A Grand Design Part 11

"Not especially. And now you're dodging." Lady Tregaron tapped the rim of her empty gla.s.s thoughtfully against her lower lip. "Fascinating. Is she marriageable?"

"Grandmother!"

She gave an unrepentant shrug. "Well, one never knows. I've always expected gentlemen spent rather more time thinking of their enamoratas than their more respectable counterparts."

"Grandmother, really!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Colwin. Since when have you been so starchy? I simply wish to know if this lady will provide me with great-grandchildren whom I may acknowledge publicly."

Completely unbidden, Tregaron was struck with an image of long-limbed, wild-haired, freckled children running roughshod through his grandmother's pristine house. "G.o.d help me."

"What was that?"

He shook his head. "No matter. I promise you that should I ever commit the unfortunate act of turning more St. Clair-Wrights loose upon the world, you will be able to acknowledge them with impunity."

His grandmother sighed. "Your enthusiasm for the prospect sends me into raptures, Colwin."

"I live to serve, madam."

As far as he was concerned, they were done with the matter. "How much did you win?" he asked.

"Oh, a paltry amount. Is it the Vaer girl?"

He ignored her question. "How paltry?"

"A few guineas. Negligible. I do hope it isn't one of Earith's chits."

"Lady Zilvia is delightful-"

"So she might well be, but her father . . ."

"And married. Lady Chloe is still little more than a child. Earith's chits are safe enough from me.

Whom did you deprive of these few guineas?" With his grandmother, it was always wise to know, lest the losing party should prove the sort to lose badly. "Not Lady Broadford, I trust."

"She cheats. I will not play against her. Oh, dear, not her daughter! Please, Colwin."

The very thought of jesting, let alone an actual attempt at it, had long since disappeared from Tregaron's life. It rose now like the faintest of bells in the back of his mind.

"Lady Theresa is a delightful creature," he announced.

"She flirts."

"Ah, but with such wit and intelligence."

"The girl's tongue is ready to flap out of her head!"

"Such an extraordinarily beautiful head. She is an Incomparable."

"She has red hair!" his grandmother moaned. Which, apparently, said it all. "Oh, dear Lord. Related to the Red Wardours. How shall I bear it?"

"Calm yourself, madam," Tregaron advised, patting her narrow back. "There is every possibility that Lady Theresa will refuse me."

"Oh, Colwin, you have made the creature an offer?"

"Only a very informal one. There is every chance she mistook it for an invitation to paddle in the Serpentine."

Lady Tregaron's eyes narrowed suddenly. "You are mocking me, boy."

"I? What a propos-" He broke off, blinked, then did a poor job of m.u.f.fling a laugh with a cough. "Miss Buchanan."

She had been about to walk right by. Apparently she had missed seeing him. He couldn't have missed her in the middle of an active battlefield.

Who dresses you, Cate? slipped into his mind, followed by the realization that he really couldn'tcare less. She was one of a kind, and what she wore hardly mattered.

Tonight it was a long column of mossy-colored fabric, complete with far too much trim that resembled st.u.r.dy cobwebs. Someone-not she, he hoped-had tried to conceal her freckles by dipping liberally into the powder pot. There was a flowery sort of ornament stuck into her hair. All in all, she looked like a fugitive from a third-rate production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Miss Buchanan," he repeated, and she stopped at last. The stiffening of her shoulders made him suspect that she had heard him the first time. Her slow turn did nothing to dispel the suspicion.

"Lord Tregaron." She sketched a brief curtsy. He managed not to so much as flinch when his grandmother dug a sharp if discreet little elbow into his side.

"Madam, may I present to you Miss Catherine Buchanan of Argyll. Miss Buchanan, my grandmother, Lady Tregaron."

Cate dipped into a much more formal curtsy then. His grandmother took full advantage. When the girl was mid-bend, the dowager rested her fan on Cate's shoulder, keeping her where she was. It could not have been terribly comfortable, but it put the two of them eye-to-eye.

"The architect's niece," Lady Tregaron murmured. "The elder, I presume?"

"Yes, ma'am," Cate replied. If Tregaron reminded her of a dragon, it was clearly a family trait. This tiny, lovely woman could, no doubt, breathe fire. Cate thought she might like her if given a chance. At the moment, she was a bit terrified. "My sister Lucy-"

"Is the beauty. Yes, yes, I know all about it." Lady Tregaron lifted an ornate filigree lorgnette to her eye for a long moment before letting it drop back to her bosom, where it tangled with a profusion of jeweled chains. "I must say, you are a novelty to view. I don't suppose you are related to the Hepburns."

"Not to my knowledge, ma'am."

"They were the Earls of Bothwell, you know." As if that bit of information were likely to make Cate change her answer. "Extinct, of course."

"Sadly, Lady Tregaron," she announced, "I do not believe we have any ties to that family."

"Pity. There is definitely something of the Hepburn about you. And I have always found it most handy to be related to someone notorious, or at least noteworthy. Bandying about the names of one's kin saves one from having to speak overmuch about oneself."

Something flashed in the amber eyes, so much like those of her grandson, gone before Cate could identify it as distaste or dismissal ... or something else. She took a deep breath.

"I fear we Buchanans are far too busy trying to muddle out how we can possibly be related to one another to look much beyond the immediate connection."

Lady Tregaron's elegant brows rose. "A peculiar group, are you?"

"Dangerously so, ma'am."

"Tell me, Miss Buchanan, is the rest of your immediate family as ... er, clever as you?"

Cate hesitated a moment, made her decision, and replied tartly, "Far more so. Why do you think I call them dangerous?"

Again the lady's eyes glittered. She allowed Cate to stand up straight. "London beware, then." To her grandson, she announced, "I am off to coax Lizzie Melbourne into a game or two of ca.s.sino. She is not a proficient player and is wearing a very pretty emerald brooch tonight that would go quite well with my earrings."

"Grandmother-''

"Go have a dance with Miss Buchanan, Colwin. I daresay it will be a curious experience for you, dancing with a woman who can meet your gaze squarely." She fixed her own gaze upward. "Just how tall are you, Miss Buchanan?"

Cate felt herself bending her knees ever so slightly and silently cursed her weakness. She had never hated that question, never even minded it before three summers earlier. "I believe I am, perhaps not quite, just-"

"Oh, never mind, girl. It isn't as if we can measure people's stature in inches, after all. Don't tread upon her toes, Colwin." With that declaration, Lady Tregaron got a new grip on her lorgnette and marched off into the crowd, leaving Cate with the marquess.

He broke the awkward silence smoothly enough to leave Cate in no doubt of which of them was the awkward one. "Shall we dance?"

No flattering preamble, no mention of pleasure, honor, or any of the other joys men were trained to cite with their requests for a dance. Cate was all set to refuse, just as she had been set to creep past him minutes earlier.

She hadn't meant to overhear his flippant, offhand discussion of Lady Someone-or-Other to whom he was planning to make a formal offer of marriage, but she had. Given the choice, she certainly would not have chosen to hear his grandmother's succinct commentary on red hair. She had heard both, and decided to take her suddenly flushed cheeks elsewhere to cool.

Not that it would have mattered, anyway, at least not as far as appearance was concerned. She was reasonably certain that Lady Leverham's liberal dusting of face powder would hide even the worst Highland windburn.

She hadn't wanted to attend this evening. Especially after seeing the single word on the note in Tregaron's foyer. Deceived. She hadn't been able to see the rest, and she knew perfectly well that it could not possibly have anything to do with her family. Of course it couldn't. But it had rattled her nonetheless. Any mention of deceit at all, and both heart and head started to pound. As it turned out, she had completely neglected to come up with a good excuse for staying home. So here she was.

Several gla.s.ses of champagne, consumed immediately upon arriving, were buoying her somewhat. One more, and she might be able to forget that note, that word entirely.

"Cate?"

All it took was the simple use of her name and the offer of his arm. He'd used her name before, offered his arm before, but there was something in both now that she could not refuse. Forward, presumptuous-he was both. He was also all but betrothed to one woman and living with the ghost of another. Worst of all, he had somehow become almost. . . likeable, and it was altogether too disconcerting. Life, Cate mused, was not meant to be quite so complicated.

At that moment, she didn't care. She simply wanted to dance with him.

She could both see and sense heads turning as they took the floor. Was it his reputation, she wondered, or that he was stepping into the heart of a minuet with a grey-clad, white-faced n.o.body? A n.o.body who, upon her entrance not a quarter hour earlier with Lady Leverham, had been mistaken for that lady's paid companion.

That loudly whispered reply and following giggle from a woman she had never met had stung, but she supposed she ought to be grateful she hadn't heard the question. It had involved her ident.i.ty, no doubt, and something unflattering about her appearance. She supposed she could put a bit of effort into the matter, but . . .

Who would care if I did?

"If you did what?"

Until Tregaron spoke, she did not realize she had said the words aloud. She sighed, searched for a quick and clever retort. He managed to loosen her tongue with a quick press of her fingers with his.

"My appearance has caused comment this evening," she said, lifting her chin.

"That is not surprising," Tregaron said with a shrug.

Cate tried not to be hurt by the words. She knew perfectly well that she was not the ton's belle ideale, and did not need to be succinctly reminded of the fact.

"So who would care if you . . . ?"

"I did not mean to speak aloud, but I hardly think anyone would care if I took to leaping through the hoops that fas.h.i.+on dictates. I am not likely to be improved by an hour with a modiste whose French accent is as fraudulent as her fees."

"I see no need for you to even contemplate such matters," was the marquess's polite reply, but Cate did not miss the quick head-to-toe look he gave her, nor the fleetingly quirked eyebrow.

"Toadying to fas.h.i.+on does not suit me," she muttered.

"Nor me."

There was a simple sincerity to the words. But as Tregaron guided her in a turn, hands alternating so they were momentarily face-to-face, she could not help but notice how well he wore the current fas.h.i.+on. The stark black suited him, echoed the sleek ebony of his hair. The knee breeches suited him, displaying a pair of fine legs that Cate knew she should not be observing, but that she couldn't help thinking would look rather marvelous beneath a tartan kilt. The austerity of the white waistcoat, the simplicity of his cravat knot, the single, sapphire-tipped fob on his watch chain all suited him. So very well.

"I have only so many dresses," she heard herself blurt out, "with no need of more. And Lady Leverham was intent on draping me in all sorts of ancient-looking, gauzy stuff."

"You declined, I see."

"I thought the trim on the dress was more than enough." Cate glanced down ruefully. "It appeared so ... acceptable in the pattern book. Lady Leverham's wrap would not have helped at all, but she was so crestfallen that I allowed her to do as she wished with the powder. She does go on so about my freckles."

"Does she indeed?"

"Lucy, too. Of course she is blessed with perfect . . ." Cate broke off, appalled with herself- blathering on at the marquess like some featherbrained ninny. And he was listening with all courtesy, accepting her idiotic babbling without smirking, minding the steps of the dance without once faltering-or allowing her to.

Gracious, graceful, and cursedly appealing. Of course, Cate thought a bit waspishly, determined to banish her embarra.s.sment, he was also thought by some to be capable of foul acts.

Gritting her teeth, she vowed to keep control of her tongue for the remainder of the dance.

"You were saying . . . ?" Tregaron said politely.

"Nothing of import." Cate smiled sweetly-and promptly missed a step.

His hand tightened for an instant around hers. In that moment, Cate knew that she could get both feet tangled in the ridiculous trim of her dress and he still would not let her fall. He was strong enough, tall enough to hold her completely steady.

For some absurd reason, she wanted to cry.

He waited courteously for her to get back into the pattern of the steps. She smiled brightly. "I have always thought there are few dances as pleasant as a minuet."

To which he flashed that stunning, gone-almost-before-it-began grin and replied, "And I have often thought that I would rather be treading barefoot over sharp stones."