Chapter 37 #4
But she waited. The moment passed.
“I’m glad,” she said, and laid her hand on top of his where it rested on the table. “I’m glad you want that.”
“Do you want it, Kate?”
“Yes,” she said and withdrew her hand. “But you were right. It’s not what I need.”
Her answer made James look so hangdog Catherine had to laugh. “I’ll come keep you company tomorrow while you’re in bed.”
The next morning, after breakfast, they went to his room together.
Catherine turned around and told him to strip, to put on the innkeeper’s son’s shirt, and to get back into the bed.
He did as she said, glad to have her managing him even though undressing with her in the room made him long to manage her, her body, her desire.
What had he been thinking when he had devised this fool plan?
Catherine took his clothes down to the innkeeper’s wife. She was gone a long time, and he grew restless. Finally, she returned.
“I have some playing cards from the innkeeper and—what do you think, a copy of Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women.”
James groaned.
“Or we could talk,” Catherine said.
“You could come sit on the bed,” James said, patting the mattress next to him.
“I’ll sit in this chair.” But she drew it close to the bed.
They talked this way, he in the bed and she in the chair, for hours.
They spoke of their childhoods, their childhood loves.
He asked her about her use of a sword and came to realize she was the boy he had seen at Antonio’s last autumn.
They spoke of Catherine’s dreams for Arabella’s happiness and James’ dreams for his duchy and his sisters.
James confessed his second life in service to the Crown, and she congratulated him on his acting and warned him she would not be so easy to deceive in the future.
In the future. She thought they had a future. Together. But James was wise and did not comment on her use of the word.
He asked Catherine to recite for him. She still knew all her roles from years ago, but she also knew long stretches of other speeches off by heart, as well. James applauded her version of the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V.
“Quite like Joan of Arc, you were. If she had been English, that is.”
Morning turned to afternoon, and Catherine stood and stretched and yawned. “I think I’ll go take a nap, Jamie. I’ll have your clothes brought to you when they’re dry. And since we had no luncheon, let’s eat at five o’clock. Yes?”
“Yes,” James grumbled and picked up the cards. “I suppose I’ll play Patience if I can’t convince you to nap here with me.”
“We both know if I get in that bed, there would be no napping to be had.”
James looked up hopefully, but she had turned and gone out the door.
His clothes were brought to him at four o’clock, and he asked for hot water, too.
He washed his whole body, standing up, scrubbing himself.
He thought he might shave but remembered if he did not, Catherine might shave him on the morrow.
She would stand close to him while she plied the razor and would touch his face and neck.
He decided not to shave.
The trousers were not quite dry, but they were clean. His coat and waistcoat looked respectable.
At five o’clock, he went to Catherine’s door and knocked.
Catherine opened the door.
James gasped. He knew that blue silk, that fine shimmery cloth. Months ago, hadn’t he himself made her sheathe her breasts with such a silk?
But now that silk went from her shoulders to her toes in the shape of a dress.
It had a low, square neckline. Very low.
Given her breasts had enlarged with her pregnancy, it looked like her bosom might spill over the top at any moment.
The inch of chemise showing was like a bit of enticing froth framing the square of the chest. And, yes, the color of the dress matched her eyes perfectly.
But James was not looking at her eyes.
“I’ve spent the last hour thinking I had better take it off. And then I change my mind. What do you think, Jamie? Should I wear it?”
James stepped into the room. “I think this should be the only dress you wear for the rest of your life.”
“Do you like this best of any gown you have ever seen me in?”
The perfect cream and pink skin sloping into the roundness of her bosom, the dark shadow between her voluptuous breasts, the promise of what was just below the neckline of the dress. In truth, James could not remember any of Catherine’s other dresses.
“I think there is only one thing I have ever seen you in that I like more.”
“Let me guess, Your Grace. You prefer me in . . . nothing?”
James groaned. “Am I so predictable then?”
Catherine bit her lip. “But is it too daring for dinner in a coaching inn?”
James considered. “Yes. Let’s have dinner in this room.”
Catherine almost pouted. “We have been cooped up all day.”
“Change the dress and we’ll go downstairs and eat and take a stroll and we’ll come back up here and you can put it on again.”
“You don’t want to be seen with me in this dress?”
“Right now, Kate, I don’t want any other man to see you in that dress. In time, I may be able to exercise enough reason to enjoy other men admiring you but not right now.”
“The innkeeper’s wife helped me with the buttons since the dress was made for a lady with a lady’s maid, so you’ll have to unbutton me, please.”
She turned around to show him the buttons. He gulped.
“There are so many. And they’re so small.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Only a dozen. Be careful, Jamie.”
He stooped and felt very clumsy as he began with the top button. “There. Eleven to go.” After several minutes, he freed the last button, and Catherine raised her arms. He drew the dress over her head, leaving her in stays, chemise, petticoat, and almost as fully dressed as she had been before.
Except the chemise and the cups of the stays were translucent and he could see the skin of her breasts and the pink of her areolas. He shifted weight from one foot to the other.
She took the dress from him and laid it carefully in her trunk. She turned to a chair where a rose-pink muslin dress waited.
“Shall I help you?”
“No, this is a dress I can do myself.” She put the dress over her head. “You know I was not planning to have a lady’s maid in France, so I only brought dresses I could arrange myself. Except the blue gown. I didn’t want to leave that behind. I’ve never worn it.”
James felt guilty. “Do you want to wear it? I’m sorry, I’ve robbed you of some pleasure. You should wear it.”
“Nonsense. I don’t want you fretting over some villain looking down my dress. Let’s go and eat dinner.”
They ate. They took a walk into the center of the city and back to the coaching inn.
Catherine thought it might be the most idyllic evening of her life.
The air was warm, but not too warm. There was a slight breeze.
The sky was perfectly clear. There was the perfume of lilacs in the air. And she was on James’ arm.
“I am glad we got out and about today.”
“Yes. What should we do tomorrow, Kate?”
Catherine didn’t even know what they should do in the next hour. “Today’s not done yet. I want to wear my dress for you.”
They returned to her room. The sky was darkening, so she closed the curtains and lit lamps. She took off the pink dress and heard James’ breathing change a bit. She slid the blue silk over her head and put her back to him and waited.
She felt his tentative hands begin to button her dress.
“Start at the bottom, Jamie. That will make it easier.”
“Oh, yes,” he said and shifted his hands. He hummed a little as he worked with the buttons. She felt his warm breath on her neck, and she thought she could also feel his concentration, his care.
“That’s done,” he said.
She stepped away from him and turned.
He crossed his arms over his chest and clamped his hands under his armpits. “It’s a miracle of a dress, Kate.”
She felt warm under his gaze, so she curtsied and fluttered her hand in front of her face as if it were a fan. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
He nodded. There was a silence. A coach drew up to the inn, and the sounds of the horses and the ostler speaking to the coachman filtered up to the room.
“Well,” he said. “Good night.” He turned.
Catherine had not thought much further than wanting to wear the dress for him. Why? To inflame his desire? Yes. She wanted him to look at her with lust. She wanted him to feel what she was feeling. But there was something more.
She stepped quickly in front of him and laid a hand on his chest.
“Tell me your thoughts.”
He looked at the floor. “You know my thoughts.”
“I don’t.”
“I think I’m a fool to have taken a woman who desired me and turned her into a friend.”
“Shall I tell you my thoughts, Jamie?”
He groaned and kept his eyes on the floor. “Will I be able to bear them, Kate?”
“Yes, you must.”
He raised his eyes to her face.
“My thoughts are . . . you have been very wise. You had a woman who did not trust herself with you. In truth, she may not have trusted you, either. But now, she is a good way along to trusting both parties.”
“Good,” he said, but his tone was mutinous.
“In fact, she may be close to being all the way there.”
His brows knit together, and he grabbed both her hands.
“Do you mean it, Catherine? Don’t toy with me.”
She had had three—no, three and a half—days of peace and companionship and joy with him. A short time, yes. But in those few days, he had shown her what she thought was impossible was possible. She could simply be with him. And be herself with him.
Yes, miraculously, be herself. Not someone’s mother or wife or widow or mistress. Or Ophelia or Viola.
Just herself. Some essential Kate.
He was the ideal person. For her. For her to be herself. Which was something she had craved for almost thirty years.
He was sincere. Thoughtful. Tender. Ready to laugh with her. Ready to disagree with her. Ready to love her. Yes, he inspired a devastating lust in her, but maybe, with his help, she could hold onto herself while still lying in his arms.
He had shown himself to be a man who wanted what was best for her, not just the satisfaction of his own desires. A man who would be the most admirable sort of affectionate husband and doting father. A man who deserved all of her love. And wanted her love, as flawed as she was.
And now she knew the truth deep in her heart. She loved him. All of him.
“I mean that I think we should be lovers again.”
He was on her. His mouth on hers, his hands on the small of her back, her shoulders, her neck, her face.
She felt a flare of heat and an ache between her legs, and she met his lips with hers, his tongue with hers.
She put her hands to his head, forgetting for a moment, and when she found no locks in her fingers, she grabbed his nape and pulled him closer.
And then he took himself away from her. Six, seven feet away. Painfully far away. He was panting, as was she.
She did not know what to say. “Thank you,” she gasped, “for not ripping the dress. Will you take it off me now?”
“Hang the dress. I don’t care about the dress.”
She looked down. “I thought you liked the dress.”
“I do.” He was regaining his breath. “But I don’t care about it.”
“Oh.”
“You must answer me, Kate Cooksey, Catherine Cooke, Mrs. Lovelock. You have not answered me.”
She almost laughed. She bit her lip instead.
“You have not asked me, James Cavendish, the Most Noble Duke of Middlewich and Marquess of Daventry.”
He felt himself redden. He hadn’t, had he? He had told her he wanted her hand in marriage, but he hadn’t asked.
But now he would ask. And he thought there was a very good chance she would say yes.
He felt at his waistcoat pocket. Empty. The sapphire ring he had carried from London was gone. Blast. It was in his own room. Under his pillow. He had taken it out this morning when his clothes had been laundered and sponged and he had forgotten to replace it. He needed Enfield organizing him.
He held a finger up. “A moment.” He was out the door and at his own door, fumbling with the key. And to the bed and there was the ring. And back to Catherine’s room, ring in his fist.
He stepped in and closed the door behind him. She was so beautiful, and it wasn’t the dress. She could be in the stained muslin gown she wore to his rooms months ago, and she would still be beautiful.
The thought she might be his, forever, made his legs weak. And the knowledge she was carrying his child made him want to weep. Still, Catherine deserved a man who could get through a proposal.
He walked to her and got on one knee.
Suddenly, she seemed shy, almost girlish. She was having a hard time meeting his eyes.
“Kate,” he said and took her hand with his. He opened his other hand, and the large blue sapphire shone and sparkled. “I must have you . . . marry me. Will you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I love you, Jamie.” She sneezed.
“Bless you,” he said as he slid the ring onto her finger.
He made a promise to himself in that moment. No matter what, he would not rip the dress.