Chapter 28 #2
Julian hadn’t written Gilbert after their dinner.
Instead, with Anthony’s consent, Julian had placed a notice in a London business weekly reporting a commission awarded to St. Clair Shipwrights to build two merchant brigs for the heir to the Earl of Wetherden, Anthony Philips.
Julian had also placed numerous solicitations and visited countless dockside taverns for the labor on account of the fake commission.
It was a huge gamble. But men didn’t throw their backing behind struggling businesses.
They supported those enterprises which needed no support.
Though he hadn’t shown it, Julian had left Kitty in a sulk. His offer to wait while she accounted for his expenditures had been cheerful, but inside he had seethed at her distrust.
“We lost eleven men to Childers,” Sam said.
Kitty in her haste to comb through his receipts hadn’t bothered to tell him? “Did they explain their reasons?”
“They, er”—Sam kicked at the brittle grass beneath their feet—“were persuaded.”
Julian heard a lot in that word, persuaded. He fixed Sam with a level gaze.
Sam shoved his big hands in his coat pockets. “You know how it is. One leaves, who knows why, and then it spreads like the pox. Madame got most to stay, offering a Christmas reward and a percentage. I don’t figure that’ll come, but it worked just the same. It could’ve been worse.”
Situations that could have been worse did not make for success. And Kitty had offered to part with more pennies when she had let the Pierpoints’ lodge and couldn’t wait to pick apart his spending?
The woman in question, pale-faced and garbed in a severe black cloak, approached him at the slipway.
How long before she confronted him on the missing funds he had paid to her brother, with two more payments remaining in exchange for the freehold on Notfelle?
He didn’t doubt Kitty knew down to the pence how much money was missing.
What would he say when she confronted him?
Should he blame it on gaming losses and bear her wrath until Christmas?
Julian walked to his wife, extending his arm.
She took it, and he pulled her hand to rest upon his wrist. There was no stiffness in her pose, no condemnation in her eyes.
If anything, they were gentle. Her steps as they walked to his coach were at ease.
But he knew from experience with his father that the lecture was soon to come.
“Have you engaged a cook at this lodge of yours,” he said, “or have you learned to do that as well?”
“I have a cook, Mrs. Miggins.”
“Ah, a perfect name. Does she brandish a ladle and threaten to brain all that enter her kitchen?”
“Only those who steal her food.”
“Then we are doomed,” he said to Ollie at his feet. “Let’s see this lodge of yours. You can tell me of your successes these past weeks while we eat.”
He lifted her into the coach, struck by the alluring flesh beneath his hands. When should he approach her? Would she have him? Ollie jumped to her lap and sniffed her thoroughly.
Julian kept his gaze to the coach window and the thinning autumn foliage.
They traveled north along the river to the lodge his wife had let in haste to begin her new life.
Would she even want Notfelle? She seemed content, though her smiles, if he could call them thus, were close-lipped and hardly smiles when compared to Louisa’s.
He grimaced. It was wrong to think of another woman while in the company of his wife. They were nothing alike, and that was good.
Kitty admitted her plan on the Christmas reward. He approved and how could he not? She had already told the men without conferring with him. She then explained that she had engaged her own solicitor and, just as Sam had said, spoke of giving the men a percentage of the business.
The coach turned left onto a well-maintained path lined with ash and oak. Ahead a Portland stone house rose behind a round drive with a neat circle of lawn.
“Do you agree with the ownership scheme?” she asked him.
By her leading tone, she wanted him to agree. “I would ask why.”
“The men require incentives.”
“And a wage and Christmas reward are not enough.”
Their gazes met across the coach as the coach halted and rocked back and forth. A flash of anger heated her eyes. She covered it with a tight-lipped smile. “Oh, Julian, come. You must see our home.”
Our home? The association jolted him from his seat and outside. He gripped her small waist, his fingers nearly touching, her breasts skimming his chest as he lifted her down. He stepped away as his body reacted, and when her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, his reaction grew.
She walked away, a slim line of relentless black. The ground floor sprawled wider than the floors above. There were a wealth of chimneys. Tall, reaching trees framed the lodge from behind.
Julian admired the three-storied entry hall and coved ceiling.
After conferring with a maid, Kitty turned her attention back to him. “I have asked for an early dinner. It will be served within the hour.”
She opened the double doors to a drawing room, cozy in hues of red and gold with lush carpets. He wondered how his wife felt about the stag antlers gracing the huge fireplace.
She led him through the ground floor. The dining room that would seat twenty. The conservatory with the bank of windows which she planned to fill with greenery and flowers. Another drawing room along the outer hall. And a small library where Miss Dixley looked up from her embroidery.
“Mr. St. Clair,” she said coolly, as if imagining every sin he had not committed in London, “welcome home.”
“Miss Dixley.” He nodded, refusing to feel guilty for doing nothing.
He followed Kitty up the stairs, studying the sway of her hips, generously proportioned under her widow’s gown. He was going to try again. He would lay her down gently and appreciate her. He would go slow.
She came to a door and announced the room as his.
In the chamber with fresh paint and a sweeping river view framed by golden drapery, he felt his remorse grow tenfold.
Why hadn’t he bought her a home instead of spending two years on the Continent?
He might have made a go of their marriage straightaway instead of seeking revenge on her for what she had done.
She had lied to him so that he could be free. He had punished her for it.
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“I do.”
“I had your belongings brought from the Dolphin,” she said, showing him to his dressing room. “I hope I was not presumptuous. And there is a room for a valet, if you choose to hire one.”
“I suppose I must,” he said, studying her carefully. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. She had lost weight. He opened a drawer at a dressing table and saw the bottle of cherry perfume. He handed her the bottle and shut the drawer, the sound of wood on wood a hard slap in the silence.
“I bought this for you. Years ago.” He bit back bitter words, that he had returned the same day of its purchase to find her goodbye letter. “And where is your room?”
Regarding the bottle wide-eyed, she pocketed it and led him to the bedroom next to his. Miss Dixley’s room. Bloody wonderful.
She displayed four more rooms with girlish enthusiasm, skipping the fifth and arriving at the last. The airy room, done in pink and white, was as far as she could get from his.
Would Kitty be happy with Notfelle? It was three days from Southampton. They couldn’t live there permanently, but they could spend winters there and a month here and there in the spring and summer. Had he misjudged her desire for him to stay?
“There are four more bedrooms above and twenty-five acres in all,” she said. “An orchard, kitchen, and flower gardens. Servant offices and ample cellarage. A coach house and stables. Even a smallish dairy farm.”
“Our saddle horses should arrive by this evening,” he said. “We can continue our tour in the morning on horseback if you like.”
“Oh, yes. It’s been ages since I’ve ridden.” She nodded eagerly, but her eyes were dull.
She suspected he had been with another woman. She was, maybe, not cold but being brave about it. He needed to rectify her misconceptions but how? See here, Kitty, I’ve been celibate as a monk. I had ample opportunity but…
No. Approaching the subject would reek of guilt. He would have to find a way to get her to ask him.
“What of the room you skipped over?” he asked.
She trod to the window and pointed to a clapboard outbuilding. “There is the dairy farm. You know I’ve always loved cows.”
Could she be more awkward? Kitty, he wanted to say, be yourself. Talk to me.
He walked to her petite figure draped in black with her hands clasped at her waist. “Yes, you dyed one pink, along with your pony.”
But the girl he had known since ten was gone.
“What is in the other room?” he pressed.
She turned to face him, making what space she could between them with her back pressed to the window. She inhaled and her nostrils flared. Like he had a stench to him. “It is a nursery. Shall we walk the next floor?”
He caught her upper arms and slid his hands down to cup her elbows. “Kitty, I missed you.”
“Did you? I missed you too. And am most happy to have you home. But of course, you are hungry. Let us eat before completing the tour. I will relay what happened in your absence, and you can tell me all about London.”
He searched her expression and saw beyond the cheerful wall to the brittle resolve and beyond that the woman who he had consigned to a life without nurseries. She was lonely, disillusioned with how her life had played out.
Fishing inside his coat, he withdrew a slim box. “Happy birthday.”
He was forced to open her hand and plant the gift there and then stand by as she stared at it. She traced the velvet nap of the pink bow. He knew the girl inside her, the one who savored the moment. She had once told him she would rather keep a gift unopened for days if she could.