what none of the other guests could manage was infectious. ‘You have a natural talent,’ Katerina said, and meant it.
‘Thank you.’ Her pupil beamed. ‘You are an excellent teacher. Am I ready for the skittles, do you think?’
‘You wish to learn in a morning what it takes most people years to perfect! Why not, but start with just two. Here, hold them like this. Now watch me.’
Katerina demonstrated several times, then handed two skittles to Lady Verity to try for herself. Keeping one eye on her pupil, she allowed her attention to drift back to the group of intrepid gentlemen whom Alexei was coaching in the basics of tumbling. Unsurprisingly, Fergus was one of the most successful of his pupils. He had actually managed to string a handstand and a cartwheel together. Her brother, who was ridiculously competitive, was making a point of picking holes in his technique.
Instead of taking offence, Fergus listened intently, nodding, requesting a demonstration. His next attempt was a vast improvement. He had only a fraction of Alexei’s flexibility, but he was extremely strong, with an excellent sense of balance. And he was determined. His shirt came untucked from his leather breeches on his next attempt, revealing a tautly muscled belly, a smooth, tanned expanse of chest. His next combination of handstand and tumble was almost perfect, with momentum enough to take him into a second handstand. Alexei had no choice but to applaud. Fergus caught her eye and grinned.
Flushing, for she suspected she had been staring rather too openly, Katerina turned her attention back to her pupil. Fergus, his shirt clinging to his heaving torso, rested against a nearby pillar to watch. Lady Verity, intent on her skittles, did not seem to notice, but Katerina found him too distracting for her own liking. Every time she looked over, his eyes were on her.
Why was he not looking at Lady Verity! The woman was perfect for him, for goodness’ sake. Making eyes at the hired entertainment would not assist his matrimonial cause, and it most certainly would not get him anywhere with the hired entertainment, who had no interest in him whatsoever. None!
Torn between anger and a creeping awareness engendered by his blatant staring that would not desist, she decided to give Fergus something else to look at. When Lady Verity dropped the skittles, Katerina picked them both up, setting them off using one hand, bending down to snatch another skittle with the other. She sent them in an arc high above her head. She threw them behind her back. She launched them higher, leapt after them, and caught them before her feet touched the ground. She knew Fergus was watching her. She would not look at him. She scooped up another skittle and threw it to Lady Verity who, catching on quickly, and with impressive timing, began to send and return the skittle on Katerina’s nod. She forgot about Fergus, caught up in the sheer childish pleasure of it now, until her assistant finally threw up her hands in surrender, doubling over, panting with effort and laughter, to make a bow.
Katerina, rising from her own theatrical bow, saw Fergus walking towards them. Intrigued, she glanced at Lady Verity to gauge her reaction. The smile disappeared abruptly from her face. Katerina watched in astonishment as her body seemed to freeze, her expression ice over.
‘That was most impressive, Miss Vengarov. And Lady Verity.’
Her response was as frosty as her demeanour. ‘It was a private performance, Colonel Kennedy, for our own amusement.’
‘You really were very good, my lady,’ Katerina said, now utterly bewildered. ‘I am sure the colonel merely intended—’
‘I find I am not particularly interested in the colonel’s intentions,’ Lady Verity interrupted. She gave Katerina a forced smile. ‘Thank you for your patience, but I fear I am fatigued now, and I have taken up enough of your time. You have other pupils to teach.’
Fascinated and appalled in equal measures, Katerina turned to Fergus as Lady Verity stalked off. ‘What on earth have you done to provoke such enmity?’
His eyes were stormy and dark, his mouth a grim line. ‘As you can see, my mere presence offends her. Not interested in my intentions! That, at least, has the merit of being the truth.’ He shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
‘I don’t understand.’
Fergus thumped his fist into his palm, staring off into the distance. ‘No more do I, but I intend to demand some answers. You will excuse me, if you please,’ he said, and with a curt nod, strode swiftly from the ballroom.
* * *
Fergus finally tracked Lady Verity down in the music room an hour later, where she was supervising the repositioning of a pianoforte from its normal place in the corner, into the centre of the room. She was wearing one of her pastel-coloured gowns. Her hair was freshly pinned. Her countenance was no longer flushed and her expression was, as ever when she deigned to meet his eye, quite blank.
‘I am rather busy, Colonel Kennedy,’ she said. ‘I would like to complete preparations for the musical evening before setting out on today’s mystery tour, so if you will excuse me...’
She turned her back on him. Fergus held the door wide open. ‘Leave us, if you please,’ he said firmly to the butler.
She waited until the last of the footmen had closed the door in the butler’s wake, before she turned to Fergus with raised brows.
Fergus leaned back against the closed door, eyeing her appraisingly. ‘I wish us to speak plainly.’
‘I suspect that is more of a command than a wish,’ she replied with a shadow of a smile. ‘May I assume, Colonel Kennedy, that this plain speaking does not involve a proposal?’
Her expression remained aloof, but in those china-blue eyes, there was a tiny hint of fear. There could no longer be any doubt that her snubs had been deliberate. Oddly, Fergus found this reassuring. ‘You may indeed,’ he said, crossing the room towards her and pulling out a chair from the stack waiting to be set around the pianoforte, waiting until she sat daintily down upon it before sitting astride another, facing her. ‘What I want to know, Lady Verity, is not whether or not you’ll accept my hand, but why you agreed to consider a proposal from me in the first place.’
He watched her closely, the struggle between prevarication and truth well disguised but there, none the less, in the tightening of her clasped hands, the way her eyes roamed restlessly around the room. Finally, to his relief, she seemed to reach a decision, straightening her shoulders and meeting his eyes unwaveringly.
‘It is not that I find you in any way objectionable, Colonel. On the contrary, you have borne my appalling behaviour with admirable restraint.’
She smiled then, a reserved smile, but a genuine one, allowing him a glimpse of the attractive woman behind the ice-maiden façade she routinely presented to him. He could, finally, understand why her admirers were legion, but knew too that he would never be one of them. There was still an element of calculation in the way she teased, something in her manner, a sense of entitlement that made his hackles rise. Lady Verity was lovely, and she was charming, and she knew it.
‘It is not I, but your uncle who will mete out any punishment when he discovers we are not willing to make the match he has engineered between us.’
Lady Verity blanched. ‘I fear my uncle will be furious with me.’
Fergus cursed under his breath. What a selfish oaf he had been, so caught up in his own dilemma that it hadn’t occurred to him that his were not the only strings being pulled by the twin puppet masters. ‘I apologise. I have been so concerned with the implications for my own fate that I had not thought of yours.’
‘What implications, Colonel?’
‘My posting to Egypt will be cancelled. My career as a tallyman of numbers will be extended indefinitely.’
‘How ironic. It is the posting you desire so very much which is precisely the stumbling block for me, you see. I confess that I have, to my surprise, found you to be honourable, and intelligent, and—yes—extremely attractive,’ Lady Verity said, blushing faintly. ‘Colonel Kennedy, under different circumstances, I am sure we would