23. The Scheduled Meeting
Twenty Three
The Scheduled Meeting
T he drawing room had been prepared precisely for the occasion. Mary had arranged the tea service on the low table between two chairs, not too close, not too far. Neutral territory. A white flag made of porcelain and silver.
Jason arrived first, as planned. He stood near the window, then moved to the fireplace, then back to the window.
His hands wouldn’t stay still. He adjusted his cravat three times in as many minutes, checked his pocket watch twice without registering the time, and finally forced himself to stand in the center of the room with his hands clasped behind his back in a posture of false calm.
Mary watched from her position near the tea service, tracking every restless movement.
After a while of this same routine, she commented, “She’ll come.”
“I know,” he replied automatically, although his jaw clenched afterwards.
Mary had nothing more to say.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked each second, its sound echoing loudly in the silence of the room. Jason counted each one in his mind, making time stretch on endlessly.
Then, he heard it—footsteps in the corridor. Quick, purposeful steps that hesitated just outside the door.
Jason’s entire body tensed at once. His eyes locked on that door, on that handle, as if suddenly time has stopped and the world had narrowed to only this point of view.
His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears, matching the rhythm of the clock nearby.
The handle moved.
Slowly.
So slowly he could track every degree of rotation.
His eyes went wide as he stopped breathing for a heartbeat. Behind his back, his hands gripped one another with enough force to hurt.
The handle completed its turn and the door opened with the same hesitation that had marked Kate’s footsteps. And then there she was, standing in the doorway, one hand still on the handle as though she might need to flee at any moment.
Jason saw her and released the breath he’d been holding as he also released his hands from his back to let them rest loosely at his sides.
The sight of Kate filled his vision completely. His eyes lit with undisguised admiration. And, in that moment, he forgot about the existence of everything else in this world.
Kate wore a simple day dress in light blue, with her hair tied back in a simple ponytail. But her face was visibly flushed, her eyes bright with something that might have been determination… or pure panic.
Her gaze swept over the person dressed as a man across the room, a single, comprehensive glance that took in everything from his tied cravat to his polished shoes.
Just Jason , she told herself firmly. Just the man you married. The man you’ve seen a hundred times before.
But it wasn’t working. Because now she knew. Now she couldn’t unsee it—the way the waistcoat fitted just slightly wrong across the chest, the delicate bone structure of the face she’d once thought merely refined, the graceful hands that had touched her with such tenderness, and such expertise.
Gina’s hands. A woman’s hands.
Their eyes met for half a second, and heat flooded through Kate’s body with mortifying intensity.
She turned on her heel and walked straight back out of the room.
Her heart beat hard against her ribs as she paced the corridor, pressing one hand to her chest as if she could physically calm the racing pulse beneath. Get control of yourself. This is absurd. You’re behaving like a child.
But the image of him—of her —standing there in masculine dress, looking at Kate with those eyes that now seemed impossible to read as anything but feminine, had sent something hot and unsettling coursing through her veins.
Want. Unmistakable, undeniable want that terrified her precisely because of what it meant.
She wanted Gina. Not despite knowing the truth, but because of it.
The moment she saw her again, after all those days without seeing her, confirmed what she already knew to be certain. This new affirmation, though, made her feel dizzy, reckless, and completely outraged with herself. And with Gina also. Because—how dared she to be so… so…?
Kate stopped pacing at once. Straightened her spine and drew a deep breath.
Jason had stood frozen from the moment Kate turned and walked away instead of into the room. He had simply stared at the open door, unable to process anything at all.
He looked at Mary for a moment, bewildered.
Mary’s eyebrows had risen in surprise, and kept there permanently.
They heard Kate’s footsteps in the corridor—pacing, it seemed. Back and forth. Then they stopped.
A long pause.
Then the footsteps returned, more decisive now.
Kate reappeared in the doorway.
This time, Kate did enter completely into the room but she didn’t look at Jason not even once. She couldn’t. Looking meant seeing, and seeing meant feeling, and feeling meant acknowledging things she wasn’t ready to allow herself feeling so vividly.
So, she walked straight to one of the chairs by the tea service and sat down with rigid posture, her spine not touching the back of the chair, her hands folded tightly in her lap to hide their trembling.
Her hands were so cold… but nobody needed to know. Right?
“All right,” she said to the air above Mary’s shoulder. “Let’s do this. Quickly.”
She could feel Jason’s presence in her own body, could sense exactly where he stood without looking, could feel his attention on her like touch.
Heat crept up her neck despite her best efforts to remain composed.
Jason, though, had to press his lips together to suppress the trembling that threatened to expose the hurt he felt after watching Kate’s physical rejection—unable even to look at him, fleeing at the mere sight of him.
The situation wasn’t remotely funny. It was, in fact, awkward and painful and desperately sad.
Kate’s visible panic, the way she’d literally fled the room only to steel herself and return, spoke to how difficult this was for her.
How difficult he was for her. How repulsive, perhaps, the mere sight of him.
The thought settled like a stone in his stomach, suddenly leaving his throat dry.
But, despite everything, he moved toward the other chair, sitting down with more grace than he felt, attempting to maintain some dignity even while shame and pain burned him from within.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet.”
Kate gave a single, sharp nod, still not looking at him.
Mary began pouring tea then. “Milk and sugar, ma’am?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Kate’s voice was clipped, professional.
“Sir?”
“Just sugar, please.”
Mary handed Kate her cup first. Kate took it and brought it to her lips immediately, as if needing something to do with her hands, something to hide behind.
Jason accepted his own cup and settled it on his knee, watching Kate despite the pain it caused.
She was determinedly studying the wallpaper to his left, her jaw set, a faint flush creeping up her neck.
She looked anywhere but at him. As if he were something completely shameful. Something to be avoided.
He swallowed against the tightness in his throat a second time.
“The weather has been pleasant lately,” Mary offered into the silence.
“Yes,” Kate said quickly. “Very pleasant.”
“Ideal for Lady Rutledge’s garden party,” Jason added, forcing himself to help bridge the chasm between them even as he felt it widening with every second of Kate’s averted gaze.
Kate felt her body tense at the mention of the social event. “Indeed,” she said.
Another silence.
The clock kept ticking.
Kate sipped her tea, hyperaware of Jason’s gaze resting upon her, hyperaware of the movement of her own throat as she swallowed her tea; she wondered if he—or rather, she—was also observing every minuscule detail of her actions. She wondered what Gina saw when she looked at her now.
“Perhaps,” Mary said gently, “we should discuss the arrangements for Saturday?”
“Yes.” Kate set her cup down with slightly more force than necessary, needing to break the mounting tension. “Saturday. Lady Rutledge’s party. We should…”
She made the fatal mistake of glancing toward the person sitting beside her. Just a flicker of a look, barely a second. But it was enough to see the way those eyes—Gina’s eyes—watched her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
Kate’s gaze skittered away immediately, her heart beating hard again.
She cleared her throat.
“We should coordinate our arrival,” she finished.
“Of course.” Jason kept his voice neutral. “What time would you prefer?”
Kate forced herself to focus on practical matters, on logistics, on anything that didn’t require her to think about the woman sitting across from her dressed as a man.
“The invitation specifies three o’clock. We should arrive at quarter past. Not too early, not too late.”
“Quarter past three. Agreed,” he accepted at once.
Kate felt her irritation skyrocket instantly. Why was he—she—being so irritatingly pleasant and… annoying today?
But she simply nodded, still studying the wallpaper with fierce determination. “And we should… that is, we must appear…” She struggled with the words.
“Comfortable together,” Jason supplied quietly.
Kate’s flush deepened. “Yes. That. Comfortable. United. As though…” She swallowed. “As though nothing is amiss.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Kate’s eyes flashed toward him—her—again, this time with more heat, more of the frustration. “Because I’m not certain I do. How exactly are we supposed to appear happily married when we can barely—”
She stopped abruptly, pressing her lips together and looking away another time.
“When we can barely what?” Jason asked, without moving even a muscle, just staring at her as if, for him, looking away was simply impossible.
Kate’s gaze dropped to her hands, watching her fingers twist together in her lap. She could feel the coldness in them increasing. “When we can barely occupy the same room,” she finished quietly.
She heard him inhale—a slow, controlled breath that might have been tension or pain or both.