Kitty Little

by Freda Lightfoot

  From the moment of her arrival Charlotte had envied the trio’s close-knit friendship and vowed to infiltrate it. No one, in Charlotte’s opinion had a right to be happier than herself. For all he was a whey-faced, rather sad creature, Archie was charming, pleasant, agreeable, even rather sexy in a gentle, aristocratic sort of way. And if he were not her usual sort of man, then he certainly fitted the bill so far as the size of his pocketbook was concerned. ‘Darling Archie,’ she purred, slipping her arm through his and neatly blocking his exit. ‘Would you do me a huge favour?

  He glanced down as if surprised to find her there, and smiled. Her lovely hair was all tangled, her face flushed from the dancing. She looked like a naughty child at a party, a most delightful imp. There was a magnetism about her. She possessed the kind of earthy, animal quality that no man could precisely put a name to but recognised as utterly irresistible. ‘Your wish is my command.’

  Charlotte’s optimism soared. This was indeed progress, which so far had been frustratingly slow. She could see by the way he was looking at her that he was interested. She would often sense his eyes upon her, yet at other times he barely seemed to notice her presence. Too damned cautious perhaps. ‘You turn a girl’s head with your flattery,’ she said, reaching up to lightly kiss his cheek, so that her breasts grazed his hard chest.

  Archie laughed softly. ‘Minx. And don’t you lap it up.’ He glanced over her head through the open door into the garden, his gaze narrowing as he watched Kitty walk uncertainly away along the garden path. He felt torn, wanting to be with both girls. ‘We’ll talk later. Kitty needs a word first.’

  Charlotte clicked her tongue sympathetically but maintained her hold on his arm as she slid one hand over his chest, then stroked his cheek. ‘I need your help, Archie dear, with the teeniest little problem. I really don’t know how to tell Kitty, but I need to go away for a few days, maybe a week. Just to check on things at home. My mother hasn’t been well,’ she fabricated, adopting a suitably sad tone. For all Charlotte welcomed the bookings, she was afraid to neglect Magnus for much longer in case he did something outrageous, such as disinherit her. A brief visit home might sweeten him. And once the tour got underway, who knew when she’d have the time?

  Archie frowned, looking vaguely anxious. ‘I didn’t realise you had a mother.’

  Charlotte put back her head and laughed, revealing perfect white teeth. ‘Everyone has a mother darling,’ and offered assurance that she’d be back in good time for the start of the tour. ‘If you could just explain to Kitty for me? Please?’ She pressed her delectable body against his so that he could breathe in the scent of her perfume. ‘I shall miss you of course,’ she murmured. ‘There’s something so exciting about you.’

  ‘And you,’ Archie murmured, half to himself.

  ‘I’m glad you noticed.’ She was smiling tantalisingly up at him from beneath lowered lashes, lips pouting so that her meaning was all too clear. He wanted her. Didn’t every man? And she wished him to know that she would not be unwilling. Charlotte felt giddy with power as she always did when out to enslave her latest victim. Emboldened, she placed her soft lips against his ear and reminded him that her room was conveniently close to the back stairs. She couldn’t have made it plainer.

  But Archie’s gaze was once again upon the door through which Kitty had so recently passed, searching the now empty path, almost as if he could see her waiting for him in the shrubbery. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ He wasn’t even listening.

  Charlotte felt a flush of annoyance and her eyes narrowed, but she manufactured a giggle to disguise her fury. ‘I said you and I could perhaps enjoy a little drink together later.’ He was making excuses, actually setting her to one side, and the next moment striding away, leaving her quite alone.

  A cold wind blew a flurry of leaves into the hall. ‘Bugger! Charlotte swore loudly and comprehensively, revealing her true background in several more blunt words, then slammed the door shut and stormed upstairs. Once in the privacy of her room, she strode back and forth, ranting and raving, steaming with fury as she hurled books from shelves, following these with a vase of flowers that Esme had placed there earlier in the day. Never, in all her life had a man actually refused her. But she knew who to blame. Oh, indeed she did. And wouldn’t she make her sorry.

  Warmly dressed in their winter coats and galoshes, they walked at a leisurely pace down the pitted track that had once been the main carriage drive of Repstone Manor. A bright winter sun slanted probing fingers through the bare branches of the beech trees that lined the way. Even the mountains seemed to be drawing back as if to let in more light on this crisp November day. Had it been Charlotte walking beside him, Kitty thought, the sunlight would have turned her hair to a golden halo, her elfin neatness entirely suiting the woodland scene.

  Kitty drew the edges of her shabby, three year old raincoat close and linked Archie’s arm in the kind of friendly way she’d once taken for granted. Yet now, because of the tension inside her, it felt awkward. How would he react to being told he was about to become a father? All her worries about him feeling trapped into marriage rushed to the fore. He might even insist they abandon the travelling theatre project, sack the actors and give up on her dream, which was the last thing she wanted.

  Kitty was filled suddenly with indecision.

  ‘Penny for them?’

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking what excellent progress we’re making, now the bookings are starting to come in,’ she prevaricated, then kicked at a stone, annoyed with herself for missing a golden opportunity. ‘We’ll be ready in good time, so long as everyone pulls their weight.’

  ‘Are you suggesting someone isn’t? Just because Charlotte has to rush home to spend a few days with a sick mother doesn’t mean she’s slacking.’

  Kitty stared at him in astonishment. ‘Rush home? When did she decide that? She hasn’t asked for time off.’

  ‘She asked me, and I said she could.’

  ‘Isn’t that just a perfect example of her selfishness? Our final week of rehearsals and with all the packing to be done at the start of the tour, and she skives off. It’s too much.’

  ‘She’ll be back at the end of the week, in good time for our first engagement, Kitty old thing.’

  ‘Oh she won’t risk offending you, that’s for sure.’ The evening was bitterly cold and Kitty pulled her scarf closer about her neck.

  He frowned at her. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  Without stopping to consider the effect of her words, Kitty said, ‘She’s only using you. Having you run errands and do tasks she’s perfectly capable of carrying out herself. She treats you like a servant.’

  The frown had turned to a scowl. ‘I like to help, don’t you know. Hardly turns me into a skivvy, does it?’

  His displeasure at her criticism flowed over her like a draft of icy wind, yet Kitty felt quite unable to retract a word. Her heart was pumping like a mad thing and although she knew everything was going wrong, that all her carefully rehearsed phrases were seeping from her mind, she felt helpless to prevent them. Instead, all the envy and jealousy she’d nursed for Charlotte over these last weeks poured out of her. ‘She certainly overplays the Little-Miss-Helpless. It’s utterly nauseating. I’m only suggesting that you should be careful.’

  ‘Charlotte has had a difficult time,’ he patiently pointed out, ‘losing her fiancé and not having any people of her own to turn to. Would’ve thought you, at least, could understand how she feels, old sport.’

  ‘Yes, I lost Raymond but I don’t go round expecting preferential treatment because of it.’ She could hear her own voice sounding uncharacteristically carping and high pitched, as if the pain of her jealousy had destroyed all her sense of reason.

  Archie had stopped walking and was standing staring at her, his face stiff with displeasure. ‘What was it, exactly, that led you to this observation, Kitty? Her open, friendly nature, or because she’s prepared to admit when she’s taken on too much and ask a man for assis
tance now and then?’

  The sick sensation in the pit of her stomach felt very like fear. Kitty was terrified about the changes taking place in her body, invaded as it seemed to be by this new little stranger who was going to spoil everything and turn her life upside down. She hadn’t the first idea how she would cope. She longed for Archie to realise what was happening to her without her having to tell him. She wanted him to proclaim his undying love for her, to insist that her happiness was all he cared about, but she couldn’t for the life of her work out how to make him say these things. And here she was embroiled in a quarrel she’d never intended. Kitty became aware that Archie was still talking, still comparing her unfavourably with Charlotte.

  ‘Encumbered by that stubborn shield of independence of yours, you never seem to need help of any kind, certainly not from a mere male, and particularly from me.’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’ A small voice at the back of her head was warning her to play the helpless female, to own up to her own vulnerability. Yet a contrary voice reminded Kitty that the last time she’d shown weakness, she’d found her life taken over by a selfish mother and an engagement announced to a man she didn’t even love. ‘I don’t go around making eyes at a man just because he has money in the bank. I’m my own woman, at least I hope I am. Charlotte Gilpin, on the other hand, has already admitted to one engagement which could be considered above her station. I’m perfectly certain that she’d have no objection to another. She’s a grasping little gold digger. That much is obvious.’

  The silence following this outburst was appalling. The stunned shock and disbelief in his face, the hard anger in his eyes made Kitty instantly wish every reckless word unspoken. Archie looked bigger, broader, darker of brow, somehow far more masculine and aggressive than she’d ever seen him before. His tone, when he finally spoke, was chilling.

  ‘That’s what you think, is it?’

  It was too late to back down, not without looking foolish. ‘Yes, that’s what I think.’ It was true. Kitty did believe that Charlotte Gilpin was after Archie’s money. The girl had entranced him with her winsome charm, her tales of woe, her fragility, and, because of the loss of his own tragic family, he couldn’t resist her.

  ‘That’s the cruellest, most heartless thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

  One glance at his tight-lipped expression told Kitty that further argument was futile. Having given him the perfect excuse to defend Charlotte, she’d unwittingly widened the gulf between them. Turning on her heel she began to walk, almost run from him, blinded by tears her booted feet slipping over the ruts in the drive. But by the time he caught up with her, even more grimly silent than before, her eyes were quite dry and her chin tilted high for Kitty realised she’d just lost the perfect opportunity to tell him about the baby, and not for a moment would she allow him to see how much that hurt.

  Chapter Ten

  Magnus was in a fine temper when Charlotte arrived home. Where had she been all this time, he wanted to know? What kind of a wife was she to spend so long away, wandering the world on some endless holiday?

  ‘Is it any wonder with you like a bear with a sore head all the time. I haven’t been on holiday, not the whole time anyroad. I’ve been staying with Mam for some of it,’ Charlotte improvised, remembering her tale to Archie.

  ‘Why? I thought the two of you didn’t get on.’

  ‘She’s still me mother and she’s been ill.’ In no time Charlotte had invented a whole case history of troubles and tribulations for this make-believe mother, who she hadn’t in fact clapped eyes on in years. ‘And since I’m her only surviving child, and she doesn’t have the advantage of a Mrs Pursey to wait upon her hand, foot and finger, who else is there to see to her but me?’

  Magnus, still sulking, was not easily mollified. ‘What about your stepfather? Isn’t he still around?’

  Charlotte was tempted to say that he’d run off with some young floozy and left her in the cart, but common sense prevailed as too many lies were difficult to keep track of, so she reluctantly cut that dramatic story from her repertoire. Besides, if her mother had been left alone then there’d be no reason why the old woman couldn’t have come to stay with them, thereby destroying a useful alibi. ‘What use would he be?’ she scoffed. ‘What use is any man?’ She brushed a brief kiss upon Magnus’s cheek. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Pursey to cook your favourite hot pot and we’ll enjoy the meal together, here in your room, to celebrate my return. All on us own, eh?’

  ‘All on our own,’ he reminded her, eyes glinting nonetheless.

  ‘Whatever you say. Wensleydale cheese and fruit loaf for afterwards, eh?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  Charlotte did her best to placate him over the few days she was there, reading the papers to him each morning, instructing Mrs Pursey in the preparation of more of his favourite dishes, allowing him tidbits and treats that the doctor had denied him, in view of his rapidly increasing girth. She even let him kiss and fondle her now and then, although managed to avoid any further intimacy on the grounds that it was bad for his blood pressure.

  ‘Young Lord Bickerstaff is to be wed,’ he informed her with relish one morning as he lay propped against his pillows reading the paper. ‘What a disappointment for you.’

  ‘Tommy Bickerstaff was your choice, not mine.’

  Magnus chuckled. ‘Even your latest beau, what was his name - Councillor Miles Something-or-other has found himself a bride half his age, the old roué.’

  Charlotte was stunned. Best not investigate too closely how Magnus knew about her affairs. But for some reason this news utterly devastated her. It felt almost like a betrayal. It somehow hardened her resolve to have Archie, no matter if he was secretly lusting after Kitty. He’d find she wasn’t so easily put off, oh dear me no.

  It took five days not three before Charlotte managed to extricate herself from Magnus’s grip, which was cutting it a bit fine. Even then she’d been driven to write herself a letter, purporting to come from her mother, begging for her to return since she’d suffered a further relapse. Charlotte read the letter to Magnus with tears rolling down her cheeks, declaring her sorrow at being forced to leave him when matters between them were on the mend.

  He’d railed against it, raging at her for leaving him so soon. Unfortunately, because of his condition, his control over her was slipping and he knew it. Magnus believed she should have no other life beyond these four walls, that Charlotte belonged to him absolutely and must stay by his side, morning, noon and night.

  ‘If you don’t come back soon I’ll get out of this damned bed and come looking for you myself!’ he shouted as she strode away, gently closing his bedroom door with an audible sigh of relief.

  She was on the afternoon train, complete with luncheon hamper, again especially prepared by Mortimer the ardent chauffeur, except that this time she knew where she was going and found herself welcomed back if not exactly with open arms, then with relief, by Archie at least.

  ‘Thank goodness. There’d have been all hell to pay if you’d been late.’

  Charlotte pouted sulkily. ‘I’m surprised you noticed I’d gone.’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Good. A girl likes to be missed.’ She had a way of lifting her shoulders when she smiled that was so sensual Archie almost reached out for her there and then. But it was true. He had missed her. Despite his fancy for Kitty, he’d found himself thinking more and more of Charlotte recently. She was beautiful and sexy, amusing and lively. Positively fizzed with vigour and fun.

  As he smiled thoughtfully down upon her, Charlotte was embroidering the story of her mother’s failing health, now so well rehearsed she almost believed it herself. It was a fiction which could well prove useful in the months ahead. ‘I hated to leave her, and will have to visit her from time to time,’ she wept, dabbing at a tear.

  ‘Of course you will, old thing. I’m sure we can manage to give you the necessary time off. Don’t upset yourself. Can’t bear to see a woman cry.’ He
put an arm about her, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

  ‘Kitty mightn’t agree.’

  ‘I’ll see to Kitty. Don’t you fret.’

  ‘Will you? Darling Archie,’ and twisting her head a little so she could reach, she kissed him with an enticing sweetness, so very gently that he thought he might have imagined the flicker of her tongue brushing over his lips. He gazed wonderingly into those cornflower blue eyes, but when the lids drooped he allowed the kiss to deepen and did not draw away.

  Charlotte caught up with Kitty the next morning on the stairs. It was vitally important that these new friends of hers behaved as she wished them to behave. She may not love Archie Emerson but she intended to have him all the same, along with everything he represented. He would be good insurance in case her expectations from Magnus went awry. ‘I know you don’t think much of me Kitty, but I’d like to explain...’

  ‘Charlotte, I...’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I can see it every time you look my way.’ Charlotte sank down on the edge of a stair but Kitty remained where she was, tall and stiffly dignified beside her. ‘I’d just like to say that it’s easy for you, always having had loads of friends. I’ve had nowt, ‘ceptin what I grabbed wi’ me own fair hands.’ This was so close to the truth that Charlotte began to feel uncomfortable so hurried quickly on. ‘I know you think I’ve been monopolising Archie but the truth is - I’ve only been putting in a word for Esme.’

  The lie came out all in a rush, followed by a stunned silence, then Kitty sank down beside Charlotte on the stair. ‘What do you mean “putting in a word” for Esme?’

  ‘Esme’s so shy, she’d say nothing on her own account. She’s pining after him, anyone with eyes in their head can see that.’ A sideways glance at Kitty’s face told Charlotte not only that she’d inadvertently stumbled upon the truth but a good deal more besides. Her mouth fell open. ‘Lord above, you’re potty about him an’ all.’