Chapter 16
Sixteen
T here had been times in the past several weeks when Dev had entirely forgotten that there was anything unusual about his love for Kitty or their increasingly public affection.
His heart was convinced that Kitty had been put into the world exactly as she was just for him, and that he was solely for Kitty.
Kitty’s dual nature was not any sort of hindrance to his affections, it enhanced them.
He felt as though he had the best of all things, gentleness and grace as well as strength and an exciting physical form, all in one person.
Because of the naturalness of everything he felt for Kitty, his need to protect his beloved had eased up with time.
If he was confident in Kitty’s ability to interact with his family and neighbors without so much as a hint of her former life, then the rest of the world would naturally accept his beloved exactly as she was.
It was a beautiful but dangerous sort of complacency to fall into, and Dev regretted it the moment he glanced up from his conversation with friends to find his mother speaking with Lady Everly alone .
At first, he thought nothing of it. He smiled to his mother, who beamed back at him, so proud Dev felt a rush of tender warmth spread through him.
But when Kitty did not reappear, and when a further sweep of the churchyard found that she was nowhere in sight, Dev began to worry.
He left his conversation and strode across the yard to join his mother.
“Where has Kitty gone?” he asked outright, worry beginning to take hold in him.
“I believe she needed a moment of quiet and calm to compose herself,” Dev’s mother said with an understanding smile.
“The conversation took a turn toward the missing Lord Castleton,” Lady Everly said in somewhat veiled tones. “I believe that topic upsets her.”
Dev nodded in understanding. Of course it would upset her.
He turned to march off in the direction his mother indicated Kitty had gone, cursing himself for letting his guard down too early in the game. He had nearly forgotten that his beloved and the Earl of Castleton were one and the same, but if they were not careful, others would not make that mistake.
Proof of that hit him moments later, as he rounded the corner of the church to find Lord George Seymour standing face to face with Kitty, his hand around Kitty’s neck, growling threats that made Dev’s heart drop to his feet.
Kitty’s brother knew the truth.
“Unhand her at once!” Dev shouted, striding forward like a man who was charging into a battle that could end a war, one he was not entirely certain he could win.
Seymour jerked back, letting Kitty’s neck go, but as soon as he recognized Dev, his look of alarm turned into a sneer. “You!”
Dev ignored him for the moment, rushing on to whisk Kitty into his arms and to widen the gap between her and Seymour.
Kitty sobbed in fear and clung to Dev with one hand, touching her throat with the other.
In an instant, Dev could see why. The thick ribbon she wore to hide her Adam’s apple had come loose due to Seymour’s grip.
“How dare you manhandle a woman in such a way?” Dev leapt to Kitty’s defense, shielding her with a half-embrace as he glanced over his shoulder at Seymour. “What kind of man are you?”
“I could ask you the same?” Seymour snarled, his mouth spreading into a vicious smile, as if he were the one who had the upper hand. “And I could ask that one as well.” He pointed to Kitty.
Dev clenched his jaw, uncertain how to manage the situation. He turned his back entirely on Seymour for a moment, intent on making certain Kitty was alright first.
“Are you well?” he asked in as tender a voice as he could manage with his temper close to towering. “Has he hurt you at all?”
Kitty shook her head, but she trembled like a leaf as well. “He has not hurt me,” she said quietly.
Dev could see that was not the case. Seymour might not have done any physical damage, but Kitty was clearly suffering.
“All will be well,” Dev said, leaning in and taking the loose ribbon from Kitty’s unsteady hands. “I will defend you until my last breath,” he added in a whisper near her ear as he refastened the tiny hooks on the back of the ribbon that kept it in place.
He had not spoken so quietly that Seymour did not hear, however. The odious man barked a laugh and then snorted. “Do I ever have a surprise for you, my lord,” he said. “This fine, sweet, country lass you’re so enamored of is no lass at all. ”
Dev finished with the ribbon then turned to glower at Seymour. “I would watch my tongue if I were you,” he said.
“And you should watch a great deal more than that,” Seymour said with a smirk. “You know your Miss Kitty is not a miss, do you not?”
Dev glared at the man even harder. “How dare you insult my fiancée’s honor in such a way?”
“Your fiancée?” Seymour burst into a laugh. “Has the world truly been turned upside down? You cannot marry that…that thing. The church would never allow it, let alone the law. And do you want to know why?”
Seymour’s gloating look was insufferable. Dev kept his scowl firmly in place, refusing to be led along in whatever moment the man was trying to create.
A few seconds later, understanding dawned in Seymour’s eyes.
“Oh, so you already knew,” he said, nodding slowly. He glanced between Dev and Kitty like he’d suddenly found a pot of gold in the middle of the road. “You knew that this aberration of nature is my missing brother.”
“Lord Castleton is missing and will remain so forever,” Dev said, shifting to stand by Kitty’s side so that he could rest a comforting hand on the small of her back. “In three weeks’ time, the only person that will remain will be Lady Catherine Ogilvy.”
Seymour laughed out loud at the statement. “Are you really so na?ve?” he demanded. “What sort of madness has possessed you that you believe you could get away with such a scheme?”
Beside Dev, Kitty lowered her head, as if she had been asking herself the very same question.
“Love can do a great many things,” Dev growled in answer, balling his fist .
Seymour snorted again. “You call it love? I call it perversion.”
Everything within Dev wanted to argue, and to beat Seymour into a pulp, but there was a germ of truth in what he said. He did not feel as if it were madness, but the rest of the world would see it as such.
He did not have a chance to make any sort of argument to refute Seymour. Before he could, Lady Everly walked around the corner of the church, a look of concern on her face.
“Is there some sort of trouble here?” she asked, glancing first to Kitty, then at Dev, then Seymour. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed with contempt at the sight of Seymour.
“I’ll say there’s some trouble,” Seymour said. “Do you know who Lord Deveraux has betrothed himself to?”
Dev sucked in a breath, furious that Seymour would bandy something so tender and precious about as if it were a ball in a children’s game. He seemed not to be able to wait to tell the secret and ruin Kitty’s life.
Lady Everly pulled herself to her full height, stared down her nose at Seymour contemptuously, and said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Seymour blinked in surprise for a moment, then glanced between Lady Everly and Kitty.
His expression shifted to knowing. “But of course you do,” he said.
“You and him have been as thick as thieves for years. I would not be at all surprised if you had something to do with this abomination.” He jerked his chin toward Kitty, who lowered her head in shame.
“You and my grandmother were always getting into trouble, or so Mother always says. It is no wonder she cut you off when Grandmother died.”
Dev was too indignant over the way his beloved had wilted in the face of Seymour’s callousness to pay much mind to his words. It killed him inside to see Kitty so terrified, and even more so because she had every reason to be afraid.
“You will not tell a soul what you have seen here today,” Dev said, pulling himself to his full height and looking down his nose at Seymour. “You will keep this all to yourself.”
Seymour turned incredulously to Dev. “And why would I do that?” he demanded. “This pathetic waste of time has made my life miserable and denied me what should be mine. I relish the notion of seeing him brought low and locked up in Bedlam.”
Kitty gasped and tensed at Dev’s side and Lady Everly looked mutinous, but Dev smiled.
“That is precisely why you will say nothing,” he said. “The Earl of Castleton is still missing. If he is presumed dead, you would not only be rid of a brother you and your family never cared for, you would become the heir and the new Earl of Castleton without any sort of fuss at all.”
Seymour narrowed his eyes at Dev, clearly considering the idea.
“But if you expose the truth, you resurrect your brother,” Dev went on.
“Even if you sent him to Bedlam, you would still be the second son. Christopher would still be the earl, and should your father die before him, he would be the duke, regardless of his residence or state of health. Would you truly risk your own advancement in the world out of spite and a desire to see a man you dislike humiliated?”
A heavy silence fell over the churchyard. Seymour stared sharply at Dev, but it was clear he did not see him. He was likely looking into the future, to his own life as an earl and as a duke.
“I think it would be best for all if whatever encounter has just happened here was forgotten about entirely,” Lady Everly said, moving to stand by Kitty’s other side and taking her hand.
“It seems to me that the most favorable outcome for all would be if the Earl of Castleton was never spoken of again.”
Seymour glanced to her with a look of hatred, but kept his focus primarily on Dev.
“A thousand guineas,” he said at last, standing straighter, a wicked look in his eyes.
“I beg your pardon?” Lady Everly asked, though Dev already knew what the man meant.