“If I should hear one word,” Con said through his teeth, “one word about you mistreating her or making her miserable or dishonoring her by continuing with your raking, I’ll… I’ll…”

Jasper raised his eyebrows. The main physical difference between Con Huxtable and Moreland, he realized for the first time, was the color of their eyes. They could easily pass for brothers, almost twins, but Con’s eyes matched his dark Greek coloring. They were such a dark brown at the moment that they might easily be mistaken for black. Moreland’s were a surprising blue.

“So help me, Montford,” Con said, still between his teeth, “I’ll put your lights out.”

“Fortunately for me-or for you, Con,” Jasper said, “since I daresay you would not enjoy an appointment with the hangman, you will never be called upon to put your threat into effect. Tell me, did you always know about that wager?”

Con released him suddenly and took one step back. His nostrils flared.

“I knew,” he said curtly. “You would have been a dead man if you had won it.”

“And yet,” Jasper said, “it is only now that you choose to demonstrate your righteous indignation? Three years after the fact?”

“Some things are best not spoken of,” Con said. “Sometimes it is best not to stir up gossip, especially when it will swallow up an innocent-as it has now.”

“Courtesy of Forester,” Jasper said. “Do have a seat, Con, or pour yourself a drink, or pace the carpet. I find my eyes having a hard time focusing at such close range.”

“Merton has a powerful arm,” Con said, stepping back. “He almost certainly broke Forester’s nose. Both his eyes are black today from the impact.”

“You have seen him?” Jasper said, crossing to the brandy decanter in order to pour them both a drink.

“One of the servants left behind obviously felt no need to be loyal or closemouthed,” Con said. “I suspect he had not been paid.”

“That will teach him to take employment with someone of Forester’s ilk,” Jasper said, turning with both glasses in his hand. “Katherine Huxtable is to be my bride in one month’s time-as soon as the banns have been read. Banns have been judged more proper than a special license under the circumstances. The nuptials are to be celebrated at St. George’s, of course. You will be my best man if you will, Con.”

14

KATHERINE’S prediction proved quite correct. Although by the time of her wedding day it was July and the Season was officially over and normally the ton would already have made a mass exodus for their country estates or Brighton or one of the spas, a significant number of them remained in town to attend the event.

Baron Montford was actually getting married. No one could resist seeing it happen, especially since the circumstances surrounding it had been so very scandalous. And everyone had always considered Katherine Huxtable to be so very proper and so very respectable. It was hard to picture her as the bride of such a notorious rake, poor lady. Though of course she had brought it all entirely upon herself by allowing him to dangle after her this year despite that shocking wager of three years ago. She was fortunate indeed that he was willing to do the decent thing. It would have been entirely in character if he had abandoned her to her fate.

The Duke and Duchess of Moreland were to host a wedding breakfast at Moreland House following the nuptials. The bride and groom were to leave for the country immediately after for a brief honeymoon before the arrival of the houseguests who had been invited to Cedarhurst Park to celebrate Miss Wrayburn’s eighteenth birthday. Those guests were the envy of the ton. They were to have all the pleasure of witnessing the early progress of such an unlikely union.

But for now it was Katherine’s wedding day.

She was wearing a new pale blue muslin gown that fell in soft folds from its high waistline to the silver-embroidered hem. Similar embroidery trimmed the short puffed sleeves and the modestly scooped neck.

Her new straw bonnet was lavishly trimmed with blue cornflowers and was held in place beneath her chin with wide blue silk ribbons.

The white gold chain about her neck with its faceted diamond pendant, which to her mind resembled a large teardrop, had been a betrothal gift from her bridegroom.

She wore long white gloves and silver slippers.

She knew she was looking her best. She needed to. Today had very little to do with her except that following it she would be married forever after to Lord Montford. No, today was all about respectability, belonging, accepting the rules and conventions of society. She was a member of society whether she liked it or not. She had been ever since Elliott, still Viscount Lyngate at the time, had ridden into Throckbridge to inform Stephen that he was the Earl of Merton. She owed it to her family to fit into society as best she could.

And when all was said and done, her family was all that really mattered. She loved them. She was doing this primarily for them, though they would be perturbed if they knew it. All of them at one time or other during the past month had found time for a private tete-a-tete with her and had urged her to put an end to the betrothal and wedding preparations if she really did not want to marry Lord Montford. Each had offered his or her undying support if she made such a decision.

Margaret and Vanessa were in her dressing room now. They had both stopped in the doorway to exclaim with admiration and assure her that she looked beautiful.

“And we were quite right about the color,” Meg said, coming closer to take Katherine’s hands in her own-with a painfully tight grip. “It is the very best color and shade for you. It matches your eyes and flatters your hair. Oh, Kate, are you quite, quite sure…”

Meg had even offered to move somewhere in the country with her if she wished-far away from London and Warren Hall and even Throckbridge. They would be quiet and happy together in a small cottage for the rest of their lives, and the beau monde could go to Hades-Meg’s own words.

Poor Meg! This was all harder on her than on anyone else with the possible exception of Katherine herself. She had given years of her life since their father’s death-all of her youth and most of her twenties, in fact-to the care of her brother and sisters. She had even given up Crispin Dew, the man she had loved and perhaps still did. Her one goal had always been to see them well settled in life. But more important even than that, she had wanted to see them all happily settled.

Katherine smiled and returned the pressure of Meg’s hands.

“Of course I am sure, silly goose,” she said, as she had said numerous times before. “I was horribly embarrassed by all those foolish stories a month ago, it is true, and I was terribly angry at having my hand so forced. And of course I was not best pleased with Lord Montford either since in many ways-though not in every way-he was the cause of it all. But that is all in the past now, and I am well content with what has come of it. I am twenty-three years old and eager to marry at last-and I am to do it with the man of my choice. I really am enormously fond of him, you know.”

She was overdoing it. That word enormously especially did not ring at all true. But Meg was looking reassured nonetheless.

“Then I am content too,” she said, tears brightening her eyes. “And I do believe he has a regard for you too, Kate. Oh, I think so, and I thought it even before all this nastiness happened. I will forgive him all his sins against you if this turns into the love match I dream of for you.”

Vanessa took Meg’s place and hugged Katherine tightly.

“You know,” she said, “I did not at all love Elliott when I married him, and he certainly did not love me. How could he when I was the one who proposed marriage to him, poor man. I believe he could barely tolerate me, in fact.”

She laughed merrily and stepped back.

Elliott had been looking about him for a bride when he first assumed guardianship of Stephen, and being an unromantic soul at the time, he had fixed his choice on Meg for pure convenience’s sake. But Meg had been waiting for Crispin Dew, who had gone off to war. Nessie had known, though, that Meg had a strong sense of family duty and was very likely to say yes to Elliott purely because she would think the marriage in the best interest of her family. And so Nessie, in a grand gesture of self-sacrifice, had proposed to Elliott before he had a chance to propose to Meg. And he had married her.

“But now,” Nessie said, her rather plain face suddenly beautiful with animation, “we not only love each other dearly, we are also deeply in love. If there is the will to love, Kate, then love itself will follow in lavish abundance. I promise.”

“But I already do love Lord Montford,” Katherine protested. “And he loves me.”

She was overdoing it again.

“Of course.” Vanessa’s smile suggested that she knew it but that she was filled with hope anyway. “Of course you do. Oh, I so want you to be happy. I want both my sisters to be happy. And Stephen too, though he is far too young to worry about yet.”

She blinked back tears and laughed again.

And then Stephen himself appeared in the doorway, looking splendidly handsome and very grown up in black and white.

“Kate,” he said, coming inside and reaching out his hands to take hers in a strong clasp, “my favorite sister, I would feel bound to say if you were not all three my favorites. I wish I could have been an older brother so that I could have offered some of the care and protection that you all always gave me. I wish I did not have to give you up so soon. But Monty is a decent man despite everything. I am convinced of it. There is nothing vicious about him. I could never have been his friend if there had been. He will treat you well.”