Chapter 35 #2
Father Dunlevy stepped through the threshold, deep lines etched at his eyes and brow.
There was grey at his temples where there had been none two years before.
Julian strode into the sitting room, his suit creased from traveling.
He shut the door behind him and braced his hands at his back.
His eyes suffused with light but it was not a pleasurable glow.
It was bleak, like the sun’s glare pressing through winter clouds.
When he inhaled a breath, it was determined.
He flicked a glance at Georgiana. “Have your guests assembled in the Gold Drawing Room while their rooms are readied. We’ll need liquor. Some champagne and claret.”
“Who are my guests?” Georgiana asked.
“The St. Clair brood. Four generations. I’ve gathered the family to celebrate my marriage, which I will unveil in”—Julian consulted his watch—“twenty minutes time. I promise it will be worth the inconvenience.”
Georgiana turned to Kitty with a pointed study of her clenched hands buried in her black skirts. She brushed a soft hand to Kitty’s back. "Do you wish for me to remain?”
“Out, Georgie,” Julian said. "I must needs speak to my wife.”
After glaring at Julian, her friend marched from the room.
Children’s squeals and laughter pealed from the reception hall. Women’s voices. Men’s voices. One of them was the earl’s.
Was she in the midst of a nightmare? Kitty looked over the room, marking every shadow and corner. She was at Farendon. There was a crackling fire. Julian’s balled letter lay on the carpet where Georgiana had thrown it. Stephen’s toy soldiers were scattered over the carpet.
She looked to the bronze door knob. Her heart pounded in her ears to the earl’s words. Kill her. Kill her. The craven thing inside her began to howl.
“Father, you must leave immediately. Julian why did you bring him here?”
Julian cocked his head, his brow furrowed. “Father Dunlevy is here because you specifically said you must find him. And when he arrived in Southampton, I brought him here.”
“You don’t know.”
"What do I not know?” her husband asked quietly.
The trembling rose from her limbs to encompass her core, then her shoulders and jaw. Heat ran up the back of her neck.
“You did not tell your husband what happened to you,” Father Dunlevy said. "You allowed him to believe the worst of you.”
"I kept the secret for you!”
Father shook his head.
"What is your meaning, shaking your head? You dare to condemn me for my silence?”
“I do not condemn you, my sweet child.”
“Then do you doubt my reasons? Should I have allowed you to hang? Far better my husband should hate me than you become that monster’s victim.
And lest your memory serves you poorly, I was his victim.
Oh God, I should have crawled across hell to get back to Julian, no matter the risk to my safety. I did it for you! I saved you!”
She had never felt such rage for her decision. It had always been wrapped up in terror. Self-hatred for being weak, different, an impostor tainted by her faith. Who lived outside of the world of those who mattered. Always striving to be what they wanted. Smiling when they cut her.
“You could have taken me to Southampton,” she said to Father. “But you took me to Scotland. And you never once bid me to stand up to the earl. You could have. But you did not. And this—this thing inside me. So cowardly. So craven. So weak.”
Julian looked between the two of them. “Kitty, what are you saying?”
His mouth in a grim slant, Father Dunlevy’s eyes dulled. “I thought it was for the best.”
She saw it then. “You thought he wasn’t good enough for me.”
“In light of what his father did to you, to Clara, yes. It is true. But, Katherine, it is time for you to be free.”
“Free? How? How am I ever to be free?”
“Tell him.”
Julian took one step, his jaw hard. “I promise I will not lose my temper. Whatever you say. Just tell me what this is about.”
“Your father tried to kill me!”
Julian paled in the sudden silence.
“And this thing”—she struck her breast—“inside me could not…it only wished to forget.”
Canting his head in disbelief, Julian studied her fist clutched at her bodice. He spoke like testing words never heard nor spoken. “My father… tried… to kill you?”
She hurried to get the words out. "After you left for Southampton.”
Julian looked to Father Dunlevy who nodded grimly.
“The earl tricked me. And I was a fool to fall for his lies. He had his man, Cyril, nearly drown me at the waterside, all the while spitting hateful names at me like Roman, papist whore, until I promised not to marry you. And I promised this only because I wished to live for our child. I had every intention of returning to you. And then he threatened to have Father Dunlevy hanged for presiding over the mass, and he forced me to write the letter.”
The back of her head tingled with the memory of Cyril’s scarred hand fisted in her hair as he had shoved her face into the river. Those same hands reaching for her after the earl departed. Wrapping about her neck. Squeezing and cutting off her air.
As if it were the very moment, she struggled to breathe.
“And then he ordered Cyril to kill me. ‘Kill her,’ he said, throwing his cigar at my skirts. And I saw the evil in his eyes and the indifference as I begged for our child’s life.
And do you know what your father replied?
” She searched Julian’s stricken countenance.
"He said, ‘your pleas have no bearing on my decision.’”
Julian’s mouth parted to speak. She thought he might be sick.
“And we had a son. Andrew. He did die in my arms from putrid throat. And I missed his last breath. I was too busy praying. What good it did. And I wish I had died in his stead. And then I prayed longer that I would die. But I did not.” Her knees bent, her voice guttural. “I just kept living.”
Julian rushed across the carpet, enfolding her tightly in his arms. “Dunlevy, leave us. Do not let us be disturbed. Tell the coachman to keep the team in their traces.”
Guiding Kitty to the settee, Julian renewed his hold as she sat and wept at his chest. The most wretched sound, soft, almost lifeless.
“If I had known it was to be Andrew’s last breath, I wouldn’t have looked up to the ceiling, beseeching God to save my child. What did my boy think as he took his last breath and I, not there, meeting his eyes?”
“Kitty, no.”
“Did he feel alone? Forsaken?”
He swallowed, tears filming his eyes. “No. He knew you loved him.”
“I am ashamed. So very ashamed of all of it. I just could not… get it out.”
“I understand.”
“I lay there in that cottage willing God to take me. For over a year. And then Sir Jeffrey demanded I return. In my darkest moments there was always someone to stop me. Father Dunlevy. You, in the garret, when I decided to leap from the window.”
“I am glad I stopped you,” he whispered at her hair.
“I was never strong like my mother to take my life. I have been forever plagued by hope. I’m certain I told you remember me well, because I… hoped.”
“It is good to hope. And you were right to keep your secret for Father Dunlevy’s sake. We should have eloped before I left for Southampton. I divulged our intent to Oliver. I underestimated the earl’s malevolence.”
And then he started crying with her.
Why had he believed her letter? Why hadn’t he turned the world upside-down to find her?
He had criticized his wife for her heavy silences and pitiful expressions.
He had called her a martyr. Told her to stop being a coward and fight.
Their son had died in her arms without his father.
And Julian’s father had seeded this terror and shame inside her.
Not an imagined terror. A very real one.
Kitty had kept the truth hidden for five years. How sanctimonious he was to have forgiven her for leaving him.
How long they remained on the settee sharing their grief, Kitty spilling her harrowing tale, he didn’t know. The fire waned. Icicles dripped from the eaves as the afternoon sun broke through the clouds.
She smelled of cherries, like the fairy he had fallen in love with years ago. The girl he had promised on his twentieth birthday would have many more happiest days.
“God, I am sorry,” he said. “I asked my father here to call him out for spying on me. To introduce you as my wife. Not… for this. We will leave as soon as you are ready.”
She shuddered as he smoothed a hand slowly up and down her slim back.
Slowly, she pulled from his embrace. She wiped the tears from her face, but more came. “No. It will not bring Andrew back, nor the years we missed, but I would confront him. I need to confront him.”
Julian started. Could he confront his own father without killing him? But this was not his fight. Not really. This was Kitty’s chance to face the monster. To be free. He could almost feel the lightness it would bring her. He saw it in her bloodshot eyes. A glimmer of steel and hope.
He canted his head to peer fully into her face. “Are you certain?”
“We will end the earl’s tyranny. Your family will learn of his treachery, and he will be disgraced. Yes. Yes, I am certain.”