from this.
She had never suffered unduly from nervousness while performing, but now she felt an uncomfortable churning sensation beneath her lungs, and when the piano accompaniment began on bar fourteen, her voice was not prepared for it. ‘Sorry, signor. Again, if you please?’
Watching his head lift as he counted her in, she began again, this time coming in on the beat, facing the room in a conscious effort to show that, this time, she was totally in control as she had not been earlier, when she had last spoken to Sir Chase.
She would rather have avoided another meeting with him, but it was not possible, for Lord and Lady Elyot were interested to hear from him that he and Miss Chester had already been introduced and that he would be happy to meet her again. If they had expected Caterina to share this eagerness, they soon saw that the opposite was the case when she replied to his congratulations with chilling courtesy. Taking the hand of five-year-old Adrian, Caterina led him to the piano stool for a quick two-finger duet. The last thing she wanted was a display of ill humour, for that would have raised too many questions, but nor did she wish to engage any man’s attentions who was coolly relieving her father of twenty thousand guineas for so little return.
On the way back to the green drawing room, however, it was clear that Lady Elyot had noticed. ‘What is it, Cat dear?’ she said as they walked a little way ahead of the rest. ‘You didn’t mind us bringing Sir Chase in, did you? He was very keen to hear you.’
‘It’s not that. I don’t mind who hears me. I don’t like the man, that’s all.’
‘But he tells me you only met this morning. What is it you don’t like?’
‘Oh, only what’s generally known, I suppose. He sets my bristles up. I know some think he’s all the crack, but dressing well doesn’t excuse a profligate.’
‘Cat! What are you saying? That’s coming it a bit strong, my dear. My lord would not have invited him to the house if he was as bad as all that.’
‘Lord Elyot invited him?’
‘Yes, love. They’ve been to the stables. Sir Chase was a captain in the same regiment as Nick and Seton, and they’ve been friends for years. You won’t have seen him until now because he spends most of his time in London and his other properties, when he’s not at Mortlake. Of course these men get up to all kinds of tricks, but I find it’s best not to enquire too closely about that. Even Nick won’t tell me about the pranks they played in the Dragoons, occasionally.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’re right about that part, but the less I see of him the better I shall like it.’
Lady Elyot had been watching Sir Chase while Caterina was singing and she was quite sure that his thoughts were running along different lines. It would be interesting to see, she thought, how long it would take him to win her to his side, for by all accounts Sir Chase was not a man to give up when he met opposition. And she was sure he’d set his sights on her niece. Was that why he’d been to see Stephen?
Caterina’s brush with Sir Chase was not yet over, however, for when Signor Cantoni had taken his leave of them to visit another pupil, Sara wished to delay her departure to practise her harp pieces on her own. ‘Then perhaps I could persuade you to drive me home?’ said Caterina to Lord Rayne with a smile, making a show of linking her arm through his.
‘Can’t you walk?’ he said, rudely.
‘Seton!’ said his sister-in-law. ‘How very discourteous.’
‘It’s all right, Aunt,’ Caterina assured her. ‘He’s only teasing.’
‘No, I’m not!’ he said, innocently.
Then it went slightly askew, for although Sir Chase understood the squabble well enough, he saw his chance to be alone with the unwilling lady again. ‘Allow me,’ he said, stepping forward. ‘My curricle is waiting outside, ready to go. I would be happy to drive Miss Chester back to Paradise Road.’
‘No…er, no, thank you,’ Caterina said, holding tighter to Lord Rayne’s arm. ‘There’s really no need. Really.’
‘There you are, then,’ said Lord Rayne. ‘Problem solved. He’s not a bad hand with the ribbons, Cat. You’ll be quite safe. Friend of the family, and all that.’
Angered by the way this had gone wrong, she pulled her arm from Lord Rayne’s without another word, for there was no more to be said without making a fuss which only Aunt Amelie and Sir Chase himself would understand. At the same time, the thought of sitting close to him in a curricle was both disturbing and vaguely exciting for reasons she chose not to investigate. Suffice it to say that she would rather have walked than accept a lift from Sir Chase Boston, after their earlier encounter.
Unfortunately, no choice was left to her but to accept his offer in silence, leaving Lord Rayne in no doubt that he had let her down badly. Taking her leave fondly of Lord and Lady Elyot, and of the children, she left Seton out.
‘Cutting me already, Cat?’ he said as she walked past him into the sunshine.
‘Yes,’ she said, throwing her shawl around her shoulders, ‘but I never did care much for your amateur style of driving, anyway.’
She heard sharp whistles at her insult, then laughter from Lord Elyot at his brother’s expense. ‘Brava, Cat!’ he said. ‘Serves the ungallant wretch right.’
But now she was being escorted towards a flashy sporting curricle, the small body of which was on a level with the top of the wheels, the cushioned seat well above the horses’ backs as it was in her aunt’s vehicle. But whereas the phaeton had four wheels, this one had only two, and instead of the usual pair of horses, Sir Chase drove four matched chestnuts as alike as peas in a pod. Her failed attempt to be unimpressed must have showed on her face for, as she stopped to stare, he watched to see her eyes widen before resuming their flinty annoyance.
Climbing up to such heights held no fears for Caterina. With one lift from Sir Chase’s steady hand, she was on the seat and already squeezing herself into the corner, suddenly remembering something to be returned. ‘Lord Rayne,’ she called down, fumbling inside her reticule, ‘would you try to be a little more obliging and pass this to Aunt Amelie for me, please? I found it in the phaeton.’
The tiny scrap of lace handkerchief fluttered down into his hand. ‘Blowing hot and cold, Cat?’ He laughed. ‘One minute the cut, next minute dropping the handkerchief? What’s a man to believe these days?’
The curricle tipped a little as Sir Chase climbed up beside her, pressing himself into the space with a closeness she had no choice but to suffer. ‘Believe what you like, whelp!’ he called to his friend. ‘You’ve missed your chance.’ He glanced at Caterina with a half-smile at her rigid posture, her grip on the edge of the hood, her feet tucked away to avoid his black boots spread into her space. ‘Ready?’ he said.
It would have made little difference, she thought, if she’d said no, when he was taking up the long whip with a quick flip, his nod to the groom coinciding with his command to the wheelers, the move-away so smooth as to be hardly noticeable. For the first few minutes, Caterina was engrossed in the business of driving a four-in-hand, and with his skill, keeping the team in perfect unison down the elm drive through flickering shadows, swinging out of the gates onto the gritty mud track leading to Paradise Road. She was impressed, though she would never have paid him the slightest compliment, nor would she have hinted at the considerable thrill she was deriving from the experience.
But it was she who broke the silence in an effort to score a point. ‘What happened to your policy, Sir Chase?’ she said, watching how he looped the reins.
‘Which policy, Miss Chester? I have several.’
‘The one that forbids you to offer lifts to your debtors.’
‘But I am not offering a lift to a debtor. Your father and I have settled the problem very amicably. And anyway, it was not you who owed me, was it?’
‘Settled?