Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dearest Julian,
It snowed this morning. And while it is quite pretty, it means that Lord Staverton must grace us with his presence for longer.
Of course, this is great news to my father who, laid up with a bout of rheumatism, has a companion with whom to speak of the heresy that has fallen upon our country.
That it has been over two hundred years hardly matters.
I remain silent as they plot the return of the True Faith and, you know, they ask me no questions.
But, if they did, I would ask: Is there really such a difference in gods?
Everyone dies, Julian, and the status of my loved ones’ souls matters nothing to me, except that they are no longer here.
I believe the rules concerning worship are wielded like Machiavelli, a power used against our mortal condition.
And when I die, I am most suspicious that I will not care.
In truth, the assurance I would be united with my mother upon death was once my greatest conviction. Now, I do not believe it.
I hope to be reunited with you soon. Please write to me on your adventures.
Yours in Disbelief,
Kitty
Notfelle, December 27, 1758
Day 251
Dearest Julian,
Lord Staverton eyes me like a meat pie, which he is very fond of and eats excessively.
Our larder is almost empty from his gluttony and my father has sold the last of my mother’s silver plate—you know, the platter which Cook served the delicious tea cakes on?
Gone. And her gold-plated clock. Gone. Rest assured, I wear your ring when out of my father’s presence, lest he strip it from my finger.
But Lord Staverton wants to put a ring upon my finger and if it were not for Father Dunlevy advising against it—I am just seventeen, if you remember—I would be making children with a grandfather.
Julian, Lord Staverton put his hand on my thigh when my father left the room to find Shelley and he squeezed it.
Please write back and tell me what I should do.
Yours in Fear of Grandfathers,
Kitty
Notfelle, January 5, 1758
Day 261
Julian,
As I did not hear from you on how to repel Lord Staverton’s continued advances, I resorted to my own methods.
Recall the last he cornered me in the butler’s pantry, and when I dropped to the floor to crawl around him, he was unable to bend down and catch me.
Why he wishes to make children with me when there are far prettier females in the world is a mystery.
I can only assume I smell of mutton and onions.
I awoke last night with a crushing weight upon me and the stench of tobacco and fish spit on my mouth.
Lord Staverton, peer of the realm, ardent lover of Christ Jesus and Mary, was undressed, on top of me, kissing me.
I lay there, in complete shock. What to do?
I knew I had but one chance, and you, Julian, saved me.
Remember when you laid Shelley low with a knee to his breeches?
What inspiration! I shoved my knee where there were no breeches and an apoplexy overcame him.
I then proceeded to push him off my bed and, because villains are never thwarted with one strike, whacked him over the head with a candlestick. Remarkably effective.
However, I’ve read enough novels to know he wished to compromise me and thus force me into marriage, so I remained utterly silent to avoid my father’s discovery and dragged the beast out of my room, down two corridors, and left him in front of my father’s chamber door.
It took me a good half hour and if I hadn’t been exhausted, I would have rolled him to the stairs and kicked him to his Maker.
Instead, I brushed my teeth three times.
At breakfast this morning, he was gone from Notfelle. Suffice to say, our Twelfth Night celebration is restrained.
Yours in Violent Inspiration,
Kitty
Notfelle, April 18, 1758
Day 324
Dearest Julian,
Happy Birthday. I hope this letter finds you as safe as Father Dunlevy assures me you are.
I have no cause to doubt him as he is most patient and kind where my fears for you are concerned.
This morning, Anthony Philips arrived for the second time this month.
He had already given me your quarterly allowance his last visit, so I was surprised to see him.
I took him on the Fairy, and without wind to fill the sails, he rowed us to Huntingdon.
Your friend is a fine rower, very strong, and his knowledge of poetry is as broad as his chest.
Seized by a consuming misery, I wept for you and confessed my fears of your death.
Anthony sweetly held my hand, assuring me you would want me to be happy and so, I should look toward the future, even if it is without you, for you will always be in my heart.
He kissed my mouth and it made me slightly less sad.
Yours Looking Toward the Future,
Kitty
Look toward the future?
He kissed my mouth?
Slightly less sad?
Julian stuffed Kitty’s letters into the box.
There weren’t enough curses to satisfy his rage.
In truth, during his reading he had lost his finely honed skill for swearing.
Nearly five hundred letters to his one. He deserved the gut-wrenching guilt and the self-doubt and the ruined leg.
But he’d never excelled at martyrdom. He did things about it.
He snuffed the candle and righted his crutches. Swinging to the stairs, he slid his backside down the steps and headed to the stables. He was going to get down on the able knee he had and apologize to Kitty. From there, he would grovel.
Entering the stables, he fumbled through the dark aisle and overturned a bucket on the way to the saddle room. The point of his crutch skidded through the water and he flew forward, twisting in time to avoid landing on his chin.
A stable boy waved a lantern in his face. “Would you be needing help, sir?”
“I want a horse.” He hopped to his crutches.
“Begging your—”
“Saddle one now. Please.” If the surgeon hadn’t said Julian risked never walking again if he bore weight, he’d do it himself.
“Is there a particular hor—”
“One with four legs.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy hurried off.
He used the mounting block for the first time he could remember, handing off his crutches to the boy and crawling on top of it.
The big gelding, Turk, pinned an ear as Julian planned his attack.
Grabbing the mane with both hands, he shoved off with his left leg and vaulted the dead weight of his right, up and over.
He gave Turk a hearty pat on the neck. “It’s the little things in life, isn’t it?”
The stable boy looked doubtful. “Would you like me to ride with you, sir?”
“Do I look like I need help?” With a grin, Julian motioned for the boy to hand him his crutches. Settled in the saddle, he reined the gelding out of the yard and rode south at a walk.
The slow pace grated his nerves. Until recently, he thought nerves were for women, like his mother when she wished to avoid tedious company.
Hanging upside down, staring at death 150 feet below, with the ship heeling in a squall, Julian hadn’t had nerves.
But now the moon tracked him through the grain fields and trees like a pest. Turk’s ceaseless, four-beat gait punctuated his thoughts like a dirge.
Crossing a fallow field, he passed the Notfelle hedge.
Looming six feet high on the bank of a stream, Georgiana had conquered the monster on Turk while he had been trying to make something of himself.
He’d gone hungry, been beaten by tougher men, become the tougher man who didn’t bully just because he could, used the brain no one gave him credit for, and none of it mattered.
He had to learn methods of thinking, flower mating, a dead language, and mythology.
None of it would earn him a crumb of bread or a roof over his head.
He had worn the same two pair of breeches for five weeks, with one leg cut off to fit over his splint.
When the contraption came off in a month, would he be able to walk?
Who cared? His knowledge of Shakespeare would be as broad as his chest.
How far had Anthony gone with Kitty? How many kisses? Had he touched her? On the boat he had built for her. Named after her.
Julian rounded Notfelle’s north wing toward the graves. He smelled the horse sweat lingering in the summer air. Under the lime tree, Julian saw her. Where he knew she would be because he knew her better than Anthony, who saw Kitty as a first.
Lying on her side along the grave, her night robe bleached white in the moonlight, she talked to her mother.
“…angry but I know you are relieved I don’t have to marry him.
I pray he’s the last follower of the true faith in England.
Oh, but what if Sir Jeffrey sends me to France?
” She patted the grass. “True. He despises the Fr—”
Turk nickered. Kitty pressed up on her hand, and it happened all over again. The parade of disappointment in her eyes, the stillness in her lithe body. Inside him, the rush of attraction, the fierce, pinpoint awareness of what he wanted and the steps required to get it.
Lifting his crutches from his lap, he braced them on Turk’s side and twisted slowly from the saddle. He sent the gelding off with a pat to his hindquarter to graze.
Kitty watched him as he maneuvered to the grave and lowered beside her. His gaze traced the line of her breasts. He saw where her hips flared out at her waist, met the slim length of her legs, and ended at two slippered feet.
“Kitty. I missed you.”
Slowly, she turned her head. Her voice was low and hollow. “You missed me.”
“Yes.”
“Were you imprisoned?”
“No.”
“At sea then,” she said. “For 484 days.”
He should have begun with an apology but had led with feelings. "No.”
“Then when, Julian, did you miss me?”
“I thought of you every day. And I am sorry. I cannot explain to you why I didn’t write—”
“I don’t require an explanation.”
“Listen to me.” What an unmitigated disaster this was.
“Seven of us went aloft after a halyard had snapped as we approached a French privateer. I was the first up, the farthest out on the Flemish horse, trying to bring in the sail. A squall struck us. One of the men, stepping on the loose footrope near the mast, couldn’t help it.
His foot rammed against it and the rope braced hard.
My leg caught between the horse, and suddenly I was hanging by it.
I heard two men strike the deck. I knew my leg was broken.
The ship was heeling, taking water on. And I saw your face.
I was at peace. With you. As I prepared to die. ”
Her white teeth scraped her bottom lip.
He wanted to kiss her, had never wanted anything more. He cupped her right hand still planted to the grass. She looked down at their joining, a skein of black hair, free from ribbons or pins, sliding over her cheek.
He fought the urge to slide his fingers about her neck. And then he gave in, guiding her lips to his, his heart striking his breastbone as his mouth met plush, parted velvet. Drawing back, their noses grazed each other. He angled his mouth and kissed her again.
He nipped along her bottom lip, tasting tea and ripe cherries.
He feathered between her lips, coaxing her, and she yielded, shivering beneath his hand as their tongues met, entwined, searched.
She rose up against him with a whimper. Warmth encased his chest where she laid her hand, the path hot as she slid up his shoulder and her fingertips dug at his hair.
Hunger pounded like guns. He urged her back to the grass, his kisses deeper, claiming not savoring, half-over her and plundering. Her breath came fast and his hand was on her breast, palming the thrusting curve under the delicate linen gown, thumbing her nipple, groaning as it pebbled.
Her hands planted on his chest and shoved.
She slapped his cheek hard, sending his jaw sideways. Rolling from beneath him, she scrambled away and wrenched her gown over her legs. “I’m not one your widows, Julian. I know what you do with them thanks to Anthony.”
“Anthony?” he choked out.
“Yes, he assured me you didn’t die lonely.” She jabbed a finger at his breeches.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Why? Because he speaks the truth? Who am I to you? A stupid fool you didn’t care to send but one letter to? Or a piece of mutton?”
Julian levered to stand with surprising competence. “I have never referred to a female as mutton.”
The mouth he’d been kissing, dying for, lifted in a full snarl. “How chivalrous of you. What are we then? Wanton widows? Loving lutes? Six-penny slits?”
“Jesus. Where did you learn—”
“Don’t you dare care. Not now, not when you haven’t cared for 484 days.” On her feet, she wiggled her finger under his nose. “You are only here because of what Anthony and I did. To compete with him.”
“What have you done?”
“If I had been alone, you’d not give me a second thought. Certainly not have done this!” She clutched her breast.
“Damn it, I’m sorry. I acted like an animal.” Such an animal, the sight of her hand on her breast rekindled his lust. And where was the ring he had given her?
“I liked it,” she seethed. “But I hurt, Julian. Hurt. And that you missed me, that you are sorry, that you almost died, that you stooped to sate your male needs on me doesn’t fix it. I hurt.”
The crack in his chest surpassed the pain and roar of purpose that had seized him on the main yard when he had fought death. He was at fault here. Anthony had merely played against the cards Julian had foolishly thrown.
“Where is your ring?” he asked softly.
“I buried it.” She turned and walked from the grave.