Chapter 24 #2
“Though when Georgiana relayed to me Anthony’s partiality to Miss Babbington, I was hard-pressed to agree, given his aversion to matrimony.”
Julian flashed a tight smile. “That was me, Mother.” He hardened his gaze on Georgiana. Of course, she was part of this. Likely leading the charge.
“Well, you are young,” his mother said.
“Not even in my majority.”
“True, but it never hurts to start early. As your brother did.” His mother looked to Oliver, who had four daughters and no heir. “Well, in any case, there is still time to find the right girl. Does Miss Babbington have a sister?”
“No. She does not have a sister.” Julian stalked off to Oliver.
His brother raised a private toast to Julian. “Thought for sure you’d leg-shackle yourself to Miss Babbington. Seems Anthony got a leg up on you. Shame. She’s a rare one.”
“There is nothing rare about her.”
Oliver chuckled in his brandy glass. “If you say so.”
Julian shifted and looked down on his brother. The position also afforded an excellent view of Kitty. “If Georgie put you up to this, tell her I’m not marrying Miss Babbington.”
His brother slapped his shoulder. “What’s that pirate term of yours for a boat trapped without wind?”
“In irons.”
“Right.” Oliver squinted. “That’s you.”
Julian gritted his teeth. Oliver started on politics, providing Julian freedom to study Kitty while appearing engaged in discussion.
God, she looked beautiful sitting next to Anthony.
It wasn’t the pink silk gown spread in splendor.
He preferred her naked. Or her hair’s elegant style.
He preferred it unpinned and curling down her back.
It wasn’t her face. He preferred her gazing in adoration at him.
It wasn’t her fingers, shoulders, feet, smile, nose, or the dusting of freckles that came every summer and faded in winter. It wasn’t just her mind or spirit.
It was all of her. Because he knew all of her.
Kitty had tried for two hours to fall in love with Anthony Philips.
With his charming conversation and Greek god face and physique, he was certainly worthy of a woman’s love.
His eyes were a wonder, crystal blue with a black ring.
They fixed upon his subject and promised everything.
And when his dark lashes brushed over his gaze, Kitty felt a fleeting attraction.
Then Julian walked into the drawing room, and she burned like the edge of a flame.
He looked like a pirate in gentleman’s clothes and what others might see as carelessness, she saw as a purposeful thumbing of his nose at the splendor surrounding him.
He was a rebel, and she loved him for it.
He would never admit it, but deep inside, in places others had never seen, he was a romantic.
He was brilliant and funny and a dreamer. He knew and spoke his own mind.
She sat smiling at Anthony Philips with her stomach in knots, pondering how best to end her fascination. If she even could.
You get what you expect in this world.
Kitty didn’t expect Julian to marry her, and bringing him to the point was going to be like standing in front of a rifled gun and stopping the bullet with her hand.
It took Julian exactly a half hour to acknowledge her. He sauntered over, laid a cursory glance on Anthony, and said, “Good evening, Kitty. You look rare tonight.”
Rare? What was rare? Like a roast? Father Dunlevy’s lecture banged about in her head. “Thank you. And happy birthday.” She forced a smile. Which was her best smile.
“Philips,” he said. “You as well. Care to join me for a walk about the room? If the lady permits, of course.”
Anthony looked about for a companion for Kitty because if he left her, the other guests scattered around the large room’s perimeter, she would be very much alone.
“Go on,” she said, holding her smile. “I won’t wither away in my own company. I am quite used to it.”
Anthony left reluctantly. Julian said nothing.
And said nothing more to her through dinner, where she was seated between him and Anthony.
The latter was at Georgiana’s right, and when Anthony conversed with Georgiana, Julian turned to his mother.
Kitty had nothing to do but eat. She wasn’t hungry.
She was sick with the understanding that Father Dunlevy was right.
A boy who holds you in contempt.
The night before she had fallen asleep in his arms to the cadence of his heart.
Who values you as a man does a serving wench.
At dawn, he had loved her without words, but he had looked into her eyes as he had moved inside her and he had loved her.
A woman easily had and discarded.
What had she done?
That is what you are, Katherine, in his eyes.
Kitty filled in the rest. A high-flyer. A whore. A mistress.
The women gathered in the drawing room after dinner.
She made herself agreeable. Lady Tindall seemed especially interested in her, asking her questions on her family, her education, her accomplishments.
It felt as if she were being interviewed for a governess position.
She could never be a governess. She hadn’t the references nor the education, and Georgiana had once informed her she was too pretty.
Wives did not hire women who might tempt their husbands.
“Do you play pianoforte?” the countess asked.
Kitty looked to her mother’s pianoforte. “Yes, my lady.”
“Georgiana tells me you have known my son for many years. And have corresponded at length?”
There was no judgment in the countess’s question but Kitty pinked. “We were once friends.”
The men joined them, the scent of cigars wafting in the air. Julian passed by as if she didn’t exist. Caroline spread her skirts at the pianoforte, dipped her golden head to the keys, and Mary Katherine Babbington’s voice filled the room. All wrong. All wrong.
“May I be excused, my lady?” she asked the countess.
Lady Tindall’s graceful hand with a filigreed ruby ring covered Kitty’s.
“I have monopolized your time, haven’t I?
Quite ill-mannered of me. I spend little time in the company of young ladies.
It reminds me of when I was young.” She laughed.
“You see how I go on? Please, dear, save yourself from an old woman.”
“There is no saving, my lady. What girl would not dream of speaking at length about herself when she has so few opportunities in her life?”
Kitty rose with dignity from the settee. Julian met her gaze from across the room, his head slightly cocked, eyes hooded over that superior nose. It wasn’t a look of a stubborn man. It was a man who held her in contempt.
She descended the stairs, her heels striking marble in determined strides, and went outside, coming to a halt at the top of the portico steps. She rushed down them in a sliver of moonlight, fueled by anger. Without a worthy target, she might pummel her fists at her own breast.
She kicked a patch of groomed drive. A pathetic dose of gravel barely displaced a foot. Wriggling her foot deep in her pink silk shoe, she kicked again. Her sole skimmed the pebbles, the result more pitiful than the first.
“Blast!” Ripping off her shoe, she hacked at the stones, beating them into submission.
“Kitty.”
She whirled around at Julian’s voice, shoe raised. He leaned against a portico column, ankles crossed.
“I think you’ve killed it,” he said.
She hurled her shoe at him, striking his chest and the brandy glass nestled there. She ripped off her other shoe and missed his head by a hair. “I deserve more!”
He brushed at the brandy splattered on his coat. “Have you ever played cricket? We might have an undiscovered talent here.”
She seized a handful of gravel and flung it, showering him with rock. “And I’ll dance to your tune like a puppet no more. No more!”
“I think I’ve got the gist.”
“Good. Now leave me alone. You—you blackhearted scoundrel. Rotter. Rake.”
A lazy grin spread across his face. “You have always made me feel better than I ought.”
“Have I? My apologies.” She turned to face the dark and started walking without a destination. Notfelle, then. No, her lair. Anywhere but here. In her stockinged feet with gravel digging in her tender soles and no cloak with the bite of an early spring night. She had made better decisions.
She gained the grass. Julian’s arm whipped around her waist, pulling her close.
“Get away from me. I can’t stand you.” She elbowed him hard and swung a right, hitting his chin. She received a mere grunt for her efforts.
“What about an ‘I hate you’? That comes next, doesn’t it?”
She screwed her face when the urge to cry came over her. “This is not a joke.”
He breathed through his nose loud enough for her to hear. “Kitty, were you upset by my sister’s play on your mother’s pianoforte? Did my mother say something to upset you?”
“You upset me. Now let me go.” She wriggled in his arms without success. “Let me go!”
He strengthened his hold, her cheek smashed against his shoulder. “What do you want?” He spoke into her hair. When she didn’t answer, he bent his head to look into her eyes. “Can you tell me what you want? What you deserve? I want to hear it. Please.”
Her voice was guttural, each syllable pronounced. “I want you to let me go.”
He sighed, looking away. “Allow me to put on your shoes, and I will.”
He released her. She bit the inside of her cheek while he crouched down and like a prince, cupped her heel and slipped each shoe on her foot.
He grinned up at her, his warm hand sliding up to her ankle. “You know, you have pretty feet.”
She kicked him back to his bottom. Grabbing handfuls of her skirts, she stomped off toward the river. She’d have to cross it or walk the distance to town to cross the bridge. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, but the moonlight was weak.
“Where in hell are you going?”
Away from you. Away from her stupidity. Her small thinking and low expectations.
“Let me—listen to me, will you?”
“Write me a letter. Then I shall have the pleasure of burning it.”
He swore an oath. An errant wind attacked her shoulders. She shivered and walked on and stumbled over the edge of a rabbit hole. Ahead, the river swirled black and silver. Farther south, she saw the Fairy banked in reeds.
“Dearest Kitty,” he called from a distance.
“Uncle William has announced my lessons at an end. He promises to secure my father’s agreement and my prize money.
I have accepted a position in Southampton with Nigel Honeycutt, who promises to break my back and serve me undercooked beans and dry bread.
While paying me the lowest wage in Southern England. ”
“You deserve the lowest of the lowest,” she threw back.
His footsteps pursued her. “Using half of my funds at the goldsmith’s and the money waiting at my father’s, I hope to be an official shipwright at the old age of twenty-one. Of course, I will have to endure my father’s presence whilst retrieving said money, but…”
He was suddenly walking alongside her. “You’re not stopping, are you?”
“No.”
He draped his coat over her shoulders. She wanted to throw it to the ground, but the cold had seeped into her bones and she deserved to be warm. And he to be cold. Yes. He deserved it.
She approached the Fairy and shoved her arms into his coat, ignoring the scent of oranges and spice drifting up to fill her senses. She ripped at the tarpaulin, managing to uncover the bow.
“May I finish my letter?” he asked, watching her struggle as she cleared the tarp away.
“I don’t care.” She did care. She cared too much.
She dug her heels into the sodden bank and gripped the bow. He bent beside her, his shoulder brushing hers and with one shove, the Fairy heaved into the water. He planted her next to Daisy’s pen and, as the boat floated away, leapt with a sailor’s grace past her.
He sat wide-legged in front her, his thighs bracketing hers. “And that brings me to the hardest par—”
“I said I don’t care.”
“Never interrupt your opponent when he’s making a mistake. As I was saying, the hardest part. Kitty, I am sorry. You have shown great courage and are deserving of a worthier man than me.”
Her throat ached. “Please don’t,” she said, her voice wavering. “Just let us end this. I know how you feel about me.”
“Do you?” He scooted her closer. She had no strength to pull away. He drew the pins from her hair and combed the unruly curls with his fingers. He traced circles at her nape.
“Stop. I know what I am to you, and it was wonderful. But Father Dunlevy—”
He captured her trembling mouth in a deep, searching kiss. Breaking the kiss, he cupped her face. “Kitty Babbington, I love you.”
She shuddered. “You—”
“And I am sorry for the uncertainty I have caused you. For not writing you for 484 days. For not saying the words you wished to hear, that were in my heart. And so, I close this letter as yours, in marriage, Julian.”
The ugliest sob escaped her. “What?”
“Yours.” He nudged her nose. “In marriage.”
“Y-You are…” Blinded by tears, she swiped at her eyes. “Proposing to me?”
“Yes.”
She hiccupped. “W-When did you decide to propose?”
“You wish for a detailed retelling?” He sighed and turned the gold ring upon her finger.
“When I removed Anthony from your side and left you alone on the settee. I’m a stubborn bastard, aren’t I?
Striving for originality. Now, what is your answer?
Please don’t make me wait 484 days. I’ll do it, but I won’t be happy about it. ”
She sobbed on his shoulder, unprepared for the wrenching in her chest. “D-Dearest Julian. I do not know how to say this.”
He lifted her chin. “A simple yes will suffice.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yours in… in hideous crying.”
“Actually, you cry pretty and in tune.”
“This is the happiest day of my life.”
He drew her onto his lap and wiped her face. “I promise you we shall have many more happiest days. Many more.”