by Anna Cowan
BenRuin stepped out on to the street, in front of them, and stood there. He was massive, vibrating, tightly controlled violence.
Jude hadn’t entirely closed up again, but he’d become wary. He seemed reluctant to look away from Kit, no matter how large the man standing between them was. When he finally looked at BenRuin, his face was drawn and unhappy. His lips approximated a smile and he tipped his hat and continued down the street without looking back.
Tom caught Kit’s eye as he followed in Jude’s wake. She shook her head at him, and he stopped; would have turned back and come to her, Kit thought. But Cripsin put his hand to Tom’s shoulder and spoke urgently to him. They bowed to her and followed Jude down the street.
BenRuin had the carriage door open. ‘Get in,’ he said.
Kit spent the ride back to BenRuin House keeping her mouth shut tight. The great Scottish lummox had no right. He did not speak for her. But she still lived beneath his roof.
She reminded herself that very soon Jude would be by her side, and no one in the world would be able to get between them again.
It was harder to sit across from him at Lady Bentley’s supper.
She would not have gone, had she known he would be there.
She had never seen him like this – in his native element. Beautiful, charming. A man. A duke.
He arrived fashionably late, and was seated down from her, on the other side of the table, too far for them to speak.
She knew him and she didn’t know him at all. It was disconcerting and wretched. He seemed at times to be less familiar with himself as the Duke – she watched him fall into the role of charming idiot, chattering with the man to his right and paying the meal overabundant compliments. And in other ways he was exactly the same, which somehow surprised her even more. Perhaps he didn’t realise how much of his inner self – the part that frightened him – was clear for everyone to see. People listened when that part of him spoke; they were helpless not to. And when he grimaced a little awkwardly at something he’d said – perhaps he hadn’t meant to word it quite like that – it was without artifice. And when he chose to amuse the company, they all leaned in closer towards him, their faces bathed in his brilliance.
Even though Kit had always known who he was, his disguise had made it easy for her to set that knowledge aside. Now, she looked at him and saw him for what he was. A duke. Raised at the skirts of a grand woman in buildings so old the ghosts would barely have room to move. Taken to lavish parties as a child – she imagined his small dark head, his thin shoulders swathed in sable – and taught to converse with princes and kings. Tied to his country’s future by a thousand invisible threads, each with a claim more material than hers. A duke. Not for her. He glanced up and caught her eye across the table.
He had also been locked in the dark.
He drank too much coffee and was wary of silence. One night he had fallen asleep still talking, lying on his stomach, face pushed into her pillow. She knew he found sleep difficult, but his whole body gave over to it when it came.
She knew the glide of his tongue, of his fingers. The look on his face when he was vulnerable and the incongruity of shyness in him. She knew his laughter when it was involuntary and his voice when fear took him.
She pleaded a headache and left before the men joined them after supper.
Five days later she had word from Mme Soulier that The Outfit would be ready in time for Liverpool’s ball next week. She went in to breakfast with a smile on her lips. Lydia snatched the society pages from her husband, and started idly reading. A few minutes later she spat out a mouthful of tea. ‘Why have they . . . Kit they’re talking about you. And they say you’re —’
Then she ran out of words, apparently.
‘What are they saying?’ Ma took up the thread, something worried and sharp about her. She still couldn’t trust to good fortune.
They were getting better at being a family. Some days it almost felt like they weren’t pretending at all. Tom stayed with Crispin, but visited them every day. He and Kit didn’t confide deeply in each other, but they debated more fiercely than they ever had before after seeing public lectures or attending private salons. There was a curious freedom to being uncareful with each other. Lydia was kinder and sharper all at once, and BenRuin put up with all of them, and never took his eyes off his wife. But they were each of them wary still and each showed it differently.
Lydia spread the paper flat on the table and kneeled up on her seat, the better to see what she was reading. ‘There’s a whole lot in here about Grandfather, his great loyalty to the Crown, a life given to – etcetera, etcetera.’
‘Father?’ said their mother, rather as if she thought it was a trick, and someone would be cruel to her any moment.
‘Oh, yes, your father,’ said Lydia, a little more carefully. ‘They’re very kind to him, Mama. And then they express an almost violent curiosity about his eldest granddaughter, who has come to town but not been seen yet. But, Kit, you debuted already. You’ve already been dismissed by society – er, I mean, well, you know you weren’t exactly . . .’
Kit waved her attempted politeness away.
‘What in heaven’s name made them connect you to Grandfather? You know Barton refused to come to my wedding. They didn’t even bother to acknowledge us when we were born.’
‘Idiot,’ muttered BenRuin, and buttered a piece of toast for Lydia.
Kit glanced quickly at her mother, and though she looked a little uncomfortable she wasn’t overcome by this allusion to the wedge Abe had driven between her and her family.
So she allowed herself to smile a little wickedly, and said, ‘We have an invitation to dine with the Earl of Barton on Saturday.’
‘J . . . Jeremy?’ Her mother had to try twice to get her brother’s name out between her lips. ‘Jeremy is going to have me in his house? He has invited me?’
‘He has, Ma,’ said Kit, and grasped her hand briefly across the table.
Her mother shook her off and began fussing immediately. She would need a new dress. And the girls would have to look their best. And Tom would come, of course. And was there any way the Duke might? No, of course. They weren’t to talk about that.
Kit hid her hands beneath the table and lifted her face so she could breathe more easily. Her hand was being dealt, card by card.
It was almost time.
‘My soul,’ she whispered, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kit sat on one side of her mother in the carriage, Lydia on the other. They each held one of her hands in theirs. BenRuin and Tom lounged on the seat opposite, and finally Kit said, ‘Tom dear, I wasn’t aware that colour could even be manufactured.’
He smoothed pleased hands down his evening jacket, and smiled at her. Shy, pleased. If Crispin had been there Tom would have pouted prettily at her and said something outrageous, but he was less certain when he was alone with his family. As though the mould of who he had been closed tight around him – too tight to force open, sometimes.
Kit thought she might understand. At the oddest moments – applauding and surrounded by applause at the Society, cutting open a new book in the quiet of BenRuin’s library – she would feel a deep rush of fear at what she’d put in motion. She would blink and look around her, and see with absolute clarity that she was a grubby girl from the country reaching up to burn herself on the stars.
Then she would remember Icarus who built himself wings from feathers and wax, and Jude who had said he wanted to die with as much lunatic glory, and Kit would think, Me, too.
When the carriage stopped, BenRuin exited first and handed the women out. Barton’s house was smaller than Kit would have expected, and it looked very new. They were met, formally, at the door by the butler, and a small army of footmen came forward to take their cloaks.
Lydia gave them hers, then murmured, ‘Here, Mama, let me.’
Their mother was standing as if paralysed, so pale Kit feared for a moment she would faint. But Lydia fussed
over her and undid her cloak for her, then brushed a light hand over her coiffure and said, ‘You look lovely.’
Kit was wearing one of the dresses she’d collected from Mme Soulier that morning. It was a thick, deep burgundy, full skirted and entirely unfussy. It fit her perfectly, and left the form of her body clear for anybody to see. She looked strong in it. It was the plainest garment among them by miles – yet she knew there was something a little shocking about it, as well.
They were shown in to a formal drawing room, where her uncle and his family were seated. Three men rose as they entered.
‘His Lordship the Earl of BenRuin,’ the butler intoned. ‘Her Ladyship the Countess of BenRuin. Lady Sophie Sutherland, Mr Thomas Sutherland, Miss Sutherland.’
The tallest of the men, who couldn’t have been older than forty, came forward and bowed. His hair was a thinning blond, his face a little long. His eyes were a familiar pewter.
‘Sophie,’ he said. He remained very upright, but he wiped his hand on his trousers before he held it out to her, and when Ma placed her hand in his he gripped it involuntarily.
‘My Lord,’ she said. Her voice started in a whisper and wobbled a bit in the middle. Kit willed strength into her. So much rested on this.
‘Please call me Jeremy, sister,’ said Barton, and there was something in his smile that was so like Ma when she was nervous that Kit found herself unnerved. These people were not just important to her plans – they were her family, both unfamiliar and more like her than anyone else on earth.
‘Jeremy, then,’ her mother said, and smiled tentatively up at him.
‘Ah,’ said Barton. ‘And if you said it in a scolding tone I would feel eight years old again, and start thinking of ways to cheat sweets out of you. You always were too kind for your own good.’
Her mother flushed and looked lost for a moment. Barton handed her to the seat beside his wife, and though it was still very formal, Lady Barton at least spoke civilly to her. Barton introduced his daughter, a blushing thirteen-year-old called Elizabeth. Ma’s cameo brooch was pinned to her chest.
‘Thank you for the gift, cousin,’ she whispered. She gave a shaky curtsey and looked immediately at her mother. Lady Barton gave her a laughing look and Elizabeth sat again.
‘That was Grandmother’s,’ Kit told her. ‘Mother and I thought it would become you, and so it does. I think our grandmother would like to think of you having it.’
I will give as much as I take from you, that brooch said.
Elizabeth blushed and didn’t volunteer a single word for the rest of the evening. Barton’s son, Horace, was so nearly a man that he was desperate to prove himself to BenRuin and Tom. He and his school friend egged each other on terribly. Barton’s admonitions were frequent but fond.
Both boys affected a stormy hairdo and high, sharp collars. Kit smiled winningly at them and dropped the Duke’s name every chance she got.
On the night of Liverpool’s ball Kit stood in front of the full-length mirror in her dressing room and her whole body trembled. She couldn’t stop. She was on fire. She was gutted by fear. She didn’t know what the hell she thought she was doing.
‘Kit!’ Lydia called, already chattering at full gallop as she barged in. ‘Barton arrived ten minutes ago, and we’re all ready to go in for dinner. Didn’t you hear all the noise? That boy of his has been flirting with me outrageously just to see what James – Oh. Oh.’
Kit had turned to face her, and Lydia’s jaw was slack with shock.
A moment later she laughed – something wild startled into the sky – and her grin was pure, unholy glee.
‘Katherine,’ she said. ‘You are going to stop his heart.’
It was just after ten when Jude arrived at Liverpool’s, and he was about ready to murder Sir Winston of Millcross. He meant to be true to his word and introduce Violet to society, so he’d invited father and daughter to dine with him and travel to Liverpool’s with his party. An easy enough proposition, as he’d seen it.
They’d been so thrown by him being a different man to the Duke they’d already met, though. He and Crispin might pass for the same man in a crowded ballroom, but not over hours in intimate company. He couldn’t cajole them into laughing about it with him, no matter how charming and self-deprecatory he’d been. The Squire – idiot man – seemed to have taken it as a personal affront, and Violet was a mess of blushes and stutters the whole night.
And it felt like every other moment Jude had to remind himself not to draw out his guests’ worst selves, which they were practically handing to him on a salver. Instead he made himself be easy, overlook their graceless conversation and speak about the weather when it seemed anything more taxing was going to send the Squire into full-blown apoplexy.
Thank all things good for his dandies.
He’d attempted to dismiss them when he returned to London. They didn’t need to be dragged through whatever hell Lady Marmotte had planned for him. But they were so thick they’d just said things like, ‘He’s having another one of his fits,’ and, ‘Here, drink this. It’ll pass in a minute and you’ll feel better.’ Crispin had even dared to pat him and say, ‘There, there, dear.’ Once he’d become truly furious with them and they’d left before he threw another vase. They’d come back the next day, though, and started up their inane chatter about the races, and none of them had mentioned That Incident With The Priceless Vase again.
His fury, he thought, had a lot to do with Tom Sutherland, who had attached himself to the Dandies without a by-your-leave.
He was a daily, aching reminder of her. As though Jude needed a stick poked into that particular bruise every fucking minute. He couldn’t bear that her brother would come near him, when she wouldn’t. He had seen her on the street – a piece of a dream standing where she wasn’t supposed to be standing. He had sat across from her at Lady Bentley’s table, unable to concentrate on anything but the moment after supper when he could join her in the drawing room and kiss her hand.
He had suffered through the men’s talk and smoke for nothing. Katherine’s absence had been so cruel he had felt cut open.
And BenRuin made damn sure that Jude couldn’t come near her.
He had tried, once. He had been able to hear her and Lydia upstairs – Katherine speaking a series of sharp, pointed words, and then the two of them laughing. The sound made a paradise of that upstairs room. He had felt shut out, starving, as he waited where the butler had put him.
BenRuin had come in. Jude no longer wanted BenRuin to do violence to him; his disappointment, when he saw the man, was bitter. BenRuin, Jude realised, a minute later, had kept himself well in check on Bond Street the day before. He was not so careful in his own house, and Jude was in no doubt about what would happen to him if he tried to see Katherine again.
But why wouldn’t she come near? He remembered her voice in his ear insisting that he give up every secret to her, her tongue sweeping over his palm, her fingers deep inside him. BenRuin could not stand in her way, if she didn’t want him there.
Liverpool and Louisa greeted Jude and his party at the door to their upstairs ballroom. Liverpool whacked a hand on his shoulder in what Jude assumed was the manly equivalent of sympathetic affection. Louisa, bless her good, good nature, was very kind to Violet, even though the girl barely managed to string together a sentence.
Her curtsey really was very good, though.
The room wasn’t even a third full. Jude wasn’t used to arriving so early, but it had been that or murder the Squire in the privacy of his own home. Liverpool was stuck at the door for another hour or so, which left Jude’s allies very thin on the ground. The Dandies fanned out around him in an apparently careless, thoughtless pattern that meant each of them could keep an eye on him, and field the approach of anyone they thought might be less than civil.
It made him feel grumpy, and his throat was absurdly tight.
‘I must be the only sheep in the history of the world that was outnumbered by dogs five to one,’ he gru
mbled to Crispin, who remained at his side keeping Violet company.
Violet had apparently forgiven Crispin his part in the charade, because nobody had the power to stay angry with Crispin for above a minute. No matter how Jude tried to emulate Crispin’s ease in company – the big, friendly eyes, the toe-shuffling, the funny little shrug – there was something in Jude that continued to unsettle Violet.
He had been used to it. He’d unsettled people his whole life, after all. But then there had been Katherine, who wouldn’t be cowed by him no matter what he tried.
Why the hell was she staying away from him?
‘Such a shame the Sutherland boy couldn’t make it,’ Jude murmured to Crispin. ‘I know you were hoping to write your name on his dance card.’
Crispin rolled his eyes, so Jude sighed and said, ‘I will dance the waltz with you, if I must, though I’ll make a poor substitute.’
Crispin elbowed him in the ribs.
‘Very well, you’re right, it’s true that I eclipse him in almost every way. Except for the shoulders. He does have truly spectacular shoulders.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Crispin, smiling, but he sounded a little uncertain and . . . steely.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Where is he, anyway?’
‘Er,’ Crispin looked shifty. ‘Some family do or other.’
Family, Jude thought, feeling winded. All of them together, without him.
The ballroom gradually filled, and Jude tried to launch Violet as best he could, but he saw it dawn on the Squire that he might have been hasty, excusing Katherine’s debt to him for this.
Jude was a duke until the Committee named him otherwise, and very few people had the gumption of Lady Marmotte, to cut him in public. But because he was still not-quite-a-duke, he was more volatile than other disgraced figures, more dangerous. His imminent fall was public, would be spectacular. So he received his proper address and backhanded compliments so clumsy he had to restrain himself from announcing that he would personally tutor anyone who wished to properly learn the art.
