The Lady Courts a Marquess (Ladies of Seduction #2)

Chapter Four

April 1813

A bench on Bond Street

London, England

A frown shaped Kitty’s lips as she forcibly withdrew herself from her memories. Despite her best attempts to keep them at bay, they always had a way of sneaking up on her. Not unlike the tiny, feathering creases in the corners of her eyes that she slathered with cream every morning and every night. Cream that stank of tallow, but what did it matter what it smelled like so long as it worked? A woman in a world ruled by men had precious few things that genuinely belonged to her, and her beauty was paramount amongst them.

If she was granted a divorce from William— when she was granted a divorce from William—she would need to rely on her appearance to ensnare another husband. A wealthy husband. A malleable husband. Most importantly... a husband she didn’t love. Because she couldn’t go through this again. She wouldn’t go through this again. One divorce was going to be scandalous enough. It would set the entire ton on its heels. The gossip mongers would have fodder for months, if not years. But she’d rather live on whispers than suffocate in a marriage where another woman was taking up all of the oxygen.

Kitty glanced at her new bracelet as she rose from the bench. William disapproved of her expensive tastes, which made her new purchase all the more satisfying. She pictured his countenance when he received the billing note from Longfellow’s. The grooves that would bracket the edges of his already stern mouth. The shadow of ire in his steely gaze. The tick of disapproval in his jaw.

She should have bought two.

Idly plucking a cherry blossom, she twirled it between her fingers as she set off toward Mayfair by way of Winslow Park, a small sanctuary of green tucked away amidst the busy streets and businesses. Birds flitted in and out of the winding shrubbery, tufts of stolen horsehair and other treasures held in their beaks as they built their nests. A rabbit sprang out of the underbrush, startled at the sight of Kitty, and then dashed away with a bounce of its white tail. Ducks circled in a small pond, their paddling feet creating small ripples in their wake as they glided effortlessly across the water’s glossy surface. It was a beautiful view to behold. A calming view. And for a moment, Kitty stopped walking and allowed herself to drink it all in.

Too often, it felt like she was running in a mad race with no discernible finish line.

Running away from her childhood.

Running to keep up with her peers.

Running toward a secure future.

Running to escape her husband.

When would it all just stop? When she and William were first married, she’d thought... but no. If there was one luxury she did not permit herself, it was the luxury of daydreaming about lost hopes and ruined expectations. What was the point? What was broken could not be un broken. Not so long as her heart belonged to William and his heart belonged to another.

Scowling at a sparrow as it flew across the compacted dirt path, she continued onward. Distracted by her own thoughts, she failed to notice when someone fell in step behind her. Not until they gave her a hard shove while simultaneously yanking her bracelet hard enough to break the tiny clasp.

“ Stop! ” she cried as soon as she’d regained her balance and realized what had happened. “Stop, you thief!”

The pickpocket, a young lad by the look of him, delivered a mocking grin over his shoulder before he skipped off down the trail, the bracelet clutched triumphantly in his fist. Any other lady would have likely resigned herself to the loss, which was undoubtedly what the pickpocket counted on when lifting items of worth from this section of London—hysterical, swooning women who cried into silk handkerchiefs as they watched their material possessions being carried away. But Kitty wasn’t any other lady.

And no one took what belonged to her.

“You little shite,” she snarled as she unbuttoned her pelisse and cast it aside. “That’s mine .” Necessity had taught her to be fast as a child—a father couldn’t hit what he couldn’t catch—and she’d retained that athletic nature into adulthood. Without the tight confines of long sleeves, her arms swung freely as she took off after the pickpocket, her legs moving as fast as her skirts would allow.

They rounded a bend and he peered back again, his grin falling away and his eyes widening under the brim of a misshapen brown hat when he saw that Kitty was in hot pursuit. He sped up and so did she, anger fueling her steps. Anger caused by far more than a nicked bracelet.

“Oi!” he shouted in protest when she grabbed him by the collar. “Git off me, ye maniac”

Kitty grunted in pain when a pointy elbow jabbed her in the ribcage. Releasing his coat, she pinched his ear, giving it a hard twist that earned her a stomp on her instep. They both cursed as they fell to the ground in a flurry of punches and kicks, rolling around on the grass like a pair of street cats hissing and clawing.

The boy wasn’t overly large—he couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven—but he was surprisingly strong, and tears sprang to her eyes when he pulled her coiffure. In return, she sank her teeth into his forearm, biting straight through his patched coat to the skin underneath.

Howling, he relinquished his hold on her hair and drove his knee into her stomach, causing all of the air to leave her lungs in a loud whoosh . Sputtering, she managed to latch onto his ankle as he tried to crawl away, heaving her upper body over his leg so that he couldn’t drive his boot heel into her chin.

“Return my bracelet and I’ll let you go,” she gritted. The pickpocket tried to turn over, but she held fast, using her superior weight to her advantage. “I said return it! ”

“All right then! Bloody ’ell!” He tossed the bracelet and Kitty dove after it, staining the tips of her gloves when she scraped her fingers through the grass. Securing the diamonds, she clambered to her feet and whirled around just as the thief was preparing to scamper away.

“Halt!” she ordered. “Halt, or this will be the last piece of jewelry you ever steal. The Bow Street Runner I send after you will make sure of that. It’s hard to take things that don’t belong to you when you’re in prison.”

With a groan, the thief froze in place, his shoulders dropping dejectedly. “Ye got yer piece back, didn’t ye?” he grumbled. “What else do ye want?”

“An apology, to start with.” Through narrowed eyes, she took a closer look at her adversary. He was whip thin and nearly as tall as she, with bony shoulders that stuck out of a threadbare jacket and trousers that stopped a few inches shy of his ankles. Her gaze traveled up the length of his arms to where his hands hovered in midair. His petite, suspiciously delicate hands. “Turn around. Let me see your face.”

With obvious reluctance, the thief obeyed her command.

“Lift your head.”

“Why the ’ell—”

“Should you like me to trounce you again?” she challenged, taking a half step forward.

The boy jerked his head up, revealing a pale, freckled face smudged with dirt beneath a tangled nest of brown hair. But it was what was under the dirt and the snarled curls that gave Kitty pause.

High cheekbones. Arching brows. Long lashes framing belligerent green eyes.

“You’re a girl ,” she blurted, nearly dropping the bracelet in her surprise.

“The ’ell I am,” the pickpocket retorted.

“How old are you?”

“Dunno.” A bony shoulder jerked. “Ten, maybe. I don’t keep track.”

“Ten?” Almost a young woman. Susceptible to all the world’s evils. Evils that Kitty understood better than most. “Where do you live?”

“What do ye mean?”

“Where is your home , girl?”

“Ain’t got one of those. And I told ye—I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.”

“Yes,” she said impatiently, “and I’m the Queen of England. Do you have any parents?”

The pickpocket shook her head.

“Siblings? A cousin, perhaps?”

“Don’t have anyone.”

Kitty took great pride in her ability to hold herself at arm’s length from everyone around her, including her own sister. Including her own husband . No one could hurt her or disappoint her if she remained aloof and unfeeling. If she kept what remained of her heart under lock and key. Aside from Mara and William, she had no family to speak of, not since her father had died. She had no close friends, no cheery servants to lend an ear and impart wisdom. She was on an island that she’d made for herself, and that was just the way she liked it. The way she wanted it.

The defiant glint in her pickpocket’s eye was uncomfortably familiar.

“Come with me,” she snapped. “You need a warm meal and a hot bath. I’m sure you have lice crawling around under that mop of hair.”

“I don’t have any bugs.” The freckles on the pickpocket’s nose bunched together as her nose wrinkled. “And I’m not goin’ anywhere with ye.”

“Yes, you are. There is really no point in arguing.” Kitty began walking. For a moment, there was only silence behind her, and she wondered if the girl had fled. Not that it would matter. She was in the midst of trying to leave her husband. The last thing she needed was a scrawny, lice-infested pet to care for. But then she heard the light pitter patter of footsteps... and a strange, unfamiliar warmth unfurled inside of her chest when the pickpocket trotted up beside her.

“What’s your name?” she asked, keeping her gaze on the path in front of them. “I need something to call you other than thief .”

“What’s yer name?”

“Lady Katherine Colborne, Countess of Radcliffe.” She paused. “You can call me Kitty.”

“Everybody calls me Jack.” The pickpocket kicked a stone. It bounced across the dirt before rolling into the grass. “But me mum called me Jacqueline.”

“Ah, yes, Jacqueline,” said Kitty dryly. “The archetypal boy’s name.”

The girl muttered something undecipherable under her breath as they exited the park and turned left onto freshly swept pavement. In the midst of Mayfair, the most prestigious district in all of London, grand rowhomes set back behind wrought iron gave way to even grander single homes, distinguished from their smaller counterparts by enormous marble pillars, peaked dormers, and second story balconies. Cherry trees lined the street, filling the air with a sweet, floral scent and the ground with a blanket of pale pink.

“What happened to your mother?” Kitty asked, flicking a bloom off the capped sleeve of her morning dress. Too late, she remembered that she’d taken off her pelisse and left it in the park. She’d have to send a servant for it, as they were nearly home. If someone made off with it in the meantime, well, better she lose a pelisse than a diamond bracelet.

“My mum died.” Jack’s green eyes went big as tea saucers underneath a choppy fringe of auburn as her head swiveled from side to side. “Bloody ’ell, is this where ye live ?”

“Yes. Right here, actually.” Kitty nodded at a rectangular metal placard engraved with the number twelve. Opening the gate, she ushered Jack inside, then motioned for her to stop before they’d gone halfway up the limestone footpath that led to the front portico. Beyond the portico was a brick manor covered in white stucco with green ivy creeping up the side. Square in shape and comprised of four stories, the manor was notable for both its sheer size and the symmetry of its architecture. “Before I allow you in, I’ve a few rules you must abide by.”

“Rules.” Jack turned and spat into the bushes. “Ye didn’t say anything about no rules.”

“Rule number one”—Kitty held up a finger—“no spitting. Rule number two, no stealing. Rule number three, no cursing.”

“Bloody ’ell. What else is there to do?”

“I don’t suppose you know how to embroider.”

“I stabbed a boy with a needle once when he tried to grab my tit.” Jack smiled at the memory. “Squealed like a stuck pig, he did.”

“Rule number four, no stabbing.” This , Kitty thought silently as she escorted her feral charge into her house filled with beautiful, breakable things, might be a worse idea than marrying William Colborne.

*

William was in his study, head bent over a ledger tallying the business expenses from his most recent investment, when the door opened and Kitty waltzed in unannounced.

He’d heard her when she had arrived home, of course. His wife was many things. Quiet wasn’t one of them. But her sudden appearance was unusual, as normally she did her best to avoid him during the day. Then again, ever since she’d sunk her claws into the notion of divorce, she had taken to hounding him whenever it pleased her to do so.

At first, he’d humored her. If it soothed her ruffled feathers to rant on about a legal separation, then he wasn’t going to argue for the sake of arguing. They did enough of that already. He had assumed—wrongly, as it turned out—that the idea of divorce was merely a passing fancy. Like the time she’d suggested they move to Charleston, or when she’d briefly entertained the thought of becoming an actress. Kitty was a fountain of spontaneous ideas. But ever since she had returned from visiting her sister the month prior, the dissolution of their marriage had remained first and foremost on her mind.

“As you can see, I am quite busy,” he said without looking up. Truth be told, he hadn’t the energy for another fight like the one they’d had five nights ago when he’d let his temper get the better of him and spoken to her in a way that he now regretted. Being married to Kitty was like standing in the eye of a hurricane. There were entire hours, days, even weeks where the skies were clear and the sun was beaming. But then the winds would shift, the skies would darken, and the storm would whip through, clearing everything from its path.

Theirs had always been a volatile love.

Not violent—he’d never harm a strand of hair on that gorgeous, infuriatingly stubborn head.

But from their first kiss on the terrace to the cruel words they’d flung at each other like knives in the dark, he and Kitty had always teetered on the edge of passionate madness.

“This won’t take long.” She closed the door behind her, and William pinched the bridge of his nose until black dots danced behind his closed eyelids.

“I said that I was—” He stopped short when he opened his eyes and saw her. The heavy silk drapes framing the windows were partially closed (he concentrated best in low light), but the dim interior of his study did nothing to disguise his wife’s disheveled appearance... or the thin line of red scratches on the side of her neck. “What the hell happened?” His chair flipped over as he shoved away from his desk. With fury darkening his countenance, he stalked to her and grasped her chin, turning her face from side to side to survey the damage done. In addition to the scratches on her neck, there was a dappled bruise slowly forming on her arm and a tear in her skirt. “Who the fuck hurt you, Katherine?”

“No one,” she huffed. “Well, someone. I’ve brought them here.”

“Where are they?” he snarled, red clouding the edges of his vision as he dropped her chin and spun toward the door. “I’ll kill them.”

“No, you won’t, because they are here as a guest. She is here as a guest.”

“She?” he repeated, his brows gathering. “You mean to say a woman did this?”

“A girl, really.” Kitty fussed with the lace hem on her sleeve, then raised her gaze to his. “Her name is Jack, and she is going to be staying with us until she can find gainful employment or steals all of our silver, whichever happens first.” At his hard inquiring stare, she sighed and went on. “It happens that Jack is a bit of a pickpocket and attempted to steal my diamond bracelet.”

“You don’t have a diamond bracelet.”

“I do as of this morning.” She smiled brightly at him. “After Jack and I had a... discussion... about whom the bracelet rightfully belonged to, I invited her here. She needs food and a bath. A series of baths, preferably, as I doubt one is going to scrape off all the layers of grime.”

As the bloom of crimson faded from his visage and his roaring pulse resumed its regular rhythm, William stalked back to his desk, righted his chair, and sat down to glare at his wife across piles of neatly sorted parchment. “We are not harboring a common thief.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s common .” Kitty twirled a loose curl around her finger. “She reminds me of myself at that age, and I’d like to help her.”

Help her? God help him . One Katherine was enough, but two? The house would be burned to the ground by the end of the week.

“No,” he said flatly.

“You’ll hardly know that she’s here.”

“Kitty—”

“I’ll put her in the east wing of the house. As far from the silver as she can get. You’ll hardly notice that she’s here,” she repeated. His wife’s smile turned razor sharp. “Given that you hardly notice I am here, I doubt it will be a difficult accomplishment.”

“ Kitty —” But he was talking to empty space. She was gone.

William purposefully counted to three, and then picked up a small glass orb resting on the corner of his desk. A useless decoration intended to keep papers in place. Thoughtfully, he passed it from his left hand to his right, fingers curling reflexively around its smooth dome shape. When he threw it across the room, it struck a bookcase and exploded on impact, scattering shards of glass everywhere.

How easy it was to shatter something fragile. Breaking delicate things took hardly any effort at all. It was putting the pieces back together again that was difficult. Sometimes even impossible, as what was broken could never really be made whole. At least, not in the way it once was.

As he stared at the fragments of the glass orb, William found himself contemplating his marriage. Where it had started, where it had ended up, and where it had all gone wrong.

So fucking wrong.