Married By Morning (The Hathaways #4)(27)

She heard the ferret come back into the room again, chuckling and hopping as he did whenever he was especially pleased about something. “Go away, Dodger,” she said dully.

But he persisted, coming to her side and standing tall again, his body a long cylinder. Glancing at him, Catherine saw that something was clamped carefully in his front teeth. She blinked. Slowly she reached down and took the object from him.

Her spectacles.

Amazing, how much better a small gesture of kindness could make one feel.

“Thank you,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes as she stroked his tiny head. “I do love you, you disgusting weasel.”

Climbing onto her lap, Dodger flipped upside down and sighed.

Catherine dressed with painstaking care, putting extra pins in her hair, tying the sash of her gray dress a bit tighter than usual, even double-knotting the laces of her sensible ankle boots. As if she could contain herself so thoroughly that nothing could stray loose. Not even her thoughts.

Entering the breakfast room, she saw Amelia at the table. She was feeding toast to baby Rye, who was gumming it and drooling copiously.

“Good morning,” Catherine murmured, going to pour a cup of tea at the samovar. “Poor little Rye … I heard him cry in the night. The new tooth hasn’t come yet?”

“Not yet,” Amelia said ruefully. “I’m sorry he disturbed your sleep, Catherine.”

“Oh, he didn’t bother me. I was already awake. It was a restless night.”

“It must have been for Lord Ramsay as well,” Amelia remarked.

Catherine glanced at her quickly, but thankfully there seemed to be no arch meaning in the comment. She tried to keep her expression neutral. “Oh? I hope he is well this morning.”

“He seems well enough, but he’s unusually quiet. Preoccupied.” Amelia made a face. “I suppose it didn’t improve his disposition when I told him that we are planning to hold the ball in one month’s time.”

Stirring sugar into her tea with great care, Catherine asked, “Will you tell people that the event is for the purpose of finding a bride for Lord Ramsay?”

Amelia grinned. “No, even I am not that indelicate. However, it will be obvious that a great many eligible young women have been invited. And of course, my brother is a prime matrimonial target.”

“I’m sure I don’t know why,” Catherine muttered, trying to sound offhand, when inside she was filled with despair.

She realized she would not be able to stay with the Hathaway family if or when Leo married. She literally wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of him with another woman. Especially if she made him happy.

“Oh, it’s simple,” Amelia said impishly. “Lord Ramsay is a peer with a full head of hair and all his teeth, and he is still in his procreating years. And if he weren’t my brother, I suppose I would consider him not bad-looking.”

“He’s very handsome,” Catherine protested without thinking, and flushed as Amelia gave her an astute glance.

She applied herself to drinking her tea, nibbled at a breakfast roll, and left in search of Beatrix. It was time for their morning studies.

Catherine and Beatrix had settled on a pattern, beginning their lessons with a few minutes on etiquette and social graces, and then spending the rest of the morning on subjects such as history, philosophy, even science. Beatrix had long mastered the “fashionable” subjects that were taught to young ladies merely for the purpose of making them suitable wives and mothers. Now Catherine felt that she and Beatrix had become fellow students.

Although Catherine had never had the privilege of meeting the Hathaway parents, she thought that both of them, particularly Mr. Hathaway, would have been pleased by their children’s accomplishments. The Hathaways were an intellectual family, all of them easily able to discuss a subject or issue on an abstract level. And there was something else they shared—an ability to make imaginative leaps and connections between disparate subjects.

One evening, for example, the discussion at dinner had centered on news of an aerial steam carriage that had been designed by a Somerset bobbin maker named John Stringfellow. It didn’t work, of couse, but the idea was fascinating. During the debate about whether or not man might ever be able to fly in a mechanical invention, the Hathaways had brought up Greek mythology, physics, Chinese kites, the animal kingdom, French philosophy, and the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. Trying to follow the discussion had very nearly been dizzying.

Privately Catherine had worried about whether such conversational pyrotechnics would put off potential suitors for Poppy and Beatrix. And in the case of Poppy, it had indeed turned out to be problematic. At least until she had met Harry.

However, when Catherine had tried to delicately raise the issue with Cam Rohan early on in her employment, he had been very decided in his reply.

“No, Miss Marks, don’t try to change Poppy or Beatrix,” Cam had told her. “It wouldn’t work, and it would only make them unhappy. Just help them learn how to behave in society, and how to talk about nothing, as the gadjos do.”

“In other words,” Catherine had said wryly, “you want them to have the appearance of propriety, but you don’t wish for them to actually become proper?”

Cam had been delighted by her understanding. “Exactly.”

Catherine understood now how right Cam had been. None of the Hathaways would ever be like the denizens of London society, nor would she want them to be.