Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1. Louise Allen

and plucked another to thread through it. ‘You should have told me afterwards, when you were free.’

      ‘Would you have believed me?’ He was watching her, not the view.

      ‘Yes, of course.’

      ‘And what would you have done?’

      ‘Refused to come with you, naturally.’

      ‘You make my point for me.’ Nick unclasped his arms and fell back on the grass with a deep sigh. ‘Bliss. The last time I lay on my back in a field I had just had my second horse shot from under me and I was lying in a pool of mud.’

      ‘Waterloo? Was it dreadful? I’m sorry, that is a stupid question, of course it was.’

      ‘It was perfectly bloody. Literally bloody. It is not easy to speak about. Kat, you’re the only person I have ever talked about it with.’ He fell silent.

      ‘Any time you want to tell me more, I will listen,’ she promised. They remained without speaking for a while. Katherine threaded more daisies and, finally satisfied with the length of her chain, linked it into a circle and leaned over to drop it on Nick’s dark head.

      ‘What?’ He opened his eyes and reached up to feel what she had done. ‘Baggage. I suppose if I had not realised, you would have let me put my hat on top and ridden off.’

      ‘Possibly. Nick, how did you know how I would react when I discovered the truth about you? I might have had hysterics on the spot.’

      ‘No, not you. I knew you would be angry with me—you had every reason, even though I did it for the best. You would never have left London with me if you had known. I expected you to give my head a washing the moment we were alone, but I had every confidence that you would deal with a duke with every bit of the courage and aplomb you showed in dealing with a highwayman.’

      ‘I was too tired, too overawed to do more than accept what was happening, I suppose.’ She tucked his praise away into some secret part of her mind to take out and look at later. ‘And between you, you and your father made sure I spent much more time with Robert than with you. It is too late now to shout at you and throw the china.’ She began a second daisy chain. ‘I like you brother very much.’

      ‘Father remarked that when you are no longer married to me you could marry Robert.’

      ‘What!’ The fragile links of flowers tore in her hands. ‘Marry Robert?’

      ‘I believe he was trying to pique my jealousy.’

      ‘Oh.’ Katherine subsided, too shaken by the very thought to absorb the implications of what Nick had said. To think of marrying anyone, anyone at all, after Nick was impossible. How could she when she loved him so much and always would? Then her mind caught up with her hearing. ‘Jealous? Why should your father believe that suggestion would make you jealous?’

      Nick shrugged. ‘He likes to tease us, to pink us neatly with the point of his wit and watch us dance a little. He very rightly assumes that I do not relish being reminded that my wife does not wish to remain my wife and that I am frustrated in my efforts to provide for her.’

      Yes, not jealousy so much as pride, she realised. Possessiveness and the rivalry that must always exist between healthy young males, even when they are devoted brothers.

      ‘I am growing very fond of Robert,’ she said primly. ‘But as a brother. I would as soon marry the Duke as him.’

      As she had intended, this provoked a gasp of laughter from Nick. ‘Now that would create some talk! A May and December match indeed. You are teasing me, wife; I suspect my father is a very bad influence on you.’ He got to his feet with the elegance that characterised his movements and held out a hand to her. ‘Stop sitting on that grass, which is doubtless damp, and come and tell me what you think of the Dower House.’

      Katherine waited to see if he would remember the daisy chain. He did, hooking it out of his dark hair and holding it dangling from his fingers for a thoughtful moment. ‘I should be giving you jewels, Kat.’

      ‘No, you should not,’ she retorted, gathering up Lightning’s reins and concentrating on holding them as he had shown her. ‘I do not want to be indebted to you for anything more than I can possibly help.’

      Nick boosted her up into the saddle, checked her seat was secure and went to mount the black gelding. ‘I know. I do wish you would let me look after you Kat.’

      ‘You are doing so, very well. At least,’ she added doubtfully as Lightning pricked up his ears and started to take more of an interest in the open parkland in front of them, ‘at least you will be if you can stop this animal going any faster than a slow crawl.’

      ‘You just have to show him who is in charge,’ Nick said encouragingly.

      ‘That is the trouble, he knows.’

      Nick laughed at her gloomy tone. ‘Never mind your fierce steed, what do you think of that?’

      That was a perfect little gem of a house, all soft grey stone and sparkling windows, nestling in a fold in the hillside, protected by a grove of trees and with its own miniature lake reflecting it back to itself.

      ‘Oh, Nick, it is enchanting!’

      ‘I think so,’ he agreed gravely. ‘I am glad you like it. Wait until you see the inside.’

      ‘Are there staff in residence?’ There was no smoke rising from the tall chimneys.

      ‘No, I sent to have it opened up this morning, but it is completely unoccupied now.’

      Katherine stared as they approached, trying to absorb every detail. Something about the little house tugged at her. Was it just that Nick was so obviously in love with it?

      He halted in front of the portico and swung down from the saddle, looped his horse’s reins over the railings and came to lift her down.

      Katherine slid out of the saddle as his hands clasped her waist. She expected to be set on her feet, but, instead, no sooner had her boots met gravel than he swung her round and into his arms.

      ‘Nick! What on earth are you doing?’

      He strode up the two shallow steps to the front door and applied a shoulder to the panels. It opened smoothly on to a sunny hall with a gracious staircase winding upwards and dove grey and white tiles on the floor.

      ‘Nick?’ He was holding her very tightly. Katherine considered wriggling, then decided it was undignified. The fact that being held like this gave her a delicious sense of danger, of being mastered, she fought to ignore.

      ‘I am carrying my wife over the threshold; a good old English custom that I fear would have caused an uproar if I had attempted it at the House. And, in any case, this is my home.’

      ‘Yes, but we are over the threshold now,’ Katherine felt compelled to point out.

      Nick simply ignored this observation and strode across the marble and up the staircase. Any gently bred young lady should be protesting at this point, remonstrating with the gentleman and, if necessary, struggling; Katherine was quite well aware of that. On the other hand, any young lady who did not revel in the fact that the strong arms of the man she loved were carrying her as if she was as light as a feather was devoid of all romance. Beside, to struggle on the stairs was an unsafe thing to do.

      He would stop and put her down on the landing, she told herself, only to gasp as Nick simply pushed open another door and walked into a bedchamber. It was deliciously, sensuously feminine, a confection of amber silk and cream lace, warm old panelling and pretty furniture apparently gathered together with an eye to comfort and charm, not formality and status.

      Nick lowered his burden reluctantly until Kat stood in the circle of his arm, gazing round at the room.

      ‘I thought—’ He broke off, surprised to find his voice husky when he had imagined it had recovered. ‘I thought you would like this as your bedchamber.’

      ‘Oh.’