The Lady Who Broke the Rules

She could see she was losing the battle, but Kate, now quite set on winning, switched tactics. ‘Are you afraid you will be put under the spyglass, Mr Jackson?’ She could see from the way he stilled, that she had hit home. ‘How can you expect to break down barriers if you do not face them?’

‘I hope, Lady Kate, that you are not thinking of using me as a weapon in some sort of private war. Are you perhaps eager to prove your reputation for being a revolutionary to your father and your aunt?’

He spoke softly, but there was an underlying air of menace which made Kate’s skin prickle. Virgil Jackson was obviously not a man who could be threatened. She threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I admit, there is a part of me which relishes the notion of introducing you to Aunt Wilhelmina, but I promise you, it is only a small part. What I really want is to get to know you better.’

Her frankness disarmed him. He was tempted. Who would not be, by such an argument put forward by such a— He could not think of a word to describe Lady Kate Montague. Not that her personal attractions had anything to do with his decision. ‘I will think about it,’ Virgil said.

‘With a view to saying yes?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ he repeated, telling himself he would, though he had already more than half decided.

Chapter Two

His valet brought the note with his shaving water, proffering the folded sheet of thick paper on a sliver tray. Virgil knew who it was from the moment he saw it, though he couldn’t have said how. Had he been expecting it? Hoping for it? His name was written in a clear hand utterly bereft of flourishes, starkly legible. A man’s hand, he would have taken it for, under other circumstances. His valet was not taken in either though, judging from the curious looks he was casting at him via the mirror over the dressing stand.

‘I’ll shave myself, Watson,’ Virgil said, deliberately catching the man’s eye. Though he would have preferred to break the seal in private, he would not lower himself to the subterfuge of sending the valet away, nor indeed would he grant the note the importance such an act would imply.

I was perfectly serious. I wish you would do me the honour of paying a visit to Castonbury. We have much in common, and I am most eager to further our acquaintance. I leave at ten. I have sent a note ahead warning them to expect us, and arranged for your man to travel separately with my maid and the baggage. From what Polly has told me of him, he will have an entertaining journey! K.

Virgil smiled. Practical, blunt and wry, and leaving him with very little option but to accept. It was as well he had already resolved to go, for he made a point of never allowing himself to be coerced. Reading it again, he could picture the sparkle in her eyes as she wrote that last sentence.

‘A change of plan, sir?’

From the supercilious look on his face, Watson already knew the contents of the letter. How the hell? In the way that all servants knew, Virgil supposed. It had been the same on the plantation. Knowledge was power; he shouldn’t judge the man for that. He folded the note and placed it in the pocket of his silk dressing gown. ‘I take it you’ve been speaking to Lady Kate’s maid?’

Lathering his face, Virgil watched out of the corner of his eye as his valet debated between honesty and what seemed to be the English servant’s custom of pretended ignorance. He was relieved when the man plumped for the truth. ‘Miss Fisher did mention that Her Ladyship had invited you to Castonbury,’ the man admitted grudgingly.

‘And did Miss Fisher happen to share her views as to my likely reception there?’

Watson blanched. ‘Miss Fisher had a— She was—The truth is, sir, that Miss Fisher is not short of opinions,’ he said grimly. ‘I cannot imagine how Lady Katherine came by such a female, nor indeed how such a female survives in a ducal household.’

‘Like her mistress, I believe she is rather unconventional,’ Virgil replied. ‘Prepare yourself, Watson, for you will be sharing the baggage coach with her.’

‘You mean we are going to Castonbury? You wish me to accompany you? I was under the impression that you were journeying north alone.’

Judging from the look in his valet’s eye, the invitation was even more of an honour than Virgil had surmised. ‘Do you wish to return to London?’

‘No indeed, sir. I would not dream of leaving you to the ministrations of another,’ Watson declared.

‘Nothing better to do with your time, eh?’

Watson drew himself up. ‘If I have fallen short of your expectations …’

‘Don’t be an idiot, you know perfectly well that you’ve been keeping me right. I don’t like to be waited on, but it seems I must be, and you do it very well, so if you wish to continue with me in the short term …’

‘I do indeed, sir.’

‘Then get packing. I must make my farewells to my host.’

Kate swept down the stairs with her gloves and whip in her hand, trying to ignore the fact that her heart was fluttering in a quite ridiculous manner for one of her age. It was simply that she was interested in Virgil Jackson, that was all. There was a lot to find interesting in him. It was nothing, nothing at all, to do with the fact that he was an attractive man.

Just as the fact that she had spent much longer than usual dressing had nothing to do with wanting to look her best. As she very well knew, even at her best, she could never aspire to beauty, though it had to be said that this particular shade of blue was becoming, and the rather military cut of her riding habit, with its silver braiding and snugly fitting jacket, draped well on her slim form. Kate made a face, chastising herself. What mattered was that she was pleased with her appearance, she reminded herself. What did not matter was what Virgil Jackson thought.

Except, as she turned the corner to the last flight of stairs and saw that he was waiting for her in the tiled hall, dressed in a plain black coat with a grey waistcoat, buckskins and top boots polished to a gleam, and she noticed that his eyes lingered on her as she made her way towards him, she found that she did care. Chiding herself for it, she couldn’t help the tiniest flush of pleasure at seeing that he liked what he saw any more than she could deny that she liked what she saw too. Very much.

She held out her hand. To her surprise, he bent low over it, pressing a kiss on her knuckles. His lips were warm. The touch was fleeting, but it was enough to set her pulses skittering. In the bright light of the early-autumn sunshine streaming through the fanlight above the door, his skin gleamed. His eyes were more amber than brown. The way he looked at her warmed her, as if he saw something in her that no one else could see. ‘I’m so glad you decided to accept my invitation,’ she said brusquely, for it was embarrassing enough, this girlish reaction, without letting him see it.

‘I could not pass up the opportunity to visit this school of yours.’

It was most foolish of her to be disappointed, for what else was there between them save such business? Kate smiled brightly. ‘I’m glad.’

Virgil frowned. ‘Yes, but I’m not so sure that your family will be as enthusiastic. It is one thing to test barriers, as you said last night, but another to force an uninvited guest on people who, frankly, may not be very happy to receive me.’

‘You are invited, for I invited you.’

‘Did you tell them— The note you sent—how did you describe me?’

‘As a man of great wealth and extraordinary influence, a business associate of Josiah with a fascinating history.’

She had not mentioned the one salient fact that he was sure would have been the first to occur to almost anyone else. ‘You don’t think,’ Virgil asked tentatively, ‘that it would have been safer to warn them about my heritage?’

‘Why should I? I look at you and I see a man who has achieved what very few others have. You are rich and powerful and you have succeeded against overwhelming odds which also makes you fascinating. Why should I tell them the colour of your skin any more than I should inform them the colour of your hair, or whether you are fat or scrawny.’ Or attractive. Really extraordinarily attractive. Which, she should remember, was quite irrelevant. ‘Besides,’ Kate said disparagingly, ‘why encourage them to judge you before they have even met you?’

Virgil drew himself up. ‘I don’t give a damn—begging your pardon—about what your family think of me. I was more concerned about what they’d think of you.’

‘My family can think no worse of me than they already do. They are perfectly well aware of my support for the abolition laws, and I am perfectly capable of defending myself, if that is what you are concerned about,’ Kate said with a toss of her head. ‘I’ve had practice enough, God knows.’

‘I don’t doubt that. I suspect you take pride in being a rule-breaker.’

‘Not at all,’ Kate said, ‘you misunderstand me. Breaking rules, even unjust rules, is far more painful than unquestioning obedience. I wish I did not have to be a rule-breaker, as you call me. Life would be so much more pleasant if what one believed and what was expected of one coincided more often.’

She looked quite wistful and Virgil found himself at a loss, for it seemed that they were speaking about two different things. He could, however, agree with the sentiment. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

Kate nodded, touching his sleeve in a gesture of sympathy he was already beginning to associate with her. ‘Our cases are hardly comparable. There are a good deal of rules which ought to be broken, no matter how painful.’

She would not have said so if she knew the price he had paid for his disobedience. No matter how unconventional she was, she would likely condemn him for it, and quite rightly so. Virgil rolled his shoulders as if the familiar burden of guilt were a tangible weight he carried. ‘I play by my own rules,’ he answered, more to remind himself of that fact than in response to what she had said. He could see his remark confused her, but the crump of carriage wheels on the gravel kept him from saying more, and then the Wedgwoods’ groom appeared at the front door and informed them that the gig awaited Her Ladyship’s convenience.

Kate pulled on her driving gloves. ‘I hope you don’t mind the cold, but I drive myself. I hate to be cooped up in a carriage.’

‘That’s fine by me.’ Virgil pulled on the greatcoat his valet had insisted that he would require, having been forewarned that Her Ladyship scorned the closed carriage in which any other lady of her rank would have been expected to travel. With extreme reluctance, he donned the beaver tricorn hat which Watson had also insisted upon. Hats and gloves were items of gentleman’s apparel to which Virgil had never managed to become accustomed.

Kate leapt nimbly into the carriage in a flutter of lacy petticoats at odds with the masculine cut of her dress, and took up the reins. The gig rocked under Virgil’s weight as he climbed in beside her. His knee brushed her skirts. The caped shoulder of his driving coat fluttered against the braiding on her jacket. The air smelt of leaves and moss, with that sharpness to it that was distinctively English. As she urged the horse into a trot, she smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she said impulsively.

Virgil laughed, and for once spoke his mind without thinking. ‘That makes two of us,’ he said.

They had left Maer village behind, and were heading eastwards along a country lane at a steady pace. The morning was bright but cool, the sun shining weakly in the pale blue sky. The blackberries which grew so prolifically in the hedgerows were past their best now. The leaves on the trees had turned from gold and amber to brown, curled and crisped by the change in the temperature, ready to float down at the merest hint of a breeze. In the distance, a bell clanged as a herd of sheep made their way across a field.

‘I was about to ask you last night, before the lemon syllabub separated us, how you came by your education,’ Kate said. ‘I realised later that I must have sounded quite the malcontent, complaining about my lack of formal schooling when it was likely that you’d had none at all—as a child, I mean.’