Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Present Day
Southampton, England
Kitty had twisted Julian about her little finger as she always could with seemingly no effort on her part.
After buying up half of Southampton’s market, she had informed the Reverend Robert Carleton they were attending service.
And they did. An hour early. While Kitty left him to speak to Robert, Julian paced the arcade outside feeling more like a husband than he ever had.
He stole inside as the worshippers arrived and dropped to the farthest pew from the altar and closest to the door.
Miss Lucretia Carleton stopped to greet him in her effusive manner, and a grandmother leaned over the pew in front of him to offer her condolences.
When he spied Kitty sitting at the organ in the chancel, Julian understood what his brother Oliver had felt every time he clutched his chest and shouted he wouldn’t live to forty.
The girl he had known since ten with the rabid father who had damned all Protestants as heretics played beautifully, like she did the pianoforte.
His inexpert opinion was confirmed by the celebrants murmuring in appreciation around him.
How long had it been since he had been to service?
That he hadn’t been smote by the Almighty upon entering was a wonder, given his youthful transgressions and dissipation that had defined his life after he had deserted the yard.
Julian had only marginally believed in God.
He had never caught the pox, his liver wasn’t bilious nor his pockets turned out.
He wondered what or who had protected him from his recklessness.
He stretched his legs until his knees hit the pew in front of him and a matron in cap and tails cast him a pitying look instead of glaring at his ill manners.
Worship ended. The crowd of sailors, middling and poor families with children trailing, shuffled out while Kitty played a somber dismissal.
Not until the pews were deserted did she rise as a slim swath of unremitting black down the line of Gothic arches.
She stowed away the music and faintly smiled at her surrounds.
He sensed she had been fortified by worship.
But since their agreement, she had changed. He more than welcomed it.
Julian escorted his wife outside, and milling about the portico were a hundred eyes waiting for them. He leaned to Kitty’s ear, “Perhaps a warning next time.”
She stepped away and engaged his old friend Robert and his sister, Lucretia, in conversation. Robert praised Kitty’s singing and inquired if she would like to join the choir. He invited them to dinner at one o’clock next Sunday.
Julian turned to a young woman loitering at his right.
She bobbed a curtsy. “I spoke to me husband. He says once you got steady work he’ll come see you, sir.”
Jack Johnson, from the night of the brawl, approached with his wife and children. “I’ll come work if you need me.”
Another said, “You get a contract, St. Clair, and I’ll be glad to work for you again.”
As was becoming the norm, six people offered condolences. The last, a carpenter who had agreed to work at his yard, ended their conversation with an awkward lean. “I know, sir, how it is. I lost a son, meself. And we got to look out for our womenfolk. Their hearts are a tender thing.”
Julian offered in kind and the case of the mysterious condolences was solved.
He said to Kitty as they walked back to the Dolphin, “I didn’t expect you would actually tell people you lost a son.”
“I didn’t expect I would,” she said softly. “But at least his death has mended your reputation.”
“André, was it?”
“Yes.”
The fragile quality of her answer sat strange inside of him. He sought out her small, gloved hand and squeezed it with a chuckle. “Wish I could thank the little bugger.”
She looked up at him without changing her stride, her gaze piercing from within her black bonnet. “Countless children have died, Julian. The men who would work for you, their wives, they know the crushing grief of loss, a grief that will never leave them. To make light of it is reprehensible.”
She pulled her hand free and walked on ahead of him.
The following Sunday, the dinner at the vicarage was enjoyable if strained.
Vicar Robert Carleton, a brief partner in fun many years ago, didn’t quite know how to be around Julian.
Maybe he saw Julian’s presence as temporary like the rest of Southampton and chose to conserve energies best directed to those who deserved them.
Julian couldn’t blame his old friend. But it irked him as he and Kitty strolled the short walk back to their apartments, and an excess of useless what-ifs plagued his mind.
Deserting his yard had been his decision alone.
He couldn’t blame Kitty. But if she had not left him, his life would be different.
He unbuttoned his jabot and stock as soon as they entered the door, throwing it to a chair cushion.
His green silk coat followed. The air was thin.
The walls crept inward. It was the same every time he was alone with Kitty in their rooms. She was his for the taking.
And his body refused to let it lie. Right now, in the afternoon summer light suffusing through the gallery window, he could lay her down on the gold sofa and seek his pleasure.
Bury his worries inside her. Lose himself and the doubt.
He called to his wife’s slim back as she moved toward her room. “Why did you leave?”
Silence followed. She halted, her hip leaning slightly on the gaming table.
“What happened between me departing for Southampton and you deciding to see the world?”
She bent her head, exposing the smooth skin of her nape. “I had to go.”
“Why?”
“I must find Father Dunlevy.”
“Why? Are you afraid of him? Did he hurt you? Did he threaten you? By God, I will kill—”
“No! He did not hurt me.”
“Then why?” He was nearly shouting now. He wanted to tear something to pieces. Hurl her, his past, the fucking hurt he thought he had conquered, to hell. “Why did you leave me?”
“You are so angry.”
“Ah, well. My apologies. I am now all cordiality.” He threw up a hand, though what did it matter? She had her back to him still. Couldn’t look at him.
More silence. Did she ponder his question? Would she answer honestly or invent a response to fit what she thought he wanted to hear?
She steadied her shaking hand on the card table. Her fingers curled into a fist. “If I tell you…” She lifted her face to the ceiling, breathing deeply. “Yes, I know I must.”
He strode toward her, turning her around and bracing her upper arms. “Tell me, goddamn it.”
Tears welled in her rounded eyes. “I was afraid!”
“Of what?”
“Of—” Groaning, she clenched her eyes shut. If not for his hold upon her, she might have dropped to her knees.
He followed her as she dipped. “I deserve to know the truth.”
“Yes, I—”
“Tell me!”
“I was a-afraid of what might become of us if we married. We were so young. I feared you proposed to me because it was expected or because of Anthony. You always made it clear you never wished to marry. I wanted you to be free to make good your dreams.”
“Free? Damn you for putting this on me. It was you, Kitty. You who left. You. Did you find what you were searching for? Did you find your happy ending in Paris? Venice?”
“No. I did not.”
“So you came back.”
“Sir Jeffrey insisted. And—and I lied about seeing the world. And not loving you. But it was the only way to let you go. I never went to Paris or Venice. I went to Scotland with Father Dunlevy.”
Swiftly, he removed his hold and stepped back. He shook his head, attempting to make sense of her confession. Looking back on their travels, he accepted immediately her veracity. She had gazed upon the Continental sights as one who had never before, wide-eyed with wonder.
“You lied to me.”
She hung her head. “I promise you, I did not want to. I would sell my very soul to have the chance to do it over again.”
She caught a sob and hurried into her room. He stalked after her, catching her as she neared the bed. Hooking an arm about her waist, he yanked her firm against him.
His voice was thick, gritty with regret. He buried his mouth at the curve of her neck. “I am sorry. It was wrong of me to shout.”
She shook against him, her fingers clenched about his forearm locked at her waist. “Please make it go away. I can hardly breathe for it. This unbearable pain.”
Surprised, he looked down at her trembling shoulders. “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes. Yes, please allow me to feel something more.” Her voice was strained, almost unhinged.
He breathed in her scent. Kitty. Warmth, uncertainty, innocence. Pain. He knew he had made a mistake treating her harshly. He knew what he was about to do was wrong. For both of them.
He laid her on her stomach over the foot of the bed, brushing the hair from her face where it pressed to the red counterpane. A perfect foil to the stark contrast of her ivory skin and ebony hair.
He draped himself over her back, his mouth grazing the delicate shell of her ear. This meant nothing. Nothing but lust.
Her hazel eyes fluttered shut.
He planted his hands at her back, rubbing his palms over her fragile shoulder blades, sliding down her slim arms, snagging each wrist and swinging her arms over her head. “How do you want it?”
She licked her full lips. “However you wish.”
He worked at the buttons of his fall, ripping two off when they did not cede quick enough to his need. He tore at his drawers and shoved them down.
“Grab the bedcovers,” he ordered.
She dug those tapered fingers into the silk. He licked the salty and sweet perspiration beading at top of her spine. Scoured a hand through her hair and another along the curve of her hip. And tossed up her skirts.