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

Chapter Seven

Duke and Duchess of Southwick’s private residence

London, England

“T his is where yer sister lives?” Jack gasped. “Bloody ’ell.”

“Bring your head in the window,” said Kitty as their coach pulled up in front of Mara’s palatial London residence. “You’re not a dog.”

Torchlight encased in glass and set on high posts illuminated the neatly raked stone walkway. Kitty kept a firm grip on her young charge’s arm as they went to the front door and were promptly admitted inside by a blank-faced servant dressed in black livery.

“Lady Radcliffe and companion,” she informed the servant, “here to see my sister.”

“The duke and duchess are having dinner. I’ll let Her Grace know of your arrival. This way, please.”

The receiving parlor they were brought to was a study in varying shades of blue. After pouring herself a glass of wine from a decanter set on top of a liquor cabinet—and refusing to pour Jack one—Kitty perched on the corner of a chaise longue and waited impatiently for Mara to grant them an audience.

Not too long ago, she’d traveled to her sister’s country estate unannounced and discovered Mara in the garden pruning roses with her husband nowhere to be found. But things were markedly different now. Now, the Duke of Southwick was very much a present figure in his wife’s life. By Kitty’s estimation, they rarely left each other’s company. Mara and Ambrose had become the rarest of entities in the ton : a married couple in love. And she was happy for her sister. Truly. She was. But did Mara have to have everything?

The doting duke.

The beautiful house.

The perfect happily-ever-after.

If not for the fact that green had a tendency to clash with her complexion, Kitty would have been draped in it from head to toe.

At least she had one of those three things, she reasoned.

Her manor may not have been as large or grand as this, but it was hardly inconsequential. Then there was Radcliffe Park and a hunting lodge in Scotland, along with a townhouse in Bath—all properties that were head and shoulders above where she’d grown up. Why, then, did she not feel the sense of satisfaction that she’d dreamt of as a little girl looking in a shop window at all the shiny things she could not afford?

Maybe , a sly, unwanted voice intruded, because happiness does not come from possessions, but from deep within ourselves and the people that we love.

“Oh, do shut up,” she mumbled, taking a sip of her wine.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Nothing. Put that bowl down before you break it.”

“I’m not goin’ to break anything.” Jack tossed the small crystal bowl she was holding into the air and caught it with a grin. “See?”

“If you don’t put that down—”

“Kitty!” Breathless and beaming, the Duchess of Southwick entered the parlor. “What a wonderful surprise!”

Love, Kitty noted as she returned her sister’s embrace, looked good on Mara. Her cheeks, once pale and wan, were now full and rosy. Her auburn hair was sleek and shiny, her brown eyes bright and sparkling. She was the epitome of health and happiness. By comparison, Kitty felt dowdy and, well, plain . A strange sensation, to be sure, as the role of the ordinary, forgettable sister had traditionally been relegated to Mara.

“And who is this?” Mara asked, turning to Jack with an expectant smile. A smile that dimmed with uncertainty when Jack promptly tucked the crystal bowl behind her back.

“I wasn’t stealing nothin’.”

Kitty sighed and gave a vague twirl of her wrist as she flopped onto a chaise longue. “Your Grace, may I present Miss Jack I-Don’t-Know-Her-Last-Name.”

“Don’t have one,” Jack provided helpfully.

“She doesn’t have one. Jack, meet my sister, the Duchess of Southwick.” Kitty paused. “This is the part where you curtsy.”

“Don’t know how to curtsy.”

Kitty cast her gaze heavenward. “She doesn’t know how to curtsy.”

“I...” Mara’s gaze went back and forth between them, “I don’t completely understand.”

“That makes two of us,” Kitty muttered into her wine. Finishing off her first glass, she rose from her seat to pour another. “I met Jack in Winslow Park when she attempted to rob me.”

“It was just a tiny robbery.”

“As I’ve a great deal of affection for my jewelry,” Kitty continued on, ignoring Jack, “I chased the little miscreant down and took back what was mine. Then I invited her to stay with me—temporarily, that is—as she hasn’t anywhere else to go. But given her propensity for taking what doesn’t belong to her, I dare not leave her unaccompanied.”

Mara blinked. “That’s... that’s very kind of you, Kitty. Are you feeling well?”

“Are you implying that because I’ve done a good deed I must be ill?”

“Sounds like it to me,” Jack said cheerfully. She gave the bowl another toss into the air... but this time her reflexes weren’t quite as quick. “Oops,” she said, sucking in a breath when it struck the ground and cleaved in two.

“ Jack— ”

“It’s all right,” Mara said hastily. “It’s only a bowl. I’ll have a maid clean it up. And Kitty, I’m sorry, that’s not what I was implying. It is very kind of you to be providing for a child in need. Very kind. Particularly one who tried to rob you.”

“Thank you,” Kitty sniffed. Then she pressed the back of her hand to the middle of her forehead. “Maybe I am ill. It would explain why I’ve been feeling out of sorts lately.” She sipped her wine, then carried the glass over to a cabinet filled with an assortment of porcelain swan figurines. “These are pretty.”

“They belonged to Ambrose’s grandmother.” Sweeping her skirts to the side, Mara sat on the chaise longue that Kitty had left. “I’m glad you’re here. I have been meaning to pay a call, but things have been a whirlwind since we got to town.”

“Time flies when you’re in bed,” Kitty said dryly.

“When I’m in... oh. Oh .” Mara’s cheeks blazed with strips of pink. “Yes, Ambrose and I... we... erm... I can’t discuss that . There’s a child present. But I am pleased to report that our relationship has blossomed. We’ve never gotten on better. Which leads me to ask how you and William are faring?”

“We’re not buttering each other’s bread every night like you and your husband, if that’s what you’re inquiring after. Although we did have a satisfying go round last week.”

“ Kitty! ” exclaimed Mara, darting a glance at Jack who had found a platter of cheese on a side buffet and was happily stuffing her face. “You’re going to have to curb your language now that you’ve a young, impressionable charge to care for. Being a guardian is no small responsibility.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jack chimed in around a mouthful of dairy. “I know all about blowin’ the gronsils. Takin’ a flyer. Makin’ a lobster kettle. Havin’ a stitch.”

“That’s enough. We wouldn’t want to upset my older, impressionable sister.” Kitty hid her smirk behind the rim of her wineglass. “But if you’re asking if I’ve changed my mind about the divorce, Mara, my answer is no.”

Mara’s blush drained into a frown. “Surely you and William could figure out some type of reconciliation. You adored each other when you were first married.”

“How would you know?” Kitty said, more sharply than she’d intended. “You weren’t around. You left London when the ink on your marriage certificate was still wet.”

“I was asked to leave by Ambrose,” Mara returned quietly. “You know that.”

Yes, Kitty did.

In her head, logically, she knew Mara’s banishment to Southwick Castle had not been of her own making. But in her heart, the wound of being abandoned by the only person she had ever trusted not to hurt her remained as fresh as the day it’d been scored into her flesh.

Mara was supposed to always be there for her. That was the pact they’d made when they were cowering together under the bed while their father bellowed downstairs. And Mara was. She was there. For that, Kitty would forever be grateful. But then, with little warning and no time to prepare, her sister was gone. Her sister was gone, and she was trapped in a house alone with no one to stand between her and the monster that prowled at night.

She could still hear them—the footsteps, heavy on the stairs.

She could hear the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her chest.

The terrible creak of the door when it swung inward on rusty hinges.

The labored breaths of her father as he’d stared at her.

The fear that had crinkled in her throat like broken glass while she’d waited to see if he would advance toward her bed or retreat into the hallway.

For a year, she’d lived like that. For a year, she’d waited for the worst to happen. And when she was finally rescued, when the monster was finally slain, it wasn’t Mara who wielded the bloody knife.

It was William.

“I’m glad that you and your husband are happy, Mara. No one deserves a happily-ever-after more than you.”

“But,” said Mara, saying aloud the word that Kitty had left unspoken.

“But what worked to fix your marriage is not going to fix mine. William and I...” Trailing off, she opened the cabinet door and selected a swan with a crown on its head. “William and I are different. We were forged in fire, but that type of heat is not sustainable. Especially when another person is draining away all of the oxygen.”

“I’m confused. Are you saying that William is guilty of an affair?”

On a short, bitter laugh, Kitty returned the swan to its rightful place and turned to regard her sister with an arched brow. “An affair I would welcome, as there’s no woman who could compare with me. No living woman, that is,” she corrected. “But Alessandra isn’t alive, and no matter how hard I try or what I do, even I cannot compete with the dead.”

“Lady Alessandra Mountbatten?” Mara bit her lip at Kitty’s curt nod. “I remember hearing about her, even all the way at Southwick Castle. Such a tragedy, what occurred. I knew there was some connection between the Mountbattens and the Colbornes, but I didn’t realize it had anything to do with Lord Radcliffe. Admittedly, I’m not one to pay attention to gossip.”

Kitty tilted her head, drained what remained of her wine, and set the glass on top of the cabinet. “I didn’t know there was a connection either, until Alessandra appeared on my doorstep in her nightdress and claimed that I’d stolen William from her. It’s why we broke off our initial courtship.”

“You told me you ended things because William had to travel for business and he wasn’t sure how long he would be gone, or if you wanted to wait.”

“That,” Kitty agreed, “and Alessandra trying to plunge a paper knife into my neck.”

“Spectacular,” Jack grinned.

Mara’s reaction was notably less enthusiastic.

“ Katherine ,” her sister gasped. “I—I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why hadn’t she?

It was a question Kitty had asked herself numerous times.

At first, the shock of it all—and what happened after—was enough to stun her into silence. Then there was the fact that Mara was newly wed, and why would she darken her sister’s door with her own problems? Problems of heartache, betrayal, anger, and loss. Thus, when Mara had inquired via letter how her courtship was progressing, she’d glossed over the messier details and written simply that she and Lord Radcliffe had ended things amicably as he was headed across the Atlantic to pursue a merger. Except the merger was here, in London, and there was nothing amicable about the way their courtship had ended.

“It was raining.” She considered pouring a third glass of wine, but as her head was already fuzzy and her tongue loose, decided against it. Walking to the chaise longue, she sat beside her sister and gazed intently at a painting on the wall. “It was raining, and it was early, and I was woken by a loud pounding on the door...”