Page 4 of Better Love Next Time
“Your home parish?” Paisley asked.
“Holyrood, Southampton.”
Sober, with a crushing headache, he calculated how large an allowance he could afford to offer his wife when she left. He hoped to God she left.
Another question was posed. “Are you free to marry?”
He would offer Kitty a lump sum as well as an allowance. A letter to his solicitor and it would be out of his hands. He would never need to know her address, how she spent her freedom, only that he had afforded her the opportunity.
Kitty’s voice whispered, “Julian?”
He roused himself from his thoughts and, for the first time since arriving at the blacksmith’s, looked down at the pale young woman at his side. Her upper lip was swollen. It still bore the cut from her father’s cruelty. There was a violet bruise marring her left cheek. Her back was slim and straight, but he had seen the work of Sir Jeffrey Babbington’s riding crop. The raised wheals beneath her torn bodice hadn’t yet healed.
He did the right thing by marrying her. But it didn’t mean he wanted to.
Kitty’s huge hazel eyes glazed with tears in the lamplight. She was frightened. Not because she feared her father would catch her. There was no one on their trail. They had vanished the night he had rescued her without having to use his pistol. Even when he had obliged her request to retrieve her sketchbooks and dared the extra steps to her room. No, Kitty feared he would walk away. As he should have done four days ago.
The words stuck in his teeth until he swallowed and looked away. “I am free to marry.”
A few more declarations followed, shockingly insufficient for the permanence of their undertaking. Paisley announced them man and wife. The hammer struck the anvil, the harsh clang reverberating in Julian’s miserable four-and-twenty soul.
Kitty’s small, cold hand curled in his. His gaze dropped to her parted lips. Did she actually think he would kiss her? He could never touch her again because he knew where that would lead. She was a drug requiring strict avoidance.
His eyes flared before turning and directing Paisley to lead them to the register.
CHAPTER ONE
August 1749
Fourteen Years Prior
London, England
It seemedan excellent idea at the time.
Julian knew he’d regret it if he didn’t take advantage: his family’s St. James home full of oldies, squeezed into their finest clothes, iced with powdered hair and wigs like human cakes, celebrating his brother Oliver’s engagement to a duke’s granddaughter.
The bride-to-be was a nervous, yellow-haired girl. Julian couldn’t say if she was pretty. Anthony Philips, Julian’s partner in undignified sport—also calledfun—said she was rum. Which was another word for pretty, Julian had learned, and he took Anthony for his word, being nine months older than Julian. Though Julian didn’t like girls, with their ribbons and giggles, who ran from dirt like it was the bogeyman and screamed at spiders.
Julian had never seen all of Oliver’s bride’s face until yesterday when she had fallen in a dead faint. She had alwayshad a handkerchief stuffed to it. And Julian was sure Miss Sniffy Granddaughter of a Dead Duke had stolen his new cricket ball he had left in the morning room. Right sure, because he had seen her do it, and when he had called her out, Miss Sniffy had bawled into her lacy hanky.
Julian had gotten a rousing lecture from his father entitledAccusing Ladies of Quality of Unseemly Acts Is Not Funny. Neither was making her cry.
The current week had been light on lectures, with only four.
Playing Dead in St. James Square Fountain Is Not Funny.
Seeking an Apprenticeship in Limehouse Shipyard Is Not Funny.
Tarring Your Classics Tutor’s Arse to His Seat Is Not Funny.
Wearing Your Sister’s Gown While Riding Your Horse in the Park Is Not Funny.
Actually, five.Cutting Your Mother’s Brocade Drapery for Your Damn Stupid Sailboat Is Not Funny.
No, six.Hiding Beneath the Dining Room Table in the Midst of a Dinner Party and Effecting Farting Noises Is Not Funny.
The record for lectures in a week was fourteen. So, all in all Julian expected the archbishop to announce him a Servant of God at any time—the dreaded first step on the road to sainthood. The engagement party had been the perfect setting for avoiding canonization.
