Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

Even here there was a branch of candles on a side table by the fireplace and the fire itself was alight, banked up behind a wide brass screen. The great winged chairs on either side looked warm and inviting, the most homely sight she had seen since she set foot in the mansion.

Books were everywhere, filling the shelves, in piles on the floor and heaped on tables. She began to turn over one pile, delighted to find it consisted of novels, and recent ones at that. She took two at random, then went to curl up in the nearest wing chair, tucking her feet up under her with a little sigh of pleasure; books had always been a refuge when having to think about, and face, reality became too much.

Katherine flicked open the first book and found it was Scott’s Waverley. Good, she had missed that last year. She leaned forward to set the other volume on the table next to the candlestick and almost dropped both in shock.

‘Hello, Kat. Is the fire warm enough for you?’

It was Nick, leaning back in the shadowed depths of the other wing chair, enveloped in the dark folds of a silk dressing gown, a glass of brandy cupped in his hands.

‘Oh! You … I had no idea you were here, that anyone was.’ She swung her legs down and began to get to her feet. ‘I am sorry, I will go.’

‘No, sit down, please, Kat. I did not want to scare you away. What brought you down here? If the fire in your room has gone out, you only have to ring.’

‘I wanted a book to read, that is all. And I would not dream of disturbing the staff at this hour of the night.’

Nick shrugged. ‘Someone is always on duty.’

‘It seems ridiculous, on the off chance that someone might want something at two in the morning—I am sorry, that was rude of me, of course his Grace must order his household as he sees fit. This is his home, your home.’ Home sounded a hopelessly inadequate word for this place. ‘Palace,’ she corrected herself.

‘Does it seem like one to you?’ Nick sounded amused. ‘I suppose I just think of it as normal. I was brought up here, played in the corridors, fought the suits of armour, climbed up the ivy. Fell off the ivy,’ he added with a grin. ‘And into the lake.’

‘It is magnificent,’ Katherine said. ‘It is not that I do not appreciate it, just that tonight I needed somewhere cosy.’

Cosy, she chided herself. What a ridiculous word to use.

‘Was our cell cosy?’ Nick asked, the smile still in his voice.

‘Our cell?’ Katherine laughed. ‘How wonderfully domestic that sounds. I should imagine no one has ever thought of a Newgate cell with any affection before.’

‘Do you think of it with affection?’ She was becoming used to the flickering firelight now, could see the lines of his face etched by the light and shadows.

‘Yes,’ she said, then caught herself, surprised. ‘Yes,’ she repeated slowly. ‘It was so … safe. I was so frightened before—of the debt, of what Philip had done, of what was going to become of us.’

‘Of me?’

‘No, never of you. Never from the moment I saw you,’ she said vehemently.

‘Why ever not?’ Nick twisted in his chair so he could look directly into her face. ‘I must have looked terrifying.’

‘Your eyes were not. And you are … big. That is reassuring. And I just felt that if anything threatened me you would stand in the way and whatever, whoever it was, would never get past you.’ She sat back, alarmed at her own frankness.

‘Then let me keep you safe!’ He was on his feet in a swirl of rich, dark silk, the firelight glinting off his hair, raising red lights in it. He looked magnificent, angry, barbaric and Katherine’s heart missed a beat. ‘Forget this nonsense about an annulment and let this marriage stand.’

‘No.’ She stayed in her chair; it was too dangerous to get closer to that male energy, that powerful force. ‘It would be wrong. I take marriage very seriously. I have the example of my parents to guide me and I will settle for nothing less than a love match and a marriage of equals.’

‘You are a stubborn woman.’ He came to a halt in front of her, silhouetted against the flame so she could not make out his face as she stared up. ‘I could, so easily, ensure you could never get your annulment.’

‘And you would never force me. We discovered that last night,’ Katherine said, keeping her voice steady with an effort that hurt.

Nick threw himself down in his chair again and eyed her ominously. ‘It seems we have a stalemate.’

‘No, we have an agreement,’ Katherine said. ‘And in twenty-five days you are going to honour it.’

Silence. Then Nick let out a huff of frustrated breath. Katherine curled up more tightly in her chair and waited.

Eventually he said, ‘Why could you not sleep? Are you worried about Father?’

‘The Duke? Why, no, I like him.’

‘You do?’ His brows slanted up in surprise.

‘Yes, of course. You are very like him. And Robert, of course, I like him too.’

‘Then what is it?’

Katherine bit her lip. ‘Oh, dear, this sounds so rude and ungrateful. But it is my bedchamber. It is so … so chilly.’

‘Then we must have a fire rekindled, fetch you some warmer bedcoverings. Tomorrow I will have the sashes checked, there must be a draught—’

Terrified that he would ring for servants on the spot, Katherine stammered, ‘No, it is not the temperature. Oh, this is so foolish of me.’

Nick was on his feet. ‘Come along, let me see for myself.’

‘But, Nick, we cannot walk about the house together at this time of night!’ Katherine let herself be pulled to her feet because struggling did not appear to be of much use, but she quailed at the thought of being seen walking about the corridors at two in the morning in her nightclothes in company with her … with Nick.

‘Why ever not?’

‘But the servants!’

‘Yes?’ His eyebrows rose with all the unconscious arrogance of a marquis in his own home. ‘You are my wife. Why should I not walk where I wish with you?’

He was already halfway to the door, her hand held firmly in his. ‘And when they find out about the annulment? What then?’

‘They will assume I am insane,’ he said grimly, stepping out into the hall. ‘Provided they keep that opinion to themselves, that is their privilege.’

The snores from the porter’s chair ceased with a grunt, and a tousled grey head emerged around the edge, rapidly followed by a shaken-looking man in livery, scrambling to his feet. ‘My lord!’

‘Goodnight, Grimshaw,’ Nick said cheerfully as they passed. ‘Time for your rounds, I imagine.’

‘Yes, my lord. Er, goodnight, my lady.’

Katherine found herself being towed remorselessly back to her own chamber. Nick threw the door open and walked around, touching a candle to the various branched candlesticks that stood on surfaces round the room. In the flickering light of perhaps thirty candles, the Lake Suite stood revealed in all its icy magnificence.

He rotated slowly on his heel, staring around him, then went to peer more closely at the painting of the virgin sacrifice. ‘Hmm. A tactless choice of subject, one cannot but feel. I had forgotten this room—like being inside an ice sculpture is it not?’

‘You think so too?’ Katherine asked in surprise. ‘I thought perhaps it was just that I am not used to grand apartments and was being foolish.’

‘Well, I would not care to sleep in it if I had the choice.’ Nick was striding around the room, snuffing out candles as he went. ‘I will talk to Heron tomorrow.’

That was a relief, she could surely manage to sleep one night in this room, knowing she could move tomorrow. Nick blew out the last candle. ‘Oh, now I have nothing to see me to bed,’ she protested.