Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Notfelle Estate, England
Dearest Kitty,
It has been eleven hours and twenty minutes since my last letter, wherein I discussed the need to journey to London from Southampton to collect my monies from The Earl.
After posting your letter in a drizzling morning rain, what joy awaited me in my garret hovel upon my return but a missive from my father who has so tenderly guided my life.
The devil insinuated a cowardice on my part for avoiding him for a month and detailed Oliver’s coming death from a renewed heart inflammation.
I boarded a mail coach and rushed to my brother’s side.
My dying brother, upon arrival, I found at Chatham House, three bottles of brandy in between himself, Pitt, and Fox. I did reveal our secret betrothal and Oliver was ecstatic due to the brandy.
Onward to Berkeley Square, where I supped with my mother, my sister-in-law, who has not forgiven me for ruining her engagement party, and Oliver’s four screaming daughters. Only one is a newborn babe.
Wasting no time when The Earl arrived home from his club, I recovered my funds, from which I paid him directly for every penny outlaid for my allowance since I was twelve.
Kitty, you should have seen his expression: pure wrath, powerless to speak or strike, lest he violate his own self-acclaimed greatness.
I write to you from an inn, where I shall return tomorrow to Southampton.
Take care, my fairy. In nineteen days, we shall abscond north and be married.
Yours in Love,
Julian
Sequestered in the prayer closet off the nursery, Kitty dropped the letter she had read over and over through the night. She clutched the chamber pot and shook and heaved. Her efforts produced a pitiful ounce of scalding bile. Panting, she laid her head back on the wall and waited.
This scourge had visited her every daybreak for the past three weeks, vanishing as swiftly as it arrived.
She heaved again. As the wave lessened, she concentrated on the unpadded kneeler.
Despite her misery, she refused to pray for deliverance.
She smiled, filled to overflowing at the miracle her and Julian’s love had created.
Her sickness gone, she removed from the closet, poured water from the pitcher into the pot, swirled it, and dumped it out the window. She brushed her teeth and overcome with lassitude, reclined on her bed and reread Julian’s letter.
Soon she would be with her love and nothing could pierce the veil of joy surrounding her. Not Sir Jeffrey’s vociferous spending nor the carcasses he displayed daily on his return from the fields. She had admitted their planned elopement to Father Dunlevy, but he brooded over Julian’s absence.
Julian and she were to have a child. It would complicate their plans, but she would never regret however many miracles God bestowed.
And ten was a nice round number. Ten sweet faces to kiss each morning.
She would have her own office at their shipyard, and she would take their children along, where they could learn shipbuilding and finance and appreciate firsthand how gifted their father was.
Folding the letter and holding it to her breast, she snuggled into the bedcovers and drifted asleep. She awoke with a start at a rap on her bedroom door.
Clara hurried forward and offered her a letter. “A groom delivered it, donned in dark green-and-gold livery. Fine livery. With turned-back cuffs and gold buttons.”
Kitty read the unfamiliar script. Miss Katherine Babbington. She flipped the paper around, studying the seal. A coat of arms with two falcon heads. No expert on heraldry, she broke the wax.
Dear Miss Babbington,
It is with great pleasure that I relay to you my felicitations on your upcoming marriage to my son, Andrew.
As you are likely unaware, my son and I have been, for many years, at cross-purposes.
Much of it, I confess, due to my obstinate, yet well-meant, desire to see his future secured in relation to the vulnerable position his birth has placed him.
Andrew has always displayed an admirably independent nature.
But at times a recklessness which I feared he might never outgrow.
Thus, you can imagine a father’s heartfelt relief, when my eldest son, Lord Acomb, delivered the wondrous news of your betrothal.
Dare I believe my youngest boy has become a man?
Lo! The proof is here in you Miss Babbington, the young woman who has settled him with the noblest of responsibilities.
A wife to protect and keep and perhaps, soon, a son.
My countess and I have paused in our journey north, taking rooms at the George Inn, in the sincere desire to make further your acquaintance.
She has relayed to me your previous meeting and your charm and utmost suitability.
If you are amenable, we shall be available until four this afternoon.
Else, we will continue our travels and call upon you and your family at Notfelle directly upon our return south in no more than seven days’ time.
It is with great expectation that I await our meeting and expect to have long the pleasure of being most affectionately yours,
Tindall
Kitty lowered the letter and reflected on the script in quiet terror. “What hour is it?”
“Half past two,” Clara said.
Her father and brother had gone north to hunt and he would return any day. She had an hour and a half to prevent disaster.
“We must leave within the half hour. Help me dress and then change into your riding habit and meet me in the stables.”
“You know I don’t ride,” Clara said with owlish eyes. “Let us take the coach.”
“We cannot. We must cut through the fields to arrive in time. I will lead you if you are afraid. But I must have a chaperone.”
Without another word, Clara fetched Kitty’s riding habit of dark rose wool while Kitty pinned her hair with shaking hands. She could hardly believe the earl’s temperate and unguarded words. The countess had relayed her suitability. She had wanted Kitty for her own son.
Kitty rose from the dressing table and wasted no time dressing. If she didn’t meet the earl and countess, in seven days or sooner, Julian’s parents would arrive at Notfelle and Sir Jeffrey would know her plans to marry a cursed St. Clair.
Kitty led Clara’s horse as they followed the liveried groom through a less-traveled path shaded by birch.
On arriving at the George Inn, ten minutes late, Kitty had offered the earl’s letter to a wary groom who had, after confirming her identity, provided a letter from the earl, with the same seal and script, explaining that he had removed to a nearby stream to catch fish, afternoon being a splendid time for angling.
He hoped she would join him and the countess.
The earl’s definition of nearby was at least three miles of skirting the river and weaving through fields and woods.
“Kitty,” Clara whispered beside her. “I am uncomfortable with this.”
What was the worst Julian’s parents could do? Call her out as a lowly baronet’s daughter intent on… what? Julian had no fortune or title and Father Dunlevy had amassed a dowry for her of ten thousand. Which Julian refused to take, but still, she was a respectable match for a second son.
Amidst a slight rise shaded by poplar with a willow swaying and water babbling in the near distance, the groom dismounted. The afternoon was overcast, the chill more October than June. A sweet, almost sinister scent floated on the southeast wind.
The groom assisted Kitty from the saddle and offered his arm.
Kitty walked to Clara, a petrified rock in a saddle.
It had taken a quarter hour to get her governess atop her placid horse with a mounting block.
If Clara dismounted and without the aid of a mounting block to get her back on, they might be forced to walk home.
“You stay on the horse and wait where I leave you.”
Taking the lead line, Kitty climbed the rise and tucked the lead in Clara’s saddle.
She turned with a breath and any fears abated at the bucolic scene before her.
A flowing stream reflected the steel-grey sky, a blanket spread out with a picnic and two footmen awaiting his lord and lady’s pleasure.
A woman’s laugh tinkled behind a distant copse.
Directly in front of her, a man with black hair, grey at his temples, held a fishing rod, standing boldly in a clump of reeds in an olive coat and breeches covering well-formed limbs.
Farther down the stream, another man, hulking in stature, unhooked a trusting fish and stuffed it in a basket.
The man in the olive suit turned around. His arms lifted in welcome as he strode toward her. “Ah, Miss Babbington! I prayed you had not decided to spurn me.”
The Earl of Tindall appeared so much like Julian it was difficult to breathe. His dark eyes, the strong nose. Even the large, lean hands that held the rod were Julian’s.
She found herself forming random phrases in her brain, none of which made sense, some of fishing, most about Julian, all of which would do little to recommend her.
She curtsied. “My lord, I apologize for the delay. And appreciate the courtesy you have shown in having your groom escort me here.”
“Rest easy, Miss Babbington,” he said with a smile. Not like Julian’s. Colder, she thought, tighter. “I am but a man intent on meeting my son’s beloved.” He winked. Not like Julian. “And catch some trout along the way.”
“And Lady Tindall?”
The earl cast a glance to the copse where Kitty had heard laughter. “Jane! Come, my dear. Miss Babbington has arrived!”
“One moment, dear. I almost have him!” The countess’s voice was higher-pitched than she remembered but then, they had spoken in polite tones at Julian’s birthday party.
The earl rolled his dark eyes. “She is more an enthusiast than I am. Care to join?”
“No, my lord. I prefer to watch.”
“I won’t hear of it. One hasn’t lived until they have known the exhilaration of hooking a beauty.”