Yet, there was. And she couldn’t shake it.
Determined to push the thoughts from her mind, Kitty chatted on about the sights of the park, asking about the different plants they encountered. Eventually, curiosity about Haddington returned to the forefront of her mind as she considered his partially admitted seduction – slow or not – as a counterpoint to his search for a bride. Surely, he shouldn’t be spending all his time with her if he truly needed to be courting an heiress. Hesitantly, she asked, only to be answered with a rueful shake of his head, as he explained the very thoughts he’d mulled over earlier.
“I see your point,” Kitty readily agreed. “I mean, my father is nearly twenty years older than my mother, but I don’t see that disparity in age between them now. Mother is often very stern while Da is a jovial sort, acting far younger than his years. But still, I often see older gentlemen in society wedding girls so much younger than them that I often not only feel for the girls but wonder at what those men are thinking.”
“Oh,” he chuckled, “I know what they’re thinking, to be sure. For the most part, I can’t say that I disagree with their motivations. After all, what man doesn’t want a young beauty for a wife? I’d wager your father felt the same way.” When Kitty looked offended, he merely patted her hand where it rested on his arm with another low laugh. “Don’t get your back up, my dear. Most men don’t see any problem with a young wife. From a purely visceral perspective it strokes a man’s vanity, but a lovely face alone is not enough to make marriage palatable.”
“So what would you prefer then?”
“Oh, a lovely lass in her middle or later twenties with a fat pocketbook and an intelligent mind,” he responded, aware that he described Kitty perfectly, albeit unintentionally.
Kitty, however, was thinking in a completely different direction, considering an obvious choice. “I must ask you then, Jack, though I can understand why you might not consider young Fiona MacKintosh whom I have heard so much about,” – Jack shuddered here – “I don’t understand why you haven’t pursued Moira. She is of the right age and fortune, and is especially intelligent.”
“Did you know your sister once asked me that very thing?” Jack asked, instead of responding directly to the implied question.
“And?”
“You are right to think she would make an excellent choice,” he finally responded reluctantly. “She has all those things, and I do like her very much, but unfortunately too much like a sister to consider wedding.”
“But it would solve all your problems, and I know that Moira has been of a mind lately to marry,” Kitty argued, remembering the conversations she’d had with her friends the previous day.
“But I would still need an heir someday as well,” he maintained. “While I might gain from Moira a pleasant and amusing companion for life, I would never be able to get an heir from her.”
“Why ever not?”
Jack merely raised a brow and, after a moment, Kitty flushed red with understanding. “Oh.”
“Aye,” he teased. “Oh.”
They wandered for a while longer while Kitty regained her composure. “But she is very beautiful,” Kitty offered after several long moments.
“I suppose she is,” he allowed, “but the thought of shagging a lass I’ve known since she was a toddler is a bit more than I can bear.”
Shagging. That he had used that term to a woman on such short acquaintance was not lost to Kitty. She was unable to stop the flush of embarrassment flooding her cheeks, though from his casual demeanor, Jack either saw little to be uncomfortable about or hadn’t realized he’d used the word. While it had been whispered around the boarding school she had attended in England, it was not a colloquialism most Americans might be familiar with. Given the images flickering through her mind, Kitty almost wished herself too naïve to understand it.
While she took deep breaths to banish the impressions such a base word as ‘shagging’ brought to mind, they continued their stroll, eventually emerging from a copse of trees. They came upon a picturesque pond, over which a red wooden bridge arched, reflected in the calm waters below to create the illusion of a perfect oval. It was so breathtaking that Kitty had to pause in appreciation. Being raised in the city or in Newport, she had never seen a landscape so lush.
She tried to focus on that and keep her mind from the man at her side, but failed repeatedly as they made their way through the remainder of the gardens and eventually back to the waiting carriage. Kitty was aware of his manly stride as he walked by her side, the muscles in his arm under her hand. The strength and electricity transferred through his fingers as he handed her into the carriage and as he sat by her side on the long ride back to Carlton Terrace. His thigh brushed hers when the carriage jostled on the cobbled roads and her fingers itched to feel the muscles bulging there as he braced himself against the motion.
Shagging.
Raising her eyes to his, she found him watching her gravely as if he knew her thoughts and fought the same battle against inappropriate urges.
In time, they arrived back at the Glenrothes townhouse and Jack stepped down from the carriage to help her alight, but rather than stepping up into the house, Kitty merely turned her face up to his. “Are you going to kiss me today, Jack?”
“I should not,” he shook his head just a bit, truly uncertain how to proceed.
“I think you should,” her voice was again the slightest whisper.
Cupping her cheeks in his warm palms, he leaned closer, his lips just brushing her cheek, rousing a flood of anticipation in Kitty’s stomach. “Do you want me to, Kitty? Do you want me to kiss you right here?”
Kitty swallowed so deeply she was sure he could hear it, and quivered in expectation that she was certain he could feel. “I want you to, Jack.”
He tilted her head back and lightly brushed her lips with the calloused pad of his thumb as his eyes locked with hers, letting her read the desire that burned in him. When his thumb touched her lip once more, Kitty caught the end between her lips, kissing the rough pad and grazing her tongue across it, chafing it with her teeth, glorying in the growl of pleasure that escaped him. Challenged, he exchanged that digit for the softest of kisses, so delicately given that she almost groaned in desperation for a more resolute contact. His lips feathered hers, nimbly dancing from the top one to the bottom one, until she moaned in frustration as her desire rose to a feverish pitch. “Jack!” she ground out between kisses. “You’re driving me crazy!”
The earl chuckled maddeningly against her lips before catching her mouth once more in a burning kiss so swift it was over before Kitty could even fall into it. He released her then, stepping back so quickly that Kitty almost stumbled leaning into him. Jack just steadied her and moved back toward the carriage.
Kitty shook her head in bewilderment over his abrupt conclusion to their kiss. “I thought you were going to come up, my lord?” she reminded him breathlessly.
His head shook in denial before he could stop it. Their brief embrace had gotten quickly out of hand and Jack felt he needed to run away from her before he did, or said, something he might regret. That touch of her sweet tongue had set his heart pounding. Damn her for looking so appealing…for being so appealing! If he didn’t run away now, he was likely to drag her off to the nearest bedroom and have his way with her, likely ruining any chance he might have of romancing her into accepting his not-so-honorable marriage proposal when it came.
“Perhaps another time?” he asked, putting a careful amount of regret into his voice, though he did not truly regret leaving her company while his thoughts were so confused.
Still dazed by the dizzying caress of his hands and depth of desire that his all-too-brief kiss had wrought, Kitty could only stare, puzzled by his abrupt departure, but returned the smile he gave her. “All right.”
“And I shall see you tonight, yes?” he asked as he seated himself in the carriage, so anxious to get away.
“You shall,” was her soft response, as her
fingers came up to sooth her tingling lips.
“Until then!” he waved, and urged the driver to carry him quickly around the corner and out of her sight.
Chapter 15
“There is nothing better than a friend,
unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
Charles Dickens
Townhouse of Lord & Lady Richard MacKintosh
24 Moray Place
Edinburgh, London
Kitty could hear the lively conversation coming from Abby’s parlor before dinner that evening as she came back down the stairs after refreshing herself in one of the guest rooms. The confusion that had consumed her for hours after Jack’s abrupt departure that afternoon fled when he had taken her hand tonight as they arrived for dinner. He complemented her gown and beauty fulsomely and kissed her palm, leaving an unusual tingling behind that left her fighting the urge to scratch it away. Just like that, the uncertainty of the afternoon was gone and he was back in her good graces.
Aside from that disturbing moment, he was at his most charming this evening, tossing out witty banter as easily as inappropriate innuendo. She knew it was wrong to think so, but she found the earl wildly amusing. His propensity for making her laugh was suddenly a more appealing quality in her mind than his dashing good looks, though it would have taken a twenty-mule team to extract such an admission from her when she only just admitted to herself this day how his appearance roused such wild feelings in her.
Her features lit with the anticipation of continuing their repartee as she tripped lightly down the stairs just as Abby and Richard’s butler, Guthrie, opened the front door, allowing another guest to enter. The man who stepped into the hall was so incredibly handsome it nearly took Kitty’s breath away. As he handed his hat and coat to Guthrie, shaking rainwater from his hair, she accessed the newcomer. She estimated him to be about Jack’s age, but, if she were honest, Kitty would have to admit while he was more striking than Haddington, with his dark good looks, he was not more appealing. To her, Jack’s rugged visage was more intriguing and compelling than the sheer masculine beauty before her. However, this man’s familiar features did bring to mind Richard and James MacKintosh as well as another long ago memory, and Kitty knew this could only be Francis MacKintosh, Eve’s new husband. Kitty could almost understand why Eve had changed her mind about ever remarrying.
She smiled at him in welcome and was rewarded with an adoring smile in return. “Eden, my love,” he called as she continued down. His voice and eyes were filled with such devotion that for a moment Kitty felt a splash of yearning that such a look might be granted her. Before she could correct him regarding her identity, though, his smile turned to a frown. He considered her as she continued toward him then his eyes lit with comprehension and another pleased smile replaced the other more intimate one. “You must be Kitty. I have heard so much about you.” He held out his hand and took hers, placing a light kiss upon it. “I am Eve’s husband, Francis. I did not know you were visiting.”
“I think Eve might have been waiting to see if you could tell us apart,” she teased, but her expression was curious. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Know I wasn’t Eve?” she clarified. “No one has ever been able to tell us apart at that distance before.”
“Ahhh,” he nodded, his olive eyes dancing with amusement. “Let me just say that I could pick my wife out of a room of women blindfolded, just as she could me.”
“Why would Eve ever be blindfolded in a room full of women?” she teased as they wandered toward the parlor.
He laughed at her jest as Guthrie announced to the occupants of the parlor, “Earl Glenrothes.” Without another word, her new brother-in-law left her and strode across the room, scooping Eve into his arms and kissing her, right before them all! He did so passionately and without reserve. Eve returned the welcome, if it could be called that, in equal measure. Glenrothes towered over her sister much as Jack did over Kitty, and she wondered if Evie relished that elusive feeling of daintiness as much as she did, for it was unusual for them as tall women to look up to a man or to tilt their head back so to embrace or kiss one. Evie looked almost petite next to Glenrothes. Safe, harbored. Cherished.
“I’d be surprised if he didn’t take her home right now,” a deep brogue whispered conspiratorially in her ear. “Can’t keep his hands off her for more than a moment when they are together.” His voice rose as Jack called out, “Enough of that now! We are eating soon and you know such slop ruins my appetite!”
Kitty glanced up at Jack, accurately gauging his words as sarcastic, and then back to her sister who was blushing deeply as Francis whispered something to her. She caressed his cheek and kissed him again before wrapping her arms around him and tucking her head under his chin as if she wished she might melt right into him. Kitty could only watch them in wonder.
Like Freddie and other men of their station, Eve’s first husband had never shown any affection for her in public. The only contact Kitty had ever seen Shaftesbury make with her was having her hold his arm as they entered a room. Even Freddie, who hovered jealously over her, was reluctant to show anything that might be termed affectionate in public venues. She thought Glenrothes’ obvious love, and demonstration of it, was romantic and charming and didn’t hesitate in saying so to Jack.
“You think so?” He looked at the couple, considering. Jack was still trying to get used to this new Francis MacKintosh. The married man who fawned so over his wife was a far cry from the dark, cynical man who had urged him to find a wife of his own just a few months before. Haddington hadn’t realized, over the years, how dramatically his closest friend had changed from a jovial youth to a grim aristocrat until he had met Eve once more. Rediscovering his Eden, Glenrothes called it, and now he was a completely different man, more like his old self before Vanessa Fane had ruined his life and stolen his humor. Still, their romantic slop was disgusting, robbing his friend of his very manhood.
Glenrothes was now greeting the others present, kissing Abby and Moira and shaking the hands of his brothers. Even as he did, a large portion of his attention remained on his wife. Though MacKintosh had been away for four days, taking care of business at his family’s estate Glen Cairn, he was acting as though it had been a month. To Jack, it was appallingly emasculating to watch a manly Scot such as MacKintosh kowtow to a mere female for any reason. Charming? Alarming was more like it! It’d be a cold day in hell before he fell so low as to pant after a woman like that!
Whereas Haddington could only see the awkwardness of the moment, a feeling akin to envy flowed through Kitty. Oh, she was happy that her sister had found someone to love, but just looking at them together made Kitty vividly aware of what was missing in her own life. That heartbreaking romantic attachment left her with an ache of envious longing in her throat. “He loves her so,” she whispered.
“Horrifying, isn’t it?”
“Refreshing,” she countered, shaking herself from her moment of misery. “Perhaps you should try it.”
Jack shuddered and changed the subject, unwilling to pursue such a line of thought. “MacKintosh, come make your greeting over here,” Jack called over his shoulder.
“Yes, my lord,” Eve seconded, taking her husband by the arm to lead him to her sister. “I would love to have you meet my sister, Katherine Hayes. Kat, this is Lord Francis MacKintosh. Glenrothes.”
“We just met out in the hall.” Francis greeted her, taking her hand in his once more.
“It was actually our second meeting,” she reminded him in a teasing fashion. The first time Eve had met Francis many years before, they had had a tryst in his grandmother’s garden that Kitty had interrupted to save Eve from her mother’s wrath. “Come, my lord, do you forget our brief encounter in your grandmother’s garden so long ago?”
“Aye, it was a magical moment,” he responded with a laugh, earning an inquiring brow from Jack. “You looked so much like my Eden I couldn’t tell you apart back then.” He apparently
had no such troubles now, though most people couldn’t tell them apart at all. Even Abby and Moira had difficulties from time to time. He went on. “Jack looks confused, however. I thought he knew of that encounter.”
“Jack did not know of that encounter,” Lord Merrill muttered under his breath, eying at Kitty suspiciously.
“Oh, it was years ago in a romantic garden!” Kitty batted her lashes and smiled up at Francis with her hands clasped to her bosom. “Just the starlight and the orchestra playing in the distance. The romance was wonderfully breathtaking. And then he kissed…”
“I say!” Jack sputtered.
“Eve!” Kitty finished, and laughed up at Jack while Eve and Francis joined in.
“Why you!” Jack laughed, and playfully brought back his hand. “Why I ought to – what?”
Kitty could not help it. When Jack drew back his fist, however good-humored the gesture might have been, she flinched away. Not just a wee wince, but a full dodge of evasion. Now she gaped at him in horror as he stared back at her in equal measure. For a long moment, their gazes remained locked while the others only gawked at the spectacle Kitty had made.
In a smooth movement, Eve caught Kitty by the waist and turned her back into the room leading her to a sofa and sitting next to her, saying only with a studied nonchalance, “Kitty, dear, you mustn’t exert yourself so much after the long trial of your journey! I can see that you have overdone it and exhausted yourself!” She clucked like a mother hen, pressing a glass of whiskey into her sister’s hand as she turned and chided Jack. “And you, Haddington, I’m sure that you are well aware that a lady in a tightly laced corset can only take so much amusement before she becomes faint!”
Eve bent her head to her sister’s, and an exchange of whispers passed between them, ending with a quick shake of Kitty’s head as she clenched Eve’s hand in hers. Abby and Moira, aware now of the true circumstances of Kitty’s marriage, chimed in on Eve’s declaration, lightly berating Jack and agreeing whole-heartedly that this was exactly the case, before launching into a full-scale discussion of just how much a lady could take before lack of oxygen overtook her senses. Richard, along with the other MacKintosh siblings present – James, Connor and Fiona – looked confused, having not paid studied attention to the exchange, but let the conversation take its course. But while Francis eyed Kitty with perceptive sympathy, Jack studied her more seriously as he recalled the few other instances when Kitty had flinched away from his touch or sudden movement.
A Question of Trust Page 11
