Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  He led her back across the lawns and stone terraces into the rear of the manor. Although he gave every outward appearance of merely guiding his wife inside, his grip on Kitty’s arm was painfully tight. Despite her best efforts to remain calm, she felt the same old panic rise in her throat, knowing what was to follow. Freddie calmed his expression and seemed composed but for the wild gleam in his eye, as he stopped to have a word with their Boston majordomo who had accompanied them to Newport for the summer.

  The path to their rooms on the second floor was long and their pace sedate, giving Kitty time to build up a fair amount of dread before they reached their suite of rooms, but no sooner had the door shut behind them than there was a firm knock on the door.

  “What is it!” Hayes hissed at the closed door, as if the person who had dared to knock on it could feel his irritated glare.

  Their elderly majordomo, a wizened Chinaman by the name of Sung Li, stepped calmly into the room. “This telegram just arrived for you, sir.”

  “It can wait, Sung Li. I told you on our way in I wanted no interruptions!” Hayes waved his hand with barely suppressed anger.

  The servant was not intimidated in the least. Without sparing a telling glance for the room’s other occupant, he calmly added, “The messenger arrived just after we spoke and I was asked to relay that this is extremely urgent, sir.”

  “Fine! Give it to me and leave!”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Hayes snatched the missive from his servant’s outstretched hand and waited with barely concealed impatience as the old man left the room. He never had liked having his punishments delayed; Kitty knew, and wondered with a shiver of dread if it might go worse for her for the interruption. Opening the envelope, he scanned the telegram briefly then, as if stunned, he gripped it with both hands and reread it more carefully.

  “I cannot believe this,” Hayes paced the floor in a furious temper as he again scanned the telegram in his hand. “Damned nuisance!”

  Kitty stood behind a high backed armchair, grateful to be forgotten for the moment but dreadfully curious what news the unexpected missive contained, for clearly his entire focus was now on the communication.

  Hayes flung open the door and barked down the hall for the retreating servant, “Sung Li!”

  The Chinaman slowly reentered the room. “Yes, sir?” His stoic calm and cultured tones were a sharp contrast to the master’s current harried state. Had he known that his usual façade of cool perfection had slipped, Hayes’ fury would only have been magnified, so Kitty wisely kept her silence.

  “Sung Li, have Damson pack my bags for an extended journey,” her husband commanded sharply, referring to his longtime valet. “I have to get to the telegraph office immediately. Have him meet me at the train station.”

  “Very good, sir,” Sung Li intoned with a slight bow, and removed himself from the room with a professional air. His own raging curiosity was well hidden as he went about his duty.

  Hayes paced the room for a moment, muttering to himself and running his hand through his usually neatly kept hair. As he turned for the second time, his gaze fell on his wife whom he had forgotten about momentarily. “Well, Katherine,” he sneered, “it seems that our discussion will have to be postponed until another time.”

  Kitty just nodded and lowered her head to hide the curl of her lip that was her only outward sign of hatred.

  Hayes marched to the door, each forceful step an indication of his anger. Anger present before the telegram’s arrival but compounded because of it. At the door, he turned. “And, Katherine…”

  She looked up at him through her lashes. “Yes, Frederick?”

  Hayes looked at her with an odd mixture of contempt and love. His wife, whom he adored so much, for whom he would do anything in the world…who had the ability to drive him to the heights of heaven and to the deepest levels of hell with the jealousy she could ignite in him. He wanted all of her, and the desperate hatred he felt for her when he didn’t feel that his love was appreciated and returned only served to accelerate his anger. He had no control where she was concerned. None. That angered him all the more.

  Urgently aware that he needed to be on his way, he could only say, “I will not forget where we left off.”

  With no further farewell, he left the room. A few moments later, the slamming of the front door echoed through the manor.

  “I will not forget where we left off,” Kitty mimicked as she walked to the window of Freddie’s chamber facing the front drive. He made it sound like a lover’s promise! As if he had been called away from some romantic interlude. Well, that had certainly never happened, in the past five years at least! Pushing the curtains aside, she watched her husband climb into the waiting carriage Sung Li had seen to without instruction, as it sprang forward as a testament to his intriguing haste.

  Her curiosity returned. Whatever could have happened to make her husband rush out for an ‘extended’ trip without notice? Without packing himself first? He was very particular about such things, liking everything to be done just so. Yet he was off, though they had only just arrived from Boston a few days before.

  What, exactly, did ‘extended’ imply? How long would he be gone? Lacking trust in her to ‘behave’ herself – or, more justifiably, faith that she would be there when he got back – it had been years since her husband had left her alone for more than a few hours.

  Kitty clutched the draperies with both hands as the realization struck her. He had left her alone. And Damson, who usually watched over her in his absence, was apparently going with him.

  She was alone.

  For a long moment she stood still, stunned by the possibility her husband would be gone for a prolonged period of time. That in his haste to depart, he hadn’t come to the same realization. The elation flowed then ebbed quickly. Perhaps this was only a test. He might only be challenging her at this point, trying to see what she would do.

  Wait, she tempered herself. Don’t do anything rash. Wait and see what happens.

  For nearly an hour, Kitty paced between her chamber and their shared sitting room with barely reined agitation. Emotions ranging from hope to dread washed over her as time crept by. Finally, a rush of footsteps signaled footman carrying down several trunks, sending Kitty back to the window in Freddie’s chamber.

  Up went the apparently heavily packed trunks, to the top of their travel carriage. When they were secured, Mr. Damson appeared dressed to travel. He yelled at the footmen, waving his arms urgently, before he jumped in as well. The driver set off, not sparing the whip.

  Kitty watched as it pulled away and was about to drop the drapery closed when she saw a piece of paper in the shrubbery at the foot of the front steps. Catching her breath, she rushed through the mansion, making her way outside. She scooped up the scrap and raced back into the house, clutching the piece of paper to her chest. Once back in her rooms, she spread it as flat as possible, and rejoiced. It was the telegram! Frederick must not have pushed it deeply enough into his coat pocket.

  Thrilled, Kitty tried to decipher the words, which had run together in the mud. It was from her husband’s secretary, she could tell. “Must come at once…” she whispered as she picked out the words. “California … railroad line … destroyed … investment capital … cargo … confiscated …”

  She stared in amazement. It was real. Frederick was gone. To California! For five years, she had lived for this moment. Without doubt, this would be the only opportunity of this kind she would ever be blessed with.

  She wasn’t about to let it be wasted.

  Ringing for Sung Li, she waited patiently for him to come to her private sitting room. He knocked discreetly and entered at her response. “You rang, missy?”

  “Yes, Sung Li,” Kitty whispered, clutching the telegram, aware that her voice was edged with desperation but unable to contain herself. “It seems my husband has been called away to the western coast on business.”

  For the first time Kitty could remember, t
he old butler smiled. “Very good, missy.”

  “Yes,” she replied more firmly. “It is very good. Sung Li, I hope I can…I trust I can count on your discretion?”

  “Missy,” he said with the warmth of a grandfather, “I will help you in any way I can.”

  “Thank you, Sung Li,” She reached out and grasped his wrinkled hand in her own pale ones.

  Sung Li contained his surprise very well, but was pleased nonetheless. He had developed a genuine fondness for his mistress since her marriage to Hayes. He had been her supporter and aided her to conceal the problems and difficulties of her marriage from everyone, including the household staff. All the while, he had never known of her mutual affection for him, a servant, though it gratified him immensely. Of course, he understood her reticence. The master never would have stood for it. Now that there was no need to conceal truths, he spoke honestly. “You mustn’t do anything rash, missy. Careful planning is called for.”

  “I have your support in this then?”

  “Missy, I am at your command.”

  Chapter 4

  It was too late for happiness –

  but not too late to be helped

  by the thought of what I had missed.

  That is all I have lived on –

  don’t take it from me now!

  - Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

  It was not the marriage Kitty had imagined for herself.

  Like her sister, Kitty had never expected to be able to choose her own husband; the responsibility of their inheritance was too great and its attraction to fortune hunters required that suitors be carefully screened. In the end, after a short London Season that failed to produce any desirable suitors, her father had accepted the proposal of Frederick Hayes, of the banking Hayes of Boston. She had spent many summers growing up with him in Newport, Rhode Island, where their families both summered. He had been a sincere suitor of her early adolescence. When she had returned from school in England at eighteen, he had courted her in earnest. He had waited through the Season for her, always declaring his passionate and undying love through an endless stream of letters, though in the end their engagement had been negotiated by their parents.

  She never would have imagined when she became Freddie’s wife that her life would become the one she was now living. She, who had been the darling of the Old New York Society. Her father, Lelan Preston, may have only been the second son of an Irish viscount, but her mother was Margaret Winters, a cousin to the Astors. That family connection had launched her to the pinnacle of Society. The Prestons were listed among Mrs. Caroline Astor’s ‘Four Hundred’! Her father was also one of the richest men in New York. He had apprenticed at the Commodore’s right hand and established his shipping and railroad interests from there.

  By the time that Kitty made her debut, he was worth over a hundred million dollars, a fortune on par with that of the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies and the Rockefellers.

  While her sister, Eve, had always been a little on the wild side, Kitty was the perfect debutante, definitely the sister who was better at walking the right side of the line between propriety and social ruin. Where Evelyn abhorred the ritual, rules and customs, Kitty adored the world where proper Form and Taste were adhered to above all. Lelan Preston often teased his ‘little kitten’ that he and Evelyn needed Kitty and Margaret Preston to maintain their social position because they did it better than anyone he knew.

  It was a world in which Kitty excelled under the tutelage of her mother, in whose footsteps she followed as a premiere hostess of their set.

  It was exactly these qualities that had first infatuated Frederick Hayes. And he had remained infatuated with her.

  Infatuated through their engagement of nearly two years.

  Infatuated through their honeymoon.

  Infatuated right up until they had hosted their first dinner party.

  It had gone splendidly in Kitty’s mind. After all, her mother had raised her to be a superb host. She had been a charming and witty conversationalist to her end of the table while overseeing the meal and servants with ease.

  When the door had closed behind the final guest, she had hugged herself in triumph and beamed at Freddie, only to find him frowning at her.

  “You flirted outrageously with my cousin Arthur,” he accused, his tone coldly furious.

  The smile had fled her face and she turned away to retire to her rooms. “You’re drunk, Freddie.”

  “You are never to flirt with another man, ever again!” he had hissed along the way, following her into her rooms.

  “Are you joking?”

  “No, I am not! You are my wife! Mine! You will follow my wishes in all things.”

  “Not likely,” Kitty answered, waving off his drunken possessiveness with a laugh. Freddie was always childishly domineering, always a bit jealous of any man who dared flirt with her. He’d always gotten a bit angry with her when he perceived that flirtation had been returned by her. She’d thought little of it at the time. He had long been immaturely temperamental. It had never occurred to her that that moment would be a turning point for them.

  She never saw the open hand that flew, but had stared at him, holding her cheek more from astonishment than pain. “What the hell was that?”

  He hit her again, this time with the back of his hand, bringing stars to her eyes, but Kitty wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing and she took a swing back at him, shouting, “Who on earth do you think you are?”

  “I am your husband, your master. You will reserve your attentions for me!” he had yelled, and tried to swing again, but she had dodged it and swung her own fist at him, connecting solidly with his jaw. Although he had staggered back from the blow, her defense had only served to enrage him more. His open hand became a closed fist. He hit her several more times and Kitty fought back for all she was worth, until his rage had turned to lust and he had thrown her on the floor, taking her with a violence that had sickened Kitty. She had never, in all the years since, forgiven him for that.

  The next morning, Frederick had been remorseful and begged her forgiveness tearfully saying that he had been drinking and jealous of her attentions to the cousin he had envied his entire life. He had sworn it would never happen again. He was a jealous man, he told her, and she knew that, but if she gave him no reason to doubt her, this would never happen again.

  Of course, it did.

  Once the trend of drinking and violence had begun, there was no stopping it. His personal anger with his own business failures had rolled over into anger and jealousy with her and soon he didn’t even need liquor to trigger it. Kitty fought him back every time until the realization came that it was her resistance that sparked his lust. That her beloved daughter, Hannah, had been born of such shameful acts would haunt her for the rest of her life, but she loved her daughter beyond anything she had ever dreamed possible. Naturally, Freddie had seen a daughter as another failure, sparking even more violence, but Kitty was done fighting. Not only was she beaten physically, but she also felt as if she were truly beaten in her soul.

  Regardless of how many times he would apologize, declare his undying love and promise to reform, he never did. Kitty ignored him when possible, stoically withstood his abuse when necessary and defended and protected her daughter with the ferocity of a lioness.

  Not long ago, little Hannah had tripped and fallen against Freddie’s leg, grabbing at his trouser leg with dirty hands to steady herself. When he had tried to take a swing at her, Kitty had stepped between them to stop him. His retribution had been violently painful. After the fight was over, he had apologized yet again and offered to let them go on to Newport earlier than planned so she might have time to forgive him. Business was bad. That was his excuse. His imports expected from Asia had not yet arrived and he was on edge waiting for word of them. Apparently, his railroad interests were suffering as well.

  Kitty tried to leave him twice in the first three years, once after the second incident – having foolishly believe
d that it wouldn’t happen again – and the second when she discovered she was pregnant with her daughter. She had made it to her parents the second time, but had not had the courage to tell them what was happening before Frederick had shown up, and he had never left her alone again for more than a day unless Damson had been present. But now! Now Frederick was gone, on an extended trip, leaving her truly alone for the first time in years.

  She had to plan carefully. She could not go to her parents or friends in the area. He would certainly find her quickly as he had before. She needed to go somewhere he could not find her and Kitty knew the perfect place. Her sister, Evelyn, had recently remarried and was living in Scotland. She did not think that Hayes was yet aware of her new name or address. That would give her a start, plus Eve and her new husband had many residences in England and Scotland and Kitty was sure they could find one remote enough for her to hide out in until she decided what to do.

  In a moment of wishful whimsy, Kitty pondered how the ship on which Eve’s first husband had traveled had gone down with few survivors, leaving Eve a widow. Accidents happened all the time.

  Somehow, she didn’t think she would be as lucky as that.

  No, marriage had not been everything she had hoped for or imagined. Kitty hoped now Fate would take her side and allow her to leave it behind successfully.

  A light tapping drew Kitty from her thoughts. “Come,” she called, and Sung Li entered stealthily.

  “Missy, I have arranged for a hired carriage to come Sunday morning. Most of the servants will have the day off, so few will see us leave.”

  “Us?”

  “Yes, us, missy.” Her servant bowed. “For too many years I have watched your life and wondered what I can do, but nothing could change. Now, we have an opportunity to make change, and I will come with you.”

  A slow, grateful smile spread across Kitty’s lips. “Thank you, Sung Li. Thank you.”