“I’ll come along and hold your hand,” Moira offered, linking her arm through her troubled friend’s with a squeeze of support. “I don’t mind being at the center of a bit of carnage. Besides, I find it all incredibly fascinating anyway. I mean Jack Merrill? You must tell me all about it, Kitty!”
Kitty couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up in her throat, but bit it back, feeling it completely inappropriate to the occasion. “Fine, in return for your moral support, I shall give you a detailed account. But Eve?” She turned back to her sister with a pleading glance. “Might I at least say I’m a widow? I mean, a public kiss as a widow is much less titillating to the gossips than that of a married woman.”
Eve chuckled in agreement and sent her off with a wave. “Do as you will, Kat! As long as my baby remains Glenrothes’ in the eyes of the people, I care not. However, I do not want any kind of accounting about it from you or anyone. It quite turns my stomach to even consider it! I will want an explanation for it however, because I simply do not understand.”
“And you’ll have one,” Kitty promised, though her eyes twinkled now. “Next time I see you. Today? Tomorrow? Next week?”
Eve shooed her away as the count grew, with an embarrassed but pleased blush as Francis’ fingers tightened on her own. She would make no promises she couldn’t keep!
Kitty was exhausted by the time Abby dropped her and Moira back off at Glenrothes House. Abby had taken her to every residence available for an at home visit that rainy morning and introduced her as Mrs. Katherine Hayes, widow and the sister of the Countess of Glenrothes. Reactions ranged from skepticism to blatant curiosity once Abby made it known it was Kitty who accompanied her to the previous evening while Eve had remained home with her husband.
Subtle interrogations clashed with blatant inquiries, from when she had arrived in Edinburgh to how long she had been widowed. Kitty had given an accurate date on the former and a period of some years for the latter, since the clothing of Eve’s she borrowed was not appropriate mourning or even half-mourning apparel.
Within the span of two hours, the whole of Society was aware of the arrival of Mrs. Hayes, sister of the Countess of Glenrothes, and of her indiscretions with the Earl of Haddington. Not so subtle innuendo questioned whether she was Haddington’s lover, while others of a more circumspect nature merely offered grave warnings to Kitty regarding Haddington’s loose ways with women, and his fickle heart. Apparently, to many she was looked upon with some pity under the assumption that the earl had targeted her for his infamous seduction. He had a notorious reputation himself in Edinburgh. She shouldn’t count on him, they warned, to come up to snuff and make a respectable offer of marriage. It wasn’t his style to get serious, despite the rumors that the earl was on the hunt for a wife. Everyone knew such rumors must be unfounded.
They told her nothing Kitty did not already know about Jack, not only from similar warnings from Eve, Moira, and Jack’s own sister, but from her own realizations. He was fickle even in his base desires and perhaps he was content spending his life in the seduction of multiple women at once. Kitty, however, thought if she were to engage in an affair, she should at least have the sole focus of her lover for whatever time they were involved. True, she would not consider a physical lover until her divorce was complete, but even a serious flirtation should be a monogamous one!
Their final visit had been to the Duchess of Roxburghe, where Kitty had admitted her charade of the previous evening and begged her grace’s forgiveness. “Nonsense,” that lady had waved dismissively, “I knew you weren’t Lady Glenrothes the moment I saw you. You haven’t her air of reserve. I could not quite figure out exactly who you were though. I had quite thought twins, given your identical appearance.”
“She had no idea!” Moira declared when they got back in the carriage. “She just likes to look like she knows everything!”
“I have to agree with Moira,” Abby laughed in agreement. “I think she was merely bluffing. Kitty? You look pale. Are you all right? Did the duchess upset you?”
“No, not at all.” Kitty sank back against the cushions. “Just not feeling well. Much has been going on these past few days and perhaps I am just over-fatigued.”
“Best go right up to bed then, it wouldn’t do for you to get sick.”
Chapter 19
“Business, you know, may bring money,
but friendship hardly ever does.”
Jane Austen, from Emma
It seemed she had indeed caught a bit of a cold or such, Kitty thought as she woke from a nap late that afternoon. Her nose was stuffy and her head ached terribly. Unwilling to face anyone – well, Haddington at least – with her flagging strength, she gave her excuses avoiding an engagement for dinner at a popular new restaurant at the Balmoral Hotel. Instead, she stayed in her room while Sung Li nursed her with his soups and wisdom. She slept on and off through the next day, feeling worse rather than better. However, when she missed her morning ride the following morning, it seemed that was all Jack could take.
“Lord Haddington is downstairs, missy,” Sung Li informed her as the clock crept toward the noon hour. “He insists on seeing you. Lady’s butler, Hobbes, is a very funny man. He’s put Haddington on front step until you say it’s all right to let him in!”
Kitty laughed at the idea, though the action split her still aching head. Hobbes was a very dear old man. Though he liked to portray himself as a most dignified butler, he had proven himself loyal and protective of Eve and now it seemed she had been blessed with the same. It would serve Haddington right to wait indefinitely on the front stoop, or even be turned away, after his improper behavior at the opera. Certainly, after the rumors abounding, it would not do to receive him openly, but she supposed it was better to have him inside than on public display at the front door. “Oh, as much as I would love to leave him out there, I’d better come down for a moment and see what he wants. Will you send a maid to let me dress, and let Hobbes know Haddington might enter as I will be down shortly?”
“Very good, missy, but not too long a visit!” warned her equally protective majordomo. “You must rest!”
“If you think avoiding me will make me go away, Kitty, you have another thing coming!” Jack informed her as she entered the family parlor half an hour later, not even giving her a chance to toss out a greeting. “I’ll admit I may owe you an apology for my behavior the other night, but I’ve come for yours as well.”
“Well, good morning to you, as well, Lord Haddington,” she sniffed, offering him her hand while the other held a tightly clenched handkerchief she felt she would certainly need. “Would you like some tea? Cakes?”
“Don’t play Evelyn with me, Kitty,” he warned, as if that were some awful game he couldn’t abide taking part in. “I had enough of that at the opera.”
“I hardly think making my sister sound like an unwanted disease is the way to build a friendship, Jack,” she chided, as she sat weakly on the sofa.
Jack sat across from her and ran both hands through his hair with some frustration. “I don’t mean to disparage your sister, Kitty. You had the right of it before, I actually quite like Eve despite her prickly exterior, just as I know she now considers us friends though she tries to deny it, but I cannot have you, of all people, talking through me as if I were some stranger to you!”
“What do you mean? Me, of all people?” she asked curiously, thanking Hobbes with sincere gratitude when he brought a strong tea and honey in for her. She poured and sipped the herbal remedy, hoping it might clear her sinuses soon.
“You,” he gestured to her up and down. “That isn’t you at all. You are too cheerful and personable to talk through someone like that. It isn’t like you to treat me like a stranger!”
“In essence, you are a stranger, Jack,” she reminded him, as she inhaled the steam from the cup and sighed.
A rueful grin flashed across his face. “We have never been strangers, Kitty. From the moment we met, I felt as if I had known you always. I a
ctually like you, you know?” He reminded, as if it were still an incredible feat. Though Kitty supposed it was, given the stories Abby had recently told her. Jack had always treated women like…well, stray dogs. Oh, they’re cute and loveable but if you give them too much attention, you just can’t shake them off and you’re stuck with them for life. That was Jack’s entire history with women in a nutshell. And as much as she might like some of his attention, she didn’t want him to feel hunted by her.
Jack went on, “To me, you’re more like a…” He faltered, as if uncertain how to define her.
“Sister?” she guessed, when he continued to flounder.
“Bloody hell!” he gaped in disgust. “No, not at all! As I said before, Moira, she is like a sister. I like her dearly but I could never imagine…” he trailed off with a shudder.
“What?” Kitty asked curiously, her tone low.
“Doing to her what I want to do to you.” His eyes met hers and she was agog by the molten gold heat in them. They seduced without words but spoke volumes. Surely, she had been mistaken in thinking his desire was not specifically for her, for it seemed as if they burned for her alone, that his desire was directed solely at her. He wanted her. Answering heat in the pit of her stomach flared as a dozen scenarios flew through her mind of the things he might do to her.
“Would you like me to tell you all the things I’d like to do?” he asked, as if reading her mind. His voice was deep and gravelly with desire, enough to set Kitty’s heart pounding. “How I long to take your in my arms, to strip you bare and do hundreds of unspeakable things to you? How the lust you have incited in me consumes me until I can think of little else?”
God, he is good! she thought, as a little shudder snaked its way down her spine. She wanted to put aside all her misgivings and have him tell her, with his deep, seductive brogue, each of those hundred things he might do to her! Just the sound of that gravelly voice was enough to seduce. He could reduce her to a quivering mass on words alone, she thought. But no! she chastised herself. One night with Jack wasn’t going to gain her a thing and might strain her friendship with Abby and Francis if things went badly. She wanted him as a lover eventually. She was realistic enough to admit it. If she were going to take him as her lover though, she would expect it to be a long affair.
An attentive affair.
And a monogamous affair.
She wasn’t certain Jack had it in him to be all those things.
And what if he married? she thought, and shook her head. Not if. When! From all she had heard from Abby, the estates Jack had inherited earlier in the year when his brother died had been mortgaged to the hilt and all the previous earl’s creditors were now hounding Jack for payment of their vowels. This stubbornly proud man had refused loans from his family, claiming debt made for bad relations, and with no time for investments or other long term possibilities, his only plan was to wed well to an heiress of means.
Though he had said in the park that the idea of marrying some silly debutante had become repugnant to him, Kitty knew he had no choice but to give in eventually. She hated the thought of him being barreled into making such a move. If only she had access to some of her funds, she thought. She and Eve might be great heiresses but most of the funds they had came to them from their Da. Oh, he gave freely with quarterly allowances that would surely be enough to help Jack out, however, to access her funds, she would need to wire her bank in Boston or New York. Any withdrawal would be immediately noted by her husband and lead him quickly to her. She couldn’t take that risk.
She shook her head and considered Jack seriously. But perhaps there might be a way to spare him the necessity of immediate marriage and gain all that she desired in return. She studied him thoughtfully over the rim of her teacup.
“You want me for your lover, Jack?” Her voice was grave enough for Jack to understand it was a practical question, not one of seduction, and his manner cooled a bit.
“Aye, I do,” he returned with simple honesty, though he felt that the word ‘lover’ simply couldn’t fully encompass what it was he wanted from her, for in his mind the word was too polite and dispassionate. He wanted her surrender, her challenge, enthusiasm and fervor. He wanted her naked and sweating beneath him, panting for breath and begging for her release before he might beg her for his own. He was certain he could easily become a slave to her as much as he’d like to have her submissive to him.
“I thought you said you wanted to be my friend.”
Jack frowned as she threw that rebuttal out coolly. “Aye, I want that as well. As I said, lass. I actually enjoy your company and that is a rare thing for me.”
“Abby says…”
“Abby has been saying a lot about me, it seems.” Jack could only imagine what kind of horror stories his sister had told this lass about him. Abby did love to spread tales. Unfortunately, they were not at all flattering to him. Hope danced through his mind that Kitty wouldn’t be completely driven by what she might have heard.
“Mmmm, she does,” Kitty nodded in agreement, still breathing in the steam from her cup before setting it aside. “So many stories, I think there might not be anything about you that is a mystery to me.”
“I’m not really as bad as all that,” he defended himself against the unknown. “A sister, any sibling really, is bound to tell lies about their older brother. How about if we simply forget I have a sister at all and start over?”
“So, you don’t need to marry for money to save your estates?”
There was no reason to deny it. “Aye, I do need to do that,” he confessed a bit sheepishly. No man liked to have his weaknesses, his shame, so openly aired.
“So you want me for your friend,” she clarified, counting the details off on each finger,
“you want me for your lover. Is there some part of you, Jack Merrill, that is thinking to have me for a wife as well, to gain the fortune you need?”
It was a sticky question and one that Jack wasn’t sure he knew how to answer. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to answer it at all! How to confess that, aye, it had crossed his mind – actually been his plan! – to wait out her divorce and marry her the moment the ink was dry, gaining not only her fortune but unlimited access to her person in the process?
“I know you haven’t forgotten I am married,” she continued, as if the frozen expression on his face wasn’t enough to reveal the truth. That look was painting a far bleaker picture than any words might have, but, still goading him, she went on. “But you did have plenty of questions to ask the other night about my divorce and how it was proceeding. How quickly I think it will be done, and the like. You were thinking of waiting it out and pouncing on this rich, defenseless divorcée before I even had a chance to breathe, weren’t you? I’m a pretty bright woman, Jack. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But please correct me if I’m wrong.”
Knowing that he had been found out, Jack could do nothing more than shake his head, seeing all his plans for the future fly from his grasp. There was no way he’d be able to surreptitiously sweep her off her feet if she were aware of his intentions.
“Don’t look so glum, Jack!” she said, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and genteelly dabbing at her nose. The idea she had been working on in her subconscious suddenly came to a focal point in her mind. “I am going to make this easy on you.”
“You are?” He raised a suspicious brow, wondering just what, about all this, she considered easy. His plans were ousted. A week devoted to her seduction lay in waste. Time he didn’t have to spare. He knew not where to turn from here.
“I am,” she nodded, and cocked her head a bit as she considered him. “I’ve told you that Eve wired my father requesting that he begin the petition for my divorce, right?”
“You did.”
“There was a response delivered this morning that Da has met with a lawyer to start the paperwork and has a judge friend of his, high up in the New York circuit courts, who he believes will pull some strings and push the divorce through mo
re quickly than expected. Da’s lawyer expects perhaps a month, maybe two, before the decree is final. Mother, of course, is prostrate with humiliation and refuses to leave her bed lest society discover she has a divorcée for a daughter, but,” here Kitty shrugged philosophically, “she will get over it.”
“I am very pleased you will finally be freed from that bastard,” he said sincerely. “I don’t see how you will get him to sign the final papers though. He will have to actually sign them to see the thing done, you know.”
“Da is working on that.” She waved her hand dismissively, with complete faith that her father would find a way. Given what Jack had heard of Lelan Preston, he didn’t believe her trust was misplaced.
“I fail to see how your triumph will make anything easier on me though.” Unless she was about to propose to him, there wasn’t much mystery left for him. With his motives exposed, she would never consent to marry him now.
“I’m about to tell you what you can do. Until my marriage is over, I want you to accept monies from Eve to get you out of the worst of your debt.” She held up a hand as he started to interrupt. “I would just do it myself, but I fear a transaction from my accounts would mark a path for Freddie that would lead straight to this door.”
“I can’t–” he began, but this time Kitty cut him off.
“Your debts are not your fault, Jack, but your pride is. You have friends who have offered again and again to lend you enough to expunge every debt you have, but you have stubbornly denied them. Why? Pride?” she taunted him lightly. “I know you feel like you might bankrupt them in the process. Still, you say no, even to a little to stave off the worst of it, or enough to grow some investments to see the balance taken care of. Perhaps your worries are that the total amount of your debt will overwhelm, for example, Francis’ fortune, though I gather he is well enough off. But – and I want you to trust me on this – there is no amount you might possibly owe that would diminish what Eve has.”
A Question of Trust Page 15