Juliet Landon - Dishonour and Desire

Sara would rather have been visiting friends and learning her dance steps, and Caterina would rather have been practising her singing. Now she practised at Sheen Court in Aunt Amelie’s music room where she and her teacher could work in an atmosphere of understanding. Aunt Amelie herself had given birth to three delightful children, but Sheen Court was substantially larger than Number 18 Paradise Road, and there Caterina could escape the stifling environment she had grown to dislike.

She had not tried to dissuade Harry from spending his month’s holiday in London, and she saw now that, as the eldest, she was partly responsible for what had happened. She had been thinking more of her own and her sister’s comfort instead of encouraging him to sample the delights of Richmond. The truth remained, however, that Hannah’s brand of domesticity had not sent Caterina hurtling into the arms of the first man to offer for her. If anything, it had the opposite effect by creating a scene of such discomfort, Hannah looking ill, distressed and tired, her father short of sleep and temper, that might well be Caterina’s lot within a year or two.

The Earl of Loddon had made it clear, after their engagement had been announced, that his future wife would live in Cornwall with his aged mother while he spent his time in the city. Viscount Hadstoke had also damned himself after his first attempt at a kiss, for the idea of spending her nights in bed with that was worse than life in her incommodious home. Title or not, she could not do it.

It had been of little use to explain to her parents about needing to feel love when they both insisted that such emotions grew after marriage, not before. Caterina knew otherwise, though unfortunately the examples she quoted were the exception rather than the rule and therefore carried little weight. Aunt Amelie and her husband, Lord Nicholas Elyot, had been lovers before their marriage, and Nick’s brother Seton, Lord Rayne, had been the object of Caterina’s infatuation six years ago. She had recovered, after a fashion, but six years was barely long enough for her to forget the elation and the anguish of that time, the wanting and the madness. And the foolishness. She had discovered what she thought were the depths of her ability to love, and she wanted it again. Anything else would be second-best, a compromise, and that would be far worse than no marriage at all.

Nevertheless, as she leaned against the garden door, she wondered why her heart was beating to an old familiar rhythm, and why that man’s image was impressing itself so forcefully upon her mind. She saw his thickly waving black hair, his wicked roving eyes, the impressively wide shoulders and narrow hips. No detail had escaped her, though she had not wanted to be seen observing. How ironic that a man of his repute, a man so dangerous to know, should have been the only man to ask her about her reasons for not wanting to marry. After such a brief acquaintance, what could it possibly matter to him?

Stephen Chester, Caterina’s father, was not entirely without a conscience, though it might have appeared that way during the wager with his daughter’s future that morning. But it was rarely that a man was brought bad news and a way of righting it in the same visit, and Stephen had wrestled with the problem of his eldest daughter for years now, falling deeper into despondency. Surely he could be forgiven for snatching at this solution with so little soul-searching and so few qualms. And at no cost, either.

It was true he had aimed high, at first perhaps too high. Dukes, earls, viscounts and lords had all shown an interest, to Caterina’s amusement and very little cooperation. They had retired, licking their wounds, and he had begun to wonder whether it was her bright sparkling beauty they wanted or her dowry which, if not exactly prodigious, might have lured some of the more threadbare titles. But this man, Sir Chase Boston, had been less interested in the dowry than the idea of a challenge. It was strange, Stephen thought, that there were men who did not mind losing twenty thousand guineas.

Conscience did smite Mr Chester, but not very hard and not where it hurt. He knew Sir Chase to be a notorious roué, a womaniser, a gambler, a hard-living hardplaying gallant: one could hardly ignore any of that. But he also had a title, of sorts, and wealth, and had offered to care for Caterina correctly, hitting the nail on the head when he’d suggested that a conventional husband might not be to her taste.

It was hard to know, these days, what would be to her taste, but since she could not bring herself to marry an upright run-of-the-mill duke, then perhaps she might be won over by an extrovert baronet.

Fingering the pattern on the crystal decanter, he sighed deeply. As for not putting any pressure on his wilful daughter to do her duty, well, Caterina knew all about the debt, and if she could be made to regard her future with Sir Chase as a duty to her family, then she might be persuaded to enter into the spirit of the affair with more seriousness than she had previously shown. Compared to an unhealthy IOU hanging over one’s head, what was a little fatherly pressure?

Holding up the decanter by its neck, he tilted it this way and that against the light, wishing that Hannah had not, for once, watered his brandy down. No wonder Sir Chase had not been impressed. Nevertheless, he poured himself another tumblerful and carried it over to his magnificent burr-walnut desk, bought only recently at great expense.

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