A Grand Design Part 19

He didn't belong in London, among persons he considered peers only in that they shared a level of birth. He was not one of them at all. And someone felt strongly enough on the matter to-twice now- tell the Welsh impostor exactly how he felt.

"Really, Colwin, it cannot be so bad as all that."

"Hmm?"

"You appear to be contemplating something truly horrid. What nonsense. Simply go sweep the girl off her feet, or whatever it is young men do these days."

Tregaron had no idea what young men did these days. More than a decade past, when he'd been dazzled by Belinda, all he'd really had to do was play the gallant for a fortnight, then have a long, involved talk with her greedy father about money.

He sighed. "Has it not occurred to you, Grandmother, that there are a great many ladies in the world who would be averse to being approached in any manner by me?"

"Fiddlesticks. You are, after all, you."

"Precisely my point."

"Oh, Colwin, really. You are a splendid catch."

"You, madam, are partial."

She gave an indelicate snort. "My partiality hasn't anything to do with it. I saw the way she was looking at you at the Tarrant fete. If she had been adverse to anything about you then, I am the Virgin Queen of England."

"I haven't the slightest idea of whom you speak."

"I am quite willing to believe you are a little mad, Colwin, but I refuse to believe there is anything at all wrong with your memory. And while I cannot say I am wholly pleased with you wedding a girl with red hair, I do not disapprove."

"Grandmother, I do not-"

"Oh, do stop denying it, boy. You are becoming tedious. Just admit how right I am about the Hepburn girl."

"Buchanan."

Lady Tregaron smiled smugly. "How right I am this time-as usual. Admit it. You will feel ever so much better. Ah, here is our tea!"

Tregaron nearly smiled. His grandmother was right this time, as usual. Of course he was in love with Cate. Perverse fate would have it no other way.

Chapter 14.

"Shameful!" Lady Leverham declared, rapping a plump fist against the interior panel of her town coach. "Outrageous! Honestly, could you not have shown a tad more discretion than to flaunt your utter disregard for propriety in front of the Reynolds creature and her flighty daughter? Who, I feel compelled to inform you, wasted not an instant in spreading the tale to as many people as possible. Oh, to think of the gossip that I have not yet heard!"

This had been going on for a good several minutes. The air in the closed carriage was warm, and the lady was wilting visibly. The feather decorating her rather Byzantine-looking hat was drooping to starboard; her extensive wrap was lying in a gauzy puddle on the seat beside her.

"I really do not like doing this," she continued. "Scolding. It does so knock the stuffing out of one. But I would be remiss as a friend and neighbor to all Buchanans indeed if I did not say something. Now, what have you to say for yourself?"

Tregaron smiled thinly at the lady and scowled at her monkey, who was perched on the opposite seat. The little beast had been eyeing his gold watch fob with interest for quite some time, looking ready to spring. "What do you wish me to say, madam?"

"Why, that it is not true, of course!" she shot back with alacrity.

"I am afraid I cannot do that."

"I did not think you could, but you asked for my wish, and so I gave it to you."

He nodded, and reminded himself to whom he was speaking. "Upon my honor, madam, I intended no blight to fall upon your fair friend."

"Hmph," was the response, but Tregaron thought he detected a very faint smidge of approval in the syllable.

He searched for any further medieval-sounding phrases that might aid his cause, but came up only with "forsooth," and he could not see how that would help anyone or anything. He needed a pot of strong coffee, an hour with the Times, and a further half hour or so free of chattering human contact. He was not accustomed to being summoned from his apartments in the middle of breakfast, and was suffering for it. Lady Leverham had been firmly parked in her firmly parked carriage, and had sent in the message that she would stay right where she was until he appeared.

He'd appeared as soon as he could get appropriately dressed, of course.

It was too early in the day to be facing the severe and strident complaints of an irate matron. It was far too early to hear that the unfortunate events of the day before were being bandied about Town. He wondered if Cate knew.

"I will consider what I can do this morning, madam. I am afraid it is a difficult situation-"

"It is a dismal situation! Catherine hasn't the standing in Society, and you certainly do not have the repute necessary to stamp out the gossip. I will do what I can, but heaven only knows what will happen to Lucy regardless."

"Lucy?" He'd thought they were speaking of Cate.

"Lucy. Catherine is a delightful girl, and I am very fond of her, but she doesn't give a fig about her reputation. She has no expectations to marry, has never possessed any, and so does not pay adequate attention to the subtle precepts of feminine delicacy. Her sister, on the other hand, wishes to make a match, and a splendid one at that. This will not help."

No, he didn't suppose it would, but he was not concerned with Lucy. The Lucys of the worldalways landed on their feet and shone on. He had a very good idea that matters were not so simple forCate. He certainly did not believe she had never hoped to marry. Perhaps she still did. Any gossipspread about by Reynolds et fille would have a much more adverse effect on her than on her sister, nomatter what Lucy's expectations.

"I will most certainly pay a visit to Miss Buchanan," he offered, uncertain what purpose that would serve, but hoping it would be the start to something. "This morning."

Lady Leverham humphed again.

"If you have any better suggestions, madam . . ."

"Go home, Tregaron."

"I beg your pardon?" he demanded stiffly. He was getting heartily tired of people suggesting he decamp for Wales. He would be delighted to return to Wales. He simply was not going to be bullied into doing so.

"Go to your home, sir! Now. Catherine is there."

"Ah." Light dawned. It appeared he would be paying his second visit in as many days to Hanover Square. "Thank you, madam. I will do so."

Matron and monkey withdrew into the squabs. It was clear the interview was over. Weary, feeling as if he had just been introduced to a cadet branch of the Inquisition and not fared well, Tregaron opened the carriage door and climbed to the street.

"Good d-" he began.

"Well, go on, sir. And this time, once you arrive, stay in plain sight!" Lady Leverham snapped. Then she called "Drive on!" to her coachman, barely giving Tregaron time to close the door and step back before they rolled away.

"You look all done in, guv."

He turned to find the familiar little sweep not five feet away. "Good morning, Harris. You look as if you have been busy." The boy was dirty as ever and liberally dusted with feathers. "Have you eaten today?"

"I 'ave, guv. 'Ad me porridge at dawn. I'm just in between jobs now, 'aving meself a bit of a rest. 'Til 'e scuttles me off, anyways."

From the corner of his eye, Tregaron could see the porter lurking in the Albany's doorway. "If he bothers you," he informed the boy, jerking a thumb at the door, "tell me and I'll see to it."

Harris grinned. "Thanks, to be sure, but I can see to meself, I can."

"Yes, I quite believe you can."

"But you now . . ." Harris stuck one of the small, pointed rods he carried down the back of his grubby shirt and scratched his back with it. "You look like you could use some 'elp. A mort is it? Some rum dodsey?"

"Where do you pick up these expressions? They are rather alarming."

"Mort, article, baggage. All the same to me. And that wasn't an answer, guv."

"I owe you no answers." Tregaron reached into his waistcoat pocket for a coin. It vanished quickly into the boy's fist. "And I suppose I really must be on my way,"

"They like flowers. And little sparkly things."

"I take it you are speaking of morts."

"What else?" The boy rolled his eyes. "For such a toff, you can be dim as dusk, guv."

"Yes, I expect I can. Any further advice?"

"Aye. Promise 'em the sky. The whole ruddy sky. You'd do well to 'eed me words there."

"And you'd do well to limit your counsel to matters about which you have some knowledge." Tregaron shook his head with a smile. "Heaven help me when I start taking direction on such things from an infant."

"I'm older than you think, guv. But you go right ahead and court your lady your way." Harris jerked his head toward the Albany. "I 'ear these ain't bad digs a't'all for a bachelor. You'll be fair comfortable 'ere in your flannel waistcoat days." With that, the sweep tipped his ragged hat, flashed his gap-toothed grin again, and flitted off down Sackville Street, tool pouch bouncing against his back.

Tregaron found that he was still smiling as he headed back to his rooms. He did not think Cate was the sort to demand flowers or sparkly objects. But there was a sort of grandeur in young Harris's third suggestion. Promising the sky, indeed. Clever little bounder, especially so considering he spent his days going up and down chimneys.

Still, Tregaron had always found that real help had a way of coming from the strangest quarters.

Cate had spent days in odder places than the one she presently occupied. As it happened, she had been chased into this spot by her sister and Lady Leverham, and planned to stay just where she was until doomsday if necessary.

Where she was happened to be at the very top of the library ladder. While Lucy had relentlessly chased her through the house, demanding explanations and offering unwelcome sympathy, the girl had drawn the line at the library. She had entered initially on Cate's heels, but had scuttled out when MacGoun, bless him, had stuck his head in and asked Cate if she'd seen any more rats beneath the dust cloths. Mac was almost as eager to have Lucy, with her chattering and emoting, and distracting of the crew, out of the house as Cate.

So now Cate was up the ladder, removing books one at a time and loading them into a basket in which she lowered them to the floor with a st.u.r.dy cord. She then followed them down, dusted them off, and packed them into waiting boxes. When the shelves had been refinished, the books would be returned to them. It was all slow work, its tedium thus far unrelieved. The highest shelf appeared to be all ma.s.sive sets of medical and astronomical tomes-in German. Cate did not read German, so she could only grab one book after the next, not read a word of them, and think.

She did her very best not to think of Tregaron, but was failing miserably on all counts.

Among the last words he had spoken to her, the very few words he had spoken between hustling her out of the house and into a hackney had been the terse command to inform her uncles that they could do what they liked with the library. Or nothing at all.

Cate had no idea what changed his mind. Two sets of unpleasant memories now, perhaps, to be obliterated. If he did not care to be reminded that he had shared a few very heated minutes on the rug with his employees' niece, it would be easy enough to replace the rug. Whatever the reason, and Cate was not so much of a martyr as to spend time torturing herself with the possibilities, she was taking him at his word and planning what changes the room would see.

In truth, there were not many. As with the rest of the house, the original design was good. Some of the furniture, most notably the cracked or gutted chairs and divan, would go. Other pieces, like the magnificent desk, would be returned to their proper glory and left in the room. The stained, moth-eaten rug was suited for nothing but the dustbin. The irreparably broken books and shattered gla.s.sware would join it. The floors and bookshelves only needed refinishing, the hearth new stone and the Rumford grate.

It was not easy to be in the room, not when Cate kept recalling the feel of Tregaron's hands on her, the very slight sandpaper sc.r.a.pe of his jaw. Everywhere she looked, something gnawed at her memory. The rug, of course. The wooden Welsh spoons. Even the German books in her hands. They were elegant, austere, marred, and completely, utterly indecipherable. Just like the man who owned them.

Unable to help herself, she clasped the volume she held to her chest, which had felt so very, very hollow since the hackney had driven her away the day before.

"'What in G.o.d's name are you doing up there?"

The harsh voice so startled Cate that she nearly went tumbling off the ladder. She did drop the book, which hit the floor eighteen or so feet below with a solid thump, breaking apart, and only just missing Tregaron's head.

"Get down from there!" he snapped.

Cate gaped at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I seem to forever be asking you the same. Come down from that ladder and we will discuss it.

Cate," he added, voice lowering dangerously when she did not move. "Now."

She felt herself flushing with indignation. How dare he stalk in and play Lord of the Manor? It hardly mattered that it was, in fact, his manor. She was having none of his arrogance.

"No," she snapped back. "I am quite comfortable where I am."

"You are twenty feet in the air, on a narrow ladder!"

"So I am."

"How comfortable could that possibly- Oh, to h.e.l.l with that. I will ask you one more time," he ground out between clenched teeth. "Come down from there."

"That was not a request. It was a command."

"Cate . . ."