[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

  ‘He would take not one farthing of it, just as Emma refused it, too.’

  She stepped closer and glanced down at the paper; it was a banker’s cheque made out for thirty thousand pounds.

  ‘All that you have earned since Johor,’ she said softly.

  ‘I thought if I could give them back the money I had lost, with interest, too, that it would go some way to repairing the damage...’ He shook his head as if he had been a fool.

  ‘My father said he did not want the money, but he no longer lives the life of a gentleman. He has a house in Whitechapel. He owns and runs a dockyard, employs men and spends his days in an office there.’

  ‘That is a worthwhile pursuit. To provide employment. To have purpose.’

  ‘So he says.’

  He looked at her. ‘How they suffered, Kate. My mother was a lady, used to a life of ease and comfort. She died of consumption in Spitalfields, penniless, seeking employment as a pieceworker!’

  His pain was a living, breathing, tangible thing. It caught in her chest, sharp and painful as a blade sliding between her ribs.

  ‘My father, a gentleman from one of the oldest genteel families in England, worked as a labourer in a dockyard. My sister, who should have been dancing at Almack’s and laughing with her friends, was a serving wench in a chophouse and is married to a tough from Whitechapel. Because of me. And nothing I can do will ever change that.’ The wetness on his cheeks was not just raindrops. ‘I broke their world apart and I cannot fix it, Kate.’

  She closed the distance between them and slid her arms around his waist, looking into his face.

  ‘You cannot,’ she said, ‘because they already fixed it for themselves, Kit.’

  His eyes clung to hers.

  ‘Your sister is married to a man whom she loves and who would lay down his life to protect her. Did you not see the way they look at one another? Everything about her radiates happiness. And he seemed to me to be a very wealthy man. Your father is pursuing a life of meaning and purpose. Was he sullen, resentful, resigned to a frugal life in Whitechapel?’

  No.’ Kit’s gaze shifted to the distance, reliving the details of the night. ‘He seemed...content.’

  ‘They do not take the money, Kit, because they do not want it.’

  His eyes moved back to hers.

  ‘And as for your mother. Trust me when I tell you she would never have stopped loving you. I am a mother, Kit, I know. And I know, too, that she would have forgiven you. As your father and sister do. As you must forgive yourself.’

  ‘I did not come back for forgiveness.’

  ‘I know. You came back to face them all, to face what you did, to acknowledge your mistakes and make recourse. And you have done that.’

  ‘And it changes nothing, Kate. There is no closure. I swore I would never be Kit Northcote again. But I am. I changed my name, but I cannot escape him. I never will.’

  She took him in her arms and he wept, this strong implacable man who had endured the worst of tortures, who had risked his life time and again to save hers and others. This man who was the most integral, honest man she had ever known. She held him and kissed the tears from his face and looked into his eyes.

  ‘Kit Northcote and Kit North are the same man, Kit. They always have been. They always will be.’

  She peeled off his wet clothes and her own, until they stood there naked and exposed.

  ‘And I love him, perfectly imperfect, just as he is,’ she said, and led him to her bed.

  ‘Kate...’ But she touched her fingers to his lips to silence him. Even now, when he was bleeding and hurt, all his hopes shattered, all his defences ripped aside to expose him, naked and vulnerable, he was putting her needs before his own.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Just a physical need,’ she whispered the excuse for both of them.

  ‘Just a physical need,’ he echoed, complicit in the lie.

  Gently she pushed him back against her pillow and straddled his body, covering him with her warmth. She kissed his eyelids and his nose. She kissed his lips and his throat, and every single one of the scars that marked his body. And then she took his long hard length into her, merging their bodies as one.

  Looking into his eyes, she rode him, soft and slow at first, building harder and faster, taking him in deeper. Because she needed him and he needed her. And this act of passion and love was the only thing that could drive away the ghosts and the guilt and make them forget the ache in their hearts...for this night at least.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kit watched as Kate smiled her easy confident smile, and chatted and joked with Tom at the breakfast table the next morning as if nothing were wrong. But it was a play-act. She could barely meet his eyes across the table for all she was pretending otherwise. Echoes and shadows of their intense lovemaking throughout the night hung heavy and long between them. The very air vibrated with the knowledge of what they had done and its far-reaching consequences. But she was pretending for the boy’s sake, feigning a happiness and normality she did not feel. Her tension was as tangible as his own, at least to him. He was no longer fooled by that smile.

  When Tom finally left for his riding lesson Kit half-expected Kate to make her excuses and rush out after him, not wanting to be alone with the man who was now her husband in truth. But she just sat there, her focus all on the white tablecloth, her face pale from lack of sleep, the smile and all other pretences fallen away now that the boy was no longer with them. Kit waved the servants away, telling them to close the door behind them. Even then she could not look at him.

  The small clock on the mantelpiece ticked its fast steady rhythm. Outside the heavy wheels of a delivery cart rumbled past, with the clatter of horses’ hooves. The sky was a cloudless summer blue. Clear white shafts of sunlight spilled through the window, highlighting the golden streaks within the soft brown of her hair.

  ‘Last night...’ she said. Her voice was quiet, sober, gutted. Her eyes shifted from the tablecloth to her unused cutlery. ‘It was just a physical coupling...just a physical need...for us both.’ Reiterating the lie she was telling herself. She ran a nervous finger along the blade of the knife, rocking it so that it flashed silver and glinted like the blade of the knife she had worn strapped to her thighs, like his cutlass, like the glitter of the ocean before the bow of a ship. ‘It changes nothing.’ She closed her eyes, momentarily, as if she were gathering strength. And when she opened them she swallowed and said the words again, stronger this time as if that would convince herself. ‘It changes nothing.’

  Her eyes finally rose to meet his so that he could see all of her guilt and confusion and split allegiance. ‘You understand what I am saying, don’t you?’ Her brow was creased with worry, her eyes shadowed with the conflict that raged within.

  ‘I understand, Kate,’ he said softly. ‘A vow is a vow.’

  ‘Yes.’ She swallowed. He could see her every breath, see the dip of her eyelashes, the way her teeth bit at her lip so hard as to make it turn white. She dropped her gaze to the table once more.

  Somewhere in the distance a door slammed shut.

  ‘You loved Wendell. And Wendell loved you.’

  She nodded, but did not look at him again.

  ‘He loved and protected you. And he wanted you and your children to be happy and healthy and safe.’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was a broken whisper.

  He could walk across that room and pull her up into his arms and kiss her. He could scoop her up into his arms and take her to his bed and love all the pain away from her. He could raid her heart and claim it as his own. But that would be to use force and desire against her and it would not solve her conflict. For the resolution her soul required, she needed time. Time to make the choice herself. Time to say her farewell. Except that time was running out.

  ‘Gunner has written to s
ay that his business has concluded early. He will be here the day after tomorrow.’ He lifted the opened letter that lay on the table before him and, rising from his chair, walked the length of the long dining table and sat the letter down before her.

  She glanced up into his eyes, the look in her own shaken and haunted.

  ‘We have accepted an invitation to Arlesfords’ ball this evening, but I can send our apologies.’

  ‘No.’ She swallowed, and turned her face away. ‘We must arouse no suspicions in the Admiralty’s watchers, not so close to my departure.’

  ‘As you wish.’ His face felt grim, his jaw tight. His gaze lingered on her face for a moment of silence, but she would not look at him.

  Three days to go, if he included this one. Was it long enough? And if not, was he really just going to let her sail out of his life as surely as she had sailed into his heart?

  A curt bow of his head, then he turned and walked away.

  * * *

  The ballroom in the Duke of Arlesford’s town house was packed to the gunnels. The French windows at the rear of the room were open, allowing the sweet dark night air to seep in and the edges of the crowd to spill out on to the stone terrace and beyond, and for the more illicit, down the stone steps into the hidden secret recesses of the garden. But the open windows and stir of the gauze curtains did little to relieve the heat and press of London’s ton at the fashionable event.

  Kate felt a bead of sweat trickle down between her breasts. She fanned herself with the black-feathered fan and was glad there was so little material in the black evening dress. The bright glow of a thousand candles set in the huge crystal-tiered chandelier above their heads brought a glitter to the beads encrusted on her low-cut bodice and a shimmer to the swell of pale décolletage exposed above its tight support.

  She held her head high, met all the nosy disapproving stares with confidence and pride and amusement that belied the conflict that churned within. Standing united with her man. Her and Kit against them all, knowing the truth of what was between them, knowing that in two days she was going to have to walk away from him, just like everyone else here was doing. And the knowledge was killing her inside. She wondered how long she could keep the smile on her face.

  They were feigning the truth. Neither of them able to say the words, just standing there together.

  The music started for the very last dance of the evening—a waltz. She felt his fingers brush against hers and her whole body tingled and sparked from that one tiny touch and in her heart she ached all the more for him.

  ‘We should dance.’ His voice was low, his breath warm and caressing against her bare shoulder.

  She did not trust herself to speak, just nodded and let him lead her out on to the dance floor. He pulled her indecently close and, unmindful of the crowd and the eyes that watched with such censure, they looked deep into one another’s eyes and let their bodies move together to the music, savouring this last closeness, this last public play-act of all that was real. And she clung to it, as she clung to him, wanting these last moments to last for ever. But too soon they ended.

  They stood there on that floor, their eyes locked together, even when the music had finished. Until the scandalised murmur of voices grew louder and one of the musicians cleared his throat with meaning. And they could no longer defer the end of the dance, the end of the evening, the end of Captain and Mrs North.

  He led her from the dance floor, would have led them from the room, but Devlin stepped out of the crowd to block their way.

  The viscount’s eyes glittered from having imbibed too freely in drink. His cheeks were faintly flushed. The other three tall, dark-haired gentlemen who had been Kit’s friends, looking even more foxed, flanked him.

  ‘Leaving so soon, Captain North, or should I say young Northcote?’ Devlin loomed over Kit.

  ‘You are drunk, Devlin. And, yes, we are leaving. So step aside and let us pass.’

  ‘You really have no shame, do you? Coming back here, with your Yankee wife and your west-country bastard. Would the tavern wench who spawned him or your darling wife have opened their legs so readily if they knew the truth of—?’

  Kit reacted in an instant. Before Kate realised what was happening he grabbed Devlin by the lapels of his coat and rammed him against the wall. Kit’s face was hard and focused and an inch away from the viscount’s.

  ‘You can slight me and insult me, and call me every name in the book, Devlin. You all can, for God knows I deserve it. But my wife is another matter. You will apologise to her, right here, right now, or I will—’

  ‘Leave it, Kit!’ Kate pulled at his arm. ‘It does not matter. Let us just go home.’

  But he never shifted that steely gaze from Devlin’s. ‘Oh, it matters,’ he said softly. ‘And Devlin will beg your forgiveness.’

  ‘Never,’ said Devlin. ‘What are you going to do about it, Northcote? Run away?’

  A silence was spreading over the ballroom as people began to realise what was happening and turned their eyes to the spectacle.

  Kate watched the cold dispassionate focus sharpen in Kit’s face and felt a tremor of fear ripple through her.

  He released his grip on Devlin, smoothing down the creases he had made in the front of Devlin’s tailcoat. Stepping back, he half turned, smoothing a hand through his hair, composing himself.

  Devlin was still sneering as Kit’s fist hit him hard, first on one cheek and then the other.

  ‘Were I wearing gloves I would have peeled them off and slapped you across the face, but you get the idea...’ said Kit, never breaking his focus from Devlin’s. ‘I call you out, Devlin. Name your weapon.’

  Devlin wiped the blood away that trickled from the corner of his mouth. He smiled, but it was a cold smile and his eyes were narrow and filled with a chill that matched Kit’s. ‘Let us finish what you started, boy. I choose fists.’

  There were gasps and whispers. She heard someone say in a stage whisper, ‘Devlin is a champion pugilist. Northcote does not stand a chance.’

  Devlin heard it, too, and he smiled as he glanced at the man by his side, ‘Bullford will act as my second.’

  ‘Of course I will, old man,’ Bullford mumbled.

  ‘But is there any who will act as yours, Northcote?’

  The silence was resounding.

  Kate made to step forward, but a dark-haired, pale-skinned man beat her to it. He was smartly dressed in the same austere dark tailcoat as the rest of the men there, the same white shirt and waistcoat, the same neatly tied white cravat. But on his finger was a ring in the shape of a silver wolf’s head, and from it glinted a pair of emerald eyes as green as his own.

  ‘I will be Northcote’s second.’

  Kit’s eyes slid to the man’s. ‘Hunter.’ He gave a small nod of acknowledgement to the man.

  Kit glanced at Devlin one more time, before offering Kate his arm.

  She placed her hand upon its crook.

  A path opened up through the crowd before them.

  Together they walked that gauntlet, out and along the road lined with stationary carriages until they found their own.

  Only once they were safe inside, the door closed and the wheels rumbling along the roads that would take them back to the house in Grosvenor Street did she speak.

  ‘Do not do this, Kit, please,’ she pleaded, reaching her hands to his.

  ‘You think I will just let him insult you?’

  ‘It means nothing.’

  ‘Your honour means everything.’ He would fight all of London to defend it. To the death. He hoped she understood why.

  She raised his knuckles to her lips and kissed them. ‘We could go away...’ She looked into his eyes.

  ‘Run away together?’ he said softly and, raising her left hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to the centre of her p
alm. ‘Only for you am I tempted. And only for you do I refuse.’

  She looked at him and the tears leaked from her eyes. But she made no more pleas. She understood, at last.

  He moved across the carriage to sit by her side and wrapped an arm around her.

  There was only silence and their entwined hands for the rest of the journey.

  * * *

  There was no time to talk to Kit. No time to tell him that she loved him and knew what he was doing for her, for them both. No time to share the comfort of their bodies one last time. They had only just arrived back in the house in Grosvenor Street when Hunter’s carriage drew up outside.

  The butler showed him into the drawing room where she stood by Kit’s side.

  ‘Tomorrow at dawn by the burnt oak on Hounslow Heath,’ Hunter said.

  Kit gave a nod. ‘Thank you, Hunter,’ and from the way the two men looked at one another she knew that Hunter had been there that night in Whitechapel.

  Hunter inclined his head in acknowledgement and then slid a narrow green gaze at her.

  ‘You may speak freely in front of my wife. We have no secrets.’

  There was a small silence before Hunter gave a nod. ‘You know that Devlin is an ardent supporter of John Jackson’s Academy of Pugilism in Bond Street. He is barely out of the place these days.’

  ‘So I hear,’ said Kit with a smile.

  ‘He is angry with you, but he also blames himself for what happened that night. We all do, but Devlin more so.’

  ‘The blame was all mine,’ said Kit.

  ‘Largely, but not all.’

  ‘All,’ said Kit firmly.

  Hunter smiled.

  ‘Will you take a drink?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She saw Hunter raise an eyebrow when Kit poured his guest a brandy but himself a lemonade, but he said nothing.

  ‘Kate?’ Kit looked at her and she felt her heart warm that he did not just dismiss her but would have included her in this.

  She shook her head with a smile, knowing that the two men had the past to talk over and understand and resolve, and that it would be done a deal easier without her presence. ‘I will leave you two gentlemen to your discussions.’