She had been unfair to Jack, lashing out at him as she had but, in that moment, it seemed as if she were stretched to the breaking point and Jack had cut the string tethering her to sanity. He tried to control her, make her comply with his wishes, and it had been enough to make her snap. Kitty knew she should apologize for tearing into him so, should explain to him that the rage and sorrow and guilt had been too much for her.
But that wouldn’t solve the whole problem. It still annoyed her to no end that he would take the same chauvinistic attitude so many men tended to take. That they know better. That what they decide or want is always the best choice.
As if women had no intelligence whatsoever!
She’d had enough of that attitude in her life and there was no way she would ever sit calmly by again and let a man assume he could take away her choices just because of his gender. It would not happen! And until Jack realized that…and verbally acknowledged it…she wasn’t going to forgive him!
But she missed him! In a just a few days of his absence, she missed his company, his wit and conversation. She wanted him back.
She wanted him back in her bed!
As if conjured by her thoughts, the crunch of shoes against the oyster shells of the path heralded Jack’s arrival. Catching him out of the corner of her eye, she pretended to ignore him as he sat on the opposite end of the bench and stared out at the water. The sounds of the waves and the gulls filled the silence as it stretched between them.
After a long silence, he took a deep breath and spoke. “I understand you were upset and I suppose I might even understand why. I know you want an apology and certain people seem to think I should just give it to you.”
“So, you apologize?” Kitty’s heart leapt that Jack would finally give her what she wanted so that they might move on. His apology. Her forgiveness, and all would be well.
“No, Kitty, I am not going to give you one.”
“What?” She finally turned to stare at him, flabbergasted, sure he was only joking but he shook his head in all seriousness. Did he not realize he had been so wrong? Did he simply assume she was? Soon one of them would have to bend before they broke completely. Their eyes met as he stared her down. With a shiver, Kitty looked away. She knew whom he expected to bend. Knew he expected it to be her.
He went on, as if unaware of the blow he had just dealt her. “I will not apologize for wanting to protect you or comfort you when you’re in need and, regardless of what anyone else has to say on the matter, you’re just going to have to accept that occasionally you’re wrong about things. Take the other night, for example. You had just found out your husband had murdered your father and, whether you realized it or not, you needed arms to hold you. I understand you were angry but that anger wasn’t for me or what I did that day. That anger was for Hayes and all that he had put you through, but you’re just too bloody stubborn to see that. So I had to do it, just as I would hold you back from jumping off a cliff if you were determined to do it. I will do what I must to protect you and see you safe.”
“Even if I don’t want you to?” she countered.
“I think you might not always want to rely on another person to see you safe and happy, but, bugger it, Kitty, sometimes you need it, whether you like it or not,” he insisted steadfastly. “Everyone needs it.”
“Even you?”
“Aye, even me, from time to time.” He gave a cavalier shrug of acceptance. “I have good mates who will hold me back from a fight if they think I’m being irrational and mates who will second me in a worthy cause. Mates who will help, and have helped, me drown my sorrows when my fortunes turn. You think I don’t understand the importance of friendship, lass? That is what friends are for.”
She understood what he was saying. Hadn’t she already admitted to herself that her anger had been rash and irrational, but, more accurately, aimed at Freddie and all he had done? That that guilt and anger had been unleashed on Jack simply because he was handy? Jack’s part of it was much more insignificant and, though he was merely illustrating her conclusion, his offhand words stung. “And that’s what we are then? Friends?”
“Aye, I had thought we were incredible friends. You have given me back my life, Kitty,” he confessed. “All I have done, all I have tried to do, for you is be the very best friend I know how to be. Not having that bond with you these past several days has made taking your money a bitter pill to swallow, so much I want to just give the whole thing back to you and have done with it.”
“Oh, no, Jack…” Her annoyance with him fled with his words. This wasn’t what Kitty wanted at all! Her offer to give him the money had been a gesture of friendship and she did not want his guilt or second thoughts to deprive him of the future he deserved. He had to keep the money and she would see that he did! It was for his own good…after all. Kitty’s inner turmoil suddenly ceased in the face of this epiphany. Sometimes when you cared for someone, you did what you must when you were sure it was best for them.
She was doing it for him.
He was doing it for her.
It humbled her and washed away her remaining indignation to realize he had been right. It wasn’t as if he were trying to control her life by forcing his comfort and caring on her as she had thought in her anger and grief. Just as she forced him to take her monies, he was doing what he felt right. Whether they liked it or not, she thought. But surely he cared even more than simple friendship?
“Obviously I’m in no position at this point to do so, but I’ve already ordered my solicitor to send back what remains,” Jack continued, unaware his words had prompted such a significant reaction in her. “The worst of it is covered and I’ve invested in an enterprise with that Morgan fellow I met at your father’s funeral. We’re working on a deal between Edison and his electric company to merge with another up in Massachusetts that should prove most profitable. Morgan is projecting fast enough returns that I expect to have the balance paid back to you within the year or perhaps next.”
Scooting closer to him, Kitty swallowed deeply and laid a hand on his sleeve, “Jack, this isn’t what I wanted.”
The earl shook his head but covered her hand with his own. “No, lass, it’s what I want. My pride, I find, is stronger than my needs. I won’t stay indebted to you any longer than I have to.”
“This isn’t right, Jack,” she argued, put off by this cool, distant earl who was unlike the man she had come to love. “All I want is for you to understand I am capable of making my own choices, good or bad. I just want you to be able to respect them.”
“Sure, and I do, Kitty. In the normal course of life, I can respect your wishes for I know you are an intelligent, rational person. But when rationality isn’t what I’m seeing, when I see you in pain or in danger, I’d do what I did again without hesitation. Would you expect me to let you jump off this cliff right now if you wanted? To me it was the very same.” The words bespoke a caring but without any of the emotion one might expect. It was as if a part of him had already left.
“And I understand that now, Jack,” Kitty insisted, trying to revive the caring, devil may care earl she had come to know. “What you were just saying. I see it wasn’t about control or forcing your will on me. You were right. I was just struck by grief and I couldn’t see that. Just as you’re wrong about keeping the money.”
“I cannot take the money from you,” he refuted adamantly, “especially when we’re at odds with one another.”
“Then let’s not be at odds any longer, Jack,” she whispered, trepidation quivering in her voice. “Please, Jack, I hate quarrelling with you and I… I have missed you these last days.”
“I as well,” he allowed, thankful she had said the words first then cursed himself for being a coward.
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Kitty rambled on. “I would like to…um, continue on with you…if you like. In our affair, I mean. Perhaps not right away, I realize I am not terribly attractive at the moment and I realize now what you said was true to some extent. I
don’t have much experience with passion at all and I know you weren’t as pleased by our initial–”
Jack took the shortest path to silencing her drivel.
With his kiss.
His lips took hers ardently, pressing her lips open. He drew her close to him with an arm around her shoulder, bending her head back against the crook of his elbow and ravaging her with his tongue as it swept in, teasing hers and compelling her to join him. With a moan, Kitty surrendered to him, drawing on his tongue as her fingers tunneled deep into his dark, silken hair, pulling him closer. Hesitation was gone. His lips were powerfully passionate and intimately satisfying. A heart-wrenching reminder that she loved him so dearly, despite his archaic categorizing of the female species.
How she had missed this! Oh, but how she loved him! Jack Merrill might be a stubborn, willful, overprotective Scot, but he was the man who owned her heart. It cried out to him, willed her to beg for his in return. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered as his lips slid down her neck.
“You are a fool, my love,” he returned huskily, his breath harsh in her ear. “How can you think for one moment I don’t want you? How can you think I don’t feel wonder when I make love to you? I have never felt such satisfaction as I do with you.”
Kitty trembled at his words, his confession arousing her even more. “But I thought… You said…”
Jack drew back, cupping her face in his strong hands. “I am an ass, my love, but you read way too much into things. You were the first to use the word ‘noteworthy’, don’t you recall? I tossed it back but meant it in jest. You said words as well I imagine weren’t entirely truthful that night, didn’t you?”
Kitty flushed with embarrassment. “But you told Freddie…”
“What would rile him the most,” he finished for her. “I needed him off balance and willing to strike without thought. I said what would enrage him the most, but it was only words.”
“Really?” she asked, still uncertain.
Haddington rolled his eyes with no little frustration. “Tell me, Kitty. How would you describe what you feel when we kiss? When I made love to you? Tell me.”
The flush that warmed Kitty’s cheeks a moment before returned in a rush of heat and she ducked her head in embarrassment, but Jack forced her bright green gaze up to meet his with a inquiring arch to his brow. “I… I cannot!”
“Come, my love, tell me.”
Feelings raced through her, but she couldn’t think how to describe them. Were there words that could actually be spoken aloud? But his eyes were encouraging so Kitty dug deeply for an adequate description. “Incredible,” she said in a whisper so low he could barely hear her. “Overwhelming, breathtaking, passionate.”
“While to me it was but extraordinary, magnificent, astonishing.” He rested his forehead against hers. “And quite the most mind-boggling experience of my life. What we shared is unusual, my love. Not a mere meeting of bodies.”
“Truly?”
“Just so,” he confirmed huskily, tracing a palm over her shoulder to cup her breast as he kissed her lips softly. “So what I would propose would be a long, extended affair,” he kissed her again, “an affectionate affair,” another kiss, “and a monogamous affair, for as long as it pleases us both. Does it please you, Kitty?”
It was amazing what a little reassurance did for one’s state of mind. Calm settled over her, clearing her mind of the troubles that had worried the previous nights and days. She had not disappointed him or been found lacking. Their intimacy had affected him as much as it had her. Such knowledge was more empowering than she might have imagined for surely, if she roused his passions to unexpected heights, she might one day incite love in his heart.
“Yes, Jack,” she said, then smiled up at him. “I only wish we could begin right this moment but I fear that might be more than my mother could handle right now! Will you come to me tonight, Jack?”
As if she could have stopped him! “Aye, my love, I will.”
“You…you don’t mind all the bruising?” she asked self-consciously.
“As I said before, my love,” he assured her, taking her hand and engulfing it in his own, “you are all that is beautiful to me.”
They sat together for a long while just holding hands, there on cliffs of Newport, content in being reunited.
Chapter 37
There were certain things that had to be done,
and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly;
and one of these, in the old New York code,
was the tribal rally around a kinswoman
about to be eliminated from the tribe.
- Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Manhattan, New York
Three weeks later
“Jury, how do you find?” Judge Fulmont leveled a stern look upon the jury assembled in the courtroom until the foreman stood, shuffling his feet nervously as he read from a piece of paper.
“In the matter of the State of New York versus Frederick Hayes, on the charges of assault, we find the defendant…not guilty. On the charges of murder in the first degree, we, the jury, hereby find the defendant…guilty as charged.”
A roar swept through the courtroom as Maggie Preston gathered her girls in her arms, tears of relief pouring down her cheeks. Kitty and Eve hugged their mother in return as their eyes met over her head. Satisfaction curved their lips.
The trial had lasted two weeks. After his arrest, Freddie had been immediately transferred to Manhattan for trial. A very speedy trial, by anyone’s reckoning, with virtually no chance for Hayes to mount a defense or petition for a delay. Freddie’s father had come down from Boston and used every bit of his power to have the charges dropped. The trial was delayed but, in the end, he had only been able to offer the best attorneys money could buy.
It hadn’t been enough.
Thanks to the efforts of her father’s close friend, Judge Fulmont, the trial had been put on the first available docket. He used all his considerable political pull to bring Hayes to a speedy trial, claiming blandly, innocently, to reporters that it was the defendant’s constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to see the thing done quickly.
And so it had been.
Freddie’s two hired thugs, Jasper and Meany, testified against Hayes as promised, joining Kitty and Jack in taking the stand as witness to Freddie’s confession of murder. The former pair expounded on how Hayes had bragged of doing the deed. Their testimony put the three Preston women in tears as they heard about how proud Hayes had been of his deed and how he had gotten away with it.
Maggie Preston testified to Hayes’ verbal threats in the week before her husband’s death, while Preston’s secretary and clerks offered testimony placing Hayes in her father’s office on the day of the murder. They explained that initially they hadn’t considered foul play, given the advanced age of their employer, but had been suspicious of the temper Hayes displayed when entering the offices and of his hasty departure. Given Lelan Preston’s habit of napping at his desk, he wasn’t discovered until the time for a scheduled meeting ten minutes after the murderer had left.
As the jury presented their verdict, Hayes jumped to his feet and, despite the best efforts of his lawyers to calm him, began brandishing threats and curses upon the jury.
Judge Fulmont pounded his gavel forcefully on the bench. “Order! Order! Mr. Hayes, enough! Mr. Albright! Calm your client before I hold him in contempt!”
Several moments of banging followed before Hayes was forced into silence and the judge continued, waving for the defense to rise. “Mr. Hayes, considering the violent premeditation in the killing of one of New York’s most upstanding citizens, and your own lack of any remorse for your actions, I have no choice but to offer the harshest sentence available. Frederick Hayes, for the murder of Mr. Lelan Preston, this court sentences you to death. At the court’s earliest convenience, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”
Another round of uproarious noise came from the gallery, causing
Fulmont to bang his gavel again. The gallery, Kitty knew, was filled with reporters and dozens of Preston Shipping employees, all there to see justice rained down upon his killer. She could hear their satisfaction in the sentencing. She herself was satisfied. They needn’t even pursue the kidnapping charges in Rhode Island now. Freddie would pay for his crimes. His father’s money and influence had not been able to save him. In the end, however, nothing would bring her father back.
Jensen and some of her father’s closer friends and colleagues gathered around to congratulate them on such a favorable verdict. Kitty could hear Freddie yelling for her as he was hauled from the courtroom but ignored him, with some effort, and tried to focus on her mother while they shook hands with the gathered men. Instead, her eyes roamed the room, searching for Jack.
Her eyes met his as he lounged lazily against the wall near the rear of the courtroom. Her pleased but sad smile was met by his satisfied nod. It was done, but a bittersweet victory. Barring any appeals, Freddie Hayes would soon hang for his deeds, his life in payment for the loss of a beloved father and husband.
Jack’s healing touch and caring words had done much these past weeks to relieve her of her overriding guilt. Their friendship blossomed even more, despite days spent in the courtroom while others were confined to the company of her family. But Jack squeezed in time for rides to the park and was always at her side for dinner, ready to entertain her. And, most importantly, he passed that friendship on to her daughter, taking upon himself to play catch and even at dolls with her. Once, when coming up to the nursery to tuck her daughter in, Kitty had come upon Jack carefully combing the tangles out of Hannah’s mutinous curls. Hannah had been fresh from her bath and wrapped in a robe as she sat placidly upon the earl’s knee while he picked his way through the masses. She did not fight with him as she might with Kitty or her nurse, but rather pointed to pictures in a book while Jack helped her with the words or talked to her of silly things. Kitty had hidden herself, peeking around the edge of the door, watching with tears in her eyes as Jack plaited the curls for the night. Something she had never been able to accomplish.
Questions for a Highlander Page 84
