Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“Who’s there? Show yourself!”
Kitty’s heart sank at James’s clipped demand. There was nothing for it but to stand up and face him. Mortified to have been caught spying, she brushed the grass from her skirts, squared her shoulders, and stepped around the tree trunk.
“It’s only me.”
Both men stared at her as if she had two heads. The horrified look on James’s face would have been comical, if it wasn’t so insulting.
“Kitty! What are you doing out here on your own?”
She immediately bristled at his disapproving tone. She didn’t need an extra older brother, bossing her about. She retrieved her bonnet and basket from the ground. “I’m on my way to get honey.”
“I’ll accompany you.”
“There’s no need.”
“I insist.”
Unable to think of an argument, she turned to the other man in the clearing and bobbed a belated curtsey. “Good afternoon, Lord Somerton.”
He bowed, and she noticed that he had an injury to his cheek, a cut just below his eye that was already turning blue.
“You’re hurt!”
She sent James a reproachful glare for injuring his opponent in what was clearly supposed to be a friendly practice bout, and he just glared back at her.
“It wasn’t my doing,” he growled.
The earl touched the cut on his cheek. “What, this? Oh, no, it wasn’t him. I got it yesterday. Young Edward Vail hit me with a rock.”
“Good heavens.” There seemed little else to say in response to that—even if Kitty was burning with curiosity.
The earl glanced from James to her and back again and cleared his throat.
“Well, I’ll, erm, best be getting back to the house.”
He grabbed his jacket from a tree stump, picked up the two fencing foils they’d been using to spar, and bowed awkwardly. “Miss Worth, Cashell.”
Kitty watched his retreat, then turned back to James, who was pulling on his jacket.
Seeing him again aroused a whole host of conflicting emotions in her chest, but she lifted her chin and went straight on the offensive. This might be their one chance to speak privately.
“Why didn’t you want to see me in London? I sent my calling card several times, offering to visit. You never replied.” She fixed him with an accusing glare. “I could have sat at your bedside and read to you, or simply talked, to pass the time.”
The sardonic look he sent her made her heart pound. “Do you honestly think, when I have a woman in my chamber, that I want to talk or read?”
Heat rushed to her cheeks at his teasing. He always said the most outrageous things to embarrass her, but she persisted. “I thought we were friends.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he bent to fasten his shirt cuff. “Friends.” His tone made it sound like an insult. “Of course we’re friends.”
She sniffed, still offended. She’d needed to reassure herself that he was still alive.
Was he avoiding her because she resembled her brother? People had often remarked that she looked like a smaller, softer version of Andrew. They’d had the same color hair, the same eyes.
Well, that argument went both ways. He reminded her of Andrew just as much. They’d been constant companions, school friends at Eton, then at Cambridge. Half of her childhood memories included him. She supposed it had been inevitable that they’d go and fight Napoleon together, too.
But only Andrew had died.
She could hardly blame James for that, though. Fate had dealt the cards. And she’d taken some comfort in the fact that while Andrew might have died far from home, at least he hadn’t been alone.
James crossed the clearing and held out his hand imperiously. “Here, let me carry that.”
With a sigh, Kitty surrendered the basket.
“Where are the hives?” he asked.
“This way. On the edge of the woods.”
Thoroughly flustered, and certain that her pink cheeks must betray her agitation, Kitty strode back to the path. James fell into step just behind her, and she cast around for a suitable topic of conversation.
“Have you heard the latest news? Wellington’s taken Salamanca.” She risked a glance back, and saw his features tighten.
“I heard.”
She bit her lip at his gruff tone. Was he frustrated that he wasn’t out there with the rest of his regiment, facing the enemy? She couldn’t help but be glad. She didn’t want him facing death again. To lose him, too, would be unbearable.
Perhaps he felt guilty because he was safe here in England?
As the first-born son of an earl, he hadn’t needed to join the army at all.
Like Lord Locryn or Lord Somerton, he could have stayed in England tending to his estates.
Instead, he’d helped Wellington capture Ciudad Rodrigo, in Spain, but had been wounded during the assault of Badajoz, and invalided home.
He’d said it was his patriotic duty, and Kitty couldn’t help but admire him for not taking the easy route.
“Why are you getting honey?” he demanded suddenly, as if insulted on her behalf. “You’re a guest here, not a servant.”
“The Earl’s steward, Mr. Drake, isn’t well, and all the servants are busy, so Gwyn asked me to collect some. It’s no bother. I help father care for our own bees at Longmeadow.”
James gave a non-committal grunt.
“The Earl, I’m told, has been experimenting with new European-style hives. I’m most interested to see them.” Kitty gave herself a mental slap herself on the head. Apiary design? Really? What kind of scintillating conversation was that? James probably thought she was a gibbering idiot.
She always talked too much when she was nervous, and the ease of long-acquaintance that had once existed between them seemed to have disappeared. In its place was a strange, stinging tension, a prickling awareness. She knew to the nearest inch how close his body was behind hers.
She wanted their old camaraderie, the teasing, back again.
Mercifully, the woods thinned out, and they emerged on the edge of a glorious flowering meadow.
A sweep of bobbing flowers spread out before them, sloping away toward the turquoise sea.
The waist-high grass was dotted with blue cornflowers and ragged white cow parsley.
Bright yellow cowslips, white daisies, and nodding red poppies added further splashes of color.
“How lovely!” Kitty exclaimed, turning her face to the breeze.
“Beautiful,” James murmured, coming to stand at her side.
Something about the tone of his voice made her turn, and her pulse leapt as she realized he wasn’t looking at the view, but at her.
Her cheeks heated again. His steady regard gave her a strange, weightless feeling, as if she’d been swept off her feet by a wave. What on earth was he playing at? He was probably trying to discompose her, because she’d surprised him in the woods, the beast.
Flustered, she set off toward the cluster of white-painted hives, like little houses on stilts, on the edge of the field.
When she got near, she slapped Gwyn’s enormous straw bonnet on her head, then retrieved the gauzy fabric from the basket.
She tried, unsuccessfully, to throw it over the top of her hat, but the wide brim made it impossible for her short arms to manage it. The stupid netting kept slipping down.
James gave a soft snort of amusement. “Here, let me.”
He pushed her hands away, and she stood stock still as he draped the cobweb-thin material evenly over the hat, arranging it over her shoulders to her elbows.
The contrast of his strong masculine hands, and the care with which he handled the delicate fabric, made her a little light-headed.
Those hands could wield a weapon with deadly force, but they were also capable of extraordinary gentleness.
What would they feel like on her skin?
From beneath the brim of the hat, she caught a glimpse of his face, set with concentration. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. What would it be like to kiss him through the veil?
Her heart gave a lurch as she allowed herself a moment of wicked fantasy. It would be such a strange sensation. She’d feel the warmth of his breath, the contours of his lips through the thin gauze, but it would be tantalizingly incomplete. A half-kiss, the ghost of a kiss—
“You make a very unconvincing ghost.”
Kitty jumped at the uncanny way he seemed to read her thoughts.
“I know Castle Keyvnor’s rumored to be a hotbed of the supernatural,” James continued, a laugh in his voice, “but I’ve never heard talk of a pale pink specter. You’re unlikely to instill fear in anyone—unless you pretend to be a ghostly bride.”
Kitty winced at the mental image. Wearing a veil wasn’t the fashion now, as it had been a few hundred years ago—brides generally preferred flowers or other adornments for their hair. She did want James to think of her as a bride, but not one that had died.
She forced a light tone. “I’m sure the thought of marriage is enough to instill terror in the heart of every bachelor here.”
He snorted in amusement. “Too true.”
A pang of misery pierced her. She wasn’t jealous of Gwyn, exactly, but she did want what her friend would have on Saturday; to be joined to someone in marriage. A union of hearts and minds, of bodies and souls.
Which wasn’t likely to happen to her any time soon.
Tugging on her leather riding gloves, she approached the nearest hive, alive with buzzing bees.
“Father’s been researching this new kind of hive. He’s always looking for ways to increase efficiency, whether it’s in his factories or his own garden.”
James, sensibly, remained a few paces back. “What’s so inefficient about beekeeping?”
“Well, you usually have to kill all the bees to get the honey.”
“You do?” He sounded properly shocked. “I had no idea.”
“The traditional hive, a skep, is essentially just a large basket, placed open-end-down. It shelters the swarm which surrounds the queen. There’s a framework of wooden slats inside, to which the bees attach their honeycombs, but there’s no way to remove the honey and the comb without killing the bees.
The beekeeper usually poisons them at the end of each season by holding the skep over a fire pit burning sulphur.
The fumes kill them, and they’re shaken out, and the honeycomb is removed. ”
“That’s barbaric.”
“It is. And of course, you have to find another swarm of bees the following year.” Kitty leaned closer, fascinated by the design of the new hive. Moving slowly, she lifted the square ‘roof’ and placed it on the ground at her feet.
“These have sliding frames that can be removed, like drawers. It’s far less disruptive for the bees. They can keep working in one area, while you harvest the honeycomb from another.”
Careful not to annoy the bees, which seemed remarkably docile, she slowly withdrew one rectangular frame and broke off the section of honeycomb attached to it. A few insects buzzed around her face, but she was shielded by her makeshift veil.
Honey dripped from the tiny hexagonal segments, and she held it clear of her skirts and hurried back to where James was waiting with the basket. She dropped the comb into the bowl, and he covered it with the cotton cloth Gwyn had provided.
“There, that should be enough.” She replaced the lid of the hive, then tugged off the net and bonnet.
“Your gloves are ruined,” James said.
She glanced down. It was true; they were covered in honey, so she peeled them off and dropped them into the basket too.
“It’s a small price to pay for sweetness,” she shrugged. “As is the occasional sting. A short stab of pain is more than worth it for a delicious jar of honey.”