Page 21 of Whiskers and Wiles

Waldorf huffed a sigh and pulled the window shut. He pushed back into his seat and crossed his arms again, staring straight forward.

Kat went one step farther than that. She pulled the shade down on her window so that she did not have to be seen in Waldorf’s company by any of the passing theatergoers.

Waldorf glared at her in the dim light, then pulled his shade down as well, plunging the carriage into near total darkness. The only light came from the small window at the back of the carriage and around the edges of the shutters.

“If you wish to sit in the dark, then we’ll sit in the dark,” Waldorf huffed.

“I do not wish to sit here with you at all,” Kat said. “Not after the way you embarrassed me in front of all Lady Thistlewhite’s guests.”

“Balderdash,” Waldorf fired back at her. “I did not embarrass you, I gave you an opportunity to stand up for yourself and show the others how it is done.”

“You most certainly embarrassed me,” Kat said, crossing her arms.

She undid the gesture as soon as she recognized she was mirroring Waldorf’s stance.

She also noted a hint of approval in his suggestion that she teach the others how to stand up for themselves.

“You always did require everyone at the supper parties we attended to give you their full attention,” she muttered, turning her head to stare out the window and realizing too late there was no window to stare out of. She’d pulled the shade and blocked off her only route of pretend escape.

“Irequired everyone’s attention?” Waldorf asked indignantly. “Youwere always the one who laughed the loudest, spoke the most, and bullied everyone who did not agree with you.”

“We spent our time primarily in the company of your friends, most of whom were male, I might remind you,” Kat said, turning to frown at him, though she could only see his outline in the dark. “I had to assert myself, otherwise they would have run roughshod over me and put me in the place they deemed fit for me as a woman.”

Waldorf huffed a laugh, but it was not entirely unkind. “You did show those bastards a thing or two, didn’t you.”

Kat was stunned to silence for a moment. Was Waldorf actually expressing approval of the harridan she’d been?

Memories suddenly assailed her. Waldorf had always liked her spirit and her fight. He’d told her as much on several occasions. He’d told her as she’d rode him in bed, taking what she wanted from him as freely as she could.

The memories of those nights had the inside of the carriage feeling suddenly unaccountably warm.

“You could have stood up for me then,” she told Waldorf, the uncertainty in her voice reflecting the sudden uncertainty in her heart.

“Why should I?” Waldorf said. Kat could feel him shrug. “You were magnificent all on your own. It was like watching a work of art being constructed.”

Kat drew in a breath. He had said the same to her before, in the height of their passion.

“If I was magnificent in that manner, it was because I had no choice,” she said. “I was alone in the world after insisting on attending Oxford. My father and mother never forgave me, never counted me among their children from the moment I left home.”

“I know,” Waldorf said with surprise tenderness. His hand found hers on the carriage seat, and he squeezed it.

“I was already alone, Waldorf,” Kat said with candor that surprised her. “And then you went and left me as well.”

“I did not leave you,” Waldorf said, his voice strong and peevish once more. He removed his hand from hers. “You were false with me, carrying on with Headland then, just as you were tonight.”

“He was accosting me,” Kat said, nearly breathless with anger, and with the lightning-quick shift in her emotions from sentimental to furious. “Both times. He importuned me in the street in Oxford, and his advances toward me were threatening this evening. Does a woman have no hope of protection from a predator because your lot all assume that if she is the object of a man’s rough attentions, it is because she deserved it and was somehow false?”

Waldorf was significantly silent. Kat could practically feel his doubt.

She would not leave it there. If he considered her a bully, then she would live up to that assessment. She twisted on the seat to face him, even though they could still barely see each other in the dark.

“You men cannot simply take whatever it is you wish to take,” she said, raising her voice. “I did not want Anthony Headland then, and I do not want him now.”

“It did not seem that way during supper,” Waldorf said, far too sullenly for Kat’s liking.

“I was feigning politeness to him because you were being a colossal arse, and you deserved what you got,” Kat snapped.

“So you would flirt with a man you feel might harm you simply to make me jealous?” Waldorf demanded, sitting straighter.

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