Kitty’s bosom swelled. ‘How abominably selfish! It is your fault I am in this mess, and you even suggested I may be your cousin after all, and it is not as if I am asking for the moon.’

‘No, but—’

Kitty swept over him. ‘If you refuse me, it will be the horridest thing imaginable, for it is only a spangled gown and a pair of silk stockings. Unless you have not enough money either to pay for such things?’

Claud slowed the carriage. ‘I can stand the nonsense, never fear. It ain’t that at all. Only I don’t see how I’m to do it without the confounded mantua-maker thinking you’re my che`re amie. A man don’t otherwise take a female to buy gowns unless he’s betrothed to her, or they are at least related.’

Kitty digested this in silence for a moment. The curricle had drawn in to the side of the road, which at least indicated willingness. If she let this opportunity slip, there might never be another. Desperately she searched her mind, and found a solution. She turned eagerly to Claud.

‘I know. You may pretend that I am Kate.’

About to reject this idea on the score that his cousin would scorn to wear the type of gown Kitty had specified, Claud caught the deeply hopeful look in her face and the words died on his tongue. If he thought poorly of her choice, why should he dash the girl’s only hope of pleasure? She had little enough to look forward to. It would make him late for the last ball of the season, but that couldn’t be helped.

‘You win, Miss Merrick! Let us repair to a mantua-maker.’

Concealed from the eyes of the curious in a private parlour at the White Bear inn, Kitty sat in a happy daze as she partook of the luncheon provided for her by her abductor. It was a trifle stuffy in the little first-floor room, and Claud had been obliged to force the casement window open to let in air. Kitty felt the benefit, for the table at which they were seated was fortunately set parallel to the embrasure, and she was able also to enjoy the comings and goings in the busy thoroughfare of Piccadilly below.

Although she much enjoyed the selection of delicacies placed before her, together with sturdier pasties of which Kitty partook only sparingly, this luxurious entertainment was not responsible for her contentment. Rather it was the thought of the made-up gown that was even now being adjusted to fit her full figure.

The establishment to which Claud had taken her had been disappointingly situated not in Bond Street itself, but in a little lane off the main thoroughfare. Its discreet entrance had been indistinguishable from the other doors except for a small plaque upon the wall. A narrow staircase had led them into a little salon, presided over by a female of French origin, who evidently knew the Viscount of old. She had treated Claud to roguish smiles and, upon hearing that she was to gown his cousin, a suspiciously knowing look that had made Kitty uncomfortable. She could only hope the creature’s inevitable reflections had been quieted by Lord Devenick’s glib explanation.

‘My cousin has taken a fancy to a style of gown that her mama refuses to let her wear, Madame, and so I have agreed that she may purchase it so that she may please herself after we are married.’

If Madame wondered why the lady did not make the purchase after the wedding, she said nothing of it, but immediately asked after the style proposed.

‘I wish for a spangled gown,’ had said Kitty breathlessly, fixing hopeful eyes upon the woman. ‘Have you got one?’

‘Bien sûr. We ’ave zis gown, and many uzzers.’

White muslins, sprigged, spotted and spangled, had danced before Kitty’s eyes as Madame’s assistant produced them for her inspection. In her imaginings from the drawing she had once seen, the treasured vision had been scattered with gold. But when she was shown a delicate white gauze, sprinkled over with silver threads and tiny sparkles of glass beading that caught the light, Kitty fell instantly in love.

‘Oh, this one, this one, if you please!’ she had cried, turning ecstatically to the man who had suddenly become her benefactor. ‘Can it be this one, Claud? Pray say I may have it!’

‘Have it, by all means,’ had come the welcome response. ‘Only hadn’t you best try it on first? No sense in buying the thing if it don’t fit you.’

Hardly able to believe in the good fortune that had come out of this disastrous journey, Kitty had allowed herself to be bundled out of the horrid pink gown and into soft folds of muslin that floated about her. To her intense disappointment, the gown had been a trifle tight across the bosom, and a little long at the hem. But her mirror image was so delectable that Kitty would willingly have put up with these inconveniences, had it not been for Madame’s suggestion that an adjustment could easily be made if mademoiselle were prepared to return later for the gown.

‘But I cannot! I must go home immediately, and I doubt I shall ever come here again.’

Kitty’s distress had been acute, but to her relief, the matter had been resolved by the resourcefulness of Lord Devenick, who had urged the mantua-maker to do the necessary alterations at once, while they repaired to an inn for a meal.

‘For I don’t mind telling you, Kitty, I’m as hungry as a hunter, and if I’m to drive all the way to Paddington and back, I’d as lief not do it on an empty stomach.’

As long as she might have the precious spangled gown, Kitty had no fault to find with this programme. And indeed, when they had left the little shop and set off in the curricle for the nearby White Bear in Piccadilly, she had discovered that she was also excessively hungry.

For some time, both parties were too preoccupied for conversation, Kitty’s attention being divided between the potted beef spread upon hot buttered toast and the mental picture of herself arrayed in the new gown, while Claud concentrated on replenishing his stores of energy. At length he pushed aside his plate, the huge slice of pigeon pie upon it considerably diminished, and sat back, apparently replete.

He did not immediately engage in conversation, but quaffed a tankard of ale, his frowning blue gaze so intent upon Kitty’s features that she could not but become aware of it. Disconcerted, she challenged him.

‘I wish you will not stare so! Have you not yet accustomed yourself to the likeness?’

Claud shook his head briefly. ‘Shouldn’t think I ever would. If I were to continue to see you, that is.’

‘Well, you won’t, so you may cease to look at me in that excessively rude fashion.’

‘I’m thinking,’ protested Claud, aggrieved.

‘About me?’

He took a pull from his tankard. ‘Got a notion revolving in my head. No, I won’t tell you what it is. Not yet, in any event.’

Curiosity gnawed at Kitty, together with a trifle of anxiety caused by the peculiar intensity of his speech. ‘But is it about me?’

‘Dash it, who else would it be about?’

Incensed, Kitty exploded. ‘Then why will you not say it? I think it is excessively mean-spirited of you to mention it at all if you don’t mean to tell me what it is. Has it to do with my likeness to Kate? Do you think you have guessed what your aunt would not reveal about me? Oh, tell me, Claud, pray!’

‘Lord, if it was that, of course I should tell you!’

He rose from his seat and began to shift about in the confines of the small parlour, wishing that he had held his tongue. The scheme revolving in his head was fantastic, but it would not do to say a word of it to the girl until he had thoroughly inspected its merits. It was difficult to think with those expressive eyes trained upon him. They were very like Kate’s, but with a velvet sheen that was lacking in his cousin’s. Even in repose—when Kitty had been sitting in a dreamlike state, unaware of his regard—they had been striking.

However, it was not her pretty features that had brought the notion sneaking into his head, but the effect of them upon his aunt Silvia, and the lively apprehension she had exhibited of Lady Blakemere’s reaction should the episode reach her ears.

Claud did not wholly believe that the idea had struck him, but there was no shaking it off. Was it because the girl had herself made mention of it? He had repudiated it then—in no uncertain terms. As well he might. It was madness! Only now that it had planted itself in his head, the temptation was so strong that he doubted he could withstand it. The Countess would be as mad as fire! It was too much to hope that she might go off in an apoplexy, but the blow would assuredly fall hard. Such exhilaration attacked him at the thought that Claud had all to do not to throw caution to the winds on the instant. Kitty’s voice checked him.

‘You look quite murderous! What are you thinking?’ He uttered a short laugh. ‘Thinking of my mother, the Countess.’ He was unaware that his lip curled in a manner that was uncharacteristically sardonic. ‘That’s enough to make anyone look murderous!’

Kitty gave a little shiver, her eyes fixed upon the horrid look in his face. He was the oddest man. All kindness one moment, the next a brutish unpredictable creature. What had his mother done to make him hate her so?

‘Is it your mother who wishes you to marry Kate?’

‘Aunt Silvia wishes for it too, but yes, the Countess took the notion. Only because Grandmama chooses to settle a dowry upon Kate. She pretends it is for Kate’s own sake, but I know better. The Rothleys may lack fortune, but they ain’t precisely paupers. Only the Countess had my father make my aunt an allowance, and she thinks to recover something from it.’

‘But it was kind of her to do that, was it not?’ Claud’s snort was bitter. ‘Don’t run away with that notion! Kind? Nothing of the sort. The Countess cares only for what Society may say of us. She sets store wholly by appearances, and my aunt was not to be suspected of being purse-pinched, regardless of the fact that everybody knows my uncle Rothley wasted much of his substance.’

This glimpse into the lives of a family of whom she was certainly a part threw Kitty into a combination of excitement and frustration. She longed to know more, yet the horrified reception of her advent convinced her that she had no right to pry. No right, and no reason either. What advantage could it be to her to learn the worst? There had been, in her insistence upon a past couched in mystery, a touch of romance. She had guessed at a hint of unlawful beginnings, convinced that she had been the outcome of an illicit liaison between a peer and an equally high-born married lady. Vague and hazy memories had been at root of her piecing together of this history. But gowned in Kitty’s colourful imaginings, it had never been tainted with the disgrace of sordid scandal. At a blow, Claud’s aunt Silvia had destroyed the comforting blanket of childish desire, and exposed Kitty for what she truly was—an outcast.

The bleak reality of her situation, which had been held at bay in the joy of her new gown, came in on her. All at once, she wanted to be back in the familiar surroundings of the Seminary, where if she was valued little, she was at least accepted. She pushed back her chair and got up from the table.

‘Should we not be starting for Paddington, sir?’

The rapid descent of her mood had not been lost on Claud. The forlorn look in those velvet eyes drew his instant compassion. The words were out before he could stop them.

‘We are not going to Paddington. I’ve thought better of that notion and have settled upon a new plan. We are going to Gretna Green.’

Chapter Three

Kitty gaped at him. Convinced she could not have heard aright, she uttered a fluttery laugh. ‘You cannot mean you wish to elope with me!’

Did Claud’s features look paler? Had she shocked him? She recalled his horrified reaction when she had merely mentioned his being forced to marry her to make reparation. But if he had indeed said they were going to Gretna Green, he must mean an elopement. He was frowning heavily, his blue gaze clouding.

‘I don’t wish to! At least—’

He broke off, cursing himself for an impetuous fool. He should have held his tongue! Only he hadn’t, and here was the girl, staring at him with those distressful brown eyes that were beginning to show hurt again. He moved to the table, grasping the back of a chair with both hands as if he might draw strength from it.

‘What I mean is, I didn’t intend to say it yet. Been thinking it over, you see, while we were eating.’

‘You have been thinking of taking me to Gretna?’

The disbelief in her voice was patent. He shifted his shoulders, acutely uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly. Thinking of marriage. Only said Gretna because I supposed you to be under age.’ It occurred to him to question this. ‘How old are you? Much of Kate’s age, I’d have thought. She’s nineteen.’

Kitty lifted her chin. ‘Well, I have the advantage of her, for I am one and twenty.’

‘Are you, by Gad?’ uttered Claud eagerly. ‘Then we needn’t go north, after all!’

She was obliged to dash this hope immediately. ‘I should have said almost one and twenty. My birthday is in July.’

Claud’s face fell. ‘That’s a pity. It will have to be Gretna then. Can’t marry you otherwise without the consent of your guardians.’

‘I have no g-guardians,’ objected Kitty unsteadily. ‘And Mrs Duxford would have a f-fit!’

Her pulse was behaving in a distressingly irregular fashion, and her brain was reeling at the realisation that Claud had indeed put forward the idea of marrying her. The protest bubbled up without volition.

‘And when I said it in your curricle, you nearly had a fit!’

‘I know, but—’

‘You said distinctly that I must not think of such a thing!’

‘Yes, because I hadn’t thought it over. Changed my mind since then.’

Kitty eyed him in mounting perplexity, sinking back down into her chair. He did not look as if he had taken leave of his senses, but then she scarce knew him. Except to be aware that he was both rash and impulsive. And both to her cost. Oh, he was mad! It was an impossible notion, she had at least brains enough to see that. She drew a resolute breath, gripping her fingers together in her lap.

‘You cannot have considered, sir. There can be no question of our being married. Only think what your aunt Silvia would say!’ In automatic mimicry of his obese aunt, she uttered, ‘Don’t do it, Devenick, I implore you!’

A shout of laughter was surprised out of Claud. ‘That’s very good, Kitty! Sounds exactly like her.’

But Kitty, whose talent in aping the voices of others was almost second nature, was hardly aware of doing it. She brushed it impatiently aside.

‘Never mind that! Only think of your mother’s reaction if we were to be wed, for your aunt distinctly told you I don’t know how many times that—’

‘Yes, and that’s just what decided me to marry you!’ declared Claud, pulling out a chair and reseating himself. He leaned across the table. ‘I don’t doubt the Countess will kick up the devil of a dust, for she’s bound to. But there ain’t anything she can do once the deed’s done.’

Appalled, Kitty blinked dazedly. ‘You cannot mean it, Claud! You know that I am the family skeleton. How can you possibly marry me? What about the scandal?’

Claud thumped the table. ‘That’s just it. We don’t know that there will be any scandal. If there was one, it must have happened eons ago. I dare say only the family would remember it, and—’

‘You are forgetting that I look just like Kate,’ interrupted Kitty. ‘Even if nobody remembers it now, they will do so the moment they see me.’

‘Don’t see that at all. In my experience, the ton’s memory ain’t long. They’ll be too busy blessing themselves at the likeness to be concerned how it comes about.’

‘That is exactly what will concern them, and the gossip will be hateful!’

‘It won’t. We’ll think up a tale that will satisfy people, and there’s an end to it.’

Kitty erupted. ‘If that is not just typical of you! It is exactly what you said to me when I asked you what I should say to the Duck.’

‘Yes, and wasn’t I right?’ he argued. ‘You thought of that spangled gown!’

‘That is nothing to the purpose. This is entirely different. What tale will we think up? What tale could there possibly be to account for my likeness to Kate, except that I am somebody’s natural daughter?’

Claud sat back, the frown returning to his brow. ‘Someone’s by-blow? Hang it, I suppose you must be! I wonder who it might be?’

Kitty gazed at him dumbly. Was that all he cared for? Had he no pride? It was all of a piece with his selfishness. Could he not see how she must suffer if people were to whisper about her dubious antecedents? She began at last to wonder why he had determined upon such a course. He was not in love with her. How could he be? Nor she with him, if it came to that. He was personable enough, the more so without his hat when the fair locks did much to improve him. But in character—well, suffice it that his attraction diminished rapidly the more she knew of it!

Only to have such an opportunity dangled in front of her nose—and by a self-confessed lord!—was altogether too tempting. Had it not been for that dreadful reception at the Haymarket house, Kitty could well have been persuaded into taking him at his word. But if Claud had no pride, she had little else!

‘It is useless to think of who might have fathered me,’ she said, not without a touch of resentment, ‘for I doubt we shall ever know. And I have no intention of going to Gretna Green. All I wish for is that you will deliver me safely to the Seminary.’

Claud eyed her with misgiving. She was looking a trifle stormy. Perhaps it was the manner of his offer—if one could call it such—that had offended her. She was a sensitive little thing, that much he had deduced from their short acquaintance. Should he give up the scheme? No, he was hanged if he would! He hurried into speech.

‘You can’t pretend you’d rather go for a governess than marry me, Kitty. Not that I’m a coxcomb, but it ain’t reasonable. And if I take you back to the Seminary, what else is there for you?’

‘And if I were to marry you, I might as well have been a governess, for I don’t doubt that your family will repudiate me, if Society did not.’

‘Aha! But they can’t repudiate you, can they? Mean to say, there you are, as like to Kate as makes no odds. No one can say you ain’t related, be it to the Rothleys, the Cheddons or the Hevershams. And you’re known to Aunt Silvia as well as the Countess, and I’ll lay any odds they know exactly how you are related to us. What’s more, it can’t be an accident that you were christened Katherine, for it’s a name common in our family. M’sister Kath is one, as well as Kate. Called after my grandmother Litton. Dare say if there’d been a Heversham girl, she’d be Katherine too.’

His words were torture to Kitty. She longed to ask about the names he was throwing out. Yet, the knowledge of having already been repudiated—and as a helpless child to boot—could not but whip up her resentment. And Claud expected her to expose herself to the censure of all these people!

‘I wish you will not talk of it! I told you before, I don’t care to hear about your family.’

‘Your family, you mean,’ corrected Claud.

‘They are not my family! If they are, they do not deserve to be, and I will not thrust myself upon them for any consideration in the world, so you may forget this silly idea of marrying me. I will not do it! And why you should have thought of it at all has me in a puzzle.’

But Claud did not intend to expound his reasons. Not the deep truth of them, at any rate. It was not for Kitty to recognise the violent pull of the vision in his head of his mother—utterly confounded! He had it all fixed in his mind.

‘Why, ma’am, what is the matter?’ he would say. ‘You wished me to make a union with my cousin Kate. To all appearances, I’ve obeyed you. This girl is undoubtedly my cousin, too, and as you can see, she is Katherine Rothley in all but name.’

Glee enveloped him as he imagined the features of the Countess, contorted with rage and chagrin—as they would be, by Jupiter! It would be worth any inconvenience, any unfortunate consequence, only to pay her back for the ills he had endured at her hands.

But it began to look as if Kitty was beyond persuasion. He searched his mind for arguments to sway her. He must do so, for now that the scheme had come to him, he was loath to give it up. She had averted her gaze, and was sipping at the remains of the lemonade she had drunk with her luncheon. There was no denying she was likely to be a handful, though she was a comely piece. Not that he had doubts of being able to handle her. He might be obliged to take drastic measures now and then, but it would not be beyond his power to gain the mastery over her, rebellious though she undoubtedly was.

‘I suppose you realise,’ he said conversationally, ‘that there’s little you can do about it, if I do choose to take you to Gretna Green.’

Her head jerked round, the brown eyes round with shock. ‘You would not dare to force me!’

‘Why not? Abducted you easily enough once, as you insisted on calling it. I can readily do so again. Only I should much prefer not to have to go to so much trouble.’

Kitty stared at him, her pulses in disarray. Why had she allowed herself to forget what a brute he was? That stubborn chin was jutting dangerously, and the blue eyes held an inflexible glint. She quailed inwardly, and could not keep the dismay from her voice.

‘But why should you wish to? I don’t understand!’

Claud uttered a short laugh. ‘Isn’t it obvious? If I’m married to you, the Countess and my aunt will have to give up the notion of my marrying Kate. And I’ll tell them the family owes you something and I’m repaying it. No denying you’d be a deal more comfortable married to me than slaving as a governess.’

Kitty was far from denying it. But she had been brought up to recognise right from wrong, and this was indubitably wrong. She hardly knew that she spoke aloud.

‘Nell would counsel me to refuse, I know she would. Indeed, even Prue would say I must not do it.’

A vague recollection of having heard these names before came to Claud. ‘Don’t know who they may be, but why should they object to me?’

‘Not to you! Nell and Prue were my dearest friends at the Seminary, only they both went out as governesses and Prue has married Mr Rookham and Nell is betrothed to Lord Jarrow.’

‘Why did they go as governesses then, if they planned to be married?’

Kitty tutted. ‘You don’t understand, sir. Mr Rookham hired Prue to look after his two little nieces, and Nell went as governess to Lord Jarrow’s daughter.’

‘Good Gad! D’you mean to say they both married their employers?’

‘Well, Nell is not married yet, but was it not the most romantic thing imaginable?’

‘I don’t know about that, but I can’t see why either should put a bar in the way of your marriage, if that’s the way of it.’

Kitty sighed. ‘Had you been another man, perhaps they would not. But I know they would say I must not marry you in the circumstances. Though I must confess it is what I have always wanted.’

Claud blinked. ‘You always wanted to marry me? But you didn’t know me!’

‘I wanted to marry a lord,’ explained Kitty, adding wistfully, ‘Indeed, I have believed all my life that it was my true destiny. I could not believe that I was meant for a governess.’

‘Well, you couldn’t choose better than me,’ put in Claud briskly, ‘for I am a viscount, you must know, and heir to the Earldom of Blakemere.’

Kitty’s heart skipped a beat. ‘An earl? Oh, no!’

‘What’s wrong with an earl?’ demanded Claud, nettled.

‘Nothing indeed. Except that it is too much of a temptation!’

She smiled abruptly, and Claud was conscious of a faint warmth at his chest. She was a taking little thing, there was no doubt of that.

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