Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

hide the remains neatly under her spoon and realised what was wrong: she was exhausted.

      Should he say something? What would she expect to happen in this all-male household? But he had underestimated Kat’s poise. She caught his father’s eye, stood gracefully and smiled as the men got to their feet. ‘If you will excuse me from presiding over the tea table this evening, your Grace, I would like to retire, if I may.’

      ‘But of course, my dear. Sleep well.’

      Nick moved to come to her side, but she shook her head slightly and he dropped back into his chair as she left the room. He felt guilt that she was obviously too tired even to want to berate him for his deception, hurt that she did not need his company. She seemed more comfortable with his formidable father than with him, she was certainly more relaxed with Robert. With an effort of will he dragged his eyes from the door and listened to what Robert was saying.

      Kat was met in her suite by Jenny, bright eyed and excited. ‘Oh, Miss Katherine—my lady, I should say—it’s a palace here! The servants’ hall is so grand, and I’ve a room all to myself like I told you, and they’ve given me a girl to look after my things. And it runs like some great machine, they sent for me to say you were on your way, and a footman brought hot water, and another the warming pan, all without me having to ask …’

      ‘Please don’t call me “my lady”,’ Katherine said, sinking wearily onto the dressing table stool. ‘I am glad you are enjoying yourself. Is John all right?’

      ‘Oh, yes, my … Miss Katherine. A nice room to himself in the stable block and a lad at his beck and call.’ She unpinned Katherine’s hair, picked up a silver-backed hairbrush from the dressing table and began to brush out the brown curls in steady, soothing strokes.

      Wearily Katherine closed her eyes and surrendered to the comfort of the nightly ritual. After a few minutes she reached up and unhooked her ear-bobs, eyes still closed. ‘I’m frightened, Jenny.’

      ‘Why?’ The rhythm of the brushstrokes hesitated, then resumed. ‘Because of his Grace? I’d be frightened of him and no mistake.’

      ‘No, Jenny. Because Nicholas—Lord Seaton—does not want to annul our marriage.’

      ‘Well, and why should he?’ the maid queried stoutly, unclasping Katherine’s necklace and beginning to undo the buttons down the back of her gown.

      ‘He should because of all the reasons I have already told you,’ Katherine said wearily. ‘And he will not because this is now a matter of pride with him.’ She stood up and stepped out of her gown, then sighed with relief as Jenny untied her stay laces. Finally draped in her negligee, she went to wash in the great bowl of steaming water on her washstand. ‘This is such luxury—we must not get accustomed.’

      ‘No, Miss Katherine.’ Jenny sounded unconvinced as she shook out a nightgown and passed it to Katherine. It was the pretty, flimsy one she had worn that night in Newgate. Katherine opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. If she was tired, then so must Jenny be. He maid did not need her megrims.

      ‘Thank you, Jenny, now you run off to bed and try to get a good night’s sleep.’

      As the door closed behind the maid, Katherine eyed the glacial chamber. It seemed vast now she was alone, the light from the flickering branches of candles hardly reaching the frosted detail of the ceiling, the shadows in the corners moving unnervingly.

      She climbed into bed, a difficult manoeuvre involving a footstool, and found herself sitting up against a bank of pillows.

      ‘I am tired, that is all,’ Katherine told herself, her voice echoing round the room. It seemed to be quite out of scale to her solitary figure, as though it belonged to a giantess who would return at any moment and claim it.

      She should wriggle down and go to sleep, she knew. The effort of will seemed beyond her.

      The clock that was somewhere on the landing outside struck, time passed, it struck again, and again. This was ridiculous, she was fixed there like a rabbit mesmerised by a stoat. Now she was so tired she knew she could not sleep, she seemed to have passed beyond exhaustion into some kind of dream state.

      A book, that would help. Katherine threw back the covers and slid out of bed, jolting herself painfully as she forgot the height she was at. But the room revealed not a single item of reading matter. She knew where the library was—dare she go down and find a book?

      Defiantly Katherine shrugged herself into a wrapper. Anything had to be better than sitting sleepless in this ice cavern of a bedchamber, and no one would be about at this time of night. Her slippers appeared to have vanished, so with chamber stick in one hand she opened the door and slipped out into the corridor.

      It seemed she had much to learn about life in a ducal home. Candelabra stood lit at each turn of the corridor and she saw a soft-footed servant making his way methodically along them, trimming wicks. Presumably just in case his Grace or one of the household decide to take a night-time stroll. Katherine blew out her own candle and drifted silently along the tortuous way to the stairs in the wake of the footman. He continued on and she ran lightly down, only to freeze at the bottom at the sound of light snores. A pair of legs protruded from the deep cowled porter’s chair by the front door, its occupant unstirring as she made her way across the hall and through the library door.

      Even here there was a branch of candles on a side table by the fireplace and the fire itself was alight, banked up behind a wide brass screen. The great winged chairs on either side looked warm and inviting, the most homely sight she had seen since she set foot in the mansion.

      Books were everywhere, filling the shelves, in piles on the floor and heaped on tables. She began to turn over one pile, delighted to find it consisted of novels, and recent ones at that. She took two at random, then went to curl up in the nearest wing chair, tucking her feet up under her with a little sigh of pleasure; books had always been a refuge when having to think about, and face, reality became too much.

      Katherine flicked open the first book and found it was Scott’s Waverley. Good, she had missed that last year. She leaned forward to set the other volume on the table next to the candlestick and almost dropped both in shock.

      ‘Hello, Kat. Is the fire warm enough for you?’

      It was Nick, leaning back in the shadowed depths of the other wing chair, enveloped in the dark folds of a silk dressing gown, a glass of brandy cupped in his hands.

      ‘Oh! You … I had no idea you were here, that anyone was.’ She swung her legs down and began to get to her feet. ‘I am sorry, I will go.’

      ‘No, sit down, please, Kat. I did not want to scare you away. What brought you down here? If the fire in your room has gone out, you only have to ring.’

      ‘I wanted a book to read, that is all. And I would not dream of disturbing the staff at this hour of the night.’

      Nick shrugged. ‘Someone is always on duty.’

      ‘It seems ridiculous, on the off chance that someone might want something at two in the morning—I am sorry, that was rude of me, of course his Grace must order his household as he sees fit. This is his home, your home.’ Home sounded a hopelessly inadequate word for this place. ‘Palace,’ she corrected herself.

      ‘Does it seem like one to you?’ Nick sounded amused. ‘I suppose I just think of it as normal. I was brought up here, played in the corridors, fought the suits of armour, climbed up the ivy. Fell off the ivy,’ he added with a grin. ‘And into the lake.’

      ‘It is magnificent,’ Katherine said. ‘It is not that I do not appreciate it, just that tonight I needed somewhere cosy.’

      Cosy, she chided herself. What a ridiculous word to use.

      ‘Was our cell cosy?’ Nick asked, the smile still in his voice.

      ‘Our cell?’ Katherine laughed. ‘How wonderfully domestic that sounds. I should imagine no one has ever thought of a Newgate cell with any affection before.’