“Whatever we were ended with your marriage,” Lady Eliza said, reproach in her tone.
“It has been many years, Eliza. Can we just talk for a while?”
Kittie watched her employer’s face, the doubt, and then the quick decision.
“Of course.” She swallowed hard, then her chin went up, her wounded pride making her say, “You see what the years have done to me, Harriet. I will need to take your arm if we are to go somewhere to talk.”
“I heard about your misfortune, Eliza, and my first thought was sorrow for you, of course, but then I knew that if anyone had to be afflicted, you would find a way to triumph.” There was, trembling in her tone, pride for her old friend and pain.
“You knew about my blindness before you sought me out?” Lady Eliza said coldly. “I am not to be pitied, Harry.”
“I sought you out and then found out about your blindness,” Lady Montressor said gently, searching Lady Eliza’s face. “And I would never dare pity you. No one who knew you ever would. Please . . . let’s just talk.”
Kittie watched the exchange, puzzled at first but then gradually coming into knowledge. Of course. Stunned, she acknowledged the truth . . . this was Harry of the love letters. Harry of the past. Harry, whom Lady Eliza had loved and lost to another.
Kittie exchanged glances with Rebecca, who nodded to her. “I will be with the other ladies when you need me, Lady Eliza.”
The woman nodded. Lady Montressor took her arm and they strolled away, their heads together in conversation. Kittie watched them walk away, shock melting into understanding and puzzlement giving way to hope for her friend.
• • •
Family duty won over personal preference. Alban strolled into the ballroom and sighed at the inevitable stir. He would, as always, pretend not to notice the women primping their daughters and the ladies preening. He would find his cousin, make sure she knew he had attended, and then leave.
The heat in the ballroom already was like entering a smithy’s forge, or so it seemed to one who enjoyed more the coolness of green space or the quietude of his men’s club. He glanced around the expansive ballroom, thinking that his cousin had outdone herself this year, with an elegance to the decoration that was new. Perhaps she had hired someone to make this transformation.
His gaze was drawn to a corner of the room by something familiar in the set of a lady’s shoulders and the color of her hair. Her back was to him and she was hunched over, speaking to another lady, their heads close together, but it looked like . . . was it— It was! His heart thudding, he quickened his pace, bumping into several ladies and having to apologize, losing sight of his objective and then seeing her again through the crowd.
His Aunt Eliza was deep in conversation with another woman, a white-haired lady who looked vaguely familiar to him but whom he couldn’t place. Blocked temporarily by the movement of a group of people, he was halted in his tracks, and he turned looking for another way through the crowd.
And that was when he saw Kittie Douglas on the ballroom floor, dancing the waltz with a well-to-do widower whom Alban well knew was on the lookout for a wife. He stared, feasting on her exquisite beauty, her coppery hair glowing in the candlelight and dressed with pearls and plumes, and her white neck adorned with a pearl and diamond collar he thought had the look of his aunt’s long-ignored jewels. Her gown was dark green and cut low to expose her pale bosom, and the widower was greedily devouring her with his eyes, it seemed to Alban’s jealous gaze.
She looked away from her dance partner, her glance cool, her gaze unfocused.
Until she saw him. Their eyes locked and she visibly started. He hoped she trembled. He wanted her to be astonished and as shaken as he was. He stared at her, remembering every curve and how she felt in his arms. He tasted her lips, inhaled her delicious scent and caressed her skin. Swaying back, he watched her trip on her partner’s feet, right herself and then look away, spots of flame red burning on her cheeks.
She hadn’t expected to see him. Gathering his wandering wits, for he must look the greatest idiot, standing in the middle of the ballroom with his mouth gaping, he made his way through the crowd to his aunt. “What in God’s name are you doing here and why didn’t you tell me you were coming to London?” he demanded as he approached the two women.
Lady Eliza looked up and reached out her one free hand. The other was locked securely in the other lady’s grip, and he glanced at her, recognizing Lady Montressor, a great beauty from many years before. He hadn’t even known she and his aunt were acquainted, but they appeared to be very close . . . intimate friends, in fact.
“Alban,” his aunt said. She stood, as did Lady Montressor, but the women’s hands stayed entwined.
“What are you doing here?” He took her in his arms and hugged her. She finally dropped her friend’s hand and returned his embrace. He nodded and murmured the other lady’s name in acknowledgment of their acquaintance. “Not that I’m displeased, but for God’s sake, why did you not tell me? I could have arranged travel and you could have stayed at my London house.” Just the thought of Kittie Douglas under his roof made his body ache. He felt a rush of blood to his head and other regions, and the light-headed sensation returned.
His aunt firmly put him away from her and reached behind for Lady Montressor’s hand. “I knew you were going to be out of town for part of spring and did not want to concern you. My objective was to visit my cousin and rejoin life. And . . . and I have become reacquainted with old friends, too.”
Puzzled by her tone, he glanced from his aunt to the other woman, who was blushing, but with a beautiful smile on her unlined face. “I didn’t even know you knew Lady Montressor,” he said.
“We were friends many years ago, until her marriage,” his aunt said simply. “Have you seen Kittie?”
“I have,” Alban said. “What do you mean by dressing her like a . . . as if she is looking for a husband? She is gowned and bejeweled and doesn’t look at all like a companion should.”
“Good,” Lady Eliza said with a wicked smile. “Then she looks just as she ought. I think she has every right to get married, and if she should catch some gentleman’s eye, then I wish her to have her chance at happiness. I think everyone should have their chance at happiness,” she finished, squeezing her friend’s hand and tucking it close to her.
Alban swallowed and sought a chair. He sat down. Kittie with a husband. He would need to become accustomed to that thought, for there was not a doubt in his mind that she would have suitors. Her beauty alone would be enough to ensure that, but she united with loveliness a temperament most men would find alluring and a disposition amenable to marriage and satisfying even the most discriminating man’s desires.
Every desire, even the most carnal and erotic.
Fury boiled in his veins, and when he looked up to say something to his aunt, he saw on her face undisguised triumph. He had been brought to heel and she knew it. He couldn’t bear the thought of Kittie with a husband, and yet could not imagine wedding her himself.
Or could he?
His brain humming and a headache pounding through it, he gazed around him at the couples, some married, some flirting, some engaged already, though it was early in the Season. Which among them were happy? Any? And who among them would be happy ten years from then, those who had satisfied society’s strictures as to the propriety of their bride? Or the ones who had followed their hearts?
“Your grace,” Lady Montressor said, “I will ask to be excused if you will be so kind as to sit with your aunt for a while. I have social obligations, but then I . . . I’ll be back, Eliza. We have much to speak about still.”
Eliza sat back down opposite him in a gilt chair, an enigmatic smile on her lips. He regarded her for some minutes, and then said, “Please don’t imagine I have forgotten your last words to me.”
“What were those?”
“You said I’d be a damned fool if I didn’t marry Kittie.”
“I have changed my mind. I think
she is too good for a stubborn idiot like you. You are incapable of appreciating her.”
So, his aunt was in one of her ferocious moods. Alban sighed and sat back, but a moment later bolted to his feet as Kittie approached.
“Your grace,” she said with a formal curtsey. “I understood from your last letter before we left Yorkshire that you were not to be in London until April.”
He glanced at his aunt. “I informed Mr. Lafferty about my change of plans some time ago. And there is likely a letter to my aunt sitting at Bodenthorpe Cottage at this very moment with the same news. How very odd that Lafferty didn’t tell you.”
Kittie looked at Lady Eliza too, with a considering gaze. “Hmm. Yes. I am so happy you and Lady Eliza will be able to visit.”
“I was just saying,” Alban continued, “how strange it was that she didn’t have you write to me and let me know you were coming. I could have had the town house ready.”
“I told you,” Lady Eliza said. “My purpose was not to visit you, but my cousin, whom I have not seen in many years.”
“Yes. So you said.” He turned his gaze back to Kittie and let it linger over her magnificence. “You look lovely,” he said simply, the words inadequate to his meaning.
“Thank you. Everyone has been most kind.” She touched the pearl and diamond choker.
“Your partner in the waltz seemed quite enamored of you,” he said, unable to alter his tone. It sounded resentful and he knew it but could not stop himself.
She stiffened. “He was very kind. I’m amazed by how kind the gentlemen all have been, and how very complimentary. I didn’t expect such amiability. And respect.”
“You should,” he said, releasing his jealousy and letting his anger go. “You should expect every good wish on your behalf, Mrs. Douglas, and the respect a gentleman reserves for every true lady. You have a right to it, and I can’t imagine a person alive who would not wish you well.”
She met his gaze and there was a glimmer of moisture in her eyes. He remembered what Sir John had told him just an hour before, about her confession to Lady Severn, and he wondered if it was true. Had she cared for him? And did she still?
Idiot that he was, would he ever again have a chance with her, and if he did, what would he do with that chance?
Twenty-one
A sleepless night followed by a restless morning in which all he could do was wait until an appropriate time for visiting was not conducive to a good mood. Every noise on the streets grated on Alban’s nerves as he walked from his own townhome to that of his cousin’s, only a half mile away in the tight confines of the “good” section of London. The drizzly weather suited his irritability and the leafless trees his somber mood.
If he had followed his heart the previous evening he would have swept Kittie Douglas away and asked her to marry him, but now in the pearl gray light of a dreary day, he was undecided. He had sworn never to marry again if it meant allowing himself to care. But was that reasonable? Was it even wise? And how had that philosophy served him so far?
When Jacqueline had betrayed him it had been a blow to his amour propre, but not to his heart. He didn’t love her and had never thought that he did. But when Catherine deserted him for another man it had hurt deeply. The pain had been a raw wound for years after her death.
Coming to his cousin’s home, he mounted the steps and applied the knocker. Millhouse, the butler, bowed low and admitted him. “I don’t wish to disturb my cousin, Millhouse. I know after these affairs she always spends the day in bed with a headache. I was really wishing to speak with my aunt, Lady Eliza. Is she about?”
“Yes, your grace. She informed me that if you called, she would be in the conservatory with her maid, Beacon.”
“Thank you, Millhouse. I can find my own way,” he said, handing his hat and stick over to the man.
He strolled through the house, the bustle of servants pronounced in the wake of such a grand event as a ball. While a workman in grubby clothes replaced a door that had been removed to make a larger space for the ball, two footmen were laying a carpet in the parlor. Maids bustled about and the butler, after disposing of the duke’s hat and cane, returned to his position overseeing the work.
Alban moved toward the south wing and the conservatory, a small but gloriously crowded greenery with an eclectic collection of rubber trees, orange bushes and orchids. He entered and heard Beacon’s voice droning on. Then his aunt’s acerbic voice.
“Beacon, it is poetry. Young Lord Byron, for all his self-absorption and idiotic melodrama, has a way with words. You make it sound like a grocer’s list.”
The maid squabbled back and Lady Eliza groused some more, but then stopped as he approached. “Alban, is that you?”
He bent over her, kissing her cheek. Beacon curtseyed and disappeared discreetly, and Alban took her chair. He examined his aunt with interest in the clear green light of the sunny conservatory, noting her high color and something in her air, a heightened excitement.
“London agrees with you,” he said. “You should have come years ago.”
“I didn’t have reason; now I do.”
“To find Kittie Douglas a husband,” he said bluntly.
She stayed silent.
He stood and walked away, staring at the misty glass of the conservatory windows, stretching above his height and arching in convex splendor. It was like gazing into fog, staring at the misty glass, the condensing water running in streams down to puddle on the stone floor. Turning back, he said, as he returned to sit down, “Suppose I admitted that the thought of Kittie as my wife—”
“Do not start,” Lady Eliza said, her tone harsh. “I meant what I said last night, Alban. I no longer think you deserve her. Marry Kittie? You would be lucky to marry such a woman as Kittie Douglas. A woman so shrewd, intelligent, elegant, sophisticated—truly sophisticated and not as you and your friends think of it, with a fraudulent French accent and the morals of an alley cat—loyal and honest. And she doesn’t fit into society? You are more of an idiot than I even thought you. Kittie Douglas has such a winning, unique and fully formed character that anyone who speaks to her for ten minutes is charmed by her. Quite frankly, she can do better than you; she can attract a man who will truly appreciate her. You would marry her and then for the rest of her life she would have to thank you for your condescension. She’s a proud woman and that would destroy her.”
Taken aback by her vitriol toward him, her favorite nephew, he said, “You think I would behave in such a beastly manner?”
“I don’t think you would mean to, but our family is a proud race. I know myself. Pride has kept me from happiness before.”
“You looked happy last night,” he said, staring at her, wondering what lay beyond the harsh expression.
Her look gentled. “I was.”
They both fell silent. Alban locked his hands together and stared down at them.
“She would be out of place in my life.”
“You saw her last night; again I say, can you still think it?”
“But she has no family, no background that is congruent with becoming a duchess. People would be cruel to her.”
“People are always cruel. If one has love . . .” Lady Eliza stopped and her mouth twisted. “Life is hard, Alban, but love . . . love helps. I wish . . . if people were stronger, if they worked together, if two people in love could just overcome their fears . . .”
She knew what she was talking about, Alban thought. Someone had disappointed her once, and she regretted the wasted time. And then the fear overwhelmed him and he sank down, his face in his hands. “What if . . . what if I let myself love her and she left me? I just can’t risk that pain again,” he mumbled.
“Then you are risking more by your fear. You are risking learning later that you could have been happy and threw it away. Kittie is not Catherine. Alban, you know I only want what is best for you. Despite my harsh words, I still want you to have Kittie. I think you love her.”
“But how does she feel?�
��
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“There you are, Eliza!”
Alban turned. Lady Montressor was coming toward them. He glanced at his aunt and saw her face bloom with soft pink color. She stood and held out her hands and the other woman took them; they embraced.
Lady Montressor greeted him but then turned back to her friend. “Shall we go for that ride? I so want you to meet my son, Alexander. I’ve told him all about you and he is eager to meet you.”
“All about me? Harry, you have not told him all about me.”
The two women laughed and Lady Montessori said, “Well, not everything, perhaps.”
For the first time with his aunt Alban felt outside of her life. It was disconcerting.
“You’re leaving? I thought we would spend the day together.”
Lady Montressor opened her mouth but his aunt said, “I’m sorry, Alban, but I have plans. How about tomorrow? I will be free then.”
“All right,” he said. He walked behind the two ladies as they left the conservatory. Beacon was there with her mistress’s bonnet and cloak.
His aunt stopped and turned. “Alban,” she said, stretching out her hand.
He took it and squeezed it.
“Go to Kittie. Please. She has the pink room and salon. Go to her. Talk to her. I know there are a hundred men in London who would consider themselves lucky to have her as a wife, but not a one of them would make her as happy as you could.”
“I thought you said I didn’t deserve her?”
“I still think that. But she does deserve you.” She gave his hand a last squeeze and walked away arm in arm with Lady Montressor .
Alban turned and gazed up the long staircase. It would shock the house terribly, but he knew what he had to do. He mounted the stairs.
• • •
Kittie, curled up in the window seat of her sitting room, knit a complicated piece with white wool, checking it every once in a while to make sure she was getting the pattern right. Hannah, married just three months, was already with child and as happy as could be imagined, which meant, according to Rebecca, that she dissolved into tears thrice a day rather than twice. As a gift Kittie was knitting a coverlet for the baby’s cradle.
The Duke's Secret Seduction Page 21
