“Our children, Lord Silverton?” Kitty looked at him askance.
“For goodness’ sake, Kitty, you know that if you were the daughter of....” He waved his hands in the air as he clearly sought inspiration, “Lord Partington, for example, there would be no impediment to my marrying you. But ladies like Miss Araminta Partington marry men like Lord Debenham. I am of that closely prescribed world where it is not possible to follow my heart if it will cause family disruptions, and threaten the viability of a family estate that has taken centuries and generations to build up.”
Kitty’s heart was still beating wildly as she answered softly, “No, you’d have stepped into Lord Nash’s shoes and made me your mistress instead. But Lord Nash is marrying me. He’s thumbing his nose at convention, and is prepared to take on the wrath of his parents and the potential opprobrium of society—”
“Please, Kitty!” Lord Silverton rose abruptly. “I’m sorry for my failings, and I’m also very happy for your good fortune, provided you are entirely sure Nash is playing an honest hand.”
Kitty rose also, tears threatening and with the desire to tell him who her father was but Dorcas leaped up, intervening with, “Lord Silverton, please would yer practice a few lines with me mistress. We bin tryin’ ter get it right this mornin’ an’ it jest won’t come easy ter Miss Kitty fer she don’t like her leadin’ man.”
Her eager entreaty defused the situation, and Lord Silverton chuckled. “I should like that very much,” he agreed, adding when Dorcas thrust the script under his nose, “Well, Kitty, it looks like Dorcas has come prepared. All right, just a few lines, eh? Like in the old days.” He scanned the several pages quickly, glanced at Dorcas, and said with quirked mouth, “Dorcas, perhaps you’d like to go into the kitchens, and Cook can find you something to eat.”
Indignantly, Kitty put her hands on her hips and declared, “You just saw there was a...a kissing scene, my Lord, and you seek to take advantage—”
Lord Silverton raised one eyebrow. “Are you not a professional, Miss La Bijou? Surely you would not envisage me as anyone other than your counterpart in this production?”
Kitty sighed with frustration. “I told Dorcas we shouldn’t come here.”
He looked hurt. “You did? So it wasn’t your idea to come here? Do you know how crushing that is? In that case, I insist that I oblige. You seem less than pleased with the turn the conversation has taken so I must render an honest service.” His look gentled as he took a step forward and reached for her hands. “Truly, Kitty, I am immensely pleased for you, and look forward to meeting you in fashionable drawing rooms and to dancing with you in London’s finest ballrooms. I won’t deny I’m mighty jealous of your Lord Nash.”
“It might be a little time before we can officially announce the marriage,” Kitty mumbled. “Lord Nash’s grandfather is unwell. But it will be a completely legal union,” she added hastily. “You might consider me foolish and naïve, but I’ve made very sure it will be legal.”
Silverton squeezed her hands. “I don’t consider you either foolish or naïve. I’m exceedingly impressed by your determination to forge your own way in life. And I’m very happy that you and Dorcas were able to orchestrate her leaving that dreadful place when I could not, though I went to visit the old Abbess the other week for that precise purpose, and even offered a sizeable inducement.”
Kitty gasped. “That was the reason you were there?”
Silverton chuckled. “I do not choose to buy my pleasure, Kitty. No, I asked Mrs. Montgomery to name a sum to release Dorcas and she promised she would. However, I then received a letter from her, which, to my great surprise, declined my offer. She told me Dorcas was too happy in her present situation.”
“Really?” She blinked. “Well, I can’t tell you how much I’m filled with disgust to think men would pay to do such things with the poor women who work there,” Kitty said. “Do they not have other diversions?”
“The sexual urge is a powerful one, I grant you. There, I’ve shocked you, and indeed that pleases me for I wanted to see what made you blush.”
“Of course, I’m shocked, but disappointed too, for you’d never say such a thing in front of a lady.”
“You’re an actress, Kitty. You’ve made your bed.”
She nodded, sadly. “It’s true. Now, let us waste no more time. I can’t tarry so if you’d be so kind as to go through the next two pages, I’d be most grateful.”
The part Lord Silverton was to play was a besotted swain who resorts to all manner of humorous and devious means to win the heart of his true love. The scene they were to re-enact placed the two of them in confrontational attitudes in the middle of a drawing room.
Lord Silverton stepped back and looked down at his script. “I believe you begin, Miss La Bijou.”
Kitty, who was trying to do this without a script, threw her arms wide. “You have wounded me mortally, my Lord. Do you consider me so beneath you that you’d cast my heart to the wind?”
“Delilah, you could only make such a claim if you had a heart!”
“I have a heart that is full of feeling, my Lord. Feeling that you do not have, and yes, my heart has been trampled as I watch you cavort with other women.”
“Cavort? That’s just to make you jealous, my one true love.” Silverton glanced at Kitty from above his script, took a step forward and whisked her up from the floor and into his arms. “Let me show you what love is.”
Kitty protested, both as required by the script, but also because she was feeling highly self-conscious in Lord Silverton’s arms, and her heart was beating far too wildly. It never did this when she was playing the role opposite Mr. Diglish.
“Put me down, cruel sir. You have no right to handle me so when you have played so unkind with me thus far.”
“Only when I’ve kissed you, my fair Delilah. Only when you’ve felt the depth of my passion and can decide whether you would really cast me off, as you claim is your desire.”
Kitty was about to protest that she felt it unseemly, after all, to continue, but as she opened her mouth Lord Silverton’s came down swiftly, and her protest was a muffled squeak almost immediately extinguished by a sudden rush of pleasure.
This was only acting, she qualified in the brief moment she had any conscious thought as to the rights and wrongs. She clasped her arms more tightly around his neck and kissed him back, while her breath ratcheted up a dozen knots, and then suddenly she was on the settee and he was over her, kissing her lips, his tongue plunging into her mouth, heightening her desire. She felt lost when he moved to kiss her jawline and throat, then exultant as he kissed her décolletage. Mindlessly, she hooked a leg over the back of his knees and arched into him just as his hand found her bare breast.
“I’m sorry, Kitty!” He stood up abruptly and stared down at her with deep contrition. “That wasn’t in the script. I don’t know what came over me.”
Kitty at up feeling dazed as she smoothed her skirts. “Nor me,” she said, unable to look at him. “That was wrong of me, Lord Silverton. Please, pretend it never happened.”
“No, No!” He shook his head, wildly. “It was wrong of me to take such advantage. You’re about to be married, and the last thing I would want is to get in the way of your life’s ambition.” He turned and went to the fireplace where he leaned against the mantelpiece. Still breathing heavily, he said in a low voice, “I envy Nash for having you, Kitty. I don’t deny it. I’ve never felt what I do here...” he tapped his heart “...with any other woman. Your bright eagerness and your charming sweetness will never be dimmed, I suspect, and that is a wonderful trait.” He looked sad for a moment. “I wish I was to be in Lord Nash’s shoes on Saturday.”
Kitty’s heart felt torn in two. But this was not an offer, she realized. Lord Silverton was quite safe in saying such things, when he’d also made it clear he had no intention of ever marrying Kitty.
She rose. “Don’t berate yourself, my Lord. I showed my wanton nature, and that should disgust you. Th
e trouble is, I do like you exceedingly.” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve met a nicer man than you, but Nash loves me more. He’s giving me what I want and I love him deeply, despite everything. It will be a good match, I think. And I shall enjoy dancing with you in respectable ballrooms, too. I shall enjoy gloating and will continue to hope, even, that you come to feel you missed an opportunity for happiness when you put up all those important social considerations which are, of course, what prevented my father from marrying my mother and thus making me what I am. Beneath you, Lord Silverton.”
She turned and took a step toward the door, but he quickly crossed the room and gripped her hand. “Would you really see me trade places with Nash if I had made a similar offer?”
Kitty forced herself to be insouciant. “I cannot say, my Lord, for I have not experienced the two offers to know how I would feel. But I am destined to marry Lord Nash, the dashing nobleman with the scar beneath his eye, and I love him and he loves me. I will not allow other considerations to cloud my happiness.”
“Despite harboring such inconvenient feelings for me?”
“Now you are putting tickets on yourself, my Lord, for you do not know what my feelings are.”
His voice sounded strangled. “I felt the way you responded to me. I didn’t have to be possessed of magical powers to know your feelings are very...favorable.”
Kitty turned with a tinkling laugh she hoped would put an end to what was becoming an uncomfortable conversation. “Immaterial when you are not a contender for my affections, my Lord. No, you have made that very clear. You are very safe in espousing all that you have, for you are in no danger of ever having to act upon any of the sentiments you profess to have for me. Now, please will you pull the bell and summon Dorcas for me.”
***
Silverton’s last image was fixed in his brain. Her smile had been bright as she’d waved to him before she and Dorcas left his townhouse to return to Kitty’s abode. But her words had been loaded with portent as she’d told him, with a meaningful stare, that she must hurry if she were dress in order to receive Nash, whom she must duly honor since he was prepared to defy society in order to fulfill Kitty’s dreams.
Long after she’d left Silverton alone, sipping another glass of Madeira, he stared soulfully into the fireplace and wondered why he suddenly had no inclination to venture out, either in company with Debenham or to seek more preferable company at his club. He wished he could erase that image of her staring hopefully into his eyes. She’d spoken defiantly of waiting to receive Nash, almost as if she were daring him to make her a better offer.
Silverton shook his head and stared into his unfinished drink, touching a finger to his lips where he could still feel the sensation of her kiss; a kiss she’d tumbled into as if it had been an abyss and she’d had not been able to resist the plummet to its depths.
It had been a surprising experience for him, too. Although he’d long envied Nash and often spoke flippantly to Kitty of being prepared to offer himself up for trade, he’d not realized until that kiss quite how much she affected him.
Silverton shook his head. In just a few days, she’d be entirely another man’s. The faint idea that, one day, either she or Nash might tire of the other was just a dream. Kitty was ever-faithful. She’d never leave Nash. Certainly not once she was his wife.
Reaching for the letter he’d received that afternoon, he scanned its few lines and wished he felt more excitement about what he had willingly pledged.
Dear Silverton,
Your offer was an expected surprise, if I can put it in those terms.
We have been comfortable with one another for so many years that I cannot imagine not having you in my life. Yet as your wife?
It’s true that I have found myself placed in difficult circumstances suddenly, and that your marriage offer provides a multitude of conveniences for your family, for mine, and certainly for me.
But what of love? Do you love me? I would wish that you held some spark of feeling that transcended mere friendship if we were to become bound together for life.
I thank you for sounding me out on my feelings before you approach my father. He would be overjoyed at a union between our two families, and indeed it is eminently good sense.
But before I speak to them of your marriage proposal, I would ask for an avowal of the state of your heart, dear Silverton, and how it may be engaged by thoughts of me...
Miss Octavia Mandelton. He dropped the letter and reflected on her kind, homely face. She had a good skin, but he did not remember the color of her eyes, and indeed would be pressed to find a complimentary name for the shade of her hair.
But she would make a good wife. Steady, loyal, and kind. Living on the neighboring estate, she was like a second daughter to Silverton’s mother.
And her father had just suffered a ruinous financial setback, leaving his only child entirely vulnerable, just when Silverton was in need of a wife, and Miss Mandelton was being suggested in more than enthusiastic tones by both his parents. Her dowry was sizeable, thanks to a wealthy aunt, but that was far from the only consideration, they said.
And it was not. Another was that she would be suitable.
It’s what they also said.
And Silverton agreed.
Wearily, he rose and went to his writing desk. There seemed little reason to delay with his answer. Kitty was soon to marry Nash, and he needed a panacea to the pain and disappointment he felt as a result.
Reassuring Miss Mandelton of the sincerest love he’d harbored but failed to show would be just the answer.
Some time later when the room was in utter darkness, he was disturbed by the noise of his butler entering with a candle, startling him when he turned in his chair.
“My Lord? Have you been waiting for a light all evening? I beg your pardon for I’d thought you’d left without telling the household.”
“I’ve been thinking, Briggs.”
“Pleasant thoughts, I hope, my Lord.” His butler crossed the room to draw the curtains.
“Not at all, Briggs. The woman I love is to be married in five days’ time.”
“Miss Bunting.”
“No, not Miss Bunting. A rather unsuitable young lady. An actress, in fact, who is to marry, rather incredibly, into the aristocracy.”
“A second marriage, then?”
“No, not that, even. I think he must be quite mad for courting such scandal.”
“You sound as if you envy him, nevertheless, my Lord.”
“I do, for I’ve only just discovered how my heart is engaged, and tonight it would appear hers is similarly so. With me! Yet I cannot offer her what Lord Nash is offering her.”
“Lord Nash? That is a surprise, my Lord.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
Silverton looked up at the silence that greeted his ironic words. “Well, Briggs, aren’t you going to advise me? You who have the advantage of at least three decades on me to confer the kind of wisdom my late Pater might have.”
“I would never presume.” Briggs sounded shocked. “But I do think the young lady who visited you earlier is very charming, and it is no surprise to hear you evince the sentiments you just have.”
“So, what should I do? Offer my congratulations at their wedding and then resume my search for a wife?”
“You could...try and offer the young lady some other enticement if her heart is, as you’ve suggested, more engaged in these quarters, my Lord.”
***
Lord Silverton knew he’d lost his opportunity. He couldn’t offer Kitty marriage; therefore he could offer her nothing she would want.
It didn’t stop him being drawn back to the theater, though, and inviting into his box his friend, Lord Ludbridge, and Lord Ludbridge’s brother, Mr. Ralph Tunley, who arrived with a young lady called Miss Hazlett, a distant cousin visiting from the provinces.
Leaning over the balcony, Silverton watched, mesmerized, the woman who would soon become Lady Nash, and throughout her performance, h
is mind went over what might have been had she not been stained with the illegitimacy which precluded a union between them.
“She’s very lovely, isn’t she?” Part way through he turned back to address his guests, and started at the astonishing likeness Miss Hazlett had been sketching. She tried to cover it up the moment she realized he’d observed her drawing, but he was too quick, saying, “You have captured her liveliness as if you knew her intimately.”
Miss Hazlett blushed. “You are very kind, sir, but there are grave deficiencies which obviously you cannot see.” Nevertheless, she allowed him to take the sketch from her so as to study it more closely. “And her necklace!” he exclained. “Goodness, the detail is remarkable. Can you see so well from this distance?”
“Miss Hazlett has a remarkable eye for detail.” Mr. Tunley sounded proud. “I’d forgotten just how clever she was. It’s been too long since she visited us in London.”
Silverton looked at Lord Ludbridge to ask him a question, but his Lordship was thoroughly absorbed by Miss Hazlett’s drawing. Indeed, he was shaking his head slowly with the greatest of admiration. “The necklace...why, it is composed of rubies and diamonds in a most unusual configuration.” He put his finger on the paper and then traced the outline of the young woman’s face. “Miss Hazlett, I had no idea you were so gifted.” He hesitated. “May I...may I have it? I would like to buy it from you. Yes, indeed. You see, I’m looking for a necklace very similar to this one. You’d be doing me a great service.”
A little bemused, Miss Hazlett tore off the page, and when the performance came to an end, Lord Ludbridge accompanied Silverton backstage while the others cited another engagement.
“And so you came to see me one last time.” Kitty almost purred the words as she greeted him, and Silverton was conscious of the most extraordinarily acute stab of something—part desire, part pain. “You are so sweet, Lord Silverton. And I’m delighted to make Lord Ludbridge’s acquaintance,” she added, bobbing a curtsey.
“Perhaps you’d join us for supper,” Silverton asked, wishing he didn’t sound so hopeful. He desperately wanted Kitty to himself for just a crucial couple of hours, and was glad Nash was not in evidence, which suggested he might be on the town and happy for Kitty to be left to her own devices.
Beyond Rubies (Daughters of Sin Book 4) Page 22