An Improper Companion by Karla Hocker

Author:Karla Hocker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626815780
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2014-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Since Mary, Mrs. Boughey’s niece, had taken up her post as Liza’s personal maid, the housekeeper had mellowed toward Kate, as though she knew that it was Miss Liza’s companion who was responsible for Mary’s employment. And when the village girls who helped keep the large house dusted and polished were hired as full-time maids, Mrs. Boughey showed her approval of Kate by conferring with her on household matters that she would formerly not have dreamed of broaching to a mere companion.

Kate’s days, therefore, were filled with preparations for Liza’s birthday ball. She was too busy to waste a single thought on questions that did not pertain to Liza’s gown, to the floral arrangements for the ballroom, the dinner menu and refreshments, or the choosing of rooms for those guests who would spend the night at Dearworth rather than brave the hazards of dark, rutted roads after the ball. Yet, once in a while, none of the innumerable chores she had offered to perform could stop Nicholas’s question from popping into her mind.

Are you in love with Damien?

Then an angry flush would mount in her cheeks, and she would push aside the place cards she was penning in her best copperplate, or she’d snap at Liza, who complained that she had wished for a ball gown of spangled tulle, not one of white silk. She’d snatch up a shawl and go outside to walk off her irritation in the still-bare rose garden. Here, screened from the house by tall, sculpted yew hedges, she was the least likely to be observed while she cooled her cheeks and her temper, and she could mutter aloud and grumble about the sheer idiocy of Nicholas’s question.

She might be attracted to Damien—much as a nubile chambermaid was attracted to a stalwart footman—but those stirrings of the blood were passing fancies. She’d be over this attack of madness before long, and it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with love. She was a lady of great common sense. Hadn’t Phoebe Charteris confirmed this more than once? Well, a sensible woman did not fall in love with a man of so few redeeming qualities as Damien Ashcroft had to offer.

Kate freely admitted that she had wronged him when she thought him uncaring of Liza, but he was still the insufferable, overbearing, arrogant coxcomb who had bumped into her in The Circus, then tried to soothe her with a shilling piece. And he’d never change. He would always pursue his course, would forge ahead regardless of obstacles.

Recollection of their first and subsequent encounters generally restored her to good spirits and she could return to whatever chore she had abandoned. If, briefly, on the way back into the house, she remembered her passion for steeplechases and how she used to urge her mount to jump hedges, ditches, and walls, she quickly suppressed the memories. To acknowledge her own drive to soar above obstacles would be to acknowledge sympathy with Damien, and that she was not prepared to do.

She

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