Now, they were in carriages again for the final leg of the journey to Kilberry Manor. He had moved on from discomfort to real torment as he was jolted again and again over the uneven road.
He could only hope Sung Li would again come to his aid, lest he be forced to beg at the old man’s feet for relief. Never again would he allow his male pride to deny him the pain-dulling euphoria laudanum might have allowed him.
Though he tried to mask it, a measure of his misery must have shown on his face. “Are you certain you are quite all right, Lord Haddington?” Maggie Preston asked, voicing the same concern he had seen flitting across Kitty’s face all morning. While he had tried to offer her an occasional smile and reassurance to distract her from his distress – he was a man, after all – it never occurred to him that her mother might notice as well.
“I am very well, madam, though I thank you for your worries on my behalf,” he lied smoothly, and changed the subject. “This area is quite lovely.”
Not a lie, as this part of Rhode Island was indeed very appealing. As they traveled south from the train station, he could see glimpses of the bay, and the Atlantic beyond, to his right. The smell of the sea air was strong, the gulls called and the sun shone brightly that summer day. While the rugged landscape was somewhat reminiscent of the Highlands, the colors of the foliage and flowers and the heat of the day were unlike any summer he had ever known.
Jack rode in the rear-facing seat with Francis and Laurie, with the women across from them and the top down. Though the ocean breeze ruffled his hair, the heat of the sun beat mercilessly down on his head and shoulders, making him a bit envious of the ladies and their parasols, though wee Hannah kept pulling off her wide-brimmed straw hat in favor of the gentle breeze blowing through her curly mane. Wishing he might do the same, Jack realized it might take a highlander a period of adjustment before such radiant heat became tolerable. Noticing Francis tugging at his stiff collar, Jack went a step further, removing his handkerchief and dabbing the sweat from his brow.
Mistaking the action, a wrinkle of worry creased Kitty’s brow. “Are you sure you aren’t becoming feverish, Jack? The doctor did warn of infection.”
“Not at all, Kitty.” He grinned ruefully at her. “As much as I am loathe to admit it, to ease your concerns, I must say I find it damned hot here! Your pardon, madam,” he apologized to Maggie for his language, while Eve clucked her tongue with clear disapproval.
However, Kitty couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that rose in her throat. “Of course! That never occurred to me! I was ever so cold when I was in Scotland! I should have realized that you might find our Newport summers to be a bit stifling.”
“A bit?” His eyebrows rose at her understatement, while MacKintosh openly snorted. But Jack enjoyed her renewed giggle. The sound was a balm to him after seeing her sadness and tears through the last few weeks. Seeing her eyes once again alight with laughter and amusement brought a lift to his soul that bemused him even while it elated him. He tried not to think too hard about what it meant.
He didn’t even notice Maggie Preston’s calculating assessment of their exchange.
“Ah,” Eve said, when they finally turned off the sparsely populated lane and through a magnificent iron gate flanked by towering stone pillars and an impressive gatehouse. “Here we are, then.”
Curious to see the home of which Kitty spoke so affectionately, Jack joined Francis as they craned their necks around to take a look…and was immediately glad the women could not see his expression, for he was certain the stupefaction he felt upon seeing the Prestons’ summer ‘cottage’ was clearly writ on his face.
To his consternation, he found himself flabbergasted by the place. Growing up as a child at Glen Sannox House, Jack had always been dazzled by its immense proportions, sure it was the grandest old castle on the face of the earth. Now he was fairly certain it might fit in the west wing of Kilberry Manor, with room to spare.
Sparing a look for his friend, Jack was gratified to note that Glenrothes, whose estates far outweighed those of Haddington, was equally taken aback by the marvel before them.
Passing through the ornate iron gates, tall willows framed the spectacle that was Kilberry Manor. The wide, paved drive led to the stone mansion, which was set at an angle rather than perpendicular to the drive, allowing one to truly feel its immense proportions. In the center of the front court’s circular drive, a large Italianate fountain sat spraying its water in every direction, reflecting in the sun in a vain attempt to gain the notice of visitors who might only stare in awe at the building beyond. The detail and attention that had gone into its façade were impressive, the architectural detail remarkable, with intricate stonework and ornate iron balconies. To the right of the building, a pillared rotunda extended from that wing, fanning out into a grid of paved pathways that bordered a formal garden of flowers, hedges and shrubbery that might have rivaled the Queen’s own gardens. And he thought Kitty might be awed by the botanical gardens at home! More the fool, he.
Indeed, a feeling descended upon Haddington unlike any he had ever encountered in his life. It took such time to identify that their carriage was pulling to a halt under the covered portico before he could put a name to it.
Inadequacy.
It was most humbling.
“What do you think, Jack?” He turned to find Kitty eagerly awaiting his reaction. Though he thought she might take some amusement in seeing him so floored by what rose before him, she seemed only hopeful he might like the place. What was not to like?
“Very nice,” he said in gross understatement as he and Francis leapt down after a footman opened the carriage door and turned to assist the ladies and children. “I look forward to seeing the rest of it.”
“I’ll give you a tour myself,” she beamed, as she hefted a sleepy Hannah into her arms. “Let me just see to Hannah while you are shown your room and I will meet you in the hall in, say, fifteen minutes, all right?”
Jack only nodded as she entered the house and followed Mrs. Preston into the main hall. Slowly, he tilted his head up, up until his eyes found the arched ceiling of colorful stained glass, four stories above.
“My God,” Francis swore, causing Jack to start. A bevy of footman raced around them as the wagon following them stopped before the mansion, emptying its cargo of nursemaids, Sung Li and their many trunks of luggage. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” his friend whistled, turning about to take it all in, much as Haddington was.
“You know I have not,” he said only.
“Makes you wonder what you have to offer a lass who has all this, eh?” Francis continued, not realizing how that statement hit home for his friend.
Though MacKintosh might have meant the question rhetorically, Haddington only understood that was the problem exactly. Kitty already had everything a woman might want. Fine homes, expensive wardrobes, jewels, money. Anything she didn’t already have could be hers on the merest whim. The only thing he could offer her as an impoverished Scottish lord was his title, and she had already disdained gaining that.
There was nothing he could give her. Nothing.
“So what do you think of Kilberry, Lord Haddington?” Maggie Preston asked the earl that evening as they dined en famille on the rear patio. The hot day had turned into a pleasant evening, with the breeze from the ocean to cool away any lingering discomfort.
She was curious of Kitty’s relationship with this man who she had been assured again and again was but a friend. Maggie didn’t believe it for a second. No man looked at a woman as Haddington did her daughter without wanting more. As overjoyed as she was that Eve had found love (and a title) in her second husband, after seeing the interaction between Kitty and Haddington she had decided another earl as a son-in-law would be just the thing for the Preston family…if the earl could be brought up to snuff.
Haddington watched Kitty’s mother assess him thoughtfully, knowing he was being summed up and found satisfactory. He had to bite back a grin of amusem
ent, for normally the mothers who did the same were dragons of society completely unlike Maggie Preston. He certainly could see where Eve and Kitty had gained their beauty. For a woman nearing fifty, Maggie was still very lovely, with hair still the same honeyed gold as her daughters’ and a smooth, unlined face. Her smile was very much like Kitty’s, with its hint of deviltry. She was slim, shorter than her tall, willowy daughters, but not petite. Her eyes were brown though, causing Jack to assume Kitty’s bright green eyes came from her father. Hannah got her mischievous dimple from this woman though. He could see that trouble would clearly follow the wee miss through her years.
“It has everything you might ever need,” Jack responded politely. “One might never have to leave.”
Sensing, rather than hearing, the sarcasm of the statement, Kitty’s brow wrinkled. “You don’t like it?”
“I do, very much.” For as he had thought, what was not to like? His bedroom suite was truly the most finely appointed room he had ever occupied. The mansion itself held every modern convenience a person might ask for, unlike the drafty medieval fortress he had inherited, where chamber pots were still required. Kilberry was even equipped with a swimming pool and bowling alley!
Maggie appeared pleased by his statement, oblivious to the turmoil raging inside. “We used to rent a smaller house closer to town for the summers, though it was not facing the water. When I convinced Mr. Preston we simply must have our own summer home here, I thought we would build along Bellevue. It is certainly a more fashionable address, but Lelan simply had to have this land. It was his dream for almost a decade to get it built.” She looked over her shoulder at the glorious residence. “The house, of course, was completely designed to make me happy. Hunt, you know. I confess, certain members of my family thought I married beneath myself and Lelan would never amount to much. It was quite nice to give them this as a kind of thumb to the nose.”
“I have never seen a private residence its equal,” Francis offered sincerely.
“It’s not the house we love though,” Eve told them, then shook her head when they guffawed in disbelief.
“No, truly,” Kitty chimed in, and swept her arm toward the extensive lawns behind the house and to the magnificent vista beyond. “What Da really wanted was this, this natural splendor to contemplate through the twilight of his life. It’s the most beautiful place on earth. He always said he swore he could see Ireland from here.”
“I wish Da could have had more time to enjoy it,” Eve said sadly.
Maggie shook her head. “He had a long life, a good one. He would not have wanted any of us to dwell in sadness. Kitty, we’re about finished here. Take Lord Haddington down to see the view.”
It was a command, certainly no subtle matchmaking. Jack felt he had seen through the woman’s machinations the moment they had met, because he had seen that look in the eyes of many a mother over the past decade. She knew his title, assumed his wealth and had determined to have them for her daughter.
His current insouciance when faced with a woman’s determination to see him wed puzzled him. In the past, such knowledge would have sent him to the nearest exit. With Maggie Preston, it amused and intrigued. It did not rankle.
Standing, he gave Kitty a little bow and held out his hand. “Shall we, madam?”
“Kind sir!” She fluttered her lashes playfully. She laid her hand on his offered arm as they strolled across the lawns toward the pathway of crushed oyster shells that marked the Cliff Walk. Their footsteps ground a rhythm as they turned south on the path.
“I’d like to apologize for my mother,” she offered at length.
“No need,” he denied. “She is an interesting, entertaining hostess.”
“You know what I mean,” Kitty snorted. “She is ever the matchmaker. She sees you, a single earl, and associates it immediately with a title for me. Her ‘gone but not forgotten’ dream.”
“Does she forget you are already wed?”
“She sees only that the end is in sight and pictures you as my salvation from social ruin.” Her lips quirked in amusement. “She won’t stop hinting. I just want you to be aware of her plans.”
“I will attempt to remain stoic throughout her endeavors.” He led her to a bench set a bit down from the mansion and took a seat beside her.
“I love to just sit out on one of these benches and savor the sights and sounds here,” she confessed, taking a deep breath of the ocean air. “It’s the best part of Kilberry. It has a peace that one never sees in the city, despite the constant noise of the waves.”
All that wealth behind them and she thought the ocean view the best part of it all? He shook his head, not understanding. Granted, it was a magnificent view. Below the Cliff Walk, towers of stone rose from waters along the coast, providing a tool for the waves to break against, sending frothy sprays of water continually shooting into the air. Jack laid an arm across the back of the bench behind her as she stared out over the water.
“Isn’t it lovely, Jack?” she sighed into the comfortable silence. “Thanks to Da, Eve and I will always have this place.”
Jack stared down at her lively green eyes so bright with emotion. “You are lovely.” He tightened his arms around her shoulder and traced a finger down her cheek. “I have missed our time alone these past several days. Our solitude on the ship seems far away.”
“Yes, it does.” Kitty raised a hand to Jack’s cheek. “I know I’ve told you time and again, but I am very glad you came on this trip. Not only because of the support you have offered me, but also because I would have missed you.”
“Would you now?”
“I think so.” She leaned forward and nipped his chin playfully.
Jack, however, only frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why would you have missed me? What can I possibly provide you that you don’t already have?” he asked, voicing his earlier wonderings. “I look at all you have, heard all your father has left for you and I can’t help but question. What are you doing with me, Kitty?”
Kitty blinked and looked up at him with serious eyes, wishing she might just tell him that she loved him but feared such a confession would drive him away. “You still think having money and having things makes life a better place, don’t you, Jack? I understand your father left you with little. Your struggles this past year have been difficult ones, but surely you remember what life was like before all that?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You weren’t always this obsessed with wealth, I think. Back before this burden was set upon you…even when you didn’t have a lot of it. Think of the things you enjoyed before money became your focus,” she insisted. “What did you appreciate in your life before all this?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t do much at all really. I traveled a bit, but most of it I spent with the MacKintoshs. One or the other.”
“Before your brother died, you didn’t just go around throwing good money after bad at whatever struck your fancy, right?” she clarified. “You spent time with friends and family?”
“Aye.”
“That’s what I have missed for years, Jack. Don’t you see?” Kitty stared back over the water. “I haven’t had a true friend available to me since I wed. No one I could trust. Talk to. Now I have Eve, Abby and Moira once more, and I have you. Money buys many nice things, solves many problems, but it doesn’t comfort us when we’re alone. Doesn’t keep us company on a lonely night. Even you admit that what you have is friendship, even when you have nothing else.”
“You would offer something so prosaic as ‘friendship is the greatest treasure’?” he said, jokingly.
“You know it is.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Imagine your life without the MacKintosh brothers. Without Abby and your sisters. Do it! Not a pretty life, is it? That is what you help save me from. That is what I am doing with you.”
“That is all?”
“I thought we had already covered this,” she teased,
caressing his cheek. “Friendship, laughter,” she pressed a kiss where her fingers had touched. “Desire,” she kissed the corner of his mouth. “Passion.” Her lips met his, lightly. “You are many things to me.”
“Friend?” he questioned, picking up where she had left off, kissing her even more deeply. “Lover?”
“Soon,” she whispered low, and parted her lips to welcome his tongue as he pressed her back against the bench. His mouth met hers over and over as his hand crept up to cup her breast. “Oh, Jack!” she sighed. “Not soon enough!”
“The wait is killing me, my love,” he whispered into the twilight. “I want you so badly. I want to take you, fill you.”
His words left Kitty shuddering in his arms, longing for his possession. “Our time will come, Jack. Mr. Jensen said just a couple more days.” She leaned in and kissed him again. “Perhaps we should just refrain from this until then. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Bugger that, Kitty,” he growled, tightening his arms around her. “I’ve been uncomfortable for a bloody month! Why stop now?”
Kitty couldn’t help but laugh as his lips claimed hers once more.
Chapter 28
“Do not be too moral.
You may cheat yourself out of much life.”
Henry David Thoreau
Two days later, their time still had not come. Kitty was tempted to throw her convictions to the wind and creep into Jack’s room one evening to join him in his bed.
Instead, they spent their nights in frustrated solitude, foolishly arousing each other to the breaking point before going off to their solitary beds.
The days were spent in pursuits that were more innocent, much as they had in Scotland. Having introduced Jack to her mount, Claudio, and others in the stables, they rode along the beaches and cliffs of the area as a pair, and a foursome when Eve and Francis chose to join them. They bowled and played croquet with the children on the vast lawns behind the house.
A Question of Trust Page 23
