Robert’s uncritical affection he had always been assured of, but he should not have been surprised at his father’s chilly reception. Nor should he have been surprised at the feelings that had gripped him as the landscape had become more and more familiar. Affection, memory, pride and the dragging knowledge that one day all this would be his responsibility. All the acres, all the possessions, all the people inescapably his until the day he died. And then the shock of seeing his home again. The rush of water to his eyes had startled him; perhaps he loved the place more than he had ever realised.
And now he had one more responsibility to worry about—Kat. He remembered the way her eyes had widened and darkened with the dawning knowledge of what she was about to discover of the man she had married. Unconsciously he smiled at the picture of her as she stood in the Great Hall, chin up, back straight, making appropriate conversation with Heron, determined to let neither of them down.
‘I did not tell her who I am—she had no idea until Heron called me by my title,’ he confessed, unpleasantly aware that he was going to be expected to explain himself once Katherine had him alone.
‘No wonder she looks so coolly at you! Why do you want to stay married if she does not?’ Robert asked.
‘Because I owe her my life. I can never pay that debt.’ And because making love to her is rapidly becoming an obsession.
‘And you will persist whether she wants it or not?’
‘Whether she wants it or not,’ he agreed harshly.
A cough announced Heron’s reappearance. ‘My lord, I have asked Lord Robert’s man to lay out a suit of clothes for you from his lordship’s wardrobe. What you are wearing may, of course, be most suitable for travelling, but I fear his Grace will not look kindly upon a frieze coat at the luncheon table.’ He looked pointedly at the clock and both brothers made for the door with alacrity.
‘I remember all too well our father’s views on unpunctuality,’ Nick observed as they parted on the upper landing. ‘I have no wish to render today any more hideous by being three minutes late.’
Robert grinned and slapped him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Welcome home.’
Katherine stood and looked helplessly out across the parkland to the lake.
With her hands full of folded garments, Jenny was chattering happily as she moved between portmanteau and highboy drawers. ‘A Marchioness! Who’d have thought it? And I’ve just realised—that puts me top of all the female servants excepting the housekeeper. Oh, Miss Katherine, just when things looked so black, this is a miracle.’
‘Well, do not get too used to it, Jenny.’ Katherine tossed a fine linen hand towel on to the washstand and gave her appearance a distracted glance in the mirror. ‘We have no choice but to stay here until the annulment, but after that I must be earning my own way.’
‘But, Miss Katherine, the master’s a lord, the heir to a dukedom. You don’t need to worry about the debt—he must make more money than that in a week. And you lo—’ she caught Katherine’s eye, bit her lip and continued carefully ‘—you like him.’
‘You are talking nonsense.’ Katherine twitched at her hem. In a minute she was going to have to go downstairs, face the three men again. ‘Lord Seaton is heir to a dukedom. For that reason alone he must marry well.’
Jenny bristled in her defence. ‘You are well bred, a lady.’
‘Oh, Jenny, a duke is going to be looking for an heiress for his oldest son. He will expect a young lady of lineage and land, someone whose family has connections at Court and in society. Not, of course, that I would not be seeking the annulment in any case, however good my birth,’ she added hastily. Could the heir to a dukedom marry for love? Stop it, she scolded herself, He is not in love with you, that is an academic question.
Somewhere far below her a gong sounded, reverberated. Luncheon was obviously served. Now all I have to do is find the correct dining room in this labyrinth, sit through a meal with a terrifying duke and a man I love and from whom I must hide every tender feeling …
‘I must go. Jenny, have they looked after you? Do you know where to go and have you a chamber to sleep in? And what about John?’ she added distractedly as Jenny pushed her firmly out of the room.
‘I have a very nice room to myself, as befits my new station, and so has John, I believe. And I know the way to the servants’ hall. Now go, Miss Katherine, or you’ll keep the Duke waiting.’
She made her way downstairs slowly, taking the time to compose herself and wishing that for the last few years she had not been so out of society. Not that she would ever have been in a position to make conversation with dukes.
Heron was waiting in the hall and steered her towards, ‘The panelled dining room, my lady. It is the smallest of the dining rooms.’
‘Thank you, Heron.’ She was pleased with the calm way she smiled at him as he opened the door. It was, indeed, a small chamber; Katherine had been envisaging glossy yards of mahogany and having to attempt conversation around gleaming épergnes.
Her relief was abruptly terminated when she realised that the only other occupant was the Duke. His smile, unexpected, was all too reminiscent of Nick at his coolest and she felt her back stiffen as she returned it.
‘You are very prompt, my dear. You found your way with ease, I surmise. Are you comfortable in your suite? Ah, my sons are at your heels.’
Katherine avoided looking at any of the men as she nodded acknowledgement to the footman who pulled out a chair for her and took her place at the table.
‘Most comfortable, thank you, your Grace.’ Acutely conscious of the rigid footmen at the buffet, Katherine was profoundly grateful that he made no comment on the choice of rooms that Heron had assigned to her. Doubtless it would be all over the house in no time that the Marquis was not sharing his wife’s bed. She felt a flush of embarrassment, then thought of how much more Nick would feel it.
‘Has your journey taken you long?’ She pulled herself together and concentrated on making conversation. Naturally the Duke could not ask her where she had come from in front of the servants; he would be endeavouring to make this surprise arrival seem as normal as possible. She set herself to give him as much information as she could without appearing to.
‘We took several days over it, your Grace. Nicholas needed to rest, of course, as he has not been well.’ Katherine ignored the suppressed exclamation from her husband’s lips. ‘The weather in London was very clement when we left.’
‘And your family is well?’
‘My brother is travelling in France, your Grace. Since my parents’ deaths, he has little business, and no family other than myself, to keep him in this county. He left shortly after the wedding.’ Doubtless the Duke’s first recourse when he had returned to the library had been to the Peerage and the Landed Gentry. He would know by now that she had no relatives other than a brother and that their birth, while respectable, was as nothing compared to his.
The meal passed with a rigid formality, which left Katherine dreading dinner. Conversation was measured, general, and left her quivering with tension. The weather, the news of local events, the prospect of a touring company of players at Newcastle and the latest London on-dits served to fill the time unexceptionally. Katherine decided that if it went on much longer she would scream.
Cautiously she glanced at Nicholas while accepting a plate of bread and butter or passing the salt. He appeared calm and relaxed, but she could sense a suppressed emotion in him; doubtless he wanted to have the interview with his father for which he had been bracing himself and this mannered inaction was chafing his nerves as the shackles had chafed his wrists.
Finally the Duke sat back and regarded his family ranged on either side of him. ‘Nicholas, I would speak with you. Robert, perhaps Katherine would care to be shown around the house.’ It was an order, not a suggestion,