Chapter 10 Katherine—Not Too Proud to Beg
KATHERINE—NOT TOO PROUD TO BEG
Counting and praying, I finally see Jahleel’s chest move. He flicks open his eyes. “Still here?”
“Someone needs to be with you.”
“That someone was never to be you.”
His words strike me hard. I’d rather he yells that I’m unworthy.
I am.
But Jahleel never yells. His disagreements are gentlemanly, but his tone and dismissiveness make me feel small and foolish.
“Katherine. I’ve seen you. Tell me how brilliant I am. So brilliant and mortal. Then go, knowing you amused me.”
“Can’t go. Scarlett’s not back. She’ll never trust me if I leave.”
“The burdens we must bear.” Jahleel turns a little onto his pillow. “I’m sure you’ll figure out something in time. Time is a gift.” His words are soft. “Time solves all problems … or removes them.”
Dampening the cloth anew, I try to pretend he didn’t call himself my problem or hint at death removing him. Making slow, small circles, I mop his forehead. I breathe more deeply when I see his lips ease, the tight press slacking. “Like glass cutting through your veins, Jahleel?”
“And the pressure in my chest. That makes it even worse.”
Then all is silent, until I speak. “You became so sick on our wedding trip. You might’ve died in my arms. How was I to take that?”
He glances at me. “What a way to die, I suppose, with your beautiful feet arched about me. Yes, die with passion and the love of a lifetime. My mother would care for you as she’s caring for me and Lydia.”
“That woman hated me—or so I thought. But why would she want the match? My family was a working one, not noble, not part of the gentry.”
He holds his neck. “She was fretting over Anya being sick. She didn’t know I …”
His lips close, for a moment. “Lady Hampton, did you say I won? I forget.”
“Yes, you won.” I wring out the cloth. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying at Anya House. I will return you to health, Jahleel. Let me be of aid.”
“Katia, please.” He shakes his head. “You don’t care if I live or die. You didn’t last week. You haven’t for the three years I’ve been right here in London.”
“I care, and maybe I needed you to admit that you were sick. That our future would always be in jeopardy. Then I could have chosen. I’d have made a fully formed decision with my head, not just my heart.”
“You mean a decision not formed of lust and curiosity. You wanted a prince like in the fairy tales. This one came with baggage—a body you’d grow to detest, then be joyful when it gave out.”
“No. That’s not it. You should’ve told me the truth about being sick. If you lied about that, what other lies would you tell?”
“See? My fault. That way, when Tavis whispered lies—”
“His parents insisted they were true. That you were a womanizer and that you’d leave me destitute.”
He rubs at his chest as he erupts in coughs. “Ah, the toll of being pitiful and proud. But I’m not a hypocrite.”
“What?”
“You needed an excuse to run.” He points to the door. “Run now!”
His hand lowers. Jahleel begins to shake.
I put my palm on his chest to steady him. His skin is smooth and warm—too warm. How hard his heart pumps—it vibrates my fingers. “I need you well.”
“You need me?” Jahleel’s hand covers mine. “I’ve faithfully protected you, the Wilcox family, and your precious business for three years. You need my money, and you wish to marry me on my deathbed to regain custody of Lydia. How did you come to hate me so much?”
“No. No to all of that scheming. And I don’t hate you. I never wished you ill.”
“Ill? Or dead?” His face turns from me again. “Pretty much the same thing. But please don’t assume that illness makes me stupid. I need nothing from you. And you have nothing to give.”
“I’m the bad one, Jahleel. But don’t make me evil.”
“Again, sort of the same thing.” He winces. “You don’t know what it feels like, knowing I could’ve died at any moment, my child never knowing I’m her father or how much I love her.”
“Lydia knows how you feel.” I dip the cloth in the water that smells of citrus and vanilla, then pat his cheeks. “She’s known all along.”
Jahleel tries to shake his head, and I slip my palm to the back of his neck and use my fingers to massage the tension in his muscles.
His body relaxes. At least I’m useful to him.
“Katia, you know your fingers are perfectly sized. Always have been. Just like your feet.”
My feet? Did he still have that strange fascination with my feet? Never mind. I focus on reducing his pain. “I remember how your neck hurts you sometimes.”
“Guess you’re not completely evil.” He chuckles. “That’s good. Beauty and evil shouldn’t entwine. But it’s a bewitching combination.”
My fingers tremble. I don’t know from which, the insult or the compliment. How can he still think me beautiful when I’ve done so much wrong?
“So, Katia, let me address your true worries. Know that Lydia is in safe hands. Even in death, I will help thwart a scandal.”
“I hadn’t thought of scandal.”
He chuckles. “There’s always a scandal, when we, the outsiders, do something wrong.”
“Jahleel, what can anyone do to me? You’ve protected Lydia, and my two sisters are married. My reputation is no longer a concern.”
He drags my fingers from his neck. With his pinkie, he traces lines in my palm.
“So brave and carefree. And I’m jealous of the long lifeline in your hands.
” He sighs and fills his lungs. “Invincible and unbothered about the coal customers turning away from a scandalous woman. Amazing Katia, that sounds like growth.”
He smells of musk and heat, not like the sandalwood and pine I’m accustomed to. The man must be miserable.
“You’ll be fine. All cunning women are.”
My breath catches, not from the cutting talk, but from his fingertips—short, rounded nails trailing from the center of my palm to my wrist.
The sensual way he touches me—that’s part of the draw to him, a part I miss. He was a pleasurable minx with my toes. Perhaps all those old feelings of love will be easy to find.
“Does Wilcox Coal have customers outside of Mayfair? If so, you’ll be fine, Lady Hampton. Again, you don’t need me.”
The business? He’s talking about my father’s legacy and playing with my fingers.
He blows air onto my palm, air he struggled to capture. “You told me I won our bet. That I’m brilliant. But you forgot the terms changed. No marriage, but to be my mistress for a season.”
Jahleel pats the bed. “A season was fine for me, since I might not make dawn. Have at me.” He struggles and sits up a little. “Take your horrid boots off and climb up.”
“You’re telling me to have at you when you struggle for a breath? No, Jahleel, be easy. Lay back.”
“Ordering me to bed?” He chuckles and glares at me with that knowing look. “The lady hasn’t changed. What was the position you wanted … legs here? And those large feet … no, I wanted those.”
Wanting to turn into flames, I force myself to not move. “You are right, the terms of our wager changed. But that doesn’t mean we can’t change them back.”
“Change back? A do-it-over?” A short smile tugs at his lips, neither too thin nor too thick. “Well, that’s something. You’ve become a smooth-talking … Wickham?”
“A what? Don’t you mean d’yavol?”
“According to Scarlett’s reading, d’yavol, Wickham, and Tavis are pretty much the same.”
Giving up his attempt to rise, Jahleel settles, but his leg shakes the sheets. It hits me in the core of my stomach how this sickness rages his body. I gulp down words that sound like pity. “Are you thirsty? Drinking more might break the fever.”
“Thirsty for you … to extoll my virtue. Say it slowly, the laudanum and pain teas dull my senses. Say I’m right and you’re wrong, dead wrong.”
Those words aren’t so hard. Even Mr. Thom, blinded by cataracts, can see that the duke has been good to us. “Yes. I am wrong. You are right.”
His frown deepens. “Say you can believe in me now.” He finds my palm and places a kiss into the center. “Then tell me a new and different falsehood, Katherine.”
I wrench free. “I’m being serious. I will hold to our bet. We can have a season or years of seasons. I will pay for what I’ve done.”
“Pay?” He grimaces with lips poking out, but those hazel-gray eyes shine brightly. “So, caring for me is torture. Well, at last we have an admission. Next time use a sweeter tone and maybe add a smidgeon more praise for your sickly lover.”
“More begging, Jahleel? Is that what you want?”
“That can be my only conceivable desire, for why else would you be standing in my private bedchamber, fully clothed, dusty shoes covering your feet and unrepentant? That is as bad as demanding to be welcomed back to my bed.”
“I’m not demanding …” My eyes grow wide. He thinks I’m lying. I lower my voice. “How should I beg? What will make you believe that I want to be here?”
His gaze shifts away.
I mop his head, pat his cheeks, and even baptize his warm shoulder.
“My barrister should’ve told you that our debts, even the wager, are settled. I’m free of you. Go.”
“You’re tired and aggravated by the pain. Me making amends being attentive to you will make it easier to forgive me.”
“Forgiveness?” He stretches and battles for another breath. “If you do not believe you are forgiven, that is your conscience. And you weren’t a perfect wife the first time. Why make promises to be a good mistress now?”
“I’m older. I understand more. And I’ve been a wife … one and a half times.” I want to cover my mouth before more foolishness falls out. “I can—”
“Don’t slight poor Tavis like that.” Jahleel wheezes and laughs. “And I know the truth of that union. It wasn’t just about honor or escaping scandal. You wanted me to hate you. Did you honestly think marriage to my lousy friend would make me despise you as much as I’d grown to despise him?”
“The pain medicine, Jahleel? Has Scarlett’s molasses-smelling weeds made you paranoid?”
“Oh, Katia, don’t be easy on me. I want you to gloat about making me pay.
Gloat. That kind of plotting makes me respect you more.
You took the fool, too. Separated Tavis from his parents’ love and troubles.
I guess you didn’t figure out that the replacement husband had a gambling problem. And was a cheat—”
“He never cheated on me.”
“Never?” Jahleel’s eyebrow rises. “Oh. The wild lettuce is making me foolish. Forget what I said. Forgive me. I shouldn’t disparage the dead, when I’m soon to be welcomed—”
“My marriage to Tavis is my business.” I climb on the mattress closer to Jahleel and open more of his nightshirt, then press the damp cloth to him. “It’s not as if I’m asking how you spent your time, especially since you believed we were still married.”
“Shoes? They should be off. But this linen needs to be changed. Oh, never mind.” His jaw tightens. “You believe nothing I say. I refuse to justify my life to you. You’re not my wife now. And I want a good mistress, not someone who can barely tolerate me.”
“Jahleel, calm down.”
“And what have you learned—all buttoned up in a gray carriage gown and gray shawl. That’s hardly seductive even for the bedridden. At least Scarlett’s boots are sentimental and clean. Yours are probably dusty. No sentiment at all.”
I’m so angry … because he’s right. I’m not sentimental. But I am emotional. I look at this man barely hiding the pain racking his limbs, and I hate myself more. “I’m sorry I made you feel like this.”
When I touch his cheek, he tenses. “Easy.”
I flick the little hairs of shadow along his chin. “You need a shave. A mistress should do that for you.”
Then I try to be sultry. I lower myself and kiss him.
The man startles. His embrace is weak, but his arms do circle me. For one moment, he kisses me back; then he gently pushes me away. “A goodbye kiss. Katia. Good. Bye.”
His wrist rotates, flicking his hand toward the door like I’m a peasant. “Go with God and know that we’ve parted this time at peace.”
“Parted? But what of us? Of Lydia.”
“We are nothing. My child is safe.”
“Jahleel. Lydia? I love her. You took her—”
“She’ll be protected when I die. And she has the truth, my means, and a respectable birth. Katia, we are free of each other. I wish you well. My daughter who shares my illness will be fine with someone hired to service our difficulties.”
I’m horrified. “You can’t think I hate you because you’re sick? You think I hate Lydia—”
“Go.” The wrist, the hand, the pointing fingers. “Go, Lady Hampton.”
I start to leave but stop at the door. “I’ve been so blind to how I’ve hurt you.”
“Yes, prejudiced against a man who’d move mountains for you. I just needed time to settle old scores.”
“How long? With this sickness, you never know how long.” I bite my lip. I should’ve quieted. Now I just hear my selfish heart.
“Just leave, Katherine.”
No measure of memories or well wishes can fix this. I step out of this room. The door thuds as it closes. I’m heartbroken. Jahleel might die and he’ll forever think I’m beneath him, nothing more than a cold and calculating shrew.