Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

girls under the wing of his cousin. Anything else, she resolutely told herself, would draw the sort of attention to her that she most hoped to avoid.

      Would anyone ask her to dance? Surely someone would, she thought doubtfully, speculating about the sort of guests who would attend a ducal ball. She had seen the pile of acceptances that had flooded in despite the short notice; surely amongst them would be some young gentlemen who would not be so high in the instep as to ignore humble Miss Cunningham?

      Her eyelids began to droop and she fell into a state that was half-doze, half-nightmare. Nick, looking distinguished, handsome, every inch the marquis, was dancing with a succession of well-dowered, haughty, exquisite young ladies, while their titled parents looked on with delight. Meanwhile, Miss Cunningham sat with the other wallflowers, grateful for an occasional country dance with a shy youth or possibly his Grace’s archivist.

      She woke with a headache, feeling utterly cast down. Miserably she kicked back the covers and rubbed her forehead. Jenny would be back in a minute, it would never do to be found moping like this.

      What was the matter with her? She tried to rally her spirits. You are perfectly respectable, presentable and socially adept, she scolded herself. You can run a household, cope with debts, confront a highwayman. Have a little courage! But deep down she felt out of her depth, uncertain …

      ‘Whatever’s the matter, Miss Katherine?’ Jenny was back in the room without her noticing. ‘Why such a Sad Susan! Anyone would think you were going to the dentist, not to a great ball!’

      ‘I am terrified,’ Katherine confessed, startled into frankness. ‘I will not know anyone except the family and a very few of their professional advisers—and I cannot reveal how well I know them. I have never been to any occasion so lavish or with such grand guests.’

      ‘And your lord must pretend he hardly knows you,’ Jenny said, shrewdly getting to the heart of the matter. ‘Do not worry so, he will not let you sink, nor will Lord Robert, nor his Grace, come to that.’

      ‘What if I let them down?’ Katherine said anxiously.

      ‘This is beyond anything foolish,’ Jenny scolded. ‘You are equal to anything—look how you saved the master.’

      ‘I did not have to do it under the critical gaze of dozens of society ladies,’ Katherine retorted with a rueful smile, beginning to feel better.

      ‘Look,’ said Jenny, peering out of the window. ‘Carriages are arriving; it must be the guests who are staying over. There are two very plain redheads, a portly gentleman, and—oh, Miss Katherine, look at him! ‘

      The man in question, as Katherine saw as she very reprehensibly joined her maid at the window, was tall, broad shouldered, and, so far as one could see from the first floor, extremely personable.

      ‘Stop staring,’ Katherine reproved hypocritically. Now, if that gentleman were to ask her to dance, it could not fail to stir a pang of jealousy in Nick’s breast. She made a decision: tonight she was not going to think common-sense thoughts, she was not going to be sensible, she was going to enjoy every moment, savour every opportunity to shine in her husband’s eyes.

      ‘And never mind tomorrow,’ she said mutinously just as there was a tap on the door.

      ‘That’ll be the bathtub, Miss Katherine,’ Jenny said, shooing her behind the screen before letting in two perspiring footmen with the tub and a procession of chambermaids with hot water. ‘In there,’ she directed, waving towards the dressing room.

      On the other side of the connecting door, Nick paused and put down the knife with which he was paring his nails. The sound of cascading water reached him through the thick panels and he listened, head cocked on one side, to the muffled sounds.

      Jenny’s voice, a rumble of answering male voices—the footmen. Silence, then swishing, more pouring. Adjusting the temperature, he thought, closing his eyes to better follow the unfolding scene just feet away. Jenny’s voice again, then Kat’s. Silence, then a laughing protest and more pouring—the water was too hot or too cold. A splash and Jenny’s voice, suddenly perfectly audible, ‘You’ve got it all over the floor, Miss Katherine! This tub is far too shallow.’ She was answered by laughter and another splash.

      The image the words conjured up of Kat sitting, quite naked, in a shallow bath tub just feet away was so erotic that Nick found himself on his feet, one hand on the door handle, before he caught himself.

      With a rueful shake of his head he turned on his heel, picked up the paring knife and retreated into his bedchamber, shutting the door softly behind himself. Control, that was what the situation demanded, he reminded himself as his new valet advanced ominously with a towel and a pair of scissors. ‘Just a little at the nape and behind the ears, my lord.’ Cuthbertson did not approve of his lordship’s liking for letting his hair grow.

      ‘As you will.’ Nick surrendered himself to his valet and pondered on just what it was about his provoking wife that made him want her so badly. And more than want her physically. True, she was beautiful, whatever she said to disparage her looks—but then he had experience of diamonds of the first water. True, she was brave, intelligent, resourceful and devastatingly unconventional when circumstances called for it—was that enough to make him lie awake at night wondering how to make her laugh, how to please her?

      She had shared his bed twice, lain in his arms and left him as innocent as she had joined him. That, certainly, was provoking enough of sensual longings. But there were women aplenty to take care of inconvenient physical urges. Startled, Nick realised that the thought of being with any other woman was not so much repulsive as utterly impossible to conceive of. It was as though he was thirsty and someone had suggested he drink sea water. A shiver ran through him with the realisation that nothing was ever going to be the same again, whether he lost her or made her his.

      ‘My lord! I beg you to be still.’ Cuthbertson, flustered by almost taking a snip out of his new employer’s ear, stepped back hurriedly. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, it was my own—’

      ‘No, I moved. Have you finished? You may shave me when I have had my bath.’

      ‘That will be the footmen with the water now.’ The valet put down the scissors with a tremulous hand and hastened to the door. To send a marquis to a ducal ball with a cut ear! He would never have lived it down, never.

       Chapter Twenty-Two

      Katherine started nervously as the clock struck the half-hour, to be followed by a tap on the door. ‘It is only me!’ Lady Fanny called coyly.

      ‘Urn …’

      ‘I had better let her in,’ Jenny said, rolling her eyes heavenwards as she went to open the door. ‘You’ll have to go down some time, you know.’

      ‘I know.’ Katherine took a steadying breath and stood up as her chaperon fluttered in. Lady Fanny was wearing a surprisingly elegant, if subdued, gown of dove-coloured silk and a headdress that clearly proclaimed by its ruching and feathers that she was amongst the chaperons and dowagers for the evening.

      ‘My dear Katherine!’ She stopped in the middle of the room and threw up her hands. ‘Oh, my goodness!’

      ‘Is something wrong?’ She should have known—something was unsuitable, or insufficiently elegant or …

      ‘You look ravishing, Katherine, positively ravishing. Oh, to be twenty again.’

      ‘Thank you, although I have to confess to being rather more than twenty.’ Cheered, Katherine managed to smile despite the cloud of butterflies in her stomach. ‘Your gown is lovely, Lady Fanny.’

      The spinster patted the silken folds tenderly. ‘I have to confess to a weakness for evening gowns and treat myself to a new one every year.! She made it sound as though she were revealing a serious addiction to gaming. ‘But truly, my