Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
The St. Clair temper was renowned in English aristocratic and parliamentary circles thanks to Julian’s father, Uncle William—may he rest in peace—and his brother Oliver. Even his cousin Georgiana had displayed it on occasion.
Kitty was a lucky woman Julian hadn’t inherited the curse. He had settled her into a third-rate room and left her. After reading the summary of Madame’s life, he joined the crowds in the lower rooms where tourists acquainted themselves over tea, cakes, and gossip.
Madame Féline had a dead husband, mother, and child, and a living brother and father.
She had grown up in the country. Her father was lesser nobility and a pauper.
She had met Etienne in her seventh year.
Near to what Kitty’s life had been, and it made sense to live a lie as close to the truth as possible.
Except Julian wasn’t dead. Neither was their never-existing child.
The blond woman Kitty had so graciously suggested he amuse himself with strolled near and paused to speak to a matron to his left.
With a thorough perusal of the woman’s tiny waist and generous hips, Julian pronounced his wife’s taste in women sound.
The modest fichu tucked in her bodice served to highlight her abundant breasts and make a man want to rip it off and bury his mouth in the ivory glory.
And those layers of skirts—he would throw them over her head and bury himself in her voluptuous heat.
The sideways glance she sent him, blue and arched and not innocent, had him filling his breeches. In the middle of a formal tea.
Could he do it?
Kitty had released him and named him dead. They had shaken hands on it.
But could he?
After the woman offered another smoldering look, he decided he could. But how? He flushed in humiliation. How? He had been a eunuch for two years and sorely out of practice, but he wasn’t dead. Despite Kitty’s assertions.
The woman dropped her fan. Julian cleared his throat, and she turned in his direction.
“You dropped your fan,” he said, like he couldn’t care less.
When she looked about as if she hadn’t purposely thrown it at his feet, he stooped down and fanned it open. Written upon the gilt leaves was her room number. Fifteen.
He handed the fan back to her. She returned to her companions, engaging them in quiet conversation. He needed this woman. If he had her for a week or two, his puritanical notions of fidelity would be an amusing memory.
The woman sent him a sideways glance and, hips swaying, walked from the room.
Julian checked his watch, his pulse heavy in his chest. Ten minutes later, he was bounding up the stairs.
Would he take her on the bed or against the wall?
The bed, he decided as he knocked on her door.
On her stomach so he could feast on her arse or on her back?
Definitely her back with her breasts free of her stays and heaving with his thrusts.
The door opened, and she was stark naked, the most magnificent, load-spilling sight he had seen in years. He stared at her outstretched hand.
“Julian?”
At Kitty’s call, he excused himself, shut the door, and swiveled to his wife standing alone in the corridor encased in a mourning ensemble.
Her close-bodied gown of black damask silk shimmered in the hall lighting. She wore his triple strand of pearls. Her hair was pinned, one black lock draped over her right shoulder.
Kitty peered at the closed door and back at him. They fixed upon his breeches.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Julian knew he could get Kitty gone. That if he knocked on fifteen’s door, in minutes, he would be celibate no more. He would know pleasure, the euphoria of a woman who didn’t expect the burden of love.
If Kitty had once approached him through their marriage without spewing how much she loved him, and thus reminding him of her betrayal and how easily she thought to put it behind them, he might have obliged their needs. But no, it was all about profoundness of feeling for his wife.
Kitty took two steps backward. “Let us tour the yard tomorrow after we both have—have sufficiently rested.”
He started to agree with her.
“No, no. Please.” Her fingers clenched at a letter halfway in her velvet purse looped on her wrist with her cloak. “I am quite tired, you see.”
Let her go.
Julian lunged toward her as she turned. “I would much prefer touring the yard with you.”
This needed to be dealt with.
The Southampton sky was vast, much like the sky Kitty had lived under in the county of her birth.
But without clouds, with the heavy summer sun following them along their eastward walk to the river, it felt almost oppressive.
In truth, it was a weight upon her heart, reminding her of what she had bargained for a month ago.
And what she had given away to keep living.
She tried not to be awkward or to brood or to fall into silence.
She thought back to the girl she had been, who had met challenges with a smile, who giggled and loved the color pink to exclusion.
But she couldn’t smile. She was dressed in mourning black, and while she walked the cobbled road which gave way to a wooded path, she was terribly awkward.
Julian said nothing of the door numbered fifteen. Oh, but she knew, as they had stared each other down in the corridor, the blond woman had waited behind the door. And it had been the blond woman who had made him thick and long with desire.
Her chin quivered. She was a widow. Her husband was dead. They had shared a grand love. But all good things came to an end, and after sorrow came new beginnings.
Dipping her chin, she studied Julian walking at her left. His brow was as heavy as the sun. His strong jaw and strides were determined.
What if she became like the woman in room fifteen?
She had Anthony’s list and knew the act.
Quite well, though it had been years since she had reveled in the physical beauty of love.
She could kiss Julian with abandon. Open herself to him.
Clasp his hard body to hers, feel him move inside her. Touch him. Stroke him.
“Julian?” She spoke in haste. “What if—what if you and I—”
He halted. “What if we what?”
Humiliation pinked her cheeks. Why had she opened her mouth? Loose women didn’t ask if they could be wanton, they simply did it. She pulled the purse from her wrist and pushed it in his hand. “What if you and I became true partners?”
He held the purse without taking his eyes from hers. “That was your meaning?”
“What else could I mean?”
“Well…” He cleared his throat. “Shall I be honest?”
“Aren’t you always?”
He shrugged. “I thought you wished to lay with me. Like the woman in room fifteen.”
Was she that obvious? Stretching to her full five feet and one-half inch, she barely reached his shoulders. “Why would I ever offer to have another woman’s seconds? Or whatever number she is.”
“There is no need to insult me.”
“Likewise.” She motioned to the purse.
Rummaging within it, he came out with a lace handkerchief.
“That is not it,” she said.
Two hair pins followed.
“Neither are those.” A small comb. “No, dig deeper.” Perfume. “Deeper.”
His big hand shoved halfway inside, straining the drawstring opening. “I’ve never ransacked a woman’s purse. But I imagined much more exciting finds.”
He withdrew a blue vial. “What’s this? A magical potion?” He ignored her protest and uncorked the vial. After a sniff, he frowned. “Laudanum?”
She fished in the purse and displayed the gift in her palm. “There.”
He plucked it away and then closed her fingers in his. “Dear wife, are you an opium eater?”
She had forgotten about the vial Anthony had given her. The manner in which his tone mocked her forced the lie. “I use it for my monthly pains. Now please open the gift.”
After an uncomfortable silence, he unwrapped the package to find a paper. “Two thousand nine hundred?” he read.
“I sold the majority of my jewels in Genoa,” she said. “It is my contribution to our partnership.”
His throat bobbed as he studied the script. “You shouldn’t have.”
He handed her the paper. She yanked open his coat and pushed it into the pocket lined in silk.
Passing him on the path, she trampled over weeds toward a row of small cottages.
Children’s laughter floated on the wind with the scent of marshland.
She kept walking with Julian beside her, avoiding puddles and rabbit holes on her path to a broad warehouse.
The air was oddly devoid of men’s voices for an area of industry.
A burly man in faded brown work clothes appeared.
“Sam, it is good to see you,” Julian called out.
Sam lit up. He shook Julian’s hand, and both men gave hearty greetings.
“Sam Worthing, may I introduce you to Madame Féline. A widow from Marseilles. The lady has come to have a look at Southampton and its shipbuilding industry. Madame, Sam has been a caretaker of sorts while I have been on the Continent.”
Sam doffed his hat, noting Kitty’s widow’s weeds. “Er, sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Mr. Worthing. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Aye.” His eyes danced below her pearl necklace. “A right pleasure. And ye got the best man to show ye the shipyards. A bleedin’ genius. Damn, I meant a right genius. And, beggin’ your pardon, I didn’t mean—”
“All is pardoned, Mr. Worthing,” Kitty said. “I am stronger than I look.”
“Aye, you look like a westerly could take you up and drop you in Dover.”
Julian slapped the man’s beefy shoulder. “Allow us to complete our tour here and I’ll be around shortly. Has Alice any of her cider left from the harvest?”
“Aye, she does. Rations it like slop in a gaol. But see you come along too, ma’am. It don’t taste like slop.”
Kitty agreed to visit, and after Sam bowed his leave, Julian motioned her forward. “For the record, I am not a genius.”
To have another praise Julian filled her with pride. The manner in which he could converse with anyone of any station without condescension was another point of pride.