The Bishop's Daughter Read Free Page B

her garden. Even she had heard of Hellfire Harry, the wild young Earl of Lytton who frequently drove in from his estates to Chillingsworth. Not to attend services in the cathedral either, but to engage in such vulgar pursuits as attending race meets and prize fights or to carouse with his friends in one of the taverns.
    But when she noticed his forehead was bleeding, all thoughts of Harry's dubious reputation had been swept from her mind. As the bishop's daughter, she had no choice but to invite him into the palace, even though the bishop was gone to read the services at evensong and her mother was away attending the confinement of one of her dearest friends.
    Nor had she any choice but to see to his wound, although he would only permit her to do so after he had made sure that his horse was well cared for. As she had prepared to place sticking plaster on the cut, she found herself studying his lordship's face. He was perhaps more handsome at close range than he had appeared those times she had glimpsed him from a distance, his features, even in the winter, bearing the rugged healthy appearance of a man who spends most of his time out of doors. Kathryn had always supposed that one as reportedly wicked as Lord Lytton would bear some signs of it in his countenance, a hinting of dissipation.
    But there was naught of the hardened roué about Harry's face, only a clean strength in the angular line of his jaw, an almost boyishness in the jet black strand of hair that tumbled across his forehead, mischief lurking in the most vivid green eyes Kate had ever seen.
    With her parents gone, she should never have encouraged him to stay, but how could she turn an injured man from her doorstep? She asked him to partake of tea. She could still remember how awkward his large hands had looked balancing the dainty Sevres cup, heroically screwing up his face with each sip he took. She sat upon the settee, mending the tear in his garrick, the snow softly falling outside the tall windows, the fire blazing on the hearth, the deep sound of Harry's voice rumbling pleasantly in her ears. She could not remember exactly what outrageous things he had said only that she had never smiled and blushed so much in her life.
    From time to time she peeked up from her work to steal glances at him. Her father had raised her to be wary, to place no value on mere handsomeness. It was the beauties of a man's character that mattered. But why had not the bishop seen fit to warn her how dangerous green eyes could be, eyes that crinkled at the corners when a man laughed and a smile that came so warm, so ready, so utterly disarming?
    A smile that Kate could not bring herself to believe she would never see again. . . .
    "Kate?" Her mother's voice had cut through Kate's haze of memories. Rather reluctantly, she turned to face the tiny wisp of a woman who stood regarding her. Although it had been two years since Papa's death, her mother still wore her simple black gowns, the white lace of her widow's cap most becoming to her silvery blond hair and the soft contours of her face. Maisie Towers's plain countenance bore the lines of her years, but her eyes remained the same deep violet shade as Kate's, although Kate often felt that her mother's held more of a sweetness of expression than her own.
    "It is nearly past noon. You have decided not to attend the dedication after all?" Mrs. Towers asked, a hint of relief in her tones.
    At that moment with Harry's memory so fresh, so poignant in her mind, Kate wished she could cry out, no, she did not wish to go. Her mourning for Harry had been a private matter. Indeed, she almost felt as though she was not entitled to any grief, having turned Harry away. She didn't want to attend the dedication, be expected to admire some horrid memorial. Harry had not been the kind of man whose image could be captured in cold, unfeeling stone.
    When Kate took so long about answering, her mother sank down beside her on the window seat. Rather diffidently,