Mrs. Brentley cleaned up the plates from their small dinner and left shortly afterwards, warning them to get some sleep. They would have to be up late tomorrow night for their first ball.
While Robin sifted through her clothes to ready herself for bed Katherine went to the corner and threw on the dark velvet cloak. Her mind was firmly made up. She needed some time away from her sister to sort things out in her mind. “Don't tell Mrs. Brentley I'm gone,” Katherine cautioned as she tucked her hair into the large hood. Somehow she knew that their new sponsor would not take well to one of her charges wandering the streets by herself so late at night in a strange town, but staying cooped up in the small bedroom would drive her mad.
“I should go with you,” Robin offered.
“No, I won't be out for very long,” Katherine insisted. “Just stay here and make sure that Mrs. Brentley doesn't know I'm gone. I'll be back soon.” Looking out at the setting sun Katherine hurried out the door.
Katherine had wanted to get out of the small cramped room and away from her sister and Mrs. Brentley. She had wanted to do something on her own without the thoughts of others cluttering her mind. But she had not taken into account that their quaint little inn was not located in her quiet home town where she knew everyone and everyone knew her. Even the streets were different from the ones that she was used to and she quickly found out, so were the people.
There were strange sounds that she couldn't identitfy that echoed down darkened pathways. The smoke from a nearby factory clouded the air so that the riseing moon and glittering stars were out of sight.
When the sun had been setting slowly with splashes of bright color, the streets had been littered with a few couples, even one or two other women out on walks without a companion. But after the darkness set in, Katherine realized that she had ended up in an area that could not afford the services of nightly lamp lighters. Without the gas lamps the streets darkened, with only the light from a few windows illuminating her way as she walked quietly along the street. Shadows crossed her path and the few people she did pass did not appear to be the kind of gentlemen who would ask to help escort her home unscathed.
One group of men had appeared to be drunk as they tottered back and forth nearly bumping into her silent and still form as they passed by. None of the men seemed to really notice her as she crept along the shadowed walls of the houses she passed. Her dark velvet cape caught none of the light as she moved by slowly, making it harder for her to be seen.
Another set of drunken men stumbled toward her direction singing loudly. Noticing a small alleyway Katherine ducked into it to avoid the men. She held her breath, pushing herself tightly against the wall as she waited for them to pass by. Then deep in the alley Katherine heard a noise and turned her head to watch and assess the new potential threat. One of the alleyway doors swung open to reveal a tall man stepping out into the night.
A small amount of light from the doorway flashed momentarily on the figure who was dressed in a top hat and long overcoat, before the door swung shut once more plunging her and the man back into darkness. He turned, walking towards her and the only exit from the alley. Before she could decide whether or not to step out and make her presence known his eyes caught sight of her cloak as it swirled in the breeze.
“Amelia?” he called out to her. His pace quickened until he was running at her like she was a shadow that might slip away into the night. “Amelia!” he screamed as he got closer. “Amelia!”
Her instincts told her to run but as she moved to comply, she found that her cape had been snagged on a metal pipe coming up from the ground. Pulling at the thick fabric she fought to free herself.
Instead of slowing down, the man let the full momentum of his running halt with the pressure of their collision. The force of his body against hers slammed her into the brick wall hitting her head and making her dizzy as he spun her around to face him. The hood of her cape had fallen low over her face until she was unable to see anything, making her even more disoriented. “Stop coming to see me Amelia,” he whispered fiercely in her ear and as Katherine smelled his breath she could almost taste the thick whiskey flavor. It frightened her to realize how drunk he was and that he might not discover his mistake right away due to his confused state.
I'm not Amelia, she tried to say, but still couldn't catch enough breath to speak it. If he could see my face he'd know that I'm not her. He'd let me go, she thought as she struggled to speak. With what little strength she had, she pushed against him, trying to catch her breath while in his viselike grip. His hands had only become more possessive as they sought to mold her body against his in a way that shocked her and excited some dark place within her. He was gentle with his movements while still pinning her against him. He cradled the small of her back with his hand until she felt her abdomen press against his and her body warmed at some secret knowledge that she did not yet possess. The other hand came to her hood, slowly pulling it back and then touching the soft hair that spilled out from its confinement and down along her shoulders.
“I can't keep seeing you like this,” he whispered into her hair as he ran his fingers through it, lightly pulling it back so that the weight of her head rested in his palm. His lips ventured lower to rest on Katherine's temple.
She knew then that he was going to kiss her. Still trying to breathe, Katherine was considering her options when his soft lips landed on her own like a light butterfly landing on a petal and she stilled at the touch. The pressure lasted only a moment before her lips were released. His mouth hovered lightly over her own, shifting back and forth across the tender surface making her lips tingle and then open with a small shaky moan. This was not like the kisses that she had seen others share. It was delicate, beautiful in many ways. His tongue dipped within and he stilled for a moment, before brushing back the hair from her cheek and releasing her from his demanding grasp.
The air returned to her lungs as if the magic of his kiss could cure anything. She could feel herself breathing again in short erratic bursts.
Just push him back and run, Katherine thought to herself and she tried to follow her own good advice. But the stolen kiss lingered on her lips, soft and sweet somehow rooting her to that one spot.
Then a wicked thought occurred to her. It was as if the wind had whispered it into her ear for surely she would never have come up with something so shocking on her own. He'll never know his mistake, she told herself as she felt the wild desire to kiss him back. If I kissed him back, he would never be able to find me. Without fully deciding what she should do, Katherine rose to the tips of her toes and pressed her lips against his with an instinct that she had never felt before.
It had taken only one taste before Garrett knew that he had not discovered Amelia's ghost haunting him in his dreams, as she had so many nights before. In those dreams he had seen her, even felt her as his body and mind seemed to remember each and every inch of her. But the girl in his arms had felt different and with one taste he had known that she was no dream.
The girl tasted like honeyed tea and lavender from her perfume. She didn't disappear in his arms like Amelia had in his dreams. She was real, solid, and warm.
Garrett had barely tasted her lips and the honey taste that hung within before stopping completely. He was not the type of man to take advantage of some woman on a darkened street no matter how tempting she was. He pushed back her hair to see her small china doll face that he had cupped in his hands but in the darkness he could barely make out the color of hair that twisted between his fingers, tresses that seemed to pull him in closer to her. Garrett had already begun to set her back away from him when her soft lips returned boldly to touch his own.
The brush of her mouth was innocent and untrained. She held her lips against his as if she didn't know what to do, and he realized it was likely her first kiss. Tilting her head with his hands Garrett realigned their lips for a better position, feeling her body sigh when the tip of his tongue reentered her mouth and slid along her shaking lips as he
sought a stronger taste of her.
Her arms lightly reached around his back, grasping his broad shoulders for support as she went up on her tip toes trying to press their lips and bodies closer still. It drove him mad and beyond reason as he fought to be slow and not frighten the girl. Dipping into the corners of her mouth he found where the honey-tea flavor was strongest and swirled his tongue against hers until he felt another moan and a light shudder escape her body. The urge to continue with the sweet kiss fought with his need to know who he held in his arms.
Garrett ended the intense kiss with a softer one on her flushed cheek before setting her back on her feet and separating their bodies by mere inches, that already made her feel too far away for his liking. His hand settled on her arm as if he could not bear to separate from her completely. “Who are you?” he whispered as he searched through the darkness to see her face. The sound caused her whole body to become rigid with shock and she pushed hard against him to throw him off guard.
With one last glance back at him she jerked at her cloak, tearing the fabric loose from something that had caught it. Then she turned and ran for the end of the alley, disappearing around the corner and into the night's shadow once more.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. With the pounding of each foot on the cobblestones, Katherine could hear the word repeating in her head. It was unlikely that the man had been sober enough to chase her, or that he would even want to, but Katherine glanced behind her every few steps to assure herself that he was not following her back to the inn where he could have easily found out who she was and who she was staying with. The violent pounding of her heart against her chest only lessened once she had entered the building and returned to her room within.
Robin's sleeping form lay quietly in one of the beds. She had not been able to wait up for her sister to come home, but even Robin would admit that she rarely finished things that she started.
Katherine pulled off the cloak and set it on its hook, her hands shaking as she debated whether or not to wake Robin up and share with her the recent experience.
Being twins Robin had once felt that they should share and do everything together. As children Katherine had reminded Robin that when they were married they wouldn't be together anymore. “We'll just have to marry the same man.” Had been her solution. “That way we'll always be together.” It was strange how much had changed since then.
Thinking back to her sister's little schemes from when they were children and had made too much mischief, like pouring salt into the sugar bowl, she remembered that her sister had always included her, saying that when it was the two of them they were less likely to get in too much trouble for the mayhem they caused. That was the kind of camaraderie that she needed now.
While her first instinct was to keep it to herself she remembered that trusting in her instincts had led her to kiss a strange man in the middle of an alley only moments ago. The haunting thought of his breath and the feel of his hands remained on her body, like an imprint that he had left behind and deep in her skin.
Katherine pushed her sister's shoulder until she jerked awake. Sitting beside her on the bed she began to confess. “Robin, I think I did something wrong.”
“Already?” Robin grunted as she sat up in bed and stretched her arms over her head like a lazy cat that had been warming in the sun. “I haven't been asleep for long, so you couldn't have done much.”
Katherine discovered that it had been far easier to do the kissing than it was to explain what she had done. “I kissed a man.” She cringed at how odd it sounded.
Robin bolted awake quicker than if she had been thrown in the ice cold pond behind their house. “What?” she shouted, loud enough for the entire inn to hear.
“Shh!” Katherine whispered, listening for any noises through the walls. When she turned back to her sister Robin's face was frozen with shock and disbelief. Katherine wondered if that was what she looked like to Robin each time she heard of some new scheme or bit of trouble that her sister had gotten into. She tried not to smile at how odd the reversal of their positions was. Neither of them would have guessed that Katherine would be the first of them to kiss a man.
“When I went out on my walk tonight I came across a man in one of the alleyways. He grabbed me so that I couldn't run away, and then I kissed him.” Katherine blurted it out quickly as if it might relieve some of her embarrassment. It didn't.
Robin rubbed her eyes then watched her sister's jittery movements to confirm that she wasn't lying or leading her on to some joke. “What do you mean he grabbed you and then you kissed him? Don't you mean that he kissed you and you couldn't stop him?” Robin seemed unable to imagine her sister being quite so bold as to kiss a stranger.
“Well, yes, he kissed me first but after that I kissed him back.” It was impossible to discuss such a thing with her sister who would now want all of the details, so she lied. “It all happened very quickly, I don't really know what took place.” Katherine tried not to remember each moment that had happened so slowly after she had brought her lips back up to his. Every breath each of them had taken was cataloged in her head and she could still feel the places of her body that seemed to vibrate after he had touched her. She couldn't admit to herself how much she had enjoyed that brief moment, let alone try to explain it to her sister.
Sitting there dazed Robin finally broke the silence by laughing. Hysterically in fact as she buried her head in her pillow rather than lecture Katherine. The release seemed to bubble up into her own fit of hysterics as Katherine warned between giggles, “This is not funny!” Her own pillow was equally useless at muffling her added laughter.
“I thought I was supposed to be the impulsive sister,” Robin sputtered as she clutched a stitch in her side. “If anyone finds out that you kissed a stranger while I was tucked safely into my bed, my reputation as the trouble maker will be completely ruined.”
Both girls stopped immediately as they realized the true implications beyond the event. “He was a gentleman,” Katherine admitted. With their proximity to London it was likely that he was on his way to visit the same area. In only days she could be sitting beside him at a dinner or dancing with him at one of the balls. Her hasty decision seemed even worse now. If Mrs. Brentley were to discover any of this Katherine was not sure what she would do, but sending them home seemed quite likely.
“Are you sure?” Robin asked, “Isn't it pitch black outside? Neither of you could have seen much.”
“I couldn't see anything except for his top hat and coat, but I know that he must have been a gentleman.” He had moved like one, she now recalled, gracefully but purposeful despite his lack of sobriety.
Robin stood up to pace back and forth as she bit her thumbnail. “Was he really old or somewhat young?”
“Why would I kiss an old man?” Katherine snorted back at her sister.
“Why would you kiss any man at all?” she retorted before resuming her pacing. “Now we need to know if it's likely that we'll run into him again in the next few weeks. What do you remember about him, anything at all?”
Katherine closed her eyes, trying to see any detail of the figure from the alleyway that she had missed. It was embarrassing to think that were she able to smell each gentleman first, she was sure that she could pick him out in a crowd. Could he say the same about her? “He was very tall, he had to pick me up to kiss me,” she admitted as she felt her face flush from embarrassment.
“Okay that's good, not many men are that tall or strong enough to do so without straining. What else do you remember?”
The kiss was all her mind could come back to, his whiskey breath and the feel of his hands holding her tightly, angling her head as he deepened the kiss.
“Did he say anything to you?”
Katherine's eyes popped open and she groaned. Amelia. The only reason that he had even kissed her was because he thought she was his Amelia. The thought saddened her, that her first kiss had been intended for someone else. It had started to mean something to her bu
t now that feeling was washing away. Averting her eyes from her sister she sighed. “I don't think we have to worry about him trying to see me again.”
“Why do you think that?”
“He's already married,” she said and moved off of her sister's bed to turn back the sheets on her own.
“He's married!” Robin shrieked, unable to believe her sister would do such a thing when even she had the scruples not to kiss a married man.
“Or engaged.” Katherine shrugged idly trying not to notice the sick feeling that the thought made in her stomach. “Either way, it's unlikely that he'll try to find me if he already has someone else.” She changed into her nightclothes before turning down the lamp. Even now he might be wiping her kiss away with that of his Amelia's. “I'm sure it was just a mistake on both of our parts.”
Robin was less than eager to drop a subject this exciting, now that she was awake enough to enjoy it. “What if you're wrong Katherine?” she insisted. “What if we come across him in London?”
“I doubt he could recognize me since I saw nothing of him,” Katherine said and unhappily she noticed the slight pout to her voice that sounded so much like her sister. Rolling over in her bed she pretended to fall sleep to keep Robin from asking more questions.
Chapter 3
Early the next morning, both girls were treated to fresh scones and the presence of Winnie Brentley, who burst into their room before they'd even gotten out of bed. She ignored the tradtion of being introduced by someone else, she didn't even introdue herself. She swung open the door with a loud wack and annonced, “The food here is wonderful!”
A Taste of Honey Page 3
