Page 9 of The Subtle Craft of Courting Kate

“I believe I have got a few minutes to spare, if you don’t mind the company,” Mrs. Norris said as she smoothed at her skirts and perched lightly upon the couch. “It has been so long,” she sighed. “And just look at you! Little Katie, all grown up at last. It is so lovely to see you again, my dear.”

“And you,” Kate said. “Though I can’t say that I ever expected to find myself in London. Most especially beneath these circumstances.”

Mrs. Norris coughed into her fist, her dark brows wrenching into a scowl. Her lips pursed in patent disapproval as she said, “Yes, well, Lord Elliot has got a streak of the devil in him still. I pinched his ear for it but good before he took himself off to his own lodgings this evening.”

“Did you?” Kate’s brows lifted in interest. “Is that why he was rubbing his ear as he left?”

“That boy,” Mrs. Norris sniffed, with a haughty lift of her chin, “hasn’t got the sense the Good Lord gave an ant!”

Mama chortled over her cup. “Oh, come,” she said. “He’s always been a bit of a scamp, certainly, but one could never say there was the least cruelty in him. And Kate has been just moldering away in the countryside—”

“Mama!” Kate interjected, crunching through the last of her peppermint stick in surprise. “Moldering!”

“Moldering,” Mama reiterated primly, and cast her gaze heavenward, as if in prayer. “I should like to see Kate settled before I leave this world. I have got a feeling that London might be just the place to do it.”

Kate pressed her lips together against an unwise comment. Mother was not yet fifty, and, except for the occasional affliction of headaches when the weather turned, as hale and hearty as Kate had ever known her to be. “Have you some incurable ailment of which I ought to be informed?” she asked tartly. “And besides, I’m here only to find Elliot a wife, not to find myself a husband.” The word itself felt awkward upon her tongue; a remnant left over from a time that had long passed and had since lost all familiarity. She had long since accepted the life that she was meant to have, and had let go of the one she would not. There was no sense in resurrecting childhood dreams that had died ages ago.

“One never knows,” Mama said breezily, with a flippant wave of her hand. “One simply never knows. But certainly there’s a chance of it, since we’re bound to meet all sorts of people. Lord Elliot must have a great many invitations to a great many events.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Norris said, affecting an abashed expression as she dug her hand into a pocket of her apron. “I quite forgot—I was meant to give these to you.” She withdrew a handful of letters and handed them over to Kate. “Lord Elliot’s invitations. These are just for events within the next week or so. I have taken the liberty of removing those for balls already, as I’m given to understand you require a more substantial wardrobe before you might attend one. Such gowns can be had quickly for the right price—which I am certain Master Elliot is willing to pay—but likely not until next week at the earliest.”

“But so many invitations for next week alone?” There had to be at least twenty here in her hand. Was it possible to attend so many events in the space of only a week? Surely not.

“Master Elliot is much in demand,” Mrs. Norris said. “Now more than ever. He left instructions that you were to have your pick of those you wish to attend. Although he did request that you accept Lady Havisham’s invitation to her garden party. On account of the—”

“Cake,” Kate said, with a little laugh. “He mentioned something to that effect.”

Mrs. Norris uttered a low sigh. “On a few occasions he has brought a slice for me to try, and I have tried to recreate it,” she admitted. “Alas, I never have gotten it right. And Lady Havisham’s cook will not be bribed for her recipe.”

“He brought a slice home?” Mama echoed. “The cook will not share her recipe, but she will provide bits of cake for the asking?”

Mrs. Norris’ lips twitched with the advent of a helpless mirth. “I don’t believe he asked,” she said. “It arrived straight from his coat pocket, where it had been wrapped in a handkerchief and secreted away. It was rather flattened upon arrival and somewhat worse for the wear, if you must know.” Wistfully she added, “And still, I do believe it was the finest cake I’ve ever tasted.”

Kate pursed her lips against a smile. “I suppose I expected that Elliot’s sweet tooth had gotten the better of him,” she said.

“Oh, no. I daresay Lady Havisham’s cook could very well go into business for herself on that cake alone, if she had a mind to do it.”

And doubtless Elliot would be her most loyal customer. “I must try that cake, then.” Kate scoured the stack of letters, thumbing through them until she came across the one with Lady Constance Havisham scrawled across the front and set it aside. “There. That’s one done, then.” And dozens of others still to contend with, though she hadn’t the vaguest idea of how to go about it. “Er—Mrs. Norris, when will these invitations require a response?”

The corner of Mrs. Norris’ mouth hitched up in a dry smile. “Lord Elliot is not what anyone would call a prompt correspondent,” she said. “But he is so good-natured that one has to forgive him for it. Or at least, the Ton always seems to do, for I’ve never heard of him being refused at the door, even when he has failed to return a response altogether.” She gave a nod of her head to indicate the letters held in Kate’s hand. “Most of those arrived a good while ago. Probably responses were expected well before now.”

Oh, dear. And, naturally, Kate had not been included in any of the invitations which had been presented to her, newly arrived to London as she was. “Will my attendance present a problem? If I have not exactly been invited?”

Mrs. Norris issued a sigh, her shoulders slumping. “The Ton lives for gossip,” she said. “And Lord Elliot reappearing in London with you in tow so shortly after absconding from the city like a thief in the night will be the juiciest bit of gossip the Ton has had to chew on for weeks. Everyone—simply everyone—will want to know you. More still to gain the privilege of your favor, so that you might recommend them to him.”

Oh. That queasiness that had so recently assailed her in the carriage came roaring back, edged with a horrid little flutter of her heart. Elliot’s little scheme felt suddenly far more complicated than she had expected. Somehow she had expected her role to be a small one; to be present at his side, to give counsel and advice where necessary.

It had never occurred to her that she might find herself courted every bit as much as might Elliot, albeit for different reasons. “But I have got time to acquaint myself with London,” she said, with a tinge of desperation as she glanced down at the invitations in her hand, which had begun to acquire a sinister air about them. A garden party had sounded lovely—until she had learned that it carried the potential to turn into an inquisition. “Haven’t I? That is to say, I’ve only just arrived.”

“My dear, dear girl,” Mrs. Norris said, offering a sympathetic pat to Kate’s hand. “No one in London is so incurable a gossip as Lord Elliot himself. The news will be everywhere by morning.”

Chapter Five

Elliot was halfway through his first plate of breakfast when Kate descended the stairs at last and appeared in the dining room looking as if she’d spent a night entirely sleepless. He swallowed down the mouthful of bacon he’d been chewing on as she speared him with a glare and dropped a stack of correspondence somewhere near his elbow as if throwing down a gauntlet. “Good morning,” he said pleasantly as she dropped into the chair across from him and scraped the flyaway strands that had escaped her plait away from her face.

“Is it? Is it a good morning?” she grumbled, slanting a grateful look toward the footman who quickly snatched up the tea cup near her place setting, seeming to have determined that if ever a woman existed who urgently required a bracing cup of tea, it was Kate.

“I thought so,” he said as he scooped up a second coddled egg and collected a few toast points. “The sun is shining. There’s not a cloud in the sky.” Something of a rarity for London. “It’s a lovely day and I’m in a fine humor.” The icy glare that she settled upon him over the rim of her tea cup suggested she did not share his assessment of the day. “But plainly you are not. Have you—”