Page 51 of A Rogue to Resist
Lady Elizabeth curtsied prettily, her wide blue eyes fixed on Drake with unmistakable interest. “My lord. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“All favourable, I hope,” Drake replied with a slight smile, though Katherine noted it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Oh, most assuredly,” Lady Elizabeth gushed. “Is it true you’ve lived in America? How terribly exciting!”
“For several years, yes,” Drake confirmed, his tone polite but noncommittal.
“You simply must tell me all about it,” Lady Elizabeth continued, placing a gloved hand on his arm with calculated delicacy. “I find myself fascinated by tales of adventure in foreign lands.”
Katherine watched as Drake allowed himself to be drawn into conversation with the younger woman, responding to hereager questions with courteous attention. Lady Elizabeth was playing her part perfectly—expressing just enough interest to flatter without appearing forward, positioning herself to display her slender figure to best advantage, laughing at appropriate intervals with a musical little trill.
It was a flawless performance, one Katherine herself had been trained to execute in her debutante days. And Drake appeared to be responding exactly as a gentleman should—attentive, engaged, appreciative of the attention.
So why did Katherine suddenly wish to spill her wine down the front of Lady Elizabeth’s exquisite pink silk gown?
“They make a handsome couple, do they not?” Lord Barrington observed, materializing at Katherine’s side with unfortunate timing.
“I couldn’t say,” Katherine replied coolly. “I’ve never given much thought to Lord Greythorne’s appearance.”
A blatant lie, but one she delivered with perfect composure.
“Ah, but you must have some opinion,” Lord Barrington pressed. “Having been married to his predecessor, you are uniquely positioned to assess his suitability as the next Earl of Greythorne.”
Katherine bristled at the reminder of her connection to Edmund. “My experience with the late earl hardly qualifies me to judge his successor, my lord.”
“Perhaps not,” Lord Barrington conceded. “Though I understand you’ve been assisting with estate matters. Most admirable, considering the circumstances.”
There was something in his tone—a hint of patronizing approval—that grated on Katherine’s already fraying nerves.
“The welfare of Greythorne’s tenants remains important to me,” she said stiffly. “Excuse me, I believe dinner is about to be announced.”
She moved away before Lord Barrington could respond, only to find her brother at her elbow once more.
“Katherine,” James said in a low voice, “you might attempt to appear less like a general surveying a battlefield and more like a dinner guest. Lord Barrington was clearly interested in engaging your attention.”
“And I am clearly uninterested in engaging his,” Katherine replied through a fixed smile. “Really, James, did you select these gentlemen solely on the basis of their availability, with no thought to compatibility?”
James looked affronted. “Both Lord Barrington and Sir William are highly respected gentlemen of impeccable character.”
“And utterly tedious conversation,” Katherine muttered.
Before James could chastise her further, the butler announced dinner, and the assembled guests began moving toward the dining room. Katherine found herself seated between Lord Barrington and a portly baron whose name she had already forgotten, directly across from Drake, who had Lady Elizabeth on one side and a vivacious widow on the other.
Someone must have rearranged the cards she had placed earlier. Her gaze flickered toward Rosabel whose innocent expression didn’t reassure Katherine in the least.
The seating arrangement gave Katherine an unobstructed view of Drake throughout the meal—a fact she tried to ignore as she mechanically responded to Lord Barrington’s attempts at conversation. Despite her efforts, her gaze kept returning to Drake, watching as he navigated the attentions of the ladies on either side of him with practiced ease.
Lady Elizabeth, in particular, seemed determined to monopolize his attention, leaning close to speak in tones too low for Katherine to hear, her golden curls practically brushing hisshoulder. Whatever she said occasionally drew a smile or even a brief laugh from Drake, each one sending a most unreasonable spike of irritation through Katherine.
“You seem distracted, Lady Katherine,” Lord Barrington observed midway through the second course. “I hope my reminiscences of the Peninsula campaign haven’t bored you.”
Katherine forced her attention back to her dinner partner. “Not at all, my lord. It’s merely that I’m...concerned about estate matters at Greythorne. The spring planting is at a critical stage.”
It wasn’t entirely a fabrication. The planting was indeed important. But it certainly wasn’t what had been distracting her from Lord Barrington’s interminable military anecdotes.
“Estate matters,” Lord Barrington repeated, his expression suggesting he found a lady’s interest in such things faintly inappropriate. “How conscientious of you. Though surely those concerns now fall to Lord Greythorne?”
“We have a collaborative approach to certain aspects of management,” Katherine replied, her tone cooling further.
