by Mary Balogh
She was mistress of Cedarhurst, Katherine thought, and hostess of the revival of the annual fete and ball. Her husband was close to her, Charlotte between them.
Life felt very good.
The boats were out on the water-three of them-and there was a queue of people waiting to take them out. It had been decided not to have any boat races but merely to use them for recreation. There were children swimming and paddling at the beach end of the lake under the supervision of some parents and grandparents. There were people strolling about the lake, exploring the cottage folly and standing above the waterfall. The mud was ready for the wrestling and tug-of-war later on-much anticipated by the men and by a good number of the women too, Jasper suspected.
He left the lake behind him and strode up the lawn toward the house. The archery competition had begun. There was a cluster of people on the lower terrace, looking at the baking and needlework and the wood carvings. There were people sitting in the parterre gardens or strolling about the gravel walks. There were people at the food tables on the low balcony outside the ballroom.
He was going to have to taste and judge the fruit tarts later on. But for now he strode across the upper terrace to the east lawn, where the races were to be run. In future years they would have to be located elsewhere, as the rose arbor and the apple orchard would fill this space.
A large crowd of very young children were playing a circle game, their hands joined. Katherine and Jane Hutchins were leading them. There was a burst of shrieking merriment as they all fell to the grass.
Jasper stood still, watching Katherine get back to her feet and brush the grass off her skirt. Her face was flushed and filled with laughter. She looked quite breathtakingly beautiful.
And then her eyes met his across the distance and her hands stilled against her skirt and her smile was arrested.
And he realized something like a hammer blow.
She had become as essential to him as the air he breathed.
Whatever the devil that meant.
He did not pause to consider the puzzle. He strode toward her, his hands at his back. He was equally unaware of the children who darted across his path and the adults who stepped out of it-and then paused to watch his progress.
He stood in front of his wife and noted how the sun brightened her face and glinted gold in her hair. Her wonderful, fathomless eyes gazed back into his. Except that they were no longer fathomless. He could see into their depths.
“I love you,” he said.
And for the first time the words were involuntary. And for the first time he could see from the welling of tears in her eyes that she believed him.
He leaned forward and kissed her lips.
And was instantly aware of three things simultaneously-that he loved her more than life, that she knew it and returned his love full measure, and that the cheers and laughter and applause that erupted around them had nothing whatsoever to do with any game that was in progress.
Good Lord! Devil take it! Could he have chosen a more public setting for such an epiphany if he had tried?
He lifted his head and grinned at Katherine before turning and acknowledging the applause with a regal wave of his hand and a theatrical bow.
There was another burst of laughter.
But Mrs. Ellis was waving her arms purposefully at him. She was ready to start the races, and it was his job to fire the gun to begin each one.
“To be continued,” he murmured to Katherine before he strode away.
It was truly amazing how many children lived in the neighborhood. Not that it was all children gathered for the races. There were many young people here too, including most of the houseguests, and all were in noisy high spirits. Perhaps it was as well that Lady Forester was sitting in the parterre garden with Mr. and Mrs. Dubois.
Indeed, it was a very good thing in light of what had just happened. A man informing his wife that he loved her and actually kissing her in public, for the love of God. Lady Forester would have swooned quite away if she had witnessed it.
There were all the usual races-simple footraces, sack races, egg-and-spoon races, hop, skip, and jump races, leapfrog races to name a few-but everyone enjoyed them as much as they ever did if the shouting and shrieking and laughter were anything to judge by. There were distinct advantages, Jasper decided, to being the host and stuck with the starting gun. Merton fell so many times during the sack race that finally he rolled to the finish line, only to be disqualified when he arrived there for not being on his feet. Thane got egg down both boots during his race and made matters worse by trying to clean the mess off with his handkerchief. Araminta Clement caught a foot in her skirt as she leapfrogged over Smith-Vane and they were both covered with grass when they finally left off their laughing and struggled to their feet. She had lost the race long ago to an exuberant Charlotte.
But there was the three-legged race still to be run. And there was a certain bright-eyed sun goddess, who had finished playing with the infants and was standing watching the races and applauding the winners.
He caught her eye, crooked one finger to beckon her, and handed the gun to one of the strapping young laborers from the home farm.
“My race, I believe, ma’am,” he said when Katherine came close.
“The three-legged race?” she said. “Oh, dear.” And she laughed.
The children under twelve ran it first. Then it was time for the adults.
Katherine laughed again as he tied his left leg to her right. To one side of them were Charlotte and Merton. On the other side were Margaret and Fletcher. Then there were villagers and country people-the serious contenders.
“Right,” Jasper said, wrapping one arm about Katherine’s shoulders while she set one about his waist. “We will do this on a one-two count, one being our bound legs and two our outside legs. We will take it slowly to start and then speed up. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said, and laughed.
“We will start on a one,” he said.
“That sounds sensible.” She laughed again and he grinned at her.
A larger crowd was gathering, he noticed. Perhaps word had spread that Lord Montford was in love and was about to run the three-legged race with the object of that love, his wife, whom he had so brazenly kissed an hour ago.
“Oh, dear,” she said, noticing the same thing, “look at the crowd.”
And she laughed again.
He remembered then that during the month preceding their marriage, after he had pressed his suit on her, he had believed he had killed all laughter in her, all possibility of joy.
Was he after all to earn forgiveness? Not from her-she had already forgiven him. But from himself?
“It is time, my baroness,” he said sternly, “to put on a good show.”
Lady Forester was there, he saw, and-good Lord!-Seth Wrayburn, looking his usual sour self. It was doubtful he would look kindly upon a man who kissed his wife in full view of a large crowd of his guests and neighbors-and then ran a three-legged race with her.
“Take your marks,” the laborer called-he was Hatcher, was he not? “Get set.”
The gun fired with a loud pop.
Charlotte and Merton tumbled to the grass with a shriek and a shout. Margaret and Fletcher seemed just to have realized that they would have to hold on to each other if they hoped to proceed.
“One,” Jasper said, and by some miracle their bound legs moved forward in unison.
“Two.” Their outside legs moved past the bound ones.
“One.”
She was laughing.
Most of the field was on the ground within two strides. What was left of it was soon left behind as they forged ahead to the finish line in perfect unison with each other, cheered onward by the crowd.
And then it struck Jasper that the first prize in the race was to be three guineas, nothing at all to him, especially as the money was his to start with, but a truly enormous sum to Tom Lacey, one of his laborers, who was coming along several paces behind them
with his wife while three of their five children screamed encouragement from the sidelines and the fourth watched with wide eyes and thumb firmly lodged in his mouth and the fifth lay fast asleep in the arms of the eldest.
“Two,” Jasper said, and their outside legs moved.
“Two-ah, I mean one.”
But Katherine had already hesitated, and he had performed a little stutter step, and they tumbled to the grass a mere three or four strides from the finish line.
“One comes after two,” she cried.
“No, it does not. Whoever did you have as a childhood teacher?” he asked her, tutting. “Three comes after two.”
And they lay there laughing helplessly, their arms wrapped about each other as Tom and his wife jogged across the finish line, closely followed by Margaret and Fletcher.
The crowd was applauding loudly and laughing hard too at the spectacle their baron and his wife had just made of themselves-again.
Somehow they got back to their feet and hobbled the rest of the way to come in fourth out of a field of ten. Not bad. Merton and Charlotte were still about six feet from the starting line and down on the grass again.
Lady Forester was purple in the face. And, silly woman, she was talking to Wrayburn, who had brows of thunder. Jasper did not hear what she said. Strangely, he did hear her uncle’s reply.
“You would not recognize simple fun, Prunella,” he said, “if it reared up and bit you on the arse.”
The lady would have swooned without further ado, Jasper guessed, if she could have trusted that someone would catch her. But Clarence was nowhere in sight, and Uncle Stanley was looking openly delighted.
“We could have won,” Katherine said when she had recovered somewhat from her laughter. She looked at Tom lift his wife from the ground after releasing their legs and swing her once about with a whoop while their children dashed up to them. “But I am very glad we did not. That was deliberate, was it not?”
“Me?” he said. “Deliberately losing a race? Do you have windmills in your head?”
“No,” she said. “And I am on to you, Jasper Finley. I am on to you.”
Whatever the devil she meant by that.
He bent to untie the bond that held their legs. He touched the soft flesh behind her knee in the process.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Liar.”
“Three guineas, girl,” Tom was saying. “Three guineas.”
And he had dared to complain, Jasper thought, about the lack of freedom that wealth and position and property could bring to a man.
“I have some baking to judge,” he said.
“And I have some needlework to judge,” she said. “Shall we go together?”
It took them a while to get to the lower terrace. People who had kept a respectful distance earlier in the afternoon were suddenly eager to joke with them and tell them what a wonderful time they were having and beg them to please please make the fete an annual event again.
It was already late in the afternoon. The races had all been run, the archery competition was over, the exhibitions had been judged, and the prizes awarded. Most people had eaten and drunk their fill, either standing on the terrace with friends and neighbors or sitting in the parterre garden or on one of the blankets spread on the lawn. All that was left apart from the ball tonight and the simple enjoyment of the park for those who chose to stay instead of going home to change were the mud sports.
And those were to be, Katherine had come to realize, the highlight of the day. Everyone was going to watch the eight men who had entered the mud-wrestling competition and the tug-of-war that was to follow and would involve a large number of the men. Several of the houseguests had already changed from their best clothes for fear they might be on the losing team and be dragged through the mud.
Men really were foolish. But what did that make of the women who were eager to watch them?
Including her.
“Stephen,” she said, when he came up behind her on the upper terrace and set an arm about her shoulders, “you are not going into the tug-of-war, are you?”
He had changed.
“But of course,” he said. “I have chosen the winning side, and so there is nothing to fear.”
She punched him lightly in the chest.
“It will serve you right,” she said, “if it turns out to be the losing side.”
But he only grinned, and she suddenly realized that perhaps many of the men secretly hoped that they were on the losing team.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked. There had been so little chance during the past two weeks for private conversation with him.
“Enormously,” he said, tightening his arm about her. “You have done superlatively well, Kate, with both the house party and this.” He gestured about them with his free arm. “You are happy?”
“Yes,” she said.
He turned his head to look down into her face, his eyes searching hers.
“Dash it all.” He grinned. “I was looking forward to breaking his nose.”
She set the side of her head briefly against his shoulder.
“And what of you?” she asked. “You have hardly moved from Charlotte’s side.”
He did not immediately reply, and she looked up at him.
“There are problems with being Merton, Kate,” he said. “Especially now that I have almost reached my majority. I am eligible, am I not? I see fellows like me all the time deliberately avoiding the ladies for fear of a leg shackle. But the thing is that I like ladies. I like Miss Wrayburn.”
“But you are not in love with her,” she said.
“Kate,” he said, “I am twenty. She is seventeen-eighteen today.”
“But you think she does love you?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. She is a jolly girl, and I think she just likes me as I like her. But it has struck me that I have to be careful now just in case some lady should mistake friendliness for courtship. I would hate to break anyone’s heart, Kate. I would hate to break Miss Wrayburn’s, though I do not think she has a tendre for me. It is conceited of me, I suppose, even to imagine that there is a possibility that she might. But I am Merton.”
“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “you are such a very decent young man. I am proud of you. But you are not responsible for anyone’s heart unless you have specifically laid claim to it. You must not hide from ladies and treat them coldly as so many gentlemen do. You must be yourself. Everyone will love you-and that will have nothing to do with the fact that you are the Earl of Merton. But everyone will come to understand that your heart is something precious, to be given to the lady who can win it-when you are considerably older than you are now.”
“Ah, Kate.” He chuckled. “It is wonderful to be a saint in my sisters’ eyes. I do hope I will not be hurting Miss Wrayburn in any way, though, when I leave here. This house party has meant so much to her. And I really am very fond of her.”
“And she of you,” she said. “I doubt there is more than that, Stephen. She is looking forward to her come-out next year. I will make discreet inquiries, though, and set your mind at ease if possible.”
He sighed. “Why do we always think we will be free and perfectly happy once we grow beyond the restrictions of childhood?” he asked her.
She stretched up and kissed his cheek.
“Oh, I say,” he said, “we had better get down to the lake before we miss one of the wrestling bouts. Have you seen the mud hole, Kate? It makes a fellow envious of those wrestlers.”
Katherine shook her head and made no comment.
25
“HOW are you enjoying the fete, Clarence?” Jasper asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Clarence turned his head and looked suspiciously at him. It was probably the first time he had heard his full name on Jasper’s lips. They fell into step together on their way down to the lake-almost everyone’s destination since word had spread that the mud wrestling was about to begin.
“I see you did some shopping while you were in London,” Jasper said. “Those are very smart clothes indeed, and I know many discerning gentlemen who would give a right arm for those boots.”
They were white-topped and sported gold tassels. The rest of his clothes bordered on the dandyish too. His starched shirt points were high and in grave danger of piercing his eyeballs if he were to turn his head too sharply. His neckcloth was tied in an elaborate, artistic knot more suitable for an evening ball than for an afternoon fete.
“I visited my tailor and my bootmaker, yes,” Clarence admitted. “One feels obliged to keep up with the latest fashions when one intends to mingle with one’s peers.”
“The ladies have had eyes for almost no one else all afternoon,” Jasper said.
“I think you exaggerate,” Clarence said, “though I have drawn my fair share of attention, it is true. Some ladies appreciate a gentleman who knows how to dress well and how to behave with dignity and decorum and allow his inferiors to participate in the games.”
“You are not going to join the tug-of-war, then?” Jasper asked.
“By no means,” Clarence said.
Jasper squeezed his shoulder.
“I cannot tell you,” he said, “how much it means to Charlotte that you and Aunt Prunella have given your time and suffered all the discomforts of the road in order to be with her as she celebrates her eighteenth birthday. We have had our differences over the years, Clarence, but I must express my gratitude to you for this. You are a good sort.”
“Yes, well, Jasper,” Clarence said, “we never would have had differences if you had always behaved as you ought. But it is my duty as one of Charlotte’s guardians to be here today, and it is Mama’s pleasure. Perhaps you have not always understood how very fond we are of my cousin.”
Jasper kept a hand on his shoulder as they joined the crowd that had gathered about the mud pond, a safe distance away so that no one would get splashed. The eight wrestlers, all of them laborers from the farms, were stripped to the waist and barefoot-evidence of the depravity of the fete that Jasper could almost see Lady Forester storing away in her mind to be used later with her uncle, who was also present with Uncle Stanley and Dubois.