realizing. “Excuse me?”
“Tea,” Sally enunciated, as if Cate might be a trifle dim.
“I thought attendance was compulsory.”
Sally waved that off. “I could give your compliments, and then your regrets. I’ll tell them you’re too distraught and not at your leisure.”
Cate bit her lip. Sally’s directness was both unique and refreshing. The offer was tempting, deliciously so. She could play the overwrought victim, but to do so would run the risk of missing word of Nathan’s welfare. If he had been captured or found dead, heaven forbid, it would be the highlight of the afternoon.
No, she would go.
Cate was ushered to a stool before a dressing table. Mesmerized by the rasp of Sally brushing her hair, she closed her eyes. It was a luxury, one life rarely allowed. Sitting on a tufted satin stool, before a table laden with toiletries befitting of a lady of substance, she felt decadent.
The brush abruptly stopped. Cate snapped from her reverie to find Sally solemnly staring at her through the mirror’s reflections.
“Did Blackthorne hurt you?” The maid’s voice was sharp and abrupt, but rooted in earnest concern.
Cate had given it no mind, but the ruined gown, hysterics, and a tear-swollen face would have given the impression she had been ravished, or at the least, used rough.
“No; I appreciate the thought, but no, he didn’t hurt me,” Cate said, smiling faintly.
“You love him, don’t you?”
Cate looked again into Sally’s steady gaze, the hairbrush poised in mid-stroke. “Beg pardon?”
“You love him,” Sally repeated evenly. Romanticism softened the stern features. “You have been on that ship with him all that time, and now you love him.”
She set to brushing once more, muttering under her breath, “Some women have a way of picking the wrong man.”
Cate shifted gaze to the weary, turquoise-eyed image before her. Did she? Had she fallen in love with Nathan?
A pang of guilt knotted her gut. Since losing Brian, she had never considered the possibility of another man. For years, it had seemed traitorous to think of another man in her bed. But the cold hard facts were, she was ready. It was painful to look into the mirror and admit it: Brian was gone and Nathan was there; he was most definitely there. For the last weeks, her world had been suffused with him.
Did she love Nathan, though? Did she feel for him as she had felt for Brian: the stirrings of the heart that came with an unexpected glimpse, or stirrings of the flesh at a smile or coffee-and-cinnamon-colored look…or the emptiness that came when he wasn’t about? Was she willing to do all the same things, take the same risks and instill the same trust, in hopes of the same in return?
“Yes, I love him.” The admission smacked of the desperate fantasies of a widow, probably past her prime.
“I thought so.” Sally brightened with fanciful speculation. “Is he dark? I’ve heard he’s dark, with eyes that can stop a woman’s heart and lead her to destruction.”
Cheeks heating, Cate bit her lip. “He is that.”
“I had me a man once,” Sally said after a protracted silence. She applied the brush with renewed industry. “I loved him so much it hurt. Then one day he up and turned pirate; left me with barely more than a by-your-leave.”
The heavy hair was brought up from the Cate’s neck and pulled a ribbon around her head. Sally gave a wistful sigh. “They’re a difficult lot to love. Heaven help the woman that falls in love with a pirate.”
Tying the ribbon off with a flourish, Sally bent enough to find Cate’s reflection once more. She smiled with a spark that rendered her years younger. “Ah, but they’re worth every bit of the pain, aren’t they?”
This time, Cate felt better prepared as she went down the stairs to take on Lady Bart and her guest-filled parlor. Sally’s prescriptive dose of brandy had stiffened her spine and dulled her senses sufficiently to render the prospect of the afternoon tolerable. After all, what could they do that hadn’t already been done? Embarrass? Stare? Ignore? Pity? Whisper behind their hands, or for that matter, behind her back?
In the foyer, Cate’s courage faltered—more like shattered—at seeing Roger Harte step out to intercept her path. It took every bit of resolve to keep from recoiling when he pressed her knuckles fiercely to his lips.
“I’m so pleased to see you have regained yourself,” he said. The green eyes burned with intensity. “I was so very concerned for your welfare and peace.”
In other words, you believed