Page 67 of Better Love Next Time
He ensured the tiller secure and heaved the bow into the frigid water. Satisfied by the strain of his sore muscles, he leapt in as theFairyfloated out. He set the oars in the locks aft of the mast and, in no hurry to be disappointed, rowed with slow, even strokes. He refused to stop waiting for Kitty out of pure stubbornness and vowed to continue for a year, matching every one of Kitty’s letters. If he could outsmart his father for six years, what was a year against a girl who used to adore him?
As it so happened, it was misery.
He filled his waking moments with tasks to avoid it. He exercised, studied, wrote tolerable essays with his left hand, at which Redgrave shuddered like Julian might bugger him. Easier than formal writing, he completed his oral exams, tried poetry, and quit after the urge to drink hemlock à la Socrates. His uncle promulgated business theories—akin to the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North—and Julian listened.
“Power lies in never showing your hand,” his uncle had said. “Never show your weakness. Never complain. Smile, and as required,retaliate. My brother has always had the safety of his title and never learned thus. If you had defied me as my son, as you did your father, you’d be a castrato.”
Good to know Julian could thank his father for the preservation of his ballocks. Which protested every single minute he adhered to his vow of celibacy.
A black-backed gull circled overhead. At some point in all this, Willy had landed on theFairy’sbow and Julian had thrown him a biscuit. From there, Willy took advantage every afternoon.
With deep strokes on the right oar, he swung the bow about and aimed for the well-worn berth. TheFairyglided in, bucked over the trampled reeds, and stuck to shore. After he secured the oars, Willy landed on his left and shook his juvenile brown feathers in preparation for a feast.
Julian ruffled his head. “Flying rat.”
Willy cackled, poking his yellow beak at Julian’s greatcoat. From the sack looped at his breeches, he pulled out half a meat pie. While Willy gulped it down, Julian watched the line of poplars sway in the wind. The cold attacked his nose, threatening a sneeze and watering his eyes. He wouldn’t be lucky enough to receive a pea-sized letter and Kitty’s forgiveness in the same week.
Don’t you dare care. Not now, not when you haven’t cared for 484 days.
How many times had he taken pleasure with women, laughed, got stinking drunk on freedom, while Kitty fashioned a memorial and prayed? Like an anchor, shame weighted his shoulders.
Willy hopped on his thigh, chortling, and Julian offered him the rest of the pie. A crack resounded off shore, sending Willy shooting to the sky with a tersekhow. Julian straightened, jerking his limbs beneath him, and tracked the sound to the poplars. A slight figure shifted through the grey tangle of skeleton underbrush. Kitty’s faded, red cloak billowed in the wind as she halted at the edge of the wood. A gust blew her hood back, black tendrils dancing about her head.
She started to turn away.
Julian tossed the remnant of pie over his shoulder and sprang from the boat.
Kitty hastened through the wood, Julian’s determined footfalls closing in behind her. How could she have thought she could see Julian and not adore him all over again? And how she had seen him. The image was burned in her memory. Fifty years from today, she could sketch it. Sitting in theFairy, hands stuffed in his caped coat, lean, muscled legs stretched before him, his hair ruffled by the wind, his jaw angled in reverie. And petting a gull. Tenderness had swelled within her as swift as flame to paper. Her heart begged to forgive him. But she wasn’t ready.
She veered off the path, squeezing between the edge of brambles and a poplar.
“Kitty, stop.”
Stopping was madness, a temptation, and assured surrender. If Georgiana had not loaned her the memoirs of Fanny Hill, ifshe hadn’t read it in one sitting, she wouldn’t be so frightened, so confused.
She scurried through a bush, birds darting to the sky in a flurry, and her best cloak snagged on a hawthorn. She wrenched at the wool, tearing a hole and getting her nowhere.
Julian’s strong fingers gently circled her wrist. “Allow me.”
With a calm hand, he freed her and eased her around to face him. A sensation more volatile than adoration seized her. He guided her out of the bush. She followed, as if a taut, powerful thread connected them. Above his black collar, his neck had thickened. The slashes of his cheekbones were harder, his lips firmer. She averted her gaze. The calluses on his hand had softened, but strength corded the back. Was it possible that in the space of six months he had grown into a man?
His left hand shifted under her wrist, sliding across her palm, his thumb tucking her fingers to his. She felt the thread in his touch, a vibration, almost… shaking.
She flushed, at once hot all over. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“I am glad you are here.” His tone was low, throaty.
She expelled her breath. “I—I haven’t forgiven you. That is, I feel… not ready.”
He chuckled.
Kitty met his gaze in surprise. “Are you amused?”
“That after six months, you come to tell me you do not forgive me? Not at all.” The purest eyes beheld her, marked with maturity. The fingers of his right hand traced across her jaw, little shocks showering from his touch.
“What did you really come here for, fairy?”
Her pulse skittered. He tugged her closer. Her breasts brushed his firm chest creating wicked and warm sensations where her womanly hips met his thigh. It was a sin. It was divine. She wondered at the widening of his pupils, black in brown glinting like a flame. What she saw, was it love? Or desire orlust? Was it possible to die from feelings? There was a violence in desire. Her brain raced. Her heart thrashed. Her breath burned.
