“Kate, really,” her brother said, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a good shake, but not nearly a hard enough shake, Julien thought. “Sir, she’s overzealous in her insults. She usually is, however. She truly doesn’t mean half of what she says, particularly if she’s intent on besting anyone, which she is more times than not. She cuts me up with her tongue better than the cook wields her knife.”
“Overzealous. What a thing to say, Harry. I see it all clearly now. Just because he’s a man and an earl, you’re ready to spring to his side and leave me here alone in a ditch.”
Julien looked back and forth between the pair and felt a muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth. Although he found the manners of this hoydenish girl deplorable, the situation was ridiculous in the extreme, and he could not help breaking into a grin.
“Miss Brandon,” he said gravely, gazing into her upturned face, “please accept my profound apologies. You look most charming in breeches, though I confess that seeing swirling petticoats would doubtless be an equal treat.”
She shot him a look of pure mischief and said in a demure voice, “But, sir, I could not look more charming in breeches than you do.’ ”
Julien would have liked to take his hand to her breeched buttocks, but realizing in all truth that this pleasure must be denied him, he threw up his hands and gave up the battle. He forgot about an earl’s consequence, threw back his head, and gave way to a shout of laughter. “Where, Miss Brandon, have you and your brother been hiding yourselves? I count it my misfortune not to have met the pair of you before.”
Harry replied quickly to prevent any further impertinence from his unpredictable sister, “It’s not so strange, my lord. You are not often here.”
“As I said, an absent landlord,” she said, and robbed the words of insult by grinning impudently up at him.
Julien felt a quite odd sensation, equally as vague and undefined as the nagging thoughts that had pursued him from London to St. Clair. He turned slowly to Harry and said thoughtfully, “No, Harry, I believe you’re right. My visits have been infrequent and of rather short duration, up until now. It doesn’t do to be absent from one’s home for too long. One never knows just what might pop up in the meanwhile. Strange and wonderful things, perhaps.”
“Do you plan to stay long this time, my lord?” Harry continued, lightly poking his sister’s arm to keep her quiet— no mean feat.
Julien was silent for a moment. He found himself looking at Katharine and felt again the odd sensation that was now, without his conscious wish, spreading deep within him, filling him, making him feel quite odd, but it was a miraculous feeling, one that he didn’t want to lose. She had removed her tight-fitting hat, and clouds of thick, rich auburn hair fell about her shoulders in deep waves nearly to her waist. She was oblivious of him and didn’t look up, being occupied with braiding her hair into long plaits and tucking them under her hat.
Julien forced himself to look away from her and said easily, “It is a possibility, Harry, an excellent possibility. It is a lovely time of year, is it not?”
“Oh, damnation, Mannering, I had clean forgot Sir Percy and Lord Launston are to arrive for dinner.” Julien gave his butler a harassed look, all the while peeling off his riding gloves and wishing both of his impending guests to the devil.
“It is nothing to concern yourself with, my lord,” Mannering said, all dignity and reassurance as he smoothed invisible creases from the tan York gloves Julien handed him. “It is merely, my lord, that Mrs. Cradshaw is hesitant to accord their lordships chambers without your approval.”
Julien felt a tug of impatience. “Very well, Mannering, have Mrs. Cradshaw allot our guests the Green Room and the Countess’s Chamber. I’ll tell Percy that if he eats too much, our touted ghost of that long ago countess will come and torment him.”
Mannering nodded, then gave a discreet but quite audible cough, clearly indicating to his master that this was not his only concern. Julien, well aware of the butler’s roundabout ways of securing his attention, fixed his eyes on him. “Out with it, Mannering. I promise you I shall not fly into a great rage. Just a minor one, at the most.”
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