Page 25 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

Aggravated as he was, Charles couldn’t help being impressed by such blazing self-assurance. Almost as impressed as he was with her kindness. It was a rare quality⁠—as wholesome as it was unexpected. Fashionable people were often polite, in his experience, but they were seldom possessed of genuine warmth.

Not so, Kate.

The goodness of her character was evident in the way she greeted the dogs, the manner in which she addressed his parents, and the honest sympathy with which she’d conversed with his sister. When coupled with her beauty and bearing, Charles couldn’t help feeling himself captivated all over again.

She walked with his sister awhile before the turn of the path separated them. Mr. Beresford fell in with Hannah then, and Kate hung back until she was, quite naturally, strolling at Charles’s side. She didn’t mince words.

“Did you receive my gift?” she asked.

Charles ignored the sensation of her full skirts brushing the leg of his trousers. “I did.”

“And did you not think it amusing?”

“I might have done,” he said, “if it hadn’t been accompanied by that note.”

She shot him a bewildered glance from beneath the brim of her blue velvet bonnet. “What was wrong with my note? I said nothing that wasn’t true. Your dog did chase carriage wheels and ladies’ skirts. And he did bite my finger.”

“Not that note,” he said. “The other one.”

“What other one?”

“The note where you dared make implications about my mother.”

Kate stopped abruptly. “I beg your pardon?”

Charles came to a grudging halt. His sister and Mr. Beresford had rounded the bend in the path ahead. Charles and Kate were effectively alone. What words they exchanged would be entirely private, providing neither of them raised their voices.

“Do you deny sending it?” he asked quietly.

“I most certainly do,” she answered in a forceful undertone. “Why would I make insinuations about your mother? I’ve never met the lady before. And she seems a nice enough person.”

“She is,” he said. “One I won’t have meddled with for the amusement of fashionable people.”

Kate’s expression tightened. “You must think very little of me, sir.”

“I don’t know you, ma’am.”

“Then how—”

“The letter came with your gift,” he said. “It was attached to the package.”

“The only letter I wrote was contained inside the box,” she retorted. “I wrote no other. Why should I?”

Charles studied her face. There was no deception in it. No slyness or sparkle of mischief in her eyes. If she was telling the truth, he’d just accused her—insulted her—for nothing.

His jaw tightened at the prospect.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “Why do fashionable people do anything?”

“I do wish you’d stop referring to me as fashionable people,” she returned. “I’m not a people. I’m a person. The fact that I claim to a bit of fashion doesn’t mean I’m some malicious London nitwit engaging in mean-spirited pranks.” Her eyes kindled. “Would you ever accuse a man of such? I think not. And yet it’s gentlemen who are to blame for the lion’s share of these larks. Look at any of the betting books at their clubs and tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” Charles acknowledged when she at last paused for breath. “My accusation didn’t arise from your gender.”

“No,” she huffed. “Merely my character.”

“If I’ve been mistaken, I apologize.”

“If?” Her gaze narrowed. “What did this other letter say exactly?”