“Shhh,” he whispered, guiding her head and burying her face in the wall of his chest.
Robert cursed her distinctive costume, fear for Katherine the uppermost in his mind. If they were spotted, the backlash against her would be vicious and unrelenting. He stooped and ducked his head to peer through a gap in the fronds, and the tightness in her chest eased. It was just a passing footman. As long as they remained quiet until he had departed, they would be fine. Easier said than done when Kitty’s ruff was poking uncomfortably into his neck and one of the ends of lace tickled under his nose. Time slowed to the consistency of treacle on a December morning, but after holding his breath, the door clicked shut. Robert’s eyes drifted closed—thank goodness for that.
He waited a moment longer to be certain the footman wasn’t coming back, becoming fully aware of the armful of the soft beautiful woman, and his body stirred to life. “They are gone now, Kitty,” he whispered, though his arms remained where they were, reluctant to release her.
“Are-are you sure?”
Her turned her oval face up at him, her full lips hesitantly parted. A better man would have broken away, he should have released her, but Kitty made no move to part them. He was snared by the magnetic pull of her gaze, her looking up at him with absolute trust. His head dipped, and there was scant space separating them.
“I’m sure,” Robert murmured and closed the distance.
A groan lodged in the back of his throat. Kitty’s lips tasted sweet. He’d forgotten how intoxicating she was, and the emotions he had hidden burst their banks. Robert was drowning under the onslaught. He clung to Kitty in the eye of the maelstrom. Everything would be all right between them. He had found the woman he wanted for his bride.
Kitty’s heart was fighting to burst from her chest.
That single touch had sparked a need within her, and the thrust of his tongue fanned that need into a raging wildfire that threatened to consume her whole. Her fingers took on a life of their own, and she clung to his shoulders, anchoring her in the eye of the storm. His tongue stroked the inside of her mouth. Flickers of pleasure echoed throughout her body, and Kitty chased after them, pressing herself tighter against him. Her aching breasts mashed into the hard planes of his chest, the friction tormenting her nipples to rigid points. She had missed this. Missed him, the warmth and weight of his body.
“Kitty,” he murmured on a hungry growl, “I’ve missed this.”
Cool, icy reason was dumped on her like a pile of snow. This. Robert had missed this.
Not. Her.
With a little cry, she scrunched together the last of her willpower before she was lost. She flung herself away from him.
“No!” She panted, her breasts rising and falling with her breaths.
Robert’s gaze dipped to follow the movements, and Kitty fought the urge to box his ears.
A determined light blazed his eyes.
“No,” she repeated.
She’d sunk a lot of strength into that no, and Robert froze in place.
“You want me,” he accused, breathing hard.
Finding herself unable to lie, Kitty raised her chin a notch. “Yes.” A flash of defiance. “And I’m a fool for it,” she admitted, tasting the bitterness behind her words. “But I will not be used again. I learnt from my mistakes.”
“You are calling what we share a mistake?” Robert repeated slowly, that soft, dangerous voice putting Kitty on her guard. “After I explained what happened before, I didn’t desert you.”
It was too much. The world had turned upside down in a short space of time. She had gone from hating Robert Vaughn to kissing him, and all her previous ill-feeling was unfounded? No. She needed space. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do that with Robert touching her. Her only thought was to push him away.
“I don’t believe you.” Her words lacked conviction.
Robert squared his jaw and took a step towards her.
She held her hand up to fend him off. If he touched her again, she would beg for him to continue. “The unwanted attention of one man is quite enough, thank you,” she snapped.
Robert’s eyes darkened. “Who’s been bothering you, Kitty?” Then his face cleared in realisation. “Is it Lansdowne?”
She bit her tongue hard, and the pain made her realise just what she had said. Damn and blast, she hadn’t meant to reveal that. The man was too clever.
“Katherine…”
Kitty got the distinct impression he was grinding his teeth.
“Who?” he demanded in that uncompromising tone that she could very well imagine him captain on his ship.
But she was not one of his crew. It was obvious in their years apart he had forgotten she was more than capable of holding her own.
“It is of no consequence, my lord.”
“I will decide what is of consequence and what is not, Katherine.”
Now she knew he was grinding his teeth.
She was regaining her equilibrium, taking comfort in the familiarity of striking sparks off Roberts’ temper, and dared to smile at him. “I don’t share your frankness, my lord.”
A muscle in his jaw ticking, Robert sucked in a great breath and took a determined step back—probably to prevent himself from wringing her neck, Kitty thought bitterly.
“We are far from finished, Kitty, but I think you had better go back to the safety of the ballroom.”
“For once we are in agreement, Captain.”
Robert released a pent-up breath, the ardour racing through his body watching the beguiling sway of Kitty’s generous hips as she stalked out of the orangery, her nose out of joint and firmly placed in the air. What a mess. Part of him wanted to drag her back into his arms and kiss her until she forgot their harsh words and past wrongs. He pursed his lips ruefully. But in that fractious mood, Katherine would run him round in ever-frustrating verbal circles until he lost his temper and she succeeded in derailing the discussion. Enough words had been spoken in the heat of the moment between them.
Robert waited for the fire in his blood to cool and thoughts of Katherine to clear his head, then returned to the ballroom. He found a lone pillar and, propping his shoulders against it, began his vigil, resolved to keep a protective watch over her. Katherine was holding court, dazzling and mesmerising the young bucks who sought to impress her. He almost pitied them. Katherine was not a woman be taken in with empty flattery and pretty compliments. At first glance, no one would even suspect that moments before she had been involved in a heated altercation, but if one looked close enough, she occasionally appeared distracted and gazed over the top, scanning the mingling crowds as if searching for someone. If someone was making a nuisance of themselves, he wanted to know.
Robert shifted, trying to become comfortable. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 6
Kitty curled into the window seat and watched the first flurries of the season flying by. The cold chilled her arms, but she just stared out, losing herself in the mesmerising flakes as they danced in their intricate patterns. Jane Austen’s recently published Emma lay limp in her fingers and resting on her lap. For once it was not holding her attention, and she found the heroine, the namesake of the book, to be a meddling, self-righteous busybody. And in her frank opinion, life was complicated enough without others stirring the pot, no matter how well-meaning. She closed her eyes and, giving up the pretence of trying to read, leaned her forehead against cool glass.
Since the masquerade, she could not be in her mother’s presence without her launching into a scolding rebuke for stranding the marquis on the dance floor. Kitty bore it, though she itched to bite back. Her mother should be thankful she had been in the presence of mind not to cause a scandal by slapping the man’s impertinent face.
Kitty snorted, tightening her fingers on the volume with remembered indignation. A horse! The man had dared liken her to a horse. All things considered, she had controlled her temper admirably. And then there was Robert. Had he been telling the truth and the
y had both been wronged? She had played his words over and over in her head, and they had the undeniable ring of her mother, and during her contemplation, Kitty had found she wanted to believe him.
She froze when the door of the library opened then snapped shut.
“Gerald, you have to do something.”
Kitty winced at her mother’s nasal tone. It was one she had come to know so well in recent days. It said she was about to have one of her ‘episodes’ and her voice would rise in pitch that would have made her a world-class opera diva, if she wasn’t off-key and tone deaf. Kitty muttered her silent prayers that behind the curtain she was invisible from prying eyes, even if guilt pricked at her for eavesdropping on her parents.
“Regarding what, Henrietta?” Her long-suffering father sighed.
“Kitty! She has to marry. That girl will be the ruination of us all.”
Kitty’s mouth dried, and her heart hurt.
“No one will even look at Anne-Marie while Kitty remains unwed, it is spoiling her chances of making a good match. Why, just this season alone…”
Kitty zoned out of her mother’s drone as she rattled off the most eligible of men who had danced with Anne-Marie and had called upon her. But none had offered yet, and her mother had determined that this was Kitty’s fault.
But Anne-Marie was her mother’s pet. A blonde, petite beauty, she had the whisperings of being the toast of the ton, just as her mother had been in her heyday. Alas, circumstance had led her to be wed to a baron rather than a loftier title, and she sought to remedy the fact by securing a higher standing for her favourite daughter.
“And then she had the audacity to leave the Marquis of Lansdowne on the dance floor!” her mother finished on a shriek that only dogs should be able to hear.
Kitty winced. So they were back to talking about her?
“Then I would surmise that his behaviour was inappropriate of that of a gentleman for our daughter to take such action. A diamond of the first water she will never be, but I can’t fault her for her judgement in character.”
“But it was the Marquis of Lansdowne,” her mother’s strident tone continued, as if that explained everything.
Her father snorted. “Madame, I don’t care if he is the King of Spain, I know for a fact that you have been inundated with invitations after that particular set-down.”
All true, with Kitty having to attend her fair share in order to stamp out the rumours as ruthlessly as she had stamped on the marquis’ foot. It had been a positively tedious business, but the task that Aunt Emmie had set for her had helped keep her mind from wandering to a certain illicit kiss.
“It gives us a bad name,” her mother hissed.
Kitty found herself leaning forward, waiting to see if her father would continue to defend her.
“Gerald.” Her mother whined. “I just want to see our girl settled. She is four and twenty and not getting any younger. Her bloom has quite gone, and the few marriage proposals she managed to attract, she turned them down. She has had five seasons. I doubt this situation will now change.”
Her father sighed wearily, and Kitty could imagine him sitting in his favourite armchair, removing his spectacles to rub the bridge of his nose as he was known to do.
“I’m beginning to wish that we let her wed that young upstart,” Lady Thorpe grumbled with venom.
Kitty’s heart stopped, her whole being standing to attention. She’d misheard. Her mind was playing tricks on her, trying to make sense of her argument with Robert.
“If only I’d known he was a Graham and cousin to the Viscount Preston, I might have given his suit more consideration.”
Oh God. Kitty pressed a palm over her middle, the roiling in her stomach threatening to cast up her accounts.
“You did what?” her father asked in a voice Kitty had never heard him use, still softly spoken, but potent rage held a menacing undertone.
“That nobody, Captain what’s-his-name, came seeking Katherine’s hand. He wanted an appointment with you,” Lady Thorpe replied with the same concern as one gave when ordering luncheon. “Of course, I sent him packing.” She sounded supremely satisfied with that.
Kitty spied her mother’s profile through a gap in the curtains, and a frown formed.
“That was before I knew he had connections.”
A pregnant pause, and Kitty’s throat burned, tears stinging her eyes. This was a bad dream, a terrible, terrible dream. It had to be.
“For the love of God, Henrietta!”
The roar made Kitty jump, the book almost slipping from her lap, and she lurched to grab it before it hit the floor.
“Katherine’s heart was engaged!”
“And that was her lot in life, a lowly lieutenant? Besides, we gave her a season to get over her youthful infatuation.”
Kitty’s mouth twisted. She could barely remember her first season, a whirl of fragile facades, bright and colourful, but nothing was real. Unable to take anyone’s regard at face value, she had not dared risk her bruised heart again and had found no joy in the various entertainments they had attended.
“Katherine is of a different character, and since when do you make sole decisions regarding my daughter?”
“Gerald, are you telling me you would have preferred our daughter to be wed to a man of no consequence?” Lady Thorpe was perplexed, her brow puckered.
“I would have wished our daughter to be happy,” he snapped, crossing restlessly in front of the fire with a state of agitation that was out of character for the old baron. “Captain Vaughn is an honourable gentleman who has subsequently distinguished himself in battle, and if the rumours are to be believed has become extremely wealthy. You have meddled in our daughter’s affairs for ill.”
“Humph, it’s not all lost. After all these years, the man is still sniffing around her skirts. I’m sure with a little gentle prodding—”
“No,” her father interjected, an edge to his voice.
“But surely—”
“I said no, Henrietta. I have let you organise events to your liking, and you have done so with no thought other than pleasing your own vanity. If you do not leave well enough alone or are unable to guide Anne-Marie in her come out, then I will send you to the country.”
Kitty sucked in a breath. Her father couldn’t offer a greater punishment to her mother. She loathed the country with a passion.
“Gerald, you cannot be serious!”
“Quite serious, Henrietta.” Her father’s voice grew fainter, his slower, more sedate pace moving to the door, followed by her mother’s agitated tapping steps.
“Gerald I really think—”
Their conversation faded, and Kitty pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes, wanting to shut out what she had learned. It ripped open the barely healed wound, just as agonising and as painful as before. Finally, after long having lost feeling in her legs, she unfolded herself from her hiding place. In a daze, she made her way to her room and had enough presence of mind to write a missive to her aunt that she was unwell and unable to accompany her this evening. It wasn’t much of a lie—a headache was fast developing behind her eyes, and a sick, throbbing pain beat at her temple.
Liar, she had called Robert a liar. The angry words spoken at their last altercation, the insults they had hurled at each other. Kitty’s vision wavered, and tears spilt over the dam and streamed down her cheeks. Curling up on her bed, she wept a spate of bitter, angry tears, grieving for what might have been. The pillow that muffled her sobs became damp, the pain and shame of her own actions scoring her just as badly as her mother’s, until exhaustion claimed her in a restless sleep.
Chapter 7
“I do declare you are as agitated as my stallion scenting a mare,” Aunt Emmie grumbled. “And are you sure you are up to it this evening? You are looking quite drained.”
Kitty offered her a strained smile and reassured her, yes, she was well enough for this evening’s entertainments.
After several days of keeping to her room
s on the premise of an illness, for fear that if she faced her mother she would not be able to keep a civil tongue in her head, Kitty had come to the conclusion she needed to clear the air with Captain Vaughn and apologise for both her accusations and her mother’s biting treatment.
With that in mind, she had sat at her vanity and attempted to draft an adequate letter. Her first efforts had soon been crushed in her hand and thrown in the fire, as had drafts two through seven. It was at that point she had slammed down her pen, a screech of pure frustration wrenching from her throat. Upon paper, the words were lacking and unsubstantial. In fact, sending a letter in the first place gave a flippancy to the wrongs done against him.
Sucking in a breath, she had once again taken her seat at her vanity. No, this would have to be done properly, in person. She was not such a coward to hide her failings behind a sheath of paper.
This message proved easier to write, and with that, she had summoned Milton to the library.
“I have an errand of great sensitivity, Milton, and I trust you to aid me in your usual discreet capacity.”
His brows had snapped together with concern. “What is it, Miss Kitty?”
She held up the sealed letter. “This is to go to Captain Vaughn. I need an answer immediately.”
Milton backed away as if the letter had turned into a viper. “Miss Kitty, this is most unwise.”
She followed him and pressed it into his hand. “I am trying to right a wrong, Milton. If you do not aid me, I will do it myself.”
It seemed it was on the tip of Milton’s tongue to refuse, but seeing Kitty’s ardent expression, he reluctantly accepted the note. “I will see it done.”
Impulsively, she seized his hands and gave them a light squeeze. “Thank you.”
Have Yourself a Merry Little Secret : a Christmas collection of historical romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 2) Page 101
