A Grand Design Part 5

"Because marquesses and their sort do not marry ladies of our sort." They offer other attachments, perhaps, Cate thought, but not marriage. "Like weds like in this little corner of the world."

"Oh, pooh. That is fustian. Both Lord Newling and Mr. Faringdon-Smythe have perfectly good t.i.tles, or will have someday"-Lucy held the edge of her periwinkle wrap against the stripped wall and squinted at it-"and both made very pretty proposals. Yes, this color might do nicely here."

"Who are-" Both Cate's jaw and tidy roll of designs dropped. She left the latter on the floor.

"Proposals?"

"Proposals. I have had two thus far. And after but one night. Lady Leverham says she does not know of any other young lady who has had the same yet this Season."

"How splendid for you," Cate said tersely. "I a.s.sume you were in Lady Leverham's company when these proposals were made."

"I was not. I've only just come from her house. The gentlemen came to ours. Almost one atop the other. How very awkward it might have been had they arrived together. Offers of marriage ought not, I think, to be heard in multiples. They brought flowers as well. Very pretty. Orchids from Lord Newling ... or were his the roses?"

Flowers. "And chaperons, perchance?"

"Oh, that. I wrapped Becky up in some shawls, sat her in the far corner of the parlor, and told the gentlemen she was my dear, deaf old Aunt Rebecca. Neither of them so much as looked her way once they'd done their bows."

"Lucy!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do? You are never home, and the uncles were nowhere to be found!"

That, Cate mused, was true enough. She was gone early, never at home until evening, and the uncles had chosen that very day to arrive before noon, hale and happy and actually ready to do a spot of work. In another place and time Cate would have heartily commended her sister for being resourceful. Turning the maid into old Aunt Rebecca had been inspired indeed.

"But, Lucy, still . . ."

"Have no fear. I declined both proposals. I am waiting for a far better prospect. Newling is a sweet fellow, but he cannot seem to finish a sentence without tripping all over his own tongue, and Mr. F-stroke-S has the most noisome mama. I should quite loathe having to share a table with her, let alone a house. I wonder, does Lord Tregaron have a mother? He must have done at some point, but perhaps not now. And of course, she need not live with him, or even dine ..."

Feeling rather as if she had been buffeted by a stiff wind-not an unfamiliar sensation when dealing with Lucy-Cate wearily rubbed one hand over her brow. "I do not know if he has a mother, Lucy, but I do know he possesses a rather vile degree of arrogance, boorishness, and condescension that would make sharing a table with him something of a trial."

"So you do not like him." Lucy fixed her with angelic blue eyes.

"I do not."

Now the girl actually giggled. "Honestly, Catey. If I were to dismiss every person you do not like, my circle of acquaintances would not number above a half dozen."

Cate did not dislike most people. She wanted to tell her sister that, to shout that there was a world of difference between dislike and distrust. A world of difference.

Instead, she squared her shoulders and announced, "The man is rumored to have disposed of his wife. If nothing else strikes you as a reason to avoid his company, that must."

With that, she moved to retrieve the roll of designs from the floor. It had rolled several feet away before uncurling. She bent, gathered the sheets, and was just straightening when a movement outside the door caught her attention. Slowly, her eyes rose past the grinning, tongue-lolling, foxy face of the yellow dog to plaster-dusted boots to breeches, waistcoat, and cravat. In the shadows of the hallway, she could not see much of the marquess's face, but she expected she would have recognized him in a pitch-black cave.

For his part, Tregaron could see every inch of Catherine, including her face. It had gone quickly from flushed to pale and now was set in dismayed lines that did nothing to improve her looks but spoke volumes. She'd been caught slighting his character and was both mortified and terrified that he would send her entire family packing.

As far as he could ascertain, from what he had heard, she had not said anything that did not possess at least a kernel of truth.

He made his decision in an instant. "Good afternoon, Miss Buchanan. I hope I am not intruding on a private conversation."

He saw her gingery brows snap together as his own gaze slid to the other young lady in the room.

He a.s.sumed Catherine was confused, uncertain now whether he had, in fact, overheard her cutting comments. The other woman did not appear to be particularly confused. She appeared simply, staggeringly perfect-an angel, haloed by sunlight and dancing dust motes.

The angel, with all the subtlety and discretion possible under the circ.u.mstance, prodded Catherine with the tip of her lacy parasol. Catherine flinched, straightened, then cleared her throat. "G-good afternoon, my lord. I did not . . . you were not expected."

Tregaron expected she received another poke as she flinched again. "I trust your uncles will forgive the intrusion. I was nearby and thought I would stop in for a moment." He turned his attention to the other woman, with no subtlety whatsoever and waited.

"Ah, yes. Of course. Lord Tregaron, allow me to introduce you to my sister, Miss Lucy Buchanan. She is ... we are paying a visit to our uncles."

"Already we possess like thoughts." His words and attention directed ahead of him, he strode forward and, when the angel promptly curtsied and offered her tiny hand, bowed over it. "It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance. Miss Lucy."

Perhaps the girl did not possess her sister's innate, fierce vitality, but she certainly did not simper. And even if she had, a man might forgive any number of flaws in such a flawless package.

"The pleasure is mine, Lord Tregaron." Her voice was slightly higher pitched than Catherine's, completely missing that faintest of Scots lilts. Deliberately? Tregaron wondered. As artless as Lucy Buchanan appeared, he detected an amusing and not unappealing hint of the performer in her.

From the corner of his eye, Tregaron saw Catherine bending to pat Gryffydd. The little sod promptly rolled over onto his back, his stubby legs straight out, and offered his belly for rubbing.

The angelic Lucy breathed, "I have been admiring your home, my lord."

"Have you?" All he could see was dust and brutally bared rooms. A vast improvement as far as he was concerned. "I must confess I would not have recognized it."

There was a hole the size of a dinner platter in the middle of the wall. Through it, Tregaron could see the adjoining room, which, before its transformation to hovel, had been his wife's beloved dining room. Ah, how she had loved to entertain. There was a hole in that far wall, too, opening into the drawing room, where, he had noted, the pastoral fresco on the domed ceiling had been reduced to a few pastel splotches. The central, gauze-clad nymph, whose face had been that of his wife, painted by the besotted artist she had never actually paid, had been wiped away like so much spilled paint.

It had never occurred to him to leave any instructions whatsoever as to the disposition of the frescoes. It certainly did not matter now.

There was wood or marble missing from every floor, enough in the foyer that he would have gone tumbling into the abyss had not an odd little man with both grey skin and hair shouted out something unintelligible. It might have been a warning; it might have been a comment on the weather. Either way, it had caught Tregaron's attention, and he had not gone tip over tail.

The ghastly expensive wallpaper his wife had chosen was gone from the walls, only the odd strip here and there giving any hint of what had once been. Pieces of moldings and medallions were scattered over areas of the remaining floor. There was dust and dirt everywhere else.

Tregaron could only imagine what had been done to the upper floors.

"Lucy." Catherine's voice cut into his musings. "Perhaps you could go find the uncles. I am certain Lord Tregaron would like to speak to them."

And so he did, if only to commend them on a splendid job and tell them to keep on with the good work. Lucy, however, obviously did not think it such a good idea. Her delectable rosebud mouth turned down into a very pretty pout, and she tossed her glossy, t.i.tian head.

"Oh, Cate . . ."

Catherine said nothing. She must have spoken silent volumes, however, because a mere fewseconds later, after charmingly excusing herself and promising to be back in the flutter of a cherub'swings, Miss Lucy glided from the room-leaving Tregaron alone with Catherine. Cate, he recalled hersister's use of the sobriquet. Cate. It suited her.

"Miss Buchanan," he began, even as she was saying, "Sir ..." Both fell silent.

"Please." He gave her a brief nod.

She was garbed in yet another unattractive dress, he noted, yellow this time. It did nothing for her maypole form or unruly red-bronze hair, which had sprung free of a few of its pins. Nor did it speak well for whatever hand had designed it. It was ugly, unfashionable, and none too tidy. In it, Miss Buchanan rather resembled a gangly-limbed, wild-headed urchin.

At the moment, she was twisting pleats into the grime-streaked skirts even as she looked him steadily in the eye. "My lord, I fear I have been . . . most impolite. Last night, I ... Well, I was rude, and feel I must apologize."

Had she opened her mouth and announced, "T'the divil wif you, guv," he would not have been terribly surprised. An apology, however, startled him. It wasn't that he thought Cate Buchanan ill-bred.

He simply expected her, like Juno or Boudicca, or any of the woman warriors she brought to mind, to stand firm, right or wrong, and never give an inch of ground.

He was also certain that it had never once crossed Cate Buchanan's mind that she might have done more than merely insulted his aristocratic pride. That she had p.r.i.c.ked at his emotions more.

Nor did she make any apology for having very recently stopped just short of calling him a vile, supercilious murderer. But then, he mused, a wise man took what was offered. And was patient in waiting to take the rest. Beyond that, and the realization startled him, standing as he was in a house he had grown to hate, with this woman's vitality striking him almost as forcefully as an open-handed slap, he was unable to feel his wife's presence at all.

"Think nothing of it," he replied gruffly.

"Oh, but I feel I must-"

"Enough!" He winced at the momentary loss of composure. "Please," he added as evenly as possible. "We will not speak further on the matter."

He could see Cate's confusion in her mobile features and couldn't help but wonder what she would say were he to tell her that he very likely felt as unsettled as she. She wouldn't believe him, probably. The villains of the gothic romances so popular these days were never unsettled.

Having no idea what to say, not a common occurrence in his life, he was relieved to hear the angel's dulcet voice in the hallway. It heralded the divine creature's reappearance, and Tregaron found himself thinking that a man could, without a doubt, get a great many months of pleasure simply watching Miss Lucy flutter in and out of rooms. Even with the salt of the earth rolling in her ethereal wake.

He saw her wobble as one of her uncles, the large one, patted her narrow back. "Good la.s.s!" the man boomed, then, arm extended, tromped across the floor. It was rather like being approached by a walking oak tree. Gryffydd wisely scuttled out of the way. "Good day, my lord!"

Tregaron held his ground. "Buchanan," he greeted the fellow, not knowing whether it was Angus or Ambrose, and not particularly caring either way. He accepted the ham-sized fist, flinched when his shoulder nearly exited its socket, and glanced past the fellow to see the second architect hopping cheerfully in the background. "Sir."

Both, plaster-dusted and clearly in the midst of a day of hard work, appeared perfectly delighted to see him, as delighted as Miss Lucy. A far cry from the po-faced maypole who had, Tregaron noted, withdrawn to a corner of the room. There was something that did not fit with Cate and her family. Tregaron found himself surmising that she might well be the millstone about the collective, ebullient Buchanans' necks. He only hoped she did not dampen her uncles' obvious enthusiasm for taking apart and reforming his house.

He gave an inward shrug. "I am sorry to intrude, gentlemen-"

"Not a bit of it," the huge Buchanan announced magnanimously. " 'Tis your house, after all."

"Quite," Tregaron agreed, "but I did not want you to think-"

"Oh, we Buchanans never think," came from the little fellow. "Nothing worse for the client than us going about thinking too much."

"Ach, Angus, you daft twist of haggis. His lordship'll be wondering if we're to be sending his fine home tumbling into a pile of rubble."

Tregaron eyed the various holes in the walls and cleared his throat. "I, er . . . yes, well. I did say I wouldn't be skulking about, peering over your shoulders-"

"Skulk all you wish, m'lord."

"Peer away, though you'd be best to do the peering over me, as Ambrose's b.l.o.o.d.y great shoulders block the very sun."

"Aye, well, peer over Angus, then, but ask your questions of me. I'm your man for the talk . . ."

Cate wondered how on earth she was to stop the blathering before it took a turn from foolish to dangerous. As it happened, Gordie chose that very moment to come trotting into the room. MacGoun's second-in-command was a sight, dusted from head to foot in a grey powder that gave him a distinctly ghostly appearance. For his own part, he seemed as wholly unconcerned with his state as the uncles. Other than repeated swipes at his brow with the back of his hand, he appeared to be going about as if nothing were unusual. Which, Cate thought, was perfectly true.

What she did not consider was that Gordie might not see Lord Tregaron standing by the single window. He didn't.

"We've a problem, Miss Cate," he began, a familiar refrain. He didn't see her give a quick shake of her head, either. "The gla.s.s for the windows here-"

Cate coughed.

"Ah. Sorry, miss." Gordie took a hasty step backward. "I oughtn't to have come barging in like this. Not in my state. I've given you a snootful o' dust now, haven't I?"

"Gordie-"

"Nay, nay. My fault, miss. Here. I'll just open the window. As for the gla.s.s, 'tis late arriving . . ." He skidded to a halt halfway to the window, eyes wide in his plaster-pale face. "I . . . er . . ."

Cate took a quick glance around the room. Her uncles were suddenly as wide-eyed as Gordie and just as speechless. Lucy had her fingertips pressed to her lips. Tregaron was regarding the stammering Scot as if he'd bounded into the room sporting body paint rather than plaster dust and spouting Gaelic rather than perfectly understandable, if untimely, English. She did not think he would appreciate an introduction.

"Perhaps you ought to talk to Uncle Angus about the gla.s.s after Lord Tregaron has departed," she suggested. "We don't want him to have to listen to such mundane matters."

Gordie reached up to scratch his head, sending down a new torrent of dust. "I ... er ... aye, to be sure." He made a jerky bow. "Beggin' your pardon, m'lord. Sirs. Miss ..." Spinning on his heel, he made a quick dash for the door.

"Stop!"

Tregaron's voice cracked like a whip. Gordie froze.

"My lord-" Cate began.

He stalked away from the window. "I believe I comprehend what is going on here."

Cate's fingers tightened in the worn muslin of her dress. She felt a tiny tear open. "You . . . you do?"

"Indeed." The face, so like marble, gave nothing away. "And I must say it is not well done of any of you."

"Oh ... my lord, please . . ."

"I did say I would not be visiting. Perhaps I should have informed you of my change of plans.

However, as has been mentioned, it is my house and I will come and go as I please."

"Of course, my lord, but . . ."

He shot her a stony glance. "I will not have you thinking you can duck and dodge around me."

Oh, we Buchanans don't think, flashed into Cate's mind. And now they would finally pay for it.

"I will not have you thinking I have absolutely no interest in what you are about here. I find myself curious and will not have you saving all discussions for times when I am not present. Is that clear? As it happens, I would like to hear about the gla.s.s." With that, he stalked to the middle of the room, where he stopped, facing the connecting wall. "And about this very interesting hole. Ventilation?" he demanded, his voice dry as sand.

Cate's heart, which had first threatened to stop entirely and had then raced at alarming speed, thudded back into some semblance of a normal rhythm.