Kitty. Elizabeth Bailey

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СКАЧАТЬ to him. For a flicker of time, he wondered if the chit was indeed someone else. Then he shook off the moment. It was just what she wanted him to think, he dared say. And the moment he admitted he had a doubt, Kate would laugh him out of court.

      ‘Still beats me why you did this, young Kate. What did you hope to gain?’

      Kitty had no answer. Since he would not accept the truth—and showed an alarming tendency to brutishness in anger!—she judged it prudent to evade the question.

      ‘I know you will come to regret your actions this day, sir,’ she said instead. ‘Only I hope you will be gentleman enough not to blame me for it in the end.’

      ‘Still at it, eh? Well, I’ve done. We’ll see how you persist when my aunt has an attack of the vapours!’

      If anyone deserved to have the vapours, it was herself, Kitty decided. For as they drew nearer and nearer to the destination he had outlined, the thought of what she might discover at the other end all but crushed her.

      The house at which the curricle drew up at length was very fine. A tall building of grey stone, with a narrow porticoed entrance, one of a row that had been built in much the same design.

      Kitty’s heartbeat became flurried again as the groom leaped from his perch and ran first to the great front door, where he tugged on a bell hanging to one side. As he returned to go to the horses’ heads, she was impelled to make one last appeal before Claud could alight.

      ‘Sir, pray listen to me!’

      His head turned, but his manner was impatient. ‘What’s to do, Kate? Let’s get in and get this over with.’

      He was still holding the reins and his whip, and Kitty reached out an unconscious hand to grasp his arm.

      ‘You are making a grave mistake,’ she said tensely. ‘I very much fear that you may be opening a closet in which I will be found to be the skeleton.’

      Claud cast up his eyes. ‘Will you have done?’

      He turned away without waiting for her answer. Next moment, he had leaped down and was handing both reins and whip to the groom, who left the horses to take them. Vaguely Kitty was aware that the groom was swinging himself up into the driving seat. But her eyes were upon Claud as he came around the back of the carriage to her side. He held up his hands to her.

      ‘Come on, I’ll lift you down.’

      There was no help for it. Kitty let the blanket fall away and half-rose, moving to find the step. But two strong hands seized her by the waist. There was an instant of helplessness, and she grasped at his convenient shoulders. Then she was set upon her feet, the hands shifting to her arms to steady her. Kitty felt strangely light-headed, and was conscious of warmth where his gloved hands touched her.

      She looked up into his face, and found the blue eyes had softened.

      ‘You’re a confounded nuisance, young Kate. But I’ll stand buff, never fear. I won’t let Aunt Silvia bully you!’

      This from one who had bullied her unmercifully! Kitty had no words left for protest, for the unpleasant behaviour of her heart was giving her enough to contend with. An imposing individual of great girth and age had opened the door of the Haymarket house. Kitty allowed herself to be shepherded up the short flight of steps and meekly followed the gentleman inside.

      The hall into which she stepped was long and somewhat narrow, with a staircase towards the back. There was space only for a table to one side with a gilded mirror above, together with a hat stand and a porter’s chair.

      Claud stripped off his gloves and handed them, together with his hat, to his aunt’s butler. The fellow was fortunately too discreet to say anything, he thought, as he briefly checked his image in the mirror and passed a hand across the cropped blond locks to straighten them. One could not blame the butler for the look he had cast upon Kate, following in his wake. Not that Tufton gave himself away by so much as a flicker. But the fellow could scarcely fail to have been astonished.

      ‘Is my aunt in, Tufton?’

      ‘To you, m’lord, yes.’

      ‘In the yellow saloon, is she?’

      The butler bowed. ‘As is her custom, m’lord. She is with—’

      But Claud was already ascending the staircase, turning to ensure that Kate was following. There was not a dog’s chance of keeping this escapade from his aunt, so there was nothing for it but to beard her at once. At least she had not run to his mother. One might entertain some hope of brushing through this with the minimum of fuss. He turned to his cousin as he reached the first floor.

      ‘Looks as if your mama ain’t blown the whistle, in which case you may escape with a scold.’ Her eyes were as round as saucers. The wench looked scared to death! ‘It’s all right, silly chit. She can’t bite you.’

      Kitty swallowed on the choking feeling occasioned by the frantic beating at her bosom. Her hands were trembling, and she was obliged to clasp them together. Her legs felt like jelly, but she trod resolutely behind Claud, her eyes on the back of his fair head, as he strode purposefully for a little way down a corridor and stopped outside one of a series of doors of dark wood. He gave her an encouraging wink.

      ‘Here goes!’

      And then the door was open, and there was nothing to do but to square her shoulders and walk into the unknown.

      Claud let his cousin precede him, and then strolled into the well-known yellow saloon. It was aptly named, with walls covered in a paper of dull mustard, striped in gilt that was rubbed away in places. The Hepplewhite chairs of mahogany were cushioned at the seat in faded yellow brocade, and cracked gilding enhanced the mantel as well as the stain-spotted mirror above. That it was a family room was evidenced by the general air of dilapidation, the plethora of knick-knacks and ornaments placed upon every surface, and the wear in the brown patterned rug.

      His aunt Silvia, a matron with a tendency to corpulence, and attired most unsuitably in a gown fashionably waisted below her ample bosom, was seated in a striped sofa of yellow and brown set close to the fireside—although there were no coals burning there today. The small table to one side held a jumble of the impedimenta required by a knitter. And on the sofa beside her, holding up between her hands a skein of wool in order to enable his aunt to wind it into a ball, sat a young female whom Claud knew almost as well as he knew himself.

      In the blankest amazement, he stood staring at his cousin. The deuce! If Kate was sitting there, then who in the name of all the gods was the girl by his side? And why was she the living spit of the Honourable Katherine Rothley?

      Chapter Two

      At the back of Claud’s mind hovered a realisation that both aunt and cousin, having caught sight of the girl, were staring in a species of shock. But the recognition that he had made a colossal blunder—had not the chit said so over and over?—made him address his immediate feelings to the stranger herself.

      ‘Hang it all, I’ve made a mistake! Deuced sorry for it—er—’ what in the world was he to call her? ‘—ma’am, only you look so alike! Don’t know who you may be, but I’ve obviously dragged you off to no purpose.’

      The girl made no reply. He could СКАЧАТЬ