Page 73 of The Duke's Last Dance
She had not seen nor heard from Lord Burton in two years, and she hoped he had got his act together for his own benefit. Not many women would marry someone they could not trust to keep his promises, and though the duke was good on the surface…
Catherine took a deep breath and stopped those thoughts. She was getting ready to go to Vauxhall Gardens with Nicolas and thinking about the past would not do anything to help her out. The only thing she wished she had was her original brooch.
The day after the failed engagement dinner she had gone to find her brooch in the river, but it was gone. The river had probably carried it away, and when she told Nicolas what she had done, he laughed it off, saying he probably deserved such a reaction for what she had thought was his fault.
Nicolas had replaced the brooch, saying a woman of her stature should not be going around wearing such an old, tarnished brooch anyway. He was not angry at her for throwing that brooch as hard into the river as she could.
As she pinned the brooch to her dress, she thought it would have looked funny to have a twelve-year-old brooch on this dress. Perhaps her husband had been right in that regard. The metal was too tarnished to have it properly polished, and the gem had long since lost its luster from years of being hidden away.
The new brooch had an opal, with gold around it to create the brooch itself. It was a much better brooch now that she was married, and it worked with many of her dresses. Nicolas had outdone himself picking it out.
“Come along, Catherine! We will be late!” Nicolas’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
Catherine smiled as she put her hat on.
“Coming, coming, Nicolas.” She hurried down the stairs. “I must have got lost in thoughts again.”
“You have been doing that a lot lately,” he remarked. “Come, come. We must be off.” He opened the carriage door for her, and then he helped her get into the carriage. As he got in, she smiled widely.
“Oh, Vauxhall Gardens are beautiful this time of year, Nicolas,” she said. “Do you remember going with Lord Radcliff and Juliet?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “If Miss Juliet had not said anything, I would have kissed you then and there.”
Catherine felt her cheeks heating up.
“And what would you have done if I had pulled away?” She questioned. She didn’t know what she would have done, in all honesty, if he had kissed her. It had been long enough that she had forgotten her initial reaction to when he had pulled her closer than he should have since they were not courting.
“I do not know. I do not think I had planned for that,” he remarked, laughing. “Would you have pulled away?”
She shrugged.
“I do not remember what I thought of that night, nor do I remember how I reacted when you pulled me closer,” she said. A small laugh escaped her lips. “All I can remember is that I thought you were going to kiss me. That’s all I remember.”
That was not exactly true. She remembered thinking he would have kissed her had he had the chance – which she now knew was the correct assumption – and she remembered that she had not felt comfortable that close against him in public. At that point. However, she would not have been able to give him any indication of what she thought she would have done if hehadbeen able to kiss her.
“What would you have done after the kiss, Nicolas?” She tilted her head to the side.
Nicolas shrugged.
“I remember thinking that you were the only one I wanted to marry, even after you were so devastated by my lack of letters to you,” he said. “I have a feeling my father intercepted the one I sent you before I left and did his best to keep me from sending any more to you. He offered to take in any letters I wanted to mail to others, and that included to you and Lord Radcliff. It seems he stopped any that I wanted to get to you from getting to you.” He sighed.
She took his hand softly in hers as the carriage came to a stop at the river.
“We know what he did now, and we have overcome it,” she said. “That’s all that matters now.”
“Yes, I suppose you are right,” he said with a smile. “Come. ‘Tis time to go to the gardens. I have missed seeing the gardens every year. We should have come last year, too.”
“Yes, we should have,” Catherine agreed, “but we are here now, and that is all that matters.”
He helped her out of the carriage, and they boarded the boat. The boat was not incredibly crowded tonight, as it was the middle of the Season. Those who had wanted to see the gardens when they first opened had attended that night, and many people went to the gardens only once or twice a Season to preserve them. The gardens were only open certain nights, anyways, and they were always splendid when they were open.
As the boat neared the gardens, Catherine stood near her husband. He smiled down at her.
“What are you thinking about?” He tapped his finger against her nose softly. “You’ve been awfully quiet on the boat.”
“I’m just thinking about how beautiful the gardens will be, Nicolas,” she replied. “I suppose that has been on my mind all day. They’re lovely when they open at the beginning of the Season, but I’ve never been later in the Season.”
“They’re just as beautiful,” he assured her. “Perhaps more so, since all the flowers are in bloom and they have every reason to keep the gardens from being as crowded as they are the first night of the Season when they open.”
