Then Comes Seduction

to say the words. She did not believe that he meant them.

And did he?

Would he be in any doubt if he did ? But did it matter anyway? He was committed to her happiness for the rest of his life. He might as well call it love. What else could he call it?

“Jasper,” she said when he was kissing his way along her throat, “take me to bed.”

He raised his head and smiled down at her.

“Ah,” he said. “I had almost forgotten again. That is why I came to your room.”

And he scooped her up in his arms and strode toward her bed.

He followed her down onto it after dropping her there.

“I love you,” he said just before engaging her mouth with his own again.

“Oh, silly,” she said.

Well. Monty the great lover-silly!

“There has to be punishment for that insult,” he said.

“Show me.” She pulled his head down to her own.

She was laughing.

24

THE great fear for the past month had been that the day of the fete would turn out to be a wet one. Many of the activities could be moved indoors, of course, and careful plans had been made for that eventuality. But it would not be the same. The day as Katherine had envisioned it would be effectively ruined.

What a relief it was, then, to awake early, to jump out of bed and hurry to the window and throw back the curtains to discover that the early morning sun was beaming down from a cloudless sky-and to know that other people in other rooms and throughout the surrounding countryside and in the village would be doing the same thing and feeling a similar happy relief and surge of excitement and joy to know that this was the day.

Katherine looked back over her shoulder to find Jasper squinting at her, his hands laced behind his head on the pillow. The sun was shining directly into his eyes.

“Oh, I am sorry,” she said, pulling one of the curtains halfway across the window to put his face in shadow.

“No need,” he said. “I like being awoken at the crack of dawn after a night of disturbed sleep.”

She looked at the clock on the mantel. It was not quite six o’clock.

“Oh, I am sorry,” she said again.

“About the disturbed night?” he said. “It was in a worthy cause. Or about waking me early? It means that there is a little more night left to be disturbed before it is time to get up. Or were you apologizing for standing there in the sunlight? And so you should apologize. Have you no modesty?”

She had been so anxious about the weather that she had forgotten to pull her nightgown on over her head as she got up.

“Oh,” she said.

“If you are embarrassed,” he said, holding back the bedcovers on her side of the bed, “you had better jump under here to hide yourself.”

Which she did.

It was almost seven o’clock before they both got up. She had even dozed for ten minutes or so of that hour.

There was to be no dozing for the rest of the day. By the time they had got dressed and had a quick breakfast and stepped outside, there were already servants out there, carrying tables and blankets, and already a few committee members were arriving to set up tables and booths and exhibits and to mark out a racecourse and an archery range and a picnic area and everything else that would be needed during the day. Katherine stayed in the area of the house. Jasper strode off with a few of the men to inspect the mud pond that had been created at the marshy end of the lake. It was rather horrifying to think that there was to be mud wrestling and a tug-of-war there today. But it had made the fete irresistibly appealing to the men.

Men were funny that way.

By the middle of the morning most of the young guests were outside too, exclaiming with delight over all that had suddenly appeared around them, and choosing the activities in which they planned to participate. Several of them offered to help.

Charlotte was more excited than anyone else. This was her eighteenth birthday, and after today no one could deny that she was old enough to be considered a young lady. And what a birthday it was. She came and linked her arm through Katherine’s while the latter was admiring the needlework table that Mrs. Bonner and one of her daughters was arranging with an eye for artistry and color.

“Kate,” Charlotte said, squeezing her arm tightly. “I love you. I really, really do. And I know I have you to thank for all this-for the houseguests, for the fete, for the ball tonight. There has surely never been a birthday party to match this one.”

“You are happy, then?” Katherine asked unnecessarily.

“I am happy,” the girl said with a sigh. “I am even happy that Aunt Prunella and Clarence have come and Great-Uncle Seth, though he swore last evening that he would not come out of his room today. They are my family, and family is important, is it not?”

“It is,” Katherine said, patting her hand.

“And Aunt Prunella cannot take me away from here,” Charlotte said. “How could she when you have come here to be such a steadying influence on Jasper? You are happy, are you not?”

“I am,” Katherine said. “We are.”

And it was not even an untruth. Not for now, anyway. What would happen when the honeymoon was over, she did not know. That was undoubtedly what they were living through, she and Jasper. It could not last, this amity between them, this… Well, this honeymoon. But for now she was happy, and she believed he was too.

Charlotte was laughing.

“Jasper used to call her Aunt Prune,” she said. “Was he not dreadful?”

“Indeed,” Katherine said.

And then Charlotte went dancing off to link her arm through Stephen’s, and they both went off to join some of the other young people.

Meg was helping Mrs. Penny arrange the baking items on a long table on the lower terrace.

There was no time for luncheon. There were too many last-minute details to attend to. But Katherine did not even realize she had missed the meal. Any minute now the outside guests would begin to arrive and there was only time to rush upstairs to change into her lemon yellow muslin with the blue sash and to have her hair properly styled beneath her wedding hat.

Jasper was standing propped by one shoulder in the doorway of her dressing room when she was ready to leave again, looking handsome and immaculate in blue and cream. He raised one eyebrow.

“It is to be my sun goddess today, is it?” he said.

She smiled and he offered his arm and led her down the stairs and out to the upper terrace, where Charlotte was already waiting. The three of them would greet all the visitors as they arrived.

“Happy, Char?” Jasper asked.

“Oh, I am,” she said, turning a glowing face to him and wrapping her arms about his neck. “If I were any happier I would burst.”

“Sounds messy,” he said, patting her back. “Enjoy your birthday anyway. This is all for you, Char. Katherine’s idea. Blame her if you burst.”