Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  “She’s up in the nursery.”

  Kitty was taking tea with Hannah at the little table in the nursery, teaching her even at this early age the way of ladies and how to hold a proper tea, when her eyes found Jack hesitating in the doorway.

  “Good afternoon, my lord Haddington.” She stood and gave him a curtsey, eyeing her daughter who stood as well and made a very pretty, if somewhat tilting, curtsey to Jack.

  “Good afternoon!” the little girl piped, pushing her wild tangle of blond curls out of her face with the back of one hand.

  Jack swept his most elegant bow, sending the little girl into peals of laughter. The wee lass was nicely done up in a frock of bright blue that matched her round eyes as she stared up at him. Her long, riotous locks hung to her waist and a dimpled cheek marked her as a most mischievous imp. Jack was immediately enchanted. And too, she looked so much like Kitty, with the exception of those blue eyes, that he could almost imagine her as a child herself. Could hear the ring of her laughter across the years. “Good afternoon, ladies. It appears I am interrupting.”

  “Hannah and I were just taking tea,” Kitty told him while eyeing him warily, wondering what he was doing here. She had purposefully skipped their scheduled ride that morning and surely, after the fiasco of the previous evening, a smart man would count himself lucky to be rid of a woman as disturbed as she. Still, he was looking as charming and charmed as ever. “Would you…would you care to join us, my lord?”

  Sure that he would decline, Kitty was more than surprised when Jack announced himself delighted and held out the tiny chairs for herself and Hannah, complimenting their dress and appearance in the most exaggerated gentlemanly manner, before seating himself in one of the child-sized seats. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she might have laughed herself silly watching him bend his tall frame to the table, with his knees sticking out the sides. Hannah, with no such reservations, allowed herself the amusement Kitty denied herself, and set off in another round of giggles.

  “You’re funny!” the girl declared, pointing a finger at Jack.

  “Hannah, we mustn’t point, dear, it’s rude,” Kitty chided automatically, thankful for the child’s diversion.

  “Yes, Mama,” nodded the chastised child, “but who is he, Mama?”

  “This is the Earl of Haddington, sweetheart. He’s an earl, just like Laurie and Uncle Francis. Do you remember we talked about those? He is a friend of mine.” Kitty flashed a look to Jack that he couldn’t quite comprehend but he smiled brightly at the wee lass and was favored with a dimpled grin in return. Certainly, he thought, this miss was going to spell trouble for some man in the future.

  “Thank you for allowing me to take tea with you, Mistress Hannah,” he said gravely, but added a wink that redoubled her smiles.

  “You’re quite welcome, sir!” Her sweet voice returned the social nicety with spirit. She glanced at her mother to make sure she was correct in her social graces then smiled again, reaching for the teapot. “We are very glad to have you! Would you like me to pour?”

  “No!” Kitty cried, causing both of her companions to jump. She smiled apologetically at her daughter and gave her a pat before turning to Jack. “I’m sorry, she’s just learning to pour on her own and I wouldn’t want a spill to stain your trousers.”

  Jack leveled her with a penetrating gaze that flustered her to the core, as if he could see to those depths himself but, instead of saying anything else, he turned to Hannah. “Just learning, are we, Hannah?”

  “Yes, sir,” she piped, pushing aside those unruly curls once more, making him wonder why they weren’t bound in braids as most little girls’ were.

  “Is the tea hot?” he asked, watching Kitty’s fretful expression. “I should hate it if you were to burn yourself.”

  “No, sir, it’s just warm.”

  “Very well, then, Miss Hannah, let’s see if you can impress me with your skills.” He slid his cup and saucer forward a bit and gave her an encouraging smile.

  With an uncertain look at her mother, Hannah picked up the sturdy pottery teapot and started to pour, sloshing a bit, this way and that, while Jack watched Kitty from the corner of his eye while she twitched accordingly. Her mouth opened and closed, like a landed fish gasping for air, as she started over and over to speak and would then stop herself.

  After asking over his preferences for milk, sugar or lemon, Hannah finally presented him with his tea. The saucer held more of the liquid than the cup, but Jack simply lifted the bottom dish and poured the contents back into the cup while the girl was concentrating on her next pour. He could see Kitty relax a bit now as Hannah finished her pouring, though he could see she still worried for the cups on the table. Knowing what he did now, Jack knew precisely what was bothering her, what worried her, and ground his teeth, wishing for a target to beat his frustrations upon.

  They finished their teas and had cakes with a round of polite conversation regarding the weather and such. When they were done, Jack praised the girl for her skills. “Very well done, Miss Hannah. For such a young lass, that was very well done.”

  “Thank you, sir!” She yawned and tilted her head to the side, pushing aside her hair absently once again. “Will you come again, sir?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Kitty couldn’t decide if he were being sincere or not, but merely waved to Hannah’s new nurse, Betsy, who had been hovering nearby, to take her daughter off for a nap. When she had carried her away, Kitty turned back to her visitor, offering him a jittery smile. “So what brings you here today, Jack? Because I’m fairly certain it wasn’t for tea.”

  “Shall we retire to another room?” he asked uncertainly. “I’d like a moment in private,”

  Kitty’s eyes widened in surprise but she only nodded as she lead the way down a flight of stairs and into the sitting room attached to her suite. Moving into the space, she watched as he hovered hesitantly at the door, before closing it soundly with soft thump that reverberated through her, her brows rising in surprise. It was quite beyond polite doings to be closed in a room with a man, even if he was the brother of one of her dearest friends. Trying to appear nonchalant, though curiosity burned through her, Kitty took a seat in one of the chairs paired before the cold fireplace and indicated the other for him.

  “I had wanted to speak with you, but I’m glad I had a chance to meet your daughter,” he ventured as he sat. “I must ask though, why don’t you plait her hair if it constantly falls in her face?”

  “She won’t let anyone touch it,” she explained. “It’s all Betsy and I can do to get a comb through it.”

  “Ahhh!” he hummed, then offered, “She is very well spoken for such a wee lass. Very polite.”

  “Yes, she is.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably at the reminder of the tea. “Thank you for being so patient with her. I fear you have quite charmed her. But I would have been horrified if she had spilt anything on you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, what?”

  “If I sit voluntarily at a table such as that, I consider any damages that might befall my person merely part of the experience,” he explained simply, but could still see the disbelieving amazement on her face. “I do have three younger sisters, you know? Even if I had not gone through this with them, Patrice and Catherine both have young daughters and I will do the same with Abby’s lasses one day.”

  “You play with your nieces?” Kitty gasped, as if it was a fantastical notion. She had thought it unusual the previous day when he had admitted to taking his nephew Tristram to the gardens, but this!

  “I take it your husband did not?”

  “No, Freddie quite dismissed his daughter from his mind when he discovered he did not have a son,” she confessed tersely.

  “More the fool, he.” Jack ground his teeth against the longing to thrash the bastard within an inch of his life. Did the man have no concept of the treasures within his home? If there was one thing that Abby and his other sisters had taught him, it was t
hat a happy home life was a thing to be treasured and envied. To be sure, he never expected, nay even necessarily wanted, that for himself but any fool should be able to understand how wonderful children could be, little girls in particular. If he were to have a daughter such as Hannah…Jack broke off the thought, clearing his throat and returning to the subject that had brought him here.

  “If Hannah were to have spilt on him, what would he have done?” He tossed out the question quietly but watched her face carefully noting the dismay that she couldn’t hide.

  “Nothing,” she shrugged.

  It was a lie. It had to be. Her behavior, the nervousness that her daughter on him might spill, spoke eloquently in his mind. She feared his reaction if an accident were to occur. She feared that he might harm her child as much as she feared a blow when he reached toward her face. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.” She squared her shoulders. “Because I wouldn’t let him.”

  “You would take his abuse upon yourself to spare your child his ire?” he clarified.

  Kitty drew in a shaky breath and swallowed it back. He wouldn’t let it go. She could read it in his eyes. He was determined to find the truth he was apparently already aware of. Why would it matter to him, she wondered. Why would he care?

  “Kitty?” he prompted mercilessly. “Your husband beat you, didn’t he?”

  “What does it matter?” she lashed out, hoping that it might make him back off.

  “It matters to me,” he said simply, his golden eyes holding hers with the truth that he refused to back down as she expected him to. “Tell me.”

  “It wouldn’t change anything, Jack.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fine! Yes, he beat me!” she hissed, angry now that he was forcing her to reveal her humiliations to him. She didn’t want his pity, damn it! Didn’t want it to replace the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, though Eve would probably insist he was incapable of it. “He beat me out of jealousy if I dared to flirt with another man, to even talk to another man! He would get drunk and hit me, lose money in the markets and hit me, have a bad day and hit me! Soon it didn’t matter anymore; he would just do it because he could! He would…” she sucked in her breath to halt the words that threatened to follow, clapping a hand over her mouth.

  “Tell me,” he insisted harshly, taking her hand in his across the small space. His thumb rotated over the back of it as he urged her again out of her silence. “Say it.”

  “He would force himself upon me afterward as if in a blood lust, as if the abuse aroused him so,” she whispered, shaken that the words had escaped her mouth. She hadn’t even told Eve that. Couldn’t. It was just too demeaning.

  “He would strike Hannah,” he changed the topic to allow her a moment to recover.

  “I wouldn’t let him,” she insisted, as tears began to fall from her eyes. “I would never let him touch her.”

  “Kitty, love, come here,” he said softly, encouraging her to sit on his lap. She hesitated a moment before standing and easing herself stiffly onto his knee. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her head to his shoulder as she cried. Soon her arms were wrapped around his neck as he rocked her from side to side while he stroked her back soothingly. It seemed there was some benefit for a man to have had sisters. He knew, if nothing else, how to comfort a woman in distress. “My God, I would gladly trash him within an inch of his life for hurting you, and I will, if he ever tries it again. Why did you never have him arrested? Call the police?” he asked eventually as her sobs decreased. He handed her a crisp, squared handkerchief so she might dry her eyes.

  “‘Husband and wife are one and that one is he’,” she whispered, then stifled a watery chuckle when he stared her blankly. “Sir William Blackstone said that. It basically sums up marriage laws in a nutshell.”

  “You and your quotes,” he grunted. “Why hadn’t you left him before then?”

  “Oh, I tried,” she shrugged fatalistically, “and failed. There wasn’t much I could do. He had the law on his side.” She went on as if the freedom to unburden herself was too difficult to resist, though she shook her head scornfully, “He always said he was sorry. Always said he loved me. Always said it would never happen again…I don’t know why I told you all that.”

  “Kitty,” he began with a gentle caress of her cheek, but she cut him off, pushing his hand away.

  Feeling the fool, she rolled from his embrace and stood a few paces apart, her arms crossed over her chest. What an idiot she was for sharing so much with him! He might have guessed, she might have confirmed, but the very fact that she provided such intimate detail was a mystery to her. Humiliation flooded her so she could barely stand looking at him or having him look upon her. She didn’t want pity from him and surely that was all she would receive from him now. Without doubt he was as uncomfortable as she now, and longing for reason to flee the insanity of her life. “If you don’t mind, Jack, I think I’d like to take a nap myself before the opera tonight.”

  “Of course,” his voice was curt now, in the face of her dismissal, as if their moment of comfort had never been. “May I escort you this evening?”

  “Richard has already offered.” Naturally, as a gentleman, he would feel the need to offer and she suspected he would be relieved to be freed from the obligation.

  “Of course.”

  Haddington focused on Kitty, mentally urging her to meet his gaze, but she focused about the room or just over his shoulder, refusing to do so. He knew then it had been a mistake to push her into such a confession. The difficulties she had faced had only been pushed back to the surface, her distrust of men once again sharp in her mind. She would be angry with him now for making her say too much. However, she had to know that her marriage was not the norm. Surely, she could see from the marriages around her that hers was an aberration. If she couldn’t, he wondered what he could possibly say to her to earn her forgiveness.

  “I would never hurt you, Kitty,” he only offered roughly.

  “He said that too, Jack,” she whispered regretfully.

  Chapter 17

  Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

  - H.G. Wells

  The Royal Theater

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Used to the grandeur of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Kitty was a bit disappointed by the aged lobby of the Royal Theater, as Richard escorted them through the crowds lingering there on their way to the Earl of Glenrothes’ private box. It was an older facility, of course, with a much smaller occupancy, so truly she should not have expected more. As long as the quality of the performance wasn’t as shabby, that was all that mattered and she was quite excited to have the opera get underway.

  When she said the previous evening that it had been ages since she had seen the opera, it hadn’t been at all an exaggeration. Freddie hated the opera, not the music so much as the flirting and socializing typical of the intermissions, when men would move from box to box, paying their compliments to all the ladies assembled. Her inability to be outwardly rude and send those flirtatious offenders off on their ears had earned her no little conflict with Freddie and cost her any further trips to the theater. She had experienced them only vicariously through Eve’s detailed letters and her imagination.

  She was eager to see a good show but, looking about, Kitty couldn’t help but wonder where Jack was. Surely, he was still planning on attending with their party even if he wasn’t their official escort for the evening. She regretted her brusque dismissal of him the moment he had left and after a long nap and refreshing bath was hoping for the chance to apologize and thank him for his kindness. That he had read her so easily, had known of her humiliation just days after meeting, was upsetting. Though he had prodded her for a confession, the choice to reveal all had been her own. She knew she shouldn’t be angry at him for her own weakness when it seemed all he wanted was to comfort her and, it seemed, offer himself as her white knight. So long as it wasn’t pity he offered! She simply couldn’t stand such a
thing!

  Certainly, he would never have the chance to put his words into action, but the thought was nice just the same. An apology on her part was certainly in order. But what if he didn’t come tonight so she might do so?

  “Lady Glenrothes! Lady MacKintosh!” a voice called out, bringing their group to a halt as they were waved at imperiously by an elderly lady holding court near the sweeping staircase.

  Exchanging a startled look with Abby, Kitty froze. In all her imaginings of pretending to be Eve, it had never occurred to her she would have to talk to anyone pretending to be her sister, as they had when they were children. From the look on Abby’s face, it hadn’t occurred to her either. Pasting pleased smiles on their faces, they made their way across the lobby, smiling and nodding along the way.

  “Who is she?” Kitty hissed to Abby through her smile.

  “The Duchess of Roxburghe,” Abby whispered back out of the corner of her mouth. “She the reigning hostess in town and Francis is quite a favorite of hers. Damn, I hope she doesn’t catch on, but she is a wily old…your grace!” Abby beamed, and swept a deep curtsey, prompting Kitty and Moira to do the same while Richard made his bow.

  The duchess turned to Kitty. “Ahh, Lady Glenrothes! I haven’t seen you out and about much since your…surprising marriage to the earl. Where is he tonight?” she asked, scanning the room beyond them.

  Kitty took a deep breath. “My husband isn’t feeling quite the thing tonight and elected to remain at home,” she lied, surprised how easily it came to her lips. “He just returned from Glen Cairn while it was raining and feels he might have caught a bit of ague…your grace,” she added, when Moira poked her in the ribs.

  “How terrible!” The duchess squinted at her through her monocle with a frown, but continued on pleasantly. “Are you looking forward to the performance, my lady?”

  “Actually, your grace,” she smiled, pleased with herself for remembering to add the title (these nobles and all their airs!), “I saw The Nautch Girl at the Savoy last year, but Moira so badly wanted to come I just had to attend.”