Chapter 17 #2
George snorted. “He’s as much of a pervert as you for carrying on with this ridiculous charade. ”
“He’s a good man and true,” Kit insisted, lifting his chin in perhaps the first show of defiance he’d ever displayed to his father and brother. “He is kinder and more generous than either of you.”
Kit’s father growled. “What did you say? Kindness?” he sneered the word as though it were a curse and took a step closer to Kit.
Every alarm bell Kit possessed rang like mad in his head. He backed up, but before he could turn and race for the door, George jumped ahead of him, slamming it and blocking the way.
“No son of mine is going to make a fool of me by pretending to be a woman,” his father said. “I won’t have it.” He made a fist and ground it into his opposite hand.
“Please, just leave me alone,” Kit said, glancing desperately around as if help might come out of the woodwork. “I want nothing of the life I used to live. You can have it all.”
“It should be mine at any rate,” George said. His tone was slightly less threatening than their father’s. It wasn’t much to hang hope on, but it seemed George might truly have been amenable to the idea of declaring Lord Castleton dead and letting Kit move on.
Would have been, but their father clearly had other ideas.
“It’s a perversion of nature,” he growled, stepping closer still to Kit. “I will not have you divulging your little secret to whomever you please as a way to humiliate me.”
“I swear to you, I would never do such a thing,” Kit insisted, so afraid he could barely draw breath. “I want nothing to do with my old life or with you. I am Kitty Dryden, soon to be Kitty Ogilvy, wife of Lord Deveraux Ogilvy.”
“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” his father snapped, raising his fist.
“But it is who I am, I am she,” Kit said .
Or at least he tried to say. Before he could finish his defense, his father lashed out, striking him across the face.
Pain and the shock of his father’s fist hitting him square in the jaw jerked Kit to the side. He would have lost his balance and spilled to the floor if George was not there to catch him.
That was not a blessing, however.
“Hold him,” their father demanded, pushing up his sleeves as if he was ready for another blow.
George laughed in delight and held Kit exactly as his father demanded. Kit barely had time to suck in a breath before his father threw a punch straight into his stomach.
The pain of that blow was blinding, but it did not stop there. His father punched him again, then again, in his gut and across his face. Kit felt the pins in his wig loosen and fall, but that was the least of his worries.
“No son of mine will defy the laws of nature and live to humiliate me with it!” his father shouted, landing blow after blow. “I will not have a madman as part of my line or inheriting anything from me!”
The blows were so heavy and caused so much pain throughout Kit’s body that he couldn’t breathe, let alone fight back. All he wanted was to fall to the floor and curl into a ball to protect himself. If that failed, he would pray for death.
He was certain that death would have come as blood spilled from his nose and split lip, but in the midst of another flurry of punches, the door to his rooms flew open so hard it banged against the wall, and in a blessed moment, Dev was there, along with Mrs. Torrance.
“Good gracious!” Mrs. Torrance shouted. “We’re too late.”
“Get off of him!” Dev roared, lunging for George.
A moment later, the restriction that had kept Kit upright for his father’s assault disappeared, and just as he’d wanted to from the start, Kit spilled to the ground.
He could do little more than hug his aching body as blood dripped on his gown and stare up sideways at Dev as he threw a punch at George.
“Abomination!” Kit’s father shouted. “You will hang for this.”
Dev did not appear to hear the threat. He yanked George around and punched him again, causing him to stagger back, before turning to Kit’s father with fury in his eyes.
“How dare you manhandle your way past Mrs. Torrance to invade the private rooms of my fiancée?” Dev demanded.
“He is my son, and he is a madman and a freak of nature!” Kit’s father shouted, raising his fists as if he and Dev were part of one of the pugilistic displays he loved so much.
Instead of rising to the bait and fighting his father, Dev crouched beside Kit and scooped him into his arms. Kit was so overwhelmed with fear and pain that he could only cling to Dev as he lifted him to hold him like a baby and stood.
“She is my beloved, and you will not raise a hand against her,” Dev growled.
“Have you gone mad as well?” Kit’s father demanded. “I’ve known that boy since he was a babe, and he is definitely male, though a poor one at that. He should have been born a woman to save us all this trouble.”
Kit nearly laughed hysterically. He’d had that same thought so many times himself.
“Kitty is whomever she wishes to be,” Dev insisted, “and I will support that. I love her, I will make her my wife on Sunday, and there is nothing you nor anyone else can do to stop that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you,” Kit’s father said. “The law doesn’t take kindly to people pretending to be something they’re not.”
“The law does not take kindly to fathers attempting to have their sons and heirs murdered either,” Dev snapped back as Kit buried his face against his shoulder .
A tense silence filled the room before Kit’s father said, “You cannot prove anything.”
Kit caught his breath, though doing so caused him far too much pain. There was so much guilt in the way his father spoke that Kit wondered if Dev had actually stumbled across something that could make the man stand down.
As if Dev was thinking the same thing, he said, “We have each other at an impasse. You threaten me with exposure and persecution under the law for everything Kitty is and the love we share, but I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were not only responsible for hiring men to kill your son once before, but that you attempted to finish the job yourself.”
“You can prove nothing,” Kit’s father said, though he looked anxious.
“I have witnesses,” Dev said in a deadly voice. “Mrs. Torrance has just witnessed your assault.”
Kit’s father laughed. “The courts would not believe a woman over a duke.”
“My brother, James, who will one day be the Marquess of Russell, observed the men you sent after Lord Castleton in Hyde Park the day the earl disappeared,” Dev went on. “He was curious enough to seek out the identities of the two men only to discover that they are notorious assassins.”
From where he cowered in Dev’s arms, Kit could see just enough to watch his father’s face lose all color. “You cannot prove anything,” his father said, taking a step back.
“Would you like to test me?” Dev asked.
Kit’s father did not answer. Off to the side, George looked as though he wanted to run from the building and forget he even had a brother.
When the silence had gone on for too long, Dev said, “I suggest you take the original offer that I made to your son. Have Lord Castleton declared dead. Raise up that one in his place. Let Kitty live her life in peace. Everyone gets what they want that way.”
For a moment, Kit believed his father would finally agree to the bargain.
That moment was shattered when his father growled, balled his fists, and said, “Never. I will never allow this humiliation to continue.”
Without another word and before anyone could stop them, he and George stormed out of the room.
“Do you want me to go after them?” Mrs. Torrance asked in a shaky voice.
Dev heaved a sigh then said, “No. I need you to find a doctor.”
“No,” Kit groaned, pushing slightly away from Dev, but only weakly. He wanted to stay in his savior’s arms for as long as he could.
“Fetch a doctor who will be understanding to Kitty’s plight,” Dev said more carefully.
Mrs. Torrance nodded. “Understood,” she said, then hurried out of the room.
“You cannot have a doctor look at me,” Kit said, then groaned in pain as Dev carried him into the bedroom. “He will know.”
“I will not risk your health merely for the sake of appearances,” Dev insisted, laying Kit carefully on the bed. “There are doctors who will not judge you for anything nor breathe a word of what they see in the treatment of patients. I must know that you are well and that you will remain that way.”
Kit vocalized his disapproval, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it in the moment. If he was honest, he wanted to see a doctor, if only to learn that the blows his father had landed weren’t fatal.
That sent his thoughts in another, horrid direction.
“He will not stop until I am dead,” he sobbed .
Dev shifted onto the bed so that he could hold Kit tightly. “Never,” he said. “I will not allow it.” He paused, then went on with, “You cannot continue to stay here, however. It is not protected enough. Your father knows where you are here.”
“Then where can I go?” Kit panted, clutching at Dev’s jacket.
Dev surprised him with a smile. “You will go where every soon-to-be bride goes. You will come home with me and enjoy the safety and protection of my family at Russell House.”
Kit blinked in surprise. “I will?”
“Of course,” Dev said, kissing the top of his pounding head.
Kit did not know whether to smile or grimace.
He adored the Ogilvy family and relished the idea of being folded into their family.
But they would ask questions, and those questions would lead to revelations.
He might end up being safe from his father but tangled up in danger of an entirely different kind.