Chapter 23 #2
“I had just finished playing Bach’s Partita Number One,” Kitty said, “when the first wave of sickness came over me. To say it was not pleasant, well, having been rarely ill in my life, I felt most ill-prepared.”
“Who is well-prepared to vomit on a dowager?” Julian drawled. Sitting sideways on her bed, his back to the wall, he handed Kitty a piece of cheese from the selection of plates arranged on the rumpled mattress. “Eat. You have eight days of nourishment to make up for.”
“Nine,” she said, devouring the cheese. “Father Dunlevy felt it best I have two more purges after the Stavertons departed for authenticity’s sake.”
“What a schemer. I can see where you get it now.”
“He’s not truly my father.”
“Mm-hmm.” Stretching across the head of the bed where she sat in her billowing nightshift, he plopped a slice of ham in her mouth. “What next?”
“I walked as calmly as I could to the dowager who reposed on the red settee with Father Dunlevy.”
“Suppose he didn’t want for any innocents to be assaulted.”
“He offered me his seat,” she said.
“A noble gent.”
“And then the most horrible wave came upon me. I was perspiring from places on my body I didn’t know existed. My mouth watered. My eyes were nearly crossed and bulging from my head. Lady Staverton was lecturing me on proper decorum, details unknown, just the gist, mind, and then, it was done.”
“Done? You cannot tell me you plotted to toss your accounts on an old prig dowager and then say it was done. I need specifics. The color, textures, quantity. Where did it land? Did she swoon? Curse? Half the fun of a scheme is the retelling.”
Julian fed her another piece of ham, and she satisfied his need, specifics which curdled her stomach at the memory. The first dose of antimonial had been too large, Father had relayed with an apology. The ones that followed had been mild in comparison.
By the time she finished her revised retelling, she was stuffed with food and could hardly breathe.
“When I cracked your bedroom door that night and saw Clara at your bedside, I nearly shit myself.” At her gasp, Julian said, “Had an urgent use for the privy.”
Kitty bit her lip. “I fear Sir Jeffrey will dismiss her after my speech on tolerance. Though I meant every word, it was careless.”
She stacked the plates and set them to the floor before fluffing her pillow and reclining back to the mattress. Julian slipped in beside her in his drawers, gathering her in his arms.
“When did Staverton officially give up the ghost?” Julian asked.
“The day after Easter. The dowager insisted the night I tossed my accounts, and Clara says she literally seized Staverton’s ear and dragged him to their coach.”
She tucked her head at his bare chest, at peace.
She had worried Julian might not return for no reason except the world seemed verily against her.
But Clara had delivered him a note that morning and he had returned, swooping her up and taking her to bed.
Of the nights they had spent before her purge had begun, tonight had been the most passionate.
Kitty rubbed her palm up his chiseled abdomen and came to rest over his heart. “I hope the dowager lives long enough for me to marry. Else, I’m certain he will return.” She shuddered at the possibility.
“Who’s the lucky man?” Julian clasped her hand on his chest and thumbed the ring upon her finger. The one she had dug up and wore when she was alone. Or now, with Julian.
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded far away.
The lucky man should be Julian, but he had vowed never to marry.
It would conflict with his success at shipbuilding.
A man could not reach his full potential worrying for a wife and family.
But his question hurt, and she couldn’t allow herself to hurt when Julian had been honest and she had accepted their situation.
“Maybe,” he mused, “Father Dunlevy can persuade Sir Jeffrey to take you to London. There are many men who will marry you for your beauty alone.”
She hadn’t told Julian about Father Dunlevy’s dowry scheme.
It would seal in his mind her paternity.
He would lord it over her. In a funning way, of course, but still, if Father Dunlevy was her natural father, it was a tragic secret.
Something to cherish and yet, mourn. The night he had admitted he had loved her mother, she vowed never to ask him.
“What sorts of men?” she asked lightly. “Dukes? Earls? Should I settle for a viscount?”
He tipped up her chin to angle a lingering kiss on her mouth.
“Enough about marriage.” His hand cupped her breast, thumbing her nipple until it beaded and strained at her nightshift.
He groaned, coming over her, jutting his hips to hers.
She matched his urgency, kissing him with abandon, remembering her first kiss and how it hadn’t foretold the wild passion and depth of feeling, the love she felt now.
She drew back as Julian slipped his palm up her nightshift. “What of Anthony Philips?”
Julian froze. “Anthony?”
“Yes. The last he wrote to me his affections were not engaged.”
“Anthony writes to you?” He shifted off of her and caged her with braced arms. “A girl does not allow a man not related to write to her.”
“But you do more than write to me,” she said, rising up to kiss him.
He averted his face. “I am different.”
“How so?”
His eyes scoured her in the half moonlight. “I am your best friend’s cousin.”
“And so is he.”
His lips flattened. “I have known you for ten years. We are friends. You and I have devised a business. We have the same dreams. We have exchanged hundreds of letters. You are my partner. My fairy.”
He sounded angry for the association and time put in. “True. But Anthony has written me 123 letters the last I tallied.”
“A hun—” He looked her over as if seeing her for the first time. “How often have you written him back?”
She shrugged. “I endeavor to answer each and am successful in the main. You know, he is a person of great feeling and generosity.”
“He is not.”
“He is a philanthropist. Donating a portion of his wealth to those in need.”
“Otherwise known as high-flyers. Whores. Mistresses.”
“He collects rare gems.”
He gnashed his teeth. “Otherwise known as high-flyers. Whores. Mistresses.”
“He wishes to establish a lucrative business to support the less fortunate.”
“A gaming hell to support those otherwise known as high-flyers. Whores. Mistresses. Kitty, I have known Anthony Philips since we were in leading strings. His goal, since he was seven, is to be the greatest rake of the century.”
“Still, he has shown a particular interest, yes? And if what you say is true, perhaps I can reform him.”
He shoved up and planted himself beside her in the narrow bed. Hands fisted, he shook them at the night. “That dog. That bloody dog. An insult to canines the world over. Why did you keep this from me?”
“I believed it of no interest to you.” Sitting up, she looped her arm about his waist and kissed her fingertip to place on his lips. He jerked away. She settled for his shoulder. “Do not be cross. All of us have secrets. Do you divulge your every association to me?”
“So Anthony Philips is a secret.”
“No, he is not.” She tempered her voice. Her room was far from the family wing but shouting would be heard. “I never thought of him as a potential husband until tonight. And I must marry. At least, if I were to marry Anthony—if he would have me—we could see each other. We could still be friends.”
A long, low growl emitted from his chest. “Exactly.”
“Sir Jeffrey has little funds left. You might say it’s silly, but I fear he might auction me off. They do that, I’ve read. Before Sir Jeffrey sold my mother’s pianoforte, the butcher demanded payment, and I was forced to barter with a gun.”
Julian roused from his sulk. “What did you do? He will miss that gun. A man like him, guns are like mistresses, wives. How much did you barter for?”
“Swofford only required three pounds,” she said, frowning. “But I hadn’t ready coin, and Mrs. Woodberry said we had nothing to eat save beans and greens. I reviewed the ledgers and found an entry for eight pounds, ten shillings for a rifled gun. So I put nine pounds on our account with the gun.”
“Oh God. A rifled gun?” He hung his head. “I’ll visit Swofford tomorrow and get the gun back. And visit the goldsmith and give you half of my money on account.”
“But that is your money. No. I will not take it.”
Julian pressed her to her back, all traces of anger gone. Worry had replaced it. “I admire your resourcefulness. I do. But accept my gift. Please. Or I will have to…” He tiptoed his fingers along the curve of her hip, pausing at her the inlet of her waist. “Tickle you.”
He smothered her giggle with a deep kiss, and the anger that had turned to worry, shifted to the unrestrained passion of youth.
Julian reached the center of her senses.
He made everything not just tolerable, but bright and shining and perfect.
They could argue and laugh and join in wild hunger in tangled sheets, and if that was not love, Kitty would never know the emotion.
Before dawn, Julian woke her with a tender loving and promised to return by noon. He nudged her nose before he departed. Their secret truth. You are everything right and good in my life, and what is wrong is my doing.
Kitty was sowing lettuce seeds in the kitchen garden when Georgiana rounded Notfelle’s corner astride her huge bay stallion and came to a precise halt at the end of the row.
Beneath her cocked hat, Georgiana surveyed Kitty kneeling in dirt. “I have not seen you in eighteen days. Nor have I received a letter. I called, but they said you were ill. You are recovered?”
Eighteen days? Kitty had never gone so long without seeing her friend.
“I was ill,” she said. “But yes, I have improved.”
“Have I done something to anger you?”
Kitty pressed from her knees, realizing how it appeared, supposedly ill and working in the garden.