Page 108 of Better Love Next Time
Could she be more awkward?Kitty,he wanted to say, be yourself. Talk to me.
He walked to her petite figure draped in black with her hands clasped at her waist. “Yes, you dyed one pink, along with your pony.”
But the girl he had known since ten was gone.
“What is in the other room?” he pressed.
She turned to face him, making what space she could between them with her back pressed to the window. She inhaled and her nostrils flared. Like he had a stench to him. “It is a nursery. Shall we walk the next floor?”
He caught her upper arms and slid his hands down to cup her elbows. “Kitty, I missed you.”
“Did you? I missed you too. And am most happy to have you home. But of course, you are hungry. Let us eat before completing the tour. I will relay what happened in your absence, and you can tell me all about London.”
He searched her expression and saw beyond the cheerful wall to the brittle resolve and beyond that the woman who he had consigned to a life without nurseries. She was lonely, disillusioned with how her life had played out.
Fishing inside his coat, he withdrew a slim box. “Happy birthday.”
He was forced to open her hand and plant the gift there and then stand by as she stared at it. She traced the velvet nap of the pink bow. He knew the girl inside her, the one who savored the moment. She had once told him she would rather keep a gift unopened for days if she could.
He brushed his fingertips at her temple where no curls dared to go as they had in her youth. “Are you going to open it?”
She drew out the bow, and he found inexplicable pleasure in the murmur of velvet sliding on velvet. Lifting the lid, she swallowed. He marveled without conceit at the sparkling rivière of pink tourmaline and diamonds.
“Is it good enough?” he asked her.
“G-Good enough?” She looked up, and he could not discern if she was pleased for the gift or if the glint in her eyes were happy tears. “It is beautiful. Thank you.”
“I’ve had my fill of condolences,” he said, chuckling. “It’s time you shed your widow’s weeds.”
Turning her around by her shoulders, he latched the pendant on her neck. His fingers grazed her skin, and warmth spread from where he touched her, coursing in waves up his arms. Inside was a woman to be sure. She could satisfy him. More than satisfy him. Though as a wife she was not expected to. A wife was for keeping a home and bearing children. Neither of which he had given her.
He turned her to face him. On her tiptoes, she pecked his cheek for a pendant he had conceived and sketched and chosen each gem.
He escorted her to the dining room, and a miracle of sorts, Miss Dixley had absented herself. With Ollie begging at their feet, Kitty apprised him on their business through three courses.The specifics of the food he couldn’t recall when a dessert of spice cake was set down in front of him.
He needed to tell her he had been faithful. That he had no desire to be free. He wanted always to be faithful. And more. He had forgiven her for leaving him. He didn’t know when this forgiveness had happened, but it had. He was lighter and happier for it. And nervous as a cat up a tree.
He explained his plan for building merchant ships to be fitted later for a war. She agreed and praised his forethought. He sat through a report on the social doings of Southampton, Robert Carleton and Althea Dixley’s burgeoning romance, the merchants she had decided to patronize.
“Listen to me, going on,” she said with a laugh, without a real smile. “Do tell me about London.”
She finished her third glass of wine, and thinking on the day she had imbibed laudanum, he worried for her. Here was his chance. He recounted the plays he had seen with Anthony and his friends, including Lady Sybil and Lady Daniels. She didn’t flinch at either female name.
“And the opera? What was it like?” She dismissed the footman and poured another glass of claret.
“It was the opera,” he said dryly.
“Then why did you attend?” she asked.
“Anthony likes opera.”
“I saw your receipt for Vauxhall. I’ve never been. Are the closed walks as romantic as they are reported to be with their lanterns and dark corners? I imagined walking them myself as a girl.”
His heart lurched in his chest. Louisa had lured him into those closed walks. Nothing had transpired. “Yes, they serve one purpose. Luring heiresses into a scandal, necessitating a marriage proposal.”
“Did you?” She sipped her wine.
“I am married,” he said quietly.
