Wed at Leisure by Sabrina Darby

Bianca marrying a future earl?
    Yes, perhaps she might request that Bianca allow Kate one more Season alone in London, but Kate was not an idiot. Asquith’s family was well regarded, even if she’d never met the man before his ridiculous masquerade.
    But clearly her sister had believed that. And so had Lord Reginald. And so had Peter.
    Pain weighted her down—a darkness on her soul.
    Those kisses. She had believed him. Trusted him.
    “She isn’t a shrew.”
    That was something at least.
    “I think her sister’s actions and your friend’s at this moment are far more reprehensible. Yours, as well. In fact—”
    “No need to sermonize, Peter.”
    “No need at all.” They both started at her voice, turned to watch her descend the stairs. She took a perverse satisfaction in the embarrassed flush on Reginald’s face. He should feel that way. If what she understood from the snippet she had heard was true, he had colluded with Luc and Bianca and Peter to trick her. “He only says what everyone else in Watersham thinks. Your mother even.”
    “Not everyone, Kate.” Peter looked so serious, so mournful, so . . . could one single expression convey so much or did she read into it more than he meant?
    “Even you, Peter, have said as much to me.”
    “Listen, Kate—” Reggie started.
    “I don’t have time for this,” she interrupted. “I have guests. And a scandal to make light of. A house party to . . . somehow get through. I’d like . . . I’d like you both to leave.”
    T he sitting room was still filled with people, although there were some noticeable absences: Penelope Wildwood and her parents and Miss Edmonton and Lady Vane. But everyone else was still there gathered around Henrietta, who seemed to not be disturbed at all by the events.
    “I admit,” she was saying as she held court, “that one hopes for the most advantageous match for one’s daughter, but I always thought if scandal were to grace our home it would come from Catherine.”
    All gazes swiveled to Kate and she froze. Henrietta did not look the slightest bit upset to be caught saying such a thing, and well she wouldn’t. She would just as soon say it in front of Kate. Unlike the conversation between Peter and Reggie. Her stepmother had never been blind to her faults. And now she was using them to try and do what Kate had intended to do, save what was left of this gathering.
    She laughed. “How I do love you, Henny! But where are my scandalous sister and Lord Asquith? Surely Father has allowed them to live?”
    They all laughed, but it was the sort of high-pitched laughter that was both scandalized and titillated.
    “I am certain we shall learn in good time,” Henrietta said.
    “Well then,” Kate said, lifting her hands. “Anyone for chess?”

 

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
----
    “W ell.”
    “Don’t talk to me,” Peter growled. As he had again and again for the fifteen minutes of the ride that he was cooped up with his brother in the dark carriage. He was angry. No, furious. At Reginald, Bianca, Luc. At himself.
    He wanted to turn the carriage around and go back to Hopford. Find Kate and convince her to forgive him. To talk to her until he found the right words, the ones that conveyed everything he felt. That made everyone’s stupidity irrelevant and unimportant.
    To kiss her again as he had in her bedroom. To go back in time and keep her there. Hell, to go back in time further, four years back, and leave that flask at home. To kiss her by the river and remember. To make her his then and now and forever.
    But she had needed him to leave and the part of him that was rational understood that. He would return tomorrow, survey the situation, make his apologies, and profess his love.
    Yes, his love.
    “I’m going to marry her.”
    Reggie’s gasp was audible even over the noises of the carriage. “You cannot. Your life will be hell. She’s demanding and ill mannered.”
    “Hardly ill-mannered. Her relationship with her family