Page 27 of Better Love Next Time
Julian hailed a coach and stood tapping his boot before lifting her inside without the steps. She hadn’t adjusted her skirts before he fixed her across the coach and stuffed his boot on her bench, pinning her cloak beneath it. “Look here,Katherine?—”
“I am the widow, Madame Féline.”
“You are bloody well not.”
She refused to argue, gazing out the smudged window to the lath-and-plaster buildings mixed with brick and stone, their roofs undulating against the morning sun.
Julian nudged her left thigh with his boot. “Are you listening to me?”
“Admittedly, no.” Southampton was provincial, full of trade and sailors. No one would find her here, and if they did, she was Madame. Her insides began to unwind. Her breath slowed.
“Katherine—”
“Madame.”
“I will call you what I will.”
“Not wife.”
His tanned face suffused with red. “As partners, it would be acceptable for us to call each other by our Christian names.”
She turned her face back to the window as the coach drew up to a long-fronted inn of white stone and red brick. Four stories tall, on each side of the main were two-storied oriel windows. The coach turned in to the central arch and hostlers hurried to assist them.
Julian, however, jumped from the coach and swung Kitty down. He led her through a dark vestibule, and Kitty halted. Her husband could not have picked a more conspicuous accommodation. The inn opened up to an entrance hall overflowing with a rainbow of patrons in their finest summer clothes.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Julian asked in an annoyed tone. “They are damn determined to turn us into Bath and Brighton.”
He scanned the room and landed upon a pretty face. A blonde, kept well by the look of her pink sacque gown, with big blue eyes and big everything else in the proper places.
It had to start sometime, and she knew by the torture of two years, waiting only intensified the agony.
“If you wish to amuse yourself,” she said, “I shall secure our rooms.”
Julian slewed his head toward her but not before the woman had unfolded her fan and tapped the painted silk to her rouged lower lip. “What?"
“The blonde.” She nodded at the woman.
Julian dragged her away.
He approached the proprietor who stooped to a bow and escorted them to Mr. St. Clair’s private apartments without asking who Kitty was or if she required her own room.
She was too surprised to speak until they gained the second floor. She whispered, “Mr. St. Clair, I cannot stay in your rooms.”
“Call me Mr. St. Clair again, and you’ll be sleeping in the stables. Ah, Mr. Welles,” Julian said as the white-paneled door opened and he tugged her inside. “Here we are.”
Kitty gawked at the carpet beneath her half-boots while Mr. Welles rambled on the upkeep of Mr. St. Clair’s lodgings, replete with fresh linen weekly. The depth of color in the carpet, the vividness of their design, put most everything she had walked upon in her life to shame.
A maid bustled in and withdrew the furniture covers.
Julian’s private rooms spanned an entire side of the inn. Windows overlooked the court on one side, and on the other was a private gallery with sweeping river views. The jade-green drapery, crafted in brocade with gold threads, hung in lush swathes.
Adjacent to the gallery sat a gold-and-white sofa with gilt mermaids for arms. Long enough to fit two of her lengthwise. There were various furnishings. A low-set rosewood table to accompany the sofa, twin ormolu side tables, a black commode with bronze lion head pulls, which Kitty was certain she had seen an exact replica at Versailles. Situated near the marble hearth were two gaming tables covered in black baize.
How many ships had Julian sold to cover the cost before he had deserted his dreams? His father had refused to believe in Julian’s dream. Trade was dirty business. Of course, dying in war was too, but for second sons it was a regiment or the church.
“Mr. Welles,” she said. “I require?—”
“Mr. Welles,” Julian countered, “might we speak alone?”
