgiven for roping Hodges into his little scheme. “Give it here, then,” Hodges said, extending his hand. “I’ll see that she gets it.”

“No!” Elliot yelped, slapping one hand protectively over the pocket in which the book rested. Somehow he managed a fraction of a sheepish smile. “That is…I’d really prefer to lay it into her hands myself, if you don’t mind.” Good God. Even if the volume he’d chosen—after nearly a half-hour of consideration—was on the tamer end of the plethora of lewd literature he knew to exist, he still wasn’t altogether certain it did not violate several obscenity laws…and quite possibly those involving the contortions of physical anatomy, besides. If Hodges so much as glanced within it, he’d—

Probably string Elliot up by his thumbs, inform upon him to Devon, and fall victim to apoplexy. In that order.

Hodges drew himself up to his full height, which was still several inches beneath Elliot’s, rendering the posturing less effective than he likely would have preferred. “Lord Elliot, it is entirely inappropriate—”