Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
October passed into November, bringing more men to their yard, lured by news that Mr. St. Clair had indeed returned from London and settled in a fine house with a leasehold for two years.
If the evening and Sunday premiums weren’t a balm to the many who fretted on the approach of winter, his wife, Madame Féline, a particular friend of Vicar Carleton, had been asked—and accepted—the position of chairwoman for the building of a new school.
And a husband surely wouldn’t desert his yard when he attended service every Sunday and when Madame’s companion, a stern, God-loving stickler, had gotten three parishes worth of children to sing in a Christmas pageant.
The arrival of two shiploads of timber from London killed the doubts of all but those with a deep-seated grudge against the Earl of Tindall’s second son. Who wouldn’t be proud to work with a man who didn’t have to dirty his hands?
“And he pays more,” Wyatt Percy reminded them as a serving wench settled their ale to the table at the Lion’s Inn.
“And there’s that Christmas reward,” said Harry Plumley.
“And Miss Dixley’s biscuits,” Jeffrey Dillon said.
“She don’t cook those,” Wyatt Percy countered with a scowl.
“But she walks about with her basket,” Jeffrey said with a wiggle of his brows, “and delivers them to every one of us. She gave me a sampler too. For the wages of sin is death, it says. All pretty-like in red and blue. She stitched a flower too.”
Harry hooted. “What you be needin’ a sampler for?”
“I got a wall. Besides, it reminds me of her.”
“You ain’t prying those godly legs open ’less you got a crowbar.”
Jeffrey shrugged. “A man has to dream.”
Julian and Kitty’s dream came a little closer to coming true when a letter arrived from Mr. John Gilbert from South Audley Street, London, inquiring on a suitable time to visit St. Clair’s Shipyard.
Julian waited a week to answer him. Barring bad weather and impassible roads, he invited Gilbert to enjoy the St. Clair’s hospitality in February and wished him good health and a happy Christmas.
Julian came to her every night. He loved her with his body. They drifted asleep, his arm possessive about her waist and her cheek reclined on his shoulder listening to his heartbeat. Sometimes they talked for hours on the yard or Southampton society.
He never said he loved her, but she could feel him trying. She understood that what the earl had done, that coldhearted letter he had forced her to write, had done something irrevocable.
November had been unseasonably cold and December came in colder.
The riverbank and slipways iced over. A fortnight before they scheduled to close the yard, Althea forced Kitty to stay in bed with a dreadful case of the sniffles.
Before leaving for rehearsal, Althea piled a stack of religious tracts on her nightstand, and Kitty arched a brow, having discovered the previous week, the salacious novel, Fanny Hill, in the library settee cushions after Althea had departed the room.
“When will you admit who you really are?” Kitty asked.
“All things are not expedient, the apostle Paul once wrote.” Althea departed with a regal turn.
After blowing her nose, Kitty searched out the scandalous novel from her youth and cozied into her bed with Fanny, a cup of tea, and multiple handkerchiefs.
Her face didn’t flame nearly as hot as it had when she was young, but she did feel very warm reading Fanny’s escapades.
She drifted into sleep and at a sharp rap on her bedroom door, awoke with a start.
Julian entered the room, still in his greatcoat and his boots crusted with ice. Without taking his eyes from her he undid the coat’s buttons and tossed it to a chair.
She rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and searched for a handkerchief amidst the rumpled linens while Julian yanked off his boots without the help of his new valet. He left each boot where it fell and still stared directly at her.
“Is something wrong?” She sneezed into her handkerchief.
“Why did you not tell me of a Mr. Lovett visiting the yard?”
She looked up in surprise. “You know him?”
“Before dawn this morning, someone broke three windows on the loft. They fled on horseback before the watchmen could catch them. And no, I do not know Lovett. But you should have told me. Why didn’t you?”
“The things he said about you—”
“What did he say that you believe I would do?”
“He said—” She could have sliced a knife through his hostility. “I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t.”
“And yet you said nothing. You told my men to keep it from me.”
She swallowed at his controlled fury, the pulsing muscle in his jaw. Too late, she understood that she had made a terrible error by concealing Lovett’s visit and trying to protect Julian’s pride.
“I did keep it from you,” she said.
“Why?”
To tell him now she wished to protect him would only serve to infuriate him further. She had also been trying to prove herself. Which was equally damning.
“I thought,” she said, “that if I were to acknowledge his assertions, I would lend credibility to them. So I directed that Mr. Lovett be forgotten.”
“Except he was not forgotten. The men have known and others outside of the yard know. Do you know who told me? The glazier when I had him called to the yard this morning to assess the damage. And then the magistrate. Everyone has been waiting for me to confront Childers, who is obviously in league with Lovett, and at minimum find Lovett and rearrange the bastard’s face. ”
“I worried you would challenge him, which would give weight to his words.”
“You mean lies.”
“Yes. I thought they were. I mean they are—”
“They are lies!” he boomed. She kept perfectly still. He scoured a hand from his brow to his chin and returned to speaking quietly. “You denied my choice on how to proceed in the matter. You made me a fool.”
“You are not a fool.”
“You emasculated me.”
“How? Because I did not give you the chance to hit a man or put a bullet in his head?” She groaned in irritation as her nose refused to stop running. She rubbed the handkerchief to her nose and shoved the thing to the mattress.
He judged her silently. Nothing she could say would ease his pride, and the more she spoke, by the anger glinting in his narrowed eyes, the weaker her case and the more furious he became.
“You wanted something to lord over me,” he said.
“You reviewed my receipts, you think I lost a small fortune, you saw where I had been in London, and you said nothing. Lovett must have specifically mentioned Vauxhall and the park. You think I”—he dipped his square chin—“you believed me to be an indiscreet whoremonger. And not only did you want the men to see me as such, you withheld your knowledge for later use, didn’t you? ”
“What?” She struggled to make sense of his words, and finally his meaning sank in, completely wrong. “No, I did not. If you must know the truth—”
“I’ve been waiting for it, so please do enlighten me.”
“I did not believe Lovett’s lies and wished to spare you the humiliation of what your past had others accusing you of. And when I reckoned your losses, when I smelled her perfume on your person, I thought, whether you regretted your actions or not, it was your burden to bear alone.”
“Ah. You did think I was an indiscreet whoremonger. You still think I lost at the tables.”
“Where is the money then?”
His grin was chilling, hard angles carving one side of his cheek.
“And how was I to bear my burdens? Perhaps the rite of confession? Purchase an indulgence to absolve me of my sin? Where is Father Dunlevy when you need him? Come, wife. I’m all anticipation for the lecture you are dying to give me.
Where is the brandy? I suppose I’ll have to do without.
Ah, what about some cold tea? This will do. ”
He plucked the tea cup from her nightstand and dwarfed a floral-cushioned chair by the window.
That he would resort to reminding her of her faith and what it had done to them filled her with cold anger. But she would not shout. She shook with the effort to hold it in.
“Out with it.” He sipped the tea and dropped carelessly to the seat back. “Shall I help you along? I am a worthless spawn of—”
“I hate your father! I wish he were dead!” She threw the bedcovers aside and struck out her fists. “I wish—I wish I could kill him myself!”
Her knuckles blanched white. Her breath scoured her throat. For years she had thought those sinful words, wished to scream them at the top of her lungs. Finally she had, and it was horrible and a relief all at once.
Julian looked about the room as calm as she was raging. “I don’t see my father here.”
“He is everywhere!” She shook so hard she might explode into bits.
“Look around us! He is here. Inside you. Inside me. You are a man, Julian, a good man who has fought his cruelty with great courage. You are not a child to be abused and lectured. And I am not your father. Rebel against him. Fight me at will, but I refuse to abuse and lecture you. Ever!”
He studied her in the wake of her outburst. Beyond her bedroom door, footsteps hurried down the corridor. Rising from the chair, he set the cup to its saucer with a grating sound.
“Well done, Madame. Do you believe your pretty speech?”
“I do.”
“Hmmm. I wonder, is it worse to be despised or pitied? At least my father has never pitied me.”
Retrieving his cloak and boots, he left the room and slammed the door behind him.