It's Always Been You

by Victoria Dahl

  By God, he’d had trouble turning his mind to business today. Last night her wine-flushed lips and welcoming eyes had been a glorious torment. Then her gaze had touched his mouth, and he’d been lost in the desire to feel her. Her skin, her lips, the wild disarray of her hair . . .

  He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her and known immediately that it was right.

  No, not right. It couldn’t be right, because she was a married woman. Granted, he’d taken a shameful number of married women to his bed, but this was Katie.

  Snow began to fall, and Aidan absentmindedly donned his hat, still eyeing the workers.

  Kate was not just a thoughtless means of distracting himself for a few hours. She was not just a body. And she was clearly not experienced at this type of affair. She’d been thinking of repercussions before the kiss had ended.

  Still, there’d been no denial at his guess about her marriage. If she’d loved the man once, she did not love him now. She likely didn’t love Aidan either, but she felt something. Nostalgia, or infatuation, or pure and simple lust. Need tightened his groin at the thought.

  What the hell was he going to do? She’d snuck inside him, and now he could see the danger he’d overlooked. He’d been hollow for so long, and the space inside him had been cut out in her shape. How could she not fit perfectly?

  “Mr. York!” The bright feminine voice pierced his brooding thoughts. For one painful heartbeat, Aidan thought it was Katie. And it wasn’t anything like lust that made his pulse tumble.

  But as he turned, his heart tripping with anticipation, he saw Lucy Cain hurrying toward them, her cheeks pink with the cold. Her smile was wide and welcoming and he felt churlish for his disappointment.

  “Miss Cain,” he said, sweeping his hat off to bow. “What a pleasure.”

  “Look at you, Mr. York. Why, I think you’re even more handsome in the snow.”

  He winked as he rose, then tilted his hat toward Penrose.

  “May I introduce my secretary, Mr. Penrose?”

  Penrose blushed as Miss Cain offered her hand and a saucy smile. “An honor, miss.”

  “So polite. You must bring him to luncheon today, Mr. York.”

  “Luncheon?”

  “You see, my father wondered if you could join us. I think he’s discovered how rich you are.”

  Aidan laughed. Yes, this girl reminded him of Katie in so many ways. “I would love to join you for luncheon. Mr. Penrose?”

  “Yes,” Penrose stammered. “Of course. Without a doubt.”

  “Then, Miss Cain, shall we?” He offered his arm, feeling a lightness in his chest as she placed her gloved hand on his sleeve. He had a brief, searing hope that Kate would be at the Cain’s when he arrived but pushed it away. She was a married woman. It would do neither of them good to be seen so much together.

  But he could think of her as often as he liked. No one could keep him from that.

  Hard pellets of snow tinked against the windows as Kate drew swirls and circles on a torn piece of paper, idly considering when to kill her husband. The planning felt cruel, despite that Mr. Hamilton had never existed. As for David . . . he’d been dead nearly nine months now. It could not matter to him.

  She’d wanted to wait a year after arriving in England before declaring herself widowed, but things felt so different now. And her business was doing tolerably well. She’d chosen the location so carefully. A town small enough to have escaped the notice of another dedicated coffee merchant, but prosperous enough that certain households would demand the finest roasts and blends. Four local estates had already paid her a generous amount to secure their own private roast, available to no one else. It was exactly what she’d hoped for.

  But now she was beginning to tire of the masquerade of marriage. She could put out word any time that her husband had died of a sudden fever. Everyone in England seemed to think the Orient was rife with deadly dangers, after all. No one would doubt that a man might fall over twitching and gasping with no warning at all.

  So she could get rid of Mr. Hamilton, but there was the larger problem to be faced. What about Gerard Gallow? She didn’t think she’d hurt him badly that night. She hoped that the sickening crack she’d heard had been only the bottle and not his skull. But he’d fallen so hard to the floor. Still, despite the blood that had trickled from his head, his eyes had fluttered when she’d nudged him.

  So she’d run. She’d run for her freedom and her life and her sanity. She hadn’t dared search out news from Ceylon once she’d reached India. If she looked toward Ceylon, she’d reasoned, it might look toward her.

  But now she wished she’d paused for just a moment. If she’d stopped to look back, she would at least know if Gerard was all right. She hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. And even if he were fine, had he tried to convince the world that she had killed David? She hadn’t hurt her husband, but who would believe her over Gerard?

  It was time to find out the truth. She could not bear the uncertainty anymore. It had seemed a small sacrifice a few weeks ago—living alone, needing no one. But now she faced a new possibility. Maybe she could need more than that. Maybe she could still be a whole woman with wants and dreams and desires.

  She’d kissed Aidan York, after all.

  My God, she’d kissed him. Opened her mouth to him. Rubbed her tongue against his as if she’d never spent a day apart from his body. She was supposed to be a married woman, yet she’d licked at his mouth as if she were starving for it.

  What must he think of her today? What did she think of herself?

  With a great sigh, Kate rubbed her hands roughly over her face, wondering how she would look at him again. Would it be worse if he came today or if he didn’t? She felt stupid now. Stupid that she’d got caught up in the intimacy of the moment. My God, there was a time when she’d convinced herself that he’d never even loved her, thanks to her father’s cruel words. And now she found herself wondering if he might love her still. It was absurd. And exciting.

  Kate picked up her grandfather’s watch and rubbed her thumb over the cool metal. As soon as she’d touched the watch, she’d remembered giving it to Aidan and all that had come before that.

  The secret, stolen moments that had eventually led to that day. The frightening excitement of hurrying along the river bank, toward the old boathouse. They hadn’t planned to let things go so far, but the kissing had led to touching and it had been so good. And Aidan’s hands had been gentle and sweet. Just as his mouth had been. Just as it still was.

  He hadn’t hurt her at all that day in the boathouse, though he’d asked over and over again to be sure. If there’d been any pain, it had been swallowed up by her trembling excitement.

  Curling her fingers over the watch, Kate squeezed her eyes shut and felt warmth seep out of her body and into the metal. This was ridiculous. This was not why she’d returned to England. Not by far.

  She pushed aside her lethargy and retrieved paper and pen from under the counter. She wrote a simple, short letter for Lucy’s father. As she sealed the letter, anxiety plucked at her nerves. It hurt every fiber of her being to ask about Ceylon, but after all, it had already asked about her. That Mr. Dalworth would arrive soon. Today or tomorrow, if he kept to his word. And any good coffee merchant would want news from Ceylon. Certainly it damaged her masquerade not at all to inquire after old newspapers from the East.

  The alley door opened with a bang, and her heart jumped to her throat. She rushed to the back, thinking it must be Aidan, but instead she found Fost’s white-haired driver.

  “Oh, thank heavens!”

  The man tipped his hat. “Good morning, Mrs. Hamilton. ’Tis nice to be so warmly welcomed.”

  “Hush, you. It’s the coffee I’m thrilled to see. Please tell me you’ve brought the Sumatran?”

  He chuckled throatily. “I asked specifically this time. Told Mr. Fost I wouldn’t dare cross your threshold without it.” He reached down and hauled up the crate that lay at his feet. “Where would you like it?”
/>
  “In the front room, please. I’ll need to put it out immediately. Oh, this is wonderful.” At his nod, she hurried back into the shop with a relieved sigh. She wasn’t confident with her supplier. He always came through with the deliveries, but often at the last possible moment. The Sumatran was supposed to have arrived on Friday, and here it was on Monday.

  Still, she’d struck a profitable bargain with him and hated to start from scratch with someone else.

  The driver came in with one last crate, and Kate sighed. “I apologize if I’ve been prickly. And I thank you for being so kind.”

  “It’s no bother, ma’am.”

  “How is your brother?”

  “Well, I think. He don’t write often and I don’t read often, so news is far between. And your husband, ma’am?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Kate heard the front door open and raised a hand to stop him. “I’m sorry, I must see to the shop.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  “Close the door when you’re through,” she said as she rushed back to the front.

  As if she’d been sent to counter every ounce of Kate’s anxiety, Lucy Cain rushed in on a cloud of snow. “Good afternoon!”

  Kate grinned at Lucy’s dramatic entrance. “That’s a happy response to such weather,” Kate said, though she felt the same joy at the storm.

  “Oh, it’s not the snow that has me grinning. It’s the company.”

  “Me?”

  “No, not you! I just dined with two handsome bachelors.”

  “Is your stance on marriage evolving then?”

  Lucy gave a look of horror as she swept off her cloak. “Heavens no. If I marry, my days of flirting with bachelors will be over.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Kate rose to prepare two cups of coffee in her sampling pot, no longer nervous about Lucy’s presence. She’d stopped by nearly every day since her father’s party to gossip and laugh and even to discuss coffee.

  “Aren’t you going to ask which handsome bachelors I dined with?”

  Kate wracked her brain, trying to snatch up a few of the names Lucy had mentioned, but the girl talked so quickly that names always seemed to fly right past Kate’s ears. She pressed down on the coffee. “Was one of them the gentleman with the pink waistcoat?”

  “No. One of them was Aidan York!”

  The handle slipped out of her hand and her knuckles rang the pot like a bell. “Oh! Mr. York, you said?”

  “Yes, indeed. And his secretary, Mr. Penrose. He’s quite serious, isn’t he?”

  Kate set her hands back to the pot, hoping to buy herself a moment of thought. Lucy had dined with Aidan this afternoon? Anxious curiosity filled Kate’s chest, urging her to blurt out question after question. Instead, she cleared her throat and spoke very carefully. “I’m not sure. I’ve never met Mr. Penrose.”

  “Well, you must meet him. He’s quite striking. Golden hair and lovely blue eyes! But I think I made him nervous.”

  It shamed Kate to admit it, but Lucy’s interest in Mr. Penrose inspired a sharp stab of relief. But her heart still hammered as she carried the cups to the counter. “So? How did you find yourself dining with them?”

  “My father finally found out more about your Mr. York’s investments. Impressive, I gather. Father was quite eager to invite him to luncheon. If I’d had any warning at all, I would’ve invited you as well.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that’s—”

  “You know . . .” Lucy put her chin in her hands and leaned over the counter. Her eyes glowed with innocence, and that was never a good sign.

  “What?” Kate asked warily.

  “When I mentioned your name, I could’ve sworn I saw Mr. York’s eyes light up.”

  “Lucy . . .”

  “Oh, fine.”

  “I’m a married woman—”

  “I know. I know. It’s just that . . . There’s something about him, isn’t there?”

  Yes. My God, yes, there was something about him. There always had been. Something that drew people to his side. Something that made people smile. Kate had felt honored to be a part of that once, but she couldn’t be part of it now.

  She tapped the countertop. “Tell me more about this Mr. Penrose.”

  Her words prompted a flood of description from Lucy. Kate was so distracted that she only caught the occasional bit of coherence. Mr. Penrose was apparently both dignified and nervous. Solemn and soulful. Though he didn’t speak much, she could read volumes in his eyes. And despite his reserved nature, he seemed to be much younger than Aidan York.

  Kate’s brain spun around the words Aidan York, and seemed to get caught there. This situation was fast becoming intolerable.

  Lucy’s voice broke through her thoughts. “But it’s just as it should be. I’m far too young to catch his eye at any rate.”

  “What?” Kate asked. “Who?”

  “Mr. York, silly. You’re closer to his age, I should think.”

  Funny that Aidan had seemed old enough to be unobtainable when she’d first met him. She’d thought him so mature and manly. Now she felt old enough to be his governess. She smiled at the strangeness of it all. “Men always like young women, Lucy. It doesn’t matter how old the gentleman is. They’re attracted to girls who are bright and lovely and untouched.”

  “Untouched?” Lucy raised a saucy eyebrow, but even as Kate laughed, Lucy’s smile faded. “And that’s the reason I shall never marry.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean a man won’t love you once you’ve aged. There are plenty of husbands who don’t stray.”

  “That’s not what worries me, Kate. It’s the brightness. It seems an awful trade to make. I don’t want to fade away for the sake of a man. And I think that might be the unavoidable cost. My friends, my sister, and . . .”

  She didn’t finish the sentence, but Kate knew how faded she’d become. “And me,” Kate finished. Lucy didn’t know the half of it. Sometimes in Ceylon she’d looked down at her own hands and marveled that she couldn’t see right through them.

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I know. But it’s true. My husband wasn’t cruel though. He rarely required anything of me, and yet, in that place, I was nothing more than his wife. I filled a role that didn’t truly exist. So sometimes it seemed that I didn’t exist.”

  Tracing the edge of her cup, Kate realized that whole months had passed like that in those early years. Months when she’d felt nothing. But that seemed another life now. These days she felt so much. Too much.

  She looked up to find Lucy watching her with a frown, her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

  “What is it?”

  “You said ‘wasn’t.’ He ‘wasn’t’ cruel.”

  Panic wrapped her chest and seemed to crush her ribs in its grip. She’d grown too relaxed and tripped herself up. “I—I . . .”

  “I suspected you’d left him for good.”

  “I . . . What?”

  “Your husband. You’ve left him, right? That’s why you returned to England.”

  Miraculously, Lucy assumed the same thing that Aidan had. Perhaps that only made sense. Who would ever suspect that a woman would pretend her husband was alive when he wasn’t?

  Lucy seemed to take her silence as an admission. “I wish my sister would leave her husband. She comes home sometimes, but she always goes back.”

  “Perhaps he’s not so bad.”

  “No, he’s bad. But they have two children now. If she’d left the first time he hit her . . . But she didn’t. And even if he weren’t so bad, I have to wonder if marriage isn’t all the same. Have you ever known a woman who wasn’t diminished by it?”

  Kate thought about it. She sipped her cooling coffee and riffled through her memories. Her own mother had been cowed by her husband. She’d never stood up to him over anything, not even her daughter being shipped to the other side of the world.

  Only a very few of Kate’s friends had married before s
he’d left England, and she’d had no friends in Ceylon. Still, she could not say she knew any woman whose marriage had made her more lively or more vibrant. So was every woman diminished? It seemed so.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but then she thought of Aidan’s mother. There was a woman who seemed in no way diminished. She was filled with wild emotion, and by all accounts had only grown more vivacious with every passing year. Though her husband had died when Kate was still in England, he’d been alive when Kate had first known the family. They’d been a fairly happy couple.

  “Yes,” she finally said with a smile. “Yes, I have known women who were undiminished by marriage. Perhaps we should only be more careful in our choice of husband. Or perhaps we should be stronger ourselves.”

  “Or . . .” Lucy drawled, “perhaps we should avoid the problem entirely and treat marriage like the plague.”

  “Even if it involves Mr. Penrose?”

  Lucy giggled and the darkness of the moment was gone, just like that.

  Kate had spoken of her marriage, and her unhappiness, and it felt like nothing more painful than . . . memory. Just memory, fading as it was exposed to the light.

  “Kate,” Lucy said, leaning even closer so that she could speak in a whisper.

  Kate narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What?”

  “I’ve heard that in London all married women take lovers.”

  She jerked back. “That’s not true!”

  “I don’t know. I think it might be.”

  “Well,” Kate sputtered, “it hardly matters. We’re not in London.”

  “Still . . . Mr. York is from London. Perhaps that is all that matters. He provides the excuse of worldliness.”

  “Nonsense! Lucy Cain, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Lucy shrugged and one side of her mouth tipped up in a sneaky smile. “I’ll see if I can summon up the will.”

  “Oh, I doubt you will bother.”

  “Probably not.”