Blame It on Bath Page 0,42

couldn’t know why, but he merely nodded and halted the horse. He dismounted and lifted her down. “Safe and sound, I hope,” he said with a grin. Before she could register his intent, he had caught her hand and brushed a soft kiss on her knuckles. “Take care to get warm and dry right away.”

She nodded as he swung back into the saddle. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He leaned down toward her and touched the brim of his hat. “It was my pleasure,” he whispered back, and winked at her. Then he clucked to his horse and rode off at a brisk trot.

She stood at the gate for several minutes until he vanished into the gloomy rain without a backward glance. Her pulse hadn’t recovered by the time she reached the house, nor even through the hot bath her mother insisted she take. She told no one about her rescuer; who would believe her if she did? In the days that followed, she nursed a number of secret fantasies wherein he returned to find her—to see that she hadn’t taken a chill, to ask to take her riding again, to declare that he’d been unable to forget her. He never did, of course. She told herself not to be silly, but her heart proved itself very silly indeed where he was concerned.

Gerard de Lacey had lived in her memory since that rainy day as someone just shy of perfect. Katherine knew, of course, that she was quite below the notice of such a man. Even when Papa made his modest fortune into a large one, and Mama expressed a wish that Katherine were more of a beauty so she might have a chance of snaring one of the Durham sons, she knew it was ridiculous. It didn’t stop her from watching for him every time she went into town, but Katherine was too practical to hold out foolish hopes. An older, widowed gentleman like Viscount Howe was a tremendous catch for someone like her, as Mama repeatedly told her. She did as her parents wished and married Lord Howe. Gerard de Lacey went off to fight Napoleon, his name appearing from time to time in the newspaper reports. Katherine prayed for his safety every night, for it hurt to think of that kind, charming young man dying on a distant battlefield. Her prayers were answered, for he returned whole and hearty to England, only to land in the newspapers again—but this time as a man about to be stripped of his illustrious inheritance and cast out of the social class he had been born to.

And now he was lying next to her in bed, her husband before God and man. With trembling fingers she reached out and touched a lock of his hair where it lay on the pillow. The carved gold ring on her finger shone in the moonlight. His ring.

In her heart of hearts, Katherine admitted that she had acted as she did—proposing marriage to a man she didn’t really know—because it was Gerard and not merely because she was horrified at the thought of wedding Lucien. The other Durham sons were in the exact same circumstance as Gerard, and she hadn’t even thought of making her bold offer to either of them.

Seeing him should have smacked some sense into her. He was no longer the carefree boy she’d met so long ago but a war-hardened soldier, grown broad and strong and far more serious, even if he did seem to be laughing at her much of the time. This Gerard was even more attractive than the younger man, although of a darker, more seductive appeal. It made her shiver with pleasure, that he was hers, and quake with fear, that this man could never be happy with the likes of her, not for long. She had no idea how to talk to men, how to flirt and entrance and seduce. She didn’t know how to please a man in bed; Howe had been satisfied for her to lie still and leave him to his business. Katherine wished mightily that she did know, or could learn, because now that Gerard was in her bed, she wanted to keep him there.

For now he slept on, unaware of her wistful desires and fierce hopes. She studied every feature of his face, from the dark wavy hair that still tumbled over his forehead and curled damply at his neck, to his defined cheekbones and sensual mouth, to his firm, square jaw. Her