Page 115 of Better Love Next Time
Julian, having failed to deliver two cutters to Childers before he had walked away from his yard, wasn’t surprised when Childers had had him blackballed upon his return to Southampton. In fact, Julian had expected it and hadn’t blamed Childers one bit for his claim that he couldn’t be trusted.
And Childers sending Lovett to his yard to tell tales of Julian humping an adventuress in public or losing at cards? Fair game,ifJulian had been present to address the accusations orifKitty hadn’t concealed the visit from him.
The problem was no one had ever heard of Lovett, and they all swore up and down that they would have recalled seeing him before. Short, stocky, with the mug of a pugilist and an accent between gentlemen and guttersnipe, Lovett, they said, was hard to forget.
Charles Childers, lounging in his richly appointed office of dark paneling and red brocade curtains, also swore up and down he’d never known a Lovett and certainly hadn’t hired him. Those eleven men who had left the St. Clair yard and had shown up at Childers’s and been given employment? Well, Childers was only taking advantage of Julian’s bad luck.
Julian seethed with the inability to righteously hook his fist in Childers’s jaw when Childers stretched out his gnarled hand. “Let bygones be bygones, eh?”
Bygones his arse. But enemies were costly to keep, so Julian shook the man’s hand and hired a boy the next day to follow Childers for the foreseeable future.
He directed Kitty to sketch a likeness of Lovett, paid a pretty sum to have it printed with a reward of twenty-five guineas to the individual who brought him directly to Mr. A.J. St. Clair. He posted the bills from Romsey to Portsmouth. He had his new valet, Demers, send a parcel of bills to be posted at the London docks and rookeries.
The day he had confronted Kitty on Lovett, Julian had returned to the yard and interviewed Sam Worthing, who spilled the painful details, including Miss Althea Dixley’s handy use of his dueling pistols. Julian had spared Sam his position after a curt lecture on the nature of loyalty, specifically that his foreman owed it to Julian first. He had also addressed the men, thanking them for their loyalty to Madame and assuring them Lovett would be dealt with. The Sunday after posting the bills, Julian had been besieged with townspeople praising his determination to set matters right.
Even if he never found Lovett or the evidence of Childers’s involvement, he had sufficiently defended his name. Because appearances mattered. Kitty understood this. She had been humiliated by Lovett’s accusations, and as he had listened to her various explanations and then Sam’s report, Julian was certain Kitty meant to humiliate him.
She had done it once. It was simply a matter of odds that she would repeat her past.
December had been a productive month so far, Julian reflected as Demers dressed him for dinner, fussing over the fall of his jabot, brushing invisible lint from his dark blue wool coat and breeches. There was also a thread of embroidery askew on his waistcoat for which Demers apologized profusely and promised to see to its mending.
Since Demers arrival at the lodge, his valet had insisted he shave him and draw on his shoes when it would be easier for Julian to do it himself. He drew the line when Demers had attempted to put Julian’s shirt over his head.
Julian had never employed a valet, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
Since their argument five days past, Kitty had absented herself from dining with him, but tonight he had requested she join him.
What was he to do with her? This had been at the forefront of his thoughts when he was not defending his name. Her expression had been just outside of murderous when she had screamed her hatred for his father. Julian had wished the earl dead once or twice—not his finest moments—but Kitty? The earl was an evil bastard but killing him?
Kitty wished to spare him humiliation? Wouldn’t lecture him? What she had meant, if it was the truth at all, was she didn’t think him strong enough to endure a setdown. She pitied him. It tore him up inside.
He couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her. Hadn’t his father said that about him? He had relayed the tale to Kitty when he was young. He had spilled all his father’s maliciousness. But it was his fight. His burden to bear, not hers. His right to call his father a devil, not hers. Kitty had no right to hate the earl.
If he had been challenged by his father’s abuse, as she had called it, then all the better Julian was for it. He would not be the person he was without it. If his father had been patient and kind, Julian might be living a soft life with a limpid-eyed wife and five children and bored out of his mind. Or worse, liking it.
Demers announced him fit to be seen and Julian stepped into the corridor. The house was quiet as a tomb. To the north, a church bell rang, alerting the good people of Southampton that it was seven o’clock in the evening. Time for Julian to do what he must.
He trod down the wide staircase, prepared for the fight. He sat at the head of the table, nodded for the footman to pour him wine, and rose when his wife entered the dining room in her blacks. She had ceased wearing his pearls, trading them for her mother’s dainty gold cross pendant.
Julian saw her into her chair at the foot of the table. Until six days ago, she had sat at his right. More often they had dined in the morning room where they had spread out their papers and accounts and discussed the day past and the one to come.
Julian scowled when Miss Dixley arrived and entrenched her pious self on his wife’s right.
“How go the rehearsals?” Kitty asked Miss Dixley over soup. “I believe I’ve sufficiently recovered from my cold to attend tomorrow.”
Julian motioned for more wine while Miss Dixley blathered on about the children singing and Kitty asked about each individual child.
He would rather be without the company of Miss Dixley, but he had summoned Kitty to dine with him and she had brought her companion with her, knowing full well he wished to discuss a topic of importance. So be it. He waited until the dinner plates were cleared and a dessert of apple fool served.
“I have made some changes at the yard,” he said.
Kitty gazed up from her plate, her spoon suspended.
He hardened his resolve. “I have engaged a Mr. Adam Turner to keep the accounts and assist me with the administration of St. Clair Shipwrights. From this moment forward, you will keep from the yard lest you are invited at my request.”
She blinked and slowly returned her gaze to her plate. The spoon she held so still went back to its task.
Not a single misgiving threatened him for pushing her out because wives and partners did not keep secrets. Honest ones didn’t. He looked to the cream melting on the warm apples on his plate and then the claret waiting in his glass.
