Page 78 of Better Love Next Time
Was it good? Are you happy?
He looked to his right where she sketched beside him, her legs crossed under her blue dressing robe. To answer her now would bring the dastardly act back to the forefront. So he said nothing.
The day following, they sat together in the loft office. Kitty was in her widow’s weeds with ink on her fingers, her eyes bright and her speech enthusiastic, like the day he had first met her. As if she were a girl of seven again but without the wide smile. They conferred on budgets and the best steps for securing a commission. He thought of her questions again.Was it good? Are you happy?He knew the time to answer her had long past. And if he did answer, what would he say? An apology was the only thing that came to mind because it had been good for him. And he wasn’t happy by a mile.
By the end of the week, fifty-nine men pledged to work for their yard but only twenty-eight without a commission. Which Julian would take without complaint, though it was costing him a pence more a day than Kitty and he had agreed upon. He also admitted that his wife’s shopping scheme had proven successful.
They dined a second Sunday at the vicarage, and Julian noted Robert Carleton’s increased ease. What brought it about when a week had separated the two dinners, he had no idea. Robert praised Julian’s determination. His friend united themin prayer, hands clasped around the dining table, entreating the Almighty to bestow an expeditious and lucrative commission to St. Clair Shipwrights.
Julian balked at the notion prayer was required, let alone the idea it would work. If prayer had any influence, Kitty Babbington would never have left him, wherever she had gone. Better yet, he would never have met her.
“I travel to London this week,” Julian said, “to meet prospective buyers in London.”
Kitty’s eyes rounded, and there was happiness all around, leading them into a game of charades after dinner with the men against the women. Julian felt like a fool acting out phrases, such as the birth of Christ until Kitty and Lucretia pulled ahead four points to nil. The men lost, despite Julian’s turnaround, but they weren’t trounced.
They ended their visit with Miss Carleton reading verse, and in the afternoon sun with clouds scudding through the sky, Julian and Kitty returned to their rooms in silence. He vowed not to repeat the crime of last Sunday and his wife departed immediately for her room.
Did she ponder his announcement at dinner on traveling to London?
He removed his coat and waited in the gallery. He watched the townspeople and tourists stroll in the sun along the Beach, the skiffs ferry sailors to shore and back, the flash of whitecaps dotting the Solent. His home, he thought, more than London had ever been. Except Huntingdonshire, living with Georgiana and his uncle. And Kitty. There had been his home too.
Could he leave Southampton? Better to ask could he spend the rest of his life in a provincial town with a wife in name only, attending worship, playing charades, and praying elaborately over meals?
Kitty scrubbed the tears from her face with a cold cloth. Julian was going to London. And she knew who waited in London, so why did she cry? This was her bed. And some other woman was going to lie in it.
At her writing desk, she penned the same letter she had written every fortnight since her return to England.
Dearest Father Dunlevy,
I have arrived in England. It is imperative you keep safe and reply to me with confirmation that you are truly out of reach of danger. More, I ask that you come to me post haste…
After copying the letter three times, she sealed them and wrote directions on each. She prayed for a half hour while waiting for any trace of tears to dissipate before venturing to the gallery where Julian stood at the range of windows surveying the town and waters before him.
He turned as she eased onto the settee, his gaze drifting over her in leisure. She refused to fidget under his quiet study and wondered what he was thinking, what he would say when he finished his study of her.
He had lain with her. Or, at least, consummated their marriage. Her reaction had startled her. She had felt famished and anxious. Heat had swirled in her belly and between her thighs. It was not an emotion but a rush of sensation. Something fierce and hungry. She had wanted to devour him, be devoured and conquered and used. Her release by his hand had shattered her. When he had put himself inside her, she had felt complete.But it had not changed anything for the better. He had not answered if it had been good or if he had been happy. He had told her it would never happen again. And now he was going to London.
Julian strode from the gallery, and she felt herself retreat into doubt and fought it hard. He returned with two glasses of claret and eased beside her on the settee. Very close. The heat was again swirling low in her belly.
“We cannot continue to walk everywhere,” he started. “I’ll leave tomorrow for London and will purchase a coach and four and saddle horses of our own. I must also see my brother, Oliver. My father informs me he is ill. If I do not visit St. James, I suspect the earl will track me down.”
He poured her a glass of wine and offered it. She declined, afraid to disclose her shaking hands clutched in her black petticoat.
“Do you want to come with?” he asked. “Sam can see to the yard, and you and I…” He shrugged. “We could enjoy ourselves, couldn’t we? And if that does not persuade you, imagine my father’s apoplectic expression when he sees you and me. Bloody furious he’ll be to see I went off and married a woman not of his choosing.”
Kitty felt the blood drain from her face. She should say no. She had to say no. But it would sound as though she disagreed that they could enjoy themselves. Because she suspected they could.
He huffed. “I didn’t think so. But it would have been an enormously amusing scene to introduce you to the family.”
“Yes, it would be amusing,” she said, her mouth dry. “And I would love to accompany you. Truly. But I must stay to manage the yard, and you must go. And I pray your brother is recovered by the time you arrive.”
He cocked his head. “Only one prayer a day for Ollie, Madame. It’s the earl’s way of luring me back into his coven. Ollie probably sneezed.”
“Who are you to meet with about commissions?” she asked.
“No one. I lied.”
She didn’t know quite what to say. He had known she wouldn’t go to London with him. He hadn’t pressed the point. He was going to find a mistress. She swallowed back a sense of helplessness.
