Then Comes Seduction

Cedarhurst too-all of them as guests of my sister.”

But his friends would only laugh.

He really must be more careful, Jasper decided. He had been enjoying the challenge of flirting with Katherine Huxtable so much that he had been neglecting the caution he had practiced for years. That very caution was his potential downfall now, of course. It was apparently so unusual to see Lord Montford spending more than thirty seconds at a time with any lady of ton that everyone and his dog sat up and noticed when he did.

It was not a problem that weighed heavily on his mind, though. Any incipient gossip would soon die down when he stayed away from the lady.

The fresh morning air-even the water droplets against his face-felt invigorating. He looked forward to another day of pleasurable activities, beginning with this ride along an unusually empty Rotten Row. He urged his mount to a gallop, and his friends fell into place on either side of him.

The first inkling of trouble came to Katherine via Constantine. He came to call upon her and Margaret the afternoon following the garden party. They had stayed at home because the weather had turned. Fine drizzle had alternated with heavier rain all morning, and the clouds had begun to break up only when the afternoon was too far advanced for them to make plans for an outing.

They were glad they had remained at home when Constantine came. They both enjoyed his company and had it all too infrequently. He took tea with them and stayed for half an hour before getting to his feet to leave.

“The sun is trying its best to shine at last,” he said, looking toward the window. “I brought my curricle with me. I can take only one passenger, I am afraid, or I would invite you both to take a turn about the park with me.”

“Thank you, but I would refuse anyway, Constantine,” Margaret said. “I find riding in sporting vehicles pure terror. I need a barouche or a gig or a closed carriage in order to feel safe.”

He stood smiling down at her.

“I will borrow a barouche one day, then,” he said, “and come back for you, Margaret. Would you care to ride up with me today, Katherine, or are you trembling in your slippers too?”

She had looked wistfully at the sunshine beyond the window when he had drawn their attention to it. She hated to spend a whole day indoors.

“I would love to come,” she said. “Give me a moment to fetch my bonnet.”

A short while later they were bowling through the park, and Katherine was happily admiring the scenery and observing the crowds from her high perch beside Constantine.

“I understand,” he said, “that you are to be Monty’s guest at Cedarhurst Park for two weeks in August, Katherine.”

“Yes, indeed. Meg and Stephen and I are all going,” she said. “But we are to be Miss Wrayburn’s guests at a house party in celebration of her eighteenth birthday.”

Why was she feeling defensive?

He maneuvered the curricle past the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians making the usual afternoon circuit. Soon they were on a long path that was relatively secluded.

“Katherine,” he said, “at the risk of sounding like a fussy chaperone, I must warn you to be very careful. Monty is dangling after you for some reason known only to him, and it is extremely unlikely that he has matrimony in mind. He never does.”

She felt a shock of indignation and… humiliation?

“Oh, this is really quite unnecessary, Constantine,” she said. “Is this why you brought me out here this afternoon, away from Meg? Because you feel somehow responsible for me? I have no idea why you would feel any such way when I have both Stephen and Elliott to protect me should I ever be in need of protection. And is it also because you do not trust me? I am twenty-three years old. I have learned a thing or two about life during all those years. I have certainly learned how to spot a-a rake. I know Lord Montford has a reputation for being one, and I would have known it for myself even if you had not told me so a long time ago. I am well able to handle any improper advances he may make toward me. He has not made any.”

“Not even three years ago?” he asked, causing her stomach muscles to clench. “I was not in London at the time, but I know you handled that situation very well indeed, discerning his intentions immediately and drawing him aside to deliver a scold and a blistering setdown. He confessed all to his peers the very next day. Had he not, or had he in any way succeeded in what he had set out to do, I doubt he would be living now to boast of it and harass you again.”

Her heart felt suddenly as if it were beating at double time. He knew about that long-ago wager? Had known all this time? But he did not know the actual details of what had happened. Had Lord Montford lied in the retelling of that night’s events, then? Had he made her seem entirely blameless, even heroic? Had he made himself seem rather ridiculous?

“If you know about all that, then you ought to trust me now,” she said, somehow finding her voice. “I do not need a lecture from you, Constantine. Besides, you are Lord Montford’s friend. Do you not trust him?”

“Monty may feel that he has something to prove after that colossal failure,” he said. “It embarrassed him so much, by the way, that he left London afterward and stayed away for more than a year. He can be very charming when he chooses to be, Katherine. I have known him a long time, remember.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “he is merely being amiable.”

“Monty,” he said, “never dances. Yet he waltzed with you at Lady Parmeter’s ball. He never strolls in the park with a lady on his arm. Yet he strolled all the way to the Serpentine and back with you.”

“And with Meg and Stephen and his sister,” she said indignantly. “How foolish this is, Constantine.”

But he had not finished.

“And he sat for a whole hour with you in a secluded pavilion at the Adams’s garden party yesterday,” he said. “I was not there myself. But even allowing for the fact that reports can be exaggerated and it might have been half an hour and the pavilion and its occupants might have been fully visible to every other guest in attendance, nevertheless you were alone with Monty-and sitting very close to him-for quite long enough to attract attention. Some reports even have it that his arm was about your shoulders.”

… for quite long enough to attract attention…

Some reports…

She felt suddenly cold.

“I would not have expected you to listen to idle gossip, Constantine,” she said. Her voice was all breathless and shaking.

“One cannot help listening,” he said, “when one is in a place where people all around one are constantly talking. I was in such a place last evening. I do not pay heed to ninety-nine out of every hundred snippets of gossip I hear. But when one of those snippets concerns a cousin of mine, and one of whom I am fond, then I do take notice.”

“It is wicked and ridiculous gossip,” she said. “What about all the other gentlemen I danced with at Lady Parmeter’s ball? Is anyone gossiping about them? And what about the fact that Meg walked one way to the Serpentine on Lord Montford’s arm while I walked with Stephen and Miss Wrayburn? Is anyone gossiping about Meg? And we were together no longer than half an hour yesterday in a pavilion made entirely of glass a mere few yards from the terrace and lawn where most of the other guests were congregated. Meg was out on the river with the Marquess of Allingham for longer than I was sitting with Lord Montford. Is anyone gossiping about them? And Lord Montford did not have his arm about my shoulders. It was draped across the back of the seat because it was narrow. He did not once touch me.”

“I can understand your anger, Katherine,” he said, turning the curricle onto a path that would take them back onto the main thoroughfare. “But I am not sure you understand the ton. Gossip does not have to be based on pure truth. It is built upon half-truths and perceptions and exaggerations and speculations and the human tendency to think the worst of others and even to enjoy thinking it. And Monty has