Chapter 18 Kitty
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
SARAH WILLIAMS, “THE OLD ASTRONOMER TO HIS PUPIL”
Three days after the disastrous gathering at Lord Chudley’s home, I received an invitation to another ball—an invitation that bore his unmistakable seal. Along with a massive bouquet of purple hyacinths in an exquisite crystal vase.
I skimmed the note and passed it to Aunt, who read it with arched eyebrows.
We sat in the drawing room while Freddy wrote letters at the desk near the window.
Perhaps to keep an eye out for my brother’s return.
Sebastian and Edward had left the townhome after breakfast. Sebastian for business.
And Edward? He’d refused to share his plans.
“He is apologizing for his appalling behavior,” Aunt declared, inspecting both the note and the flowers through her lorgnette, her tone sharp. “He waited long enough.” She dropped the missive onto my lap as if the paper were soiled.
I traced the edge of the invitation, the weight of her words settling uneasily. “I am no longer interested in his flowers or letters.”
“A man who cannot control himself will only wound you,” Freddy spoke from the desk, her quill paused as she raised her head to study me. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain.
I agreed.
Aunt sniffed, unimpressed. “You ought to consider your position and marry Mr. Sinclair quickly. Independence is a luxury afforded to few women, and even fewer without the protection of a husband.”
Her remark stung, though not because it was untrue. Was it foolish to wish for love and freedom? To find a partner who would not bind me but walk beside me? As my parents had experienced?
I fingered the note, the script pulling my thoughts back to the garden and the fencing bout I had witnessed. Lord Chudley’s volatile temper had been on full display that day, and though the duel had ended, its repercussions lingered.
His plea, scrawled in a hastier hand than usual, grated against my nerves. Did he truly think an apology and a vase of flowers would erase my doubts?
I crumpled the paper and flicked it into the nearby fireplace.
The flames devoured it hungrily, yet the chill creeping through me refused to dissipate.
The act felt resolute, almost Grandfather-like in its finality.
And yet, as I watched it curl into ash, I couldn’t ignore the voice within me whispering of mistakes I’d made in my desperate pursuit to carve my own path and find my voice.
I turned back to Aunt, who was still regarding the flowers with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. For all her sharp words, she had a way of revealing truths I might otherwise avoid.
“Aunt,” I said carefully, my voice steady, “how well do you remember living in India?”
She blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic. Lowering her lorgnette, she fixed me with an appraising look. “India? It was many years ago. Why do you ask?”
“I wish to know. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”
A faraway look entered her amber eyes. “I lived there several years until malaria struck, and your grandmother ordered me to return home to England for my safety.”
“What do you remember of my father?”
She sighed. “He loved India. Embraced it with every fiber of his being. He dressed the part of a nawab, right down to a string of pearls and a pair of crimson silk slippers.”
“I overheard you and Grandfather speak of Father over breakfast several weeks ago, after Grandfather informed me of the marriage.”
Her face drained of color as she played with her necklace, lustrous pearls of enormous size.
“Your grandfather wanted his son to return to England. Pleaded with him frequently, but your father was undoubtedly a stubborn man. A Grenville through and through. But no matter how strong the spirit, a frail body cannot withstand the blistering heat of India and the monsoons that follow. That land was never meant to be our home, dear Katherine. It’s simply not in our blood.
As a result, your father and many others died. ”
“Why not bring Mother with us? Why leave her behind?”
Aunt shook her head. “I believe she refused. Many in the palace later died.”
A slap to the cheek couldn’t have hurt more. All the air was sucked out of my lungs until the room spun. She didn’t want to come to England? To be with her children? The thought twisted painfully.
Yet . . . was Aunt’s admission the truth?
She regarded me with something akin to pity.
“No young girl should hear such tragic news, but you are no longer a child. I know of those fanciful notions floating within your head of her. You thought I couldn’t hear Edward and you whispering in Urdu, but I heard more than you realized.
It would be best to let such memories disappear.
It is a miracle the colonel found you when he did.
Do you remember how he brought you to London? ”
“Yes,” I whispered. “He said we had to leave immediately for our own good. I remember the ship, the endless weeks of seasickness, and how Grandfather forced us to use English words.” I swallowed hard. “And I remember how everything changed once we arrived.”
“Baptized and given proper English names,” Aunt finished for me, her tone brisk as though reciting a well-worn tale. “It was the only way for you to have a future here. Plenty of other company men sent their children to England for a new identity and future.”
Yes, banishing all evidence of the former world—if possible.
“You should be grateful he found you,” Aunt added.
Freddy’s frown at the chiding mirrored my own. When Aunt left the room, Freddy slipped over to my side and we sat in silence, as good friends do. Then she took my hand and squeezed it.
“Kitty, I am so sorry. I cannot imagine a young girl taken from all she’s ever known and loved.”
I offered my dearest friend a shaky smile.
She leaned in, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “But I am grateful for you. You are the sister I always wanted.”
Her words offered quite a bit of comfort. “And I, you.”
Yet I could not deny that the bleak landscape of London had unfolded before me like a strange shadowland, so unlike the vivid fairy-tale colors of my childhood in India.
Over time, this dreary place had begun to feel almost like home.
Almost. Some days, I longed to fit in Grandfather’s neatly ordered universe.
Other days, I ached for something I could never quite name.
Why did I feel as though I belonged nowhere at all?
An evening later, as my maid dressed me in a teal and emerald-green gown for a night at the opera, my thoughts tangled like the ribbons at my back.
Grandfather’s threat to take everything I loved if I didn’t follow his commands still echoed in my mind, a stark reminder of what I stood to lose if I didn’t obey him.
As of yet, I had no new information regarding the letters from India.
No doubt Grandfather had tossed them into the fireplace as usual.
If he had his way, I would replace one man’s control with another’s by the end of the season. Certainly, no freedom for me awaited with Lord Chudley.
Would any man see me as more than Grandfather’s fortune or the nabob’s daughter, or the garish caricature that had flooded the London papers?
Why was it that the man promised to me also belonged to an organization I hated with every fiber of my being?
I had dismissed Sebastian’s previous attentions as mere duty.
Yet the more I thought of him, the more cracks appeared in that assumption—his quiet kindness, his praise at the Herschel home, the way he spoke of India not as a conquest, but as a place beloved.
For the first time, I allowed myself to wonder what it would be like to be married to him.
Restless, I dismissed my maid before searching through my vanity for the dainty diamond pendant I preferred. Among the glass perfume bottles of rose-scented water, the tin of rice powder to make my skin fairer, and an assortment of hair pomades, I rummaged, but I found no sign of the gem.
Hurrying, I went to my desk and shuffled through the foolscap to find the necklace. There it lay, hidden beneath several papers. I retrieved it, only to have my blood run cold when I scanned my familiar handwriting addressing the most recent letters to my mother in Hyderabad.
The letters beneath my fingertips were all recent—the very letters I thought I had given Sebastian to be mailed. What missives had I given him?
Embarrassment slithered through me as I set the necklace on the desk and riffled through my papers, understanding dawning. I had mistakenly sent some of my earliest letters—the foolish pining of a lonely child.
Heat flooded me at the blunder. It was too late to rectify my mistake. I had poured all my anger, frustration, sorrow, and loneliness onto that foolscap. It had served more as a journal than anything else. And now, he had mailed them!
If my mother did receive those missives, what would she think of my girlish rants regarding Grandfather’s strictness, my infatuation for the stable hand who lasted only a month before Grandfather sent him away?
Shaken, I attempted to clasp my necklace and failed.
A knock at the door broke my reverie. Freddy entered with a smile. Wearing a new gown of lilac, she glowed this evening.
“Oh, Kitty. That diamond necklace is divine.” With quick steps, she crossed the room. “Here, let me help with you with that chain. Sebastian is waiting downstairs.”
One last formal outing before he left for India.
I relinquished the clasp, my hands suddenly clammy.
“You are truly the season’s incomparable,” she said with a light laugh before turning me around.
I followed her out of the room, feeling very much out of sorts. As we descended the stairs, I heard the low thrum of male voices below.