Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Present Day
Off the Coast of Hampshire, England
Kitty St. Clair, soon to be Madame Féline, stood at the ship’s forecastle, the wind cold on her cheeks.
Around her, men scrambled over the deck and dangled from the masts, trimming sails, calling in short bursts to one another.
Even engaged with the serious business of entering port, they made time for lively jests and ear-scorching oaths.
She wrenched her gloved hand on the railing.
Before her lay a new beginning with a purpose and a dream reclaimed.
She excelled at figures and, with a father who had cared for hunting and hounds to the detriment of all else, was also first-rate at making ends meet.
True, Julian was the imaginative genius, the designer and builder, the boy who had refused to follow his father’s plans.
Kitty shivered in her cloak, drawing it farther up her neck. The Earl of Tindall despised a puppet who did not dance to his tune.
Her contribution was to be prosaic compared to Julian’s, but it was still worthy.
As a girl, she had scoured books and pamphlets on business and its philosophies.
Sat for hours and hours listening to Georgiana’s father lecture long on finance and negotiation.
Saved Julian’s allowance and winnings and placed him on a slim budget.
She suspected Julian had accepted her offer to return to England because he expected her to fail.
Since the ship’s departure from Genoa, she had tried to engage him in discussion.
He had admitted he owned a small shipyard upon the River Itchen, which excited her so she had almost smiled.
But any further questions on its operations were met with silent mockery.
She grated her teeth at her bottom lip. What moisture the wind failed to carry away with a gust she brushed off with her fingertip.
Yes, she was sailing toward her purpose and if she failed, which she deemed impossible, she would also be free. A widow, free from pitying looks from women who coveted her husband, free to mourn her marriage openly.
Free to mourn her son, Andrew.
Four years and three days ago, he had taken his last breath in her arms.
The shame she worked ever hard to hide, scoured her insides. If only… Damn the if onlies. She had spent years with them. She was going to end this with happiness.
She closed her eyes at the looming Isle of Wight.
With each dip of the bow into the choppy bay, the unease she fought, grew.
No, she wasn’t sorry for returning to England.
She was anxious. The past two days, the wind had carried them due north and all the crew had had to do was trim the sails slightly windward and they were racing toward Hampshire.
She curved her lips lest anyone detect her sickening nerves.
She was still that frightened girl. And her body at once craved the release of laudanum, to tuck herself into the numbing, euphoric trance.
Wind bit at her face, and cold tears seeped from their corners.
Hastily, she dashed them from her temples as footsteps approached.
“Ah, merry old England,” Julian said at her right. His tone was, as usual since their agreement, tinged with mockery. “Happy to be home?”
She trained her gaze to the coast. “Most happy.”
His arm wrapped about her shoulder, pulling her in. Kitty stiffened. A painful need stirred unwanted in her chest.
“Julian, please. I am nothing to you now save your partner. If someone from the ship were to see you touch me so, they would question my repute and in turn, tell others in town.”
He cocked a brow. “You are serious.”
“I am a widow of high moral standing.”
“One who has gone in trade.”
“My husband, Etienne, was in trade.”
He jutted his chin into his cravat. “Etienne, is it?”
“Yes. And widows are known to continue their family’s trade.”
“But are encouraged to find another husband. What of Madame’s father?”
“His name is Thomas,” she replied. “I provided you a summary of my life. Have you read it? If not, I suggest doing so. I also have a more detailed biography if it interests you.”
“Do you have any children?”
She splayed her palm against her stomach.
Julian followed the motion. “Ah, you do.”
“I do not.”
He grinned. “Did the little bugger die?”
She dug her nails to her palms. “He was not a little bugger. His name was André.”
“How did he die?”
“Putrid throat.”
“Ah. Quite tragic. Was this before or after you lost Etienne? And by the by, how did the good man meet his maker?”
“My babe died before I became a widow. And Etienne’s heart seized whilst bedding another woman.”
Julian threw back his head in laughter, his white teeth glowing in the sunrise. “Ah, Katherine. You always loved a good tale, didn’t you? Suppose you’ll have to amend that one for polite company.”
She regarded him steadily.
He stretched his tall form and leaned his elbows on the railing. “Has anything happy occurred in Madame’s life?”
“I loved my husband. And he loved me.”
“Yet he picked another woman’s lock.”
“Many locks, actually. But I search for no meaning behind his actions. I was his wife and partner, and the others were not.”
He watched her for a moment. His boyish smile and wind playing at his queued hair did awful things to her heart. “Why, Madame Féline, you sound like the perfect wife.”
“I was.” She dropped a swift curtsy. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. St. Clair, I must prepare for our arrival.”
Three Hours Later
Their arrival proceeded with breathtaking efficiency. The wind complied, the ship eased into the Southampton Waters, and two anchors were dropped. Without remembering how, Kitty found herself aboard a pilot skiff, a sailor rowing toward a lengthy stretch of commerce and wilderness.
Southampton was a port without moorings at the convergence of three rivers.
She had never seen Southampton until this day, but Julian had described it vividly during their youth.
The medieval arched city wall to her right, the gatehouse, once a proud, towering lady who had repelled the French.
Now a gaol. The low-flying blue kingfishers and little grebes diving for fish.
The naval shipyards along the River Test, where vessels were constructed and launched via the sloping, marshy banks.
Here, amongst the smell of salt and yeast, turpentine and the pleasant scent of earthy decay, Julian had spent years learning how to make his dreams.
A hundred English voices rose from the swarm of boats ferrying to and fro between the quay and the anchored ships. A harsh language, she thought after two years away, and slightly terrifying to her ears.
She swallowed back the patter in her throat before it became a pounding. Julian shifted on the bench beside her, long legs widely bent and, she knew, eager to pick another woman’s lock. But he was not hers anymore. She was a widow.
Perched at the bow, a boy watched her, all elbows and knees, in clothes destined for the rag pile. The pilotman dug deep with his left oar, swinging the skiff abreast of a wooden walk jutting from the stone quay. The boy scrambled to the walk and tied the rope Julian tossed at him.
And here she was. So soon.
After spitting in the water, the pilotman locked the oars and climbed out. Julian stepped over the bench as if he had done the same a hundred times—which he had—and offered an arm.
Gorge rose at back of her throat. The one pledge she had made two years ago, as a married woman, as she and Julian had boarded the packet for Calais: I will never return to England.
And here she was.
She was not afraid. She was terrified.
Launching over the two benches to the bow, Kitty planted her hands on the walk. She ignored Julian’s offered hand and jumped to her knees, crawling a few paces and unwrapping her skirts from her legs.
Julian hauled her to her feet, looking her over with shock. “Katherine, what the devil were you doing climbing up the dock like a monkey?”
“Madame Féline,” she corrected breathlessly.
He spoke low, between his teeth. “For God’s sake, are you keeping to this?”
Still the air was thin, hardly filling her lungs. “We shook hands on it.”
After smoothing a hand down her cloak, she started walking toward the cobbled street lined with men and cargo.
She needed the safety of a roof, a door to close.
Her desire for a purpose and, to be honest, to remain with her husband, had put her at a grave risk.
More, Father Dunlevy. She must write him at once.
Julian hailed a coach and stood tapping his boot before lifting her inside without the steps. She hadn’t adjusted her skirts before he fixed her across the coach and stuffed his boot on her bench, pinning her cloak beneath it. “Look here, Katherine—”
“I am the widow, Madame Féline.”
“You are bloody well not.”
She refused to argue, gazing out the smudged window to the lath-and-plaster buildings mixed with brick and stone, their roofs undulating against the morning sun.
Julian nudged her left thigh with his boot. “Are you listening to me?”
“Admittedly, no.” Southampton was provincial, full of trade and sailors. No one would find her here, and if they did, she was Madame. Her insides began to unwind. Her breath slowed.
“Katherine—”
“Madame.”
“I will call you what I will.”
“Not wife.”
His tanned face suffused with red. “As partners, it would be acceptable for us to call each other by our Christian names.”
She turned her face back to the window as the coach drew up to a long-fronted inn of white stone and red brick. Four stories tall, on each side of the main were two-storied oriel windows. The coach turned in to the central arch and hostlers hurried to assist them.
Julian, however, jumped from the coach and swung Kitty down. He led her through a dark vestibule, and Kitty halted. Her husband could not have picked a more conspicuous accommodation. The inn opened up to an entrance hall overflowing with a rainbow of patrons in their finest summer clothes.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Julian asked in an annoyed tone. “They are damn determined to turn us into Bath and Brighton.”
He scanned the room and landed upon a pretty face. A blonde, kept well by the look of her pink sacque gown, with big blue eyes and big everything else in the proper places.
It had to start sometime, and she knew by the torture of two years, waiting only intensified the agony.
“If you wish to amuse yourself,” she said, “I shall secure our rooms.”
Julian slewed his head toward her but not before the woman had unfolded her fan and tapped the painted silk to her rouged lower lip. “What?"
“The blonde.” She nodded at the woman.
Julian dragged her away.
He approached the proprietor who stooped to a bow and escorted them to Mr. St. Clair’s private apartments without asking who Kitty was or if she required her own room.
She was too surprised to speak until they gained the second floor. She whispered, “Mr. St. Clair, I cannot stay in your rooms.”
“Call me Mr. St. Clair again, and you’ll be sleeping in the stables. Ah, Mr. Welles,” Julian said as the white-paneled door opened and he tugged her inside. “Here we are.”
Kitty gawked at the carpet beneath her half-boots while Mr. Welles rambled on the upkeep of Mr. St. Clair’s lodgings, replete with fresh linen weekly. The depth of color in the carpet, the vividness of their design, put most everything she had walked upon in her life to shame.
A maid bustled in and withdrew the furniture covers.
Julian’s private rooms spanned an entire side of the inn. Windows overlooked the court on one side, and on the other was a private gallery with sweeping river views. The jade-green drapery, crafted in brocade with gold threads, hung in lush swathes.
Adjacent to the gallery sat a gold-and-white sofa with gilt mermaids for arms. Long enough to fit two of her lengthwise.
There were various furnishings. A low-set rosewood table to accompany the sofa, twin ormolu side tables, a black commode with bronze lion head pulls, which Kitty was certain she had seen an exact replica at Versailles.
Situated near the marble hearth were two gaming tables covered in black baize.
How many ships had Julian sold to cover the cost before he had deserted his dreams? His father had refused to believe in Julian’s dream. Trade was dirty business. Of course, dying in war was too, but for second sons it was a regiment or the church.
“Mr. Welles,” she said. “I require—”
“Mr. Welles,” Julian countered, “might we speak alone?”
Determined not to make a fuss, Kitty disappeared into the dining room. The table was a sprawling affair in the French taste: inlaid mahogany with bronze fleur-de-lis ornaments about the black skirt, bronze tiger claws capping the trestles. The cream silk chairs beckoned, padded bottom and back.
Here she was. In the most conspicuous rooms in the most conspicuous establishment in town. A town wishing to be Bath and Brighton.
The apartment door clicked behind her. Julian said, “I have procured another room.”
“Thank you.” She walked toward the door where men unloaded their trunks.
Julian caught her by the arm and nodded for the men to quit the apartment. “You will remain here. I will take the second room.” When she veered her gaze to the smaller, second room off the main, he added, “Another room. Second down from the corner.”
“But if I stay here, I will appear a kept woman.”
“You are a kept woman.”
“I will pay for my own lodgings.”
“Stop.” He pressed a finger to her mouth. “I will not have you living in one room while I enjoy luxury. No, you will remain here and allow me to visit.”
“Regardless of where I sleep, I will require a companion to maintain respectability.”
Julian blinked repeatedly. “You try my patience.”
“We shook hands on this. Are you a gentleman, Mr. St. Clair?”
A shiver of restraint wracked his shoulders.
“I will speak to Mr. Welles,” she said, “about transferring the account.” She grabbed the key dangling from Julian’s fingers and, securing the handle of one of her trunks, dragged it out the door.