A Question of Trust

by Angeline Fortin

  “You need to be able to live again,” he went on.

  “I am living, Jack, and enjoying each day, though it would be quite impossible not to. As Samuel Butler said, ‘To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it’,” she quoted, though she cringed at having the word ‘love’ escape her lips in his presence. He didn’t seem to notice, though, for he countered her with a smile.

  “It is nice to hear you giving the Brits their fair shake in your endless recitations,” he returned, recognizing the name, if not the words, of the novelist. “I must keep up on my reading if I am to ever stand a chance of matching your novel ability to call to mind the most obscure passages.”

  “Samuel Butler is not obscure!” she protested with a laugh. “He wrote Erewhon!”

  “And what else?” he taunted. “Hmm?” He watched with some amusement as her mouth opened and closed several times before she laughed softly. “You see?”

  “I’ll think of another, you just wait!”

  “Shall I come inside and wait?” he asked, his voice huskily seductive now. “It might take you all night to come up with another.”

  Kitty’s lips tilted in a soft smile as she reached up to toy with his tie. “Will you keep me occupied until I do?”

  “As long as it takes,” he whispered, bending to kiss the side of her neck. “Even if it takes all night long.”

  “Shush and come inside, before Mother hears you!” she giggled, pulling him in and shutting the door behind them with a snick of the lock.

  “Your mother’s room is all the way across the house,” he countered, pulling her into his arms. “Besides, I would wager she already knows what we do all night.”

  “No!” Kitty stiffened in his arms. “Never! She would never allow it if she knew.” Or she might, Kitty thought, if she thought it might land her daughter an earl one day. It was something to think about, but if her mother did know, Kitty wasn’t sure how she might face her without dying of embarrassment. Then another horrifying thought entered her mind. “You don’t think anyone can hear us, do you?”

  “Though this house is not as large as Kilberry, I’m sure the sound doesn’t carry far outside this room. Not more than a couple of rooms, anyway,” he grinned, as Kitty punched him soundly in the chest. Waggling his brows, he bent her over his arm and dipped her low, taking her lips in a passionate kiss. “Shall we test it though? I shall see how loudly I can make you scream and we’ll see if anyone comes running.”

  Kitty clung to his shoulders, already weakened by his kiss. “You don’t dare,” she whispered, as he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

  “Never challenge me, my love.” He grinned roguishly down at her before setting her down and turning her to attack the buttons down the back of her dress. It fell to the floor and Kitty turned to take her turn, loosening Jack’s tie and ridding him of his jacket, waistcoat and shirt.

  Running her hands up his bare chest, she curled her fingers into the springy hair there and tugged playfully before rotating her hands and sweeping her palms down the rigid, rippled plains of his abdomen, nudging her fingers into the waistband of his trousers. She tilted her head back triumphantly, glorying in the hardened expression on his face, his jaw clenched already with wanting. She loved what she made him feel and pressed her hips against the solid length of his arousal for good measure as she licked and kissed the underside of his chin.

  “You think to distract me from my purpose?” he growled. “Your maid is already aware, you know. You rarely ring for her to undress you anymore. Likely the entire staff knows.”

  It was a shocking realization and Kitty was surprised she hadn’t considered it before. Of course, Jack would have, she thought. He knew all the ramifications of a love affair. He was nearly a professional! Determined not to let negative thoughts ruin her time with him, Kitty returned her attention to the task at hand, unbuttoning the placket of his trousers and sliding them down until they hung low on his hips. He was busily unlacing her corset even while he feasted greedily on the side of her neck. When that garment dropped heavily to the floor, Kitty aided him in quickly slipping out of her chemise and drawers before pressing her breasts against his bare chest and drawing his head down for her kiss.

  She drank hungrily from him, licking and nipping at his lips before he crushed her to him with arms of banded steel. His mouth now ravaged hers, his tongue plunging deeply to duel with hers. Knitting her fingers in his hair, Kitty pulled him closer though they were already nearly one. She could never have enough of him! Never get close enough!

  Lifting her, Jack laid her on the bed, but rather than press her down with his own massive body, moved to kneel between her legs. His big hands clasped her ankles then skimmed with a feather-light thrill up her calves and thighs. His thumbs grazed her dark triangle of curls just enough to send a shudder through her body before they floated down her legs once more. Again, he repeated the exercise, and again his thumbs brushed the hairs ever so slightly, making Kitty jerk against the sensation. On and on he went, barely touching, each contact a jolt to her equilibrium. Unwillingly, she whimpered, wanting more. Wanting his touch.

  As he hands came up again, Kitty arched her hips but he merely chuckled and danced his fingers across her hips and abdomen so lightly it was the barest tickle, yet it set Kitty aflutter as she tensed with anticipation. Jack ran his fingers back down, this time parting her and brushing her damp nub of desire with a fingertip. Kitty flinched at the contact, feeling so sensitized to the slightest touch by this point that she nearly exploded right then. A tiny squeal escaped her lips before she clamped them shut.

  “Almost,” Jack whispered in her ear, now leaning over her, braced on his hands and knees. Still he didn’t touch. He only toyed with feather-light kisses across her collarbone and breast, his tongue only barely teasing the hardened peaks. Across her ribs those lips traveled, his whiskered chin sending a quiver through her as his tongue dipped into her navel. His lips whispered at her hip, her inner thigh, and the back of her knee until Kitty was tense with arousal and expectation, wondering where she might feel them next.

  Then she felt his breath sigh against her core and Kitty groaned painfully. “Jack,” the word emerged in a long moan. “Please!”

  “Please what?”

  “Touch me!” it was a plea.

  Instead, he blew against her lightly and she shuddered, trying to close her legs, but his shoulders now blocked the way. He blew again, and an unwilling sob escaped her as Kitty tossed her head from side to side, her hands gripping the sheets. His finger slid into the damp curls once more and Kitty arched against the touch with a hoarse cry. “Jack!”

  The finger circled her vulnerable nub and Kitty’s body strained again, feeling the most incredible tension build. Where previously their lovemaking had been about gratification, mostly instant and wild, this denial of his touch aroused her beyond what a hundred caresses might. The deprivation of relief only served to make her flesh hypersensitive to the slightest contact.

  She was trembling then, her entire body straining toward him, begging for reprieve, moisture weeping from her core. Jack slid his finger down farther, catching the wetness signaling her readiness to be taken. He circled her with it, preparing her for him, before he slid that digit with agonizing slothfulness into her. “Ahhh!” Kitty moaned as she felt his entrance, but it wasn’t enough. Her body arched unwillingly against his hand, wanting more, but he eased his finger out, once more drawing a sob from her before it glided ever so slowly back in. Her muscles clenched around him, thighs quivered, begging soundlessly for more.

  Sensing she was on the brink, Jack lowered his head, touching her gently with his tongue and earning a gasp and a cry when he did it once more. More firmly now, his tongue laved her, stroking against the throbbing center of her desire. She cried out wordlessly, twisting the sheets in her fists before she began panting heavily, bringing her knees up until her feet were pressed against his shoulders. Each exhale combined wi
th a moan. “Oh…oh…oh, oh, oh, OH!” Kitty’s entire body arched off the bed as she throatily shouted out her release into the silence of the room. Her hands now clenched his head as he finished with her, slowing his motions as she returned to reality until he finally dropped a kiss on her thigh and pulled himself up over her.

  She might have suspected some gloating from him, but Jack’s gaze as he looked down at her was darkly pleased. “Yer magnificent, my love,” he whispered roughly as he flexed his hips, nudging at her entrance with his rigid member. Raising her legs, Kitty wrapped her thighs around him and welcomed him as he thrust deeply, seating his powerful manhood to the hilt and drawing a moan from them both. “My God, yer searing hot,” he murmured as he withdrew and thrust again, wrapping his arm under her waist to draw her up to him. As it tended to do when he was aroused, his brogue thickened with his wanting, making the words hard to understand. Yet she delighted in them, knowing he only spoke so when she drove him to the edge of desire. He plunged deeply, again and again, as he whispered in her ear. “So wonderfully wet. So tight. Bugger me, me bonny Kitty, I could fook ye for the rest o’ me life and die a happy mon.”

  “Do it then,” she urged, arching against him, meeting him thrust for thrust as her nails raked his back and buttocks in a desperate effort to be ever closer to him. His pace increased until they were both gasping, until suddenly Jack stopped, with sweat dripping from his brow. Before she might even question him, he rolled on to his back with them still joined and pressed her back until she was sitting above him. “Ride me, my bonny Kitty, ’tis yer turn to fook me now.”

  Lost in the whirlwind of passion, Kitty did as she was told and began rocking against him, levering herself up recklessly before driving back down on him. He grasped her hips in his powerful hands, pulling her with each descent roughly down as he thrust up into her. Again and still again, they were both crying out into the dim light of the room, their cries echoing against the walls. Kitty arched back, feeling the angle of her penetration change, and caught her breath as the tension coiled and spiraled out from her core as she rode him. “Oh, Jack! Oh, Jack!”

  Jack felt her clench about him, felt her release pulsing against him in a rush of heat and gave himself over to defeat. Gripping her hips, he pulled her down one last time against his thrusting drive and lost himself with a hoarse shout that blended with her vocal climax. Kitty fell against him, resting her cheek against his chest as her arms curved under his and around his back. He wrapped his arms around her as well, hugging her to him as he panted deeply, trying to catch his breath, lost in the wonder of what had just happened between them.

  As he did every time they made love. It astonished him anew each time. How could it possibly get any better, he always thought, and somehow it always did. His Kitty was so responsive, so passionate. There would never be enough of it to satisfy him completely. She had become a drug to him, so addicted was he to her sweet body. Yet it was so much more. Not just passion, but caring. Friendship. And more.

  Not caring to analyze it any more deeply, he turned with her until she was curled by his side. Her long hair tangled about her body and clung to her damp brow. Her entire body flushed with pleasure and repletion. With a tender smile, she reached up to caress his beard-roughened cheek. “Jack,” she sighed, closing her eyes and bending her legs up as she rolled over onto her back. One hand fell up on her pillow, circling her head, while the other scratched lazily at his chin.

  Replete with love, Kitty drowsily watched Jack’s face as his hand wandered over her hips and across her stomach, tracing the line of her ribs and the underside of her breast up and over her shoulder, before working his way back down once more. He looked thoughtful.

  “What are you doing, my lord?”

  “Memorizing you, my love.”

  “Perhaps I might just give you a photograph?”

  “No, I’m memorizing you so I can always picture you like this. No photograph could show me such a thing.”

  “I’ve heard of places that take photographs like that.”

  “Why do I need that when I have you here with me?” he asked lightly, then frowned, remembering the conversation earlier. “That reminds me, why was your mother saying you would remain here? Aren’t you returning with us to Scotland? I assumed you would.”

  “I’m not sure yet what I will do, Jack,” she said, not wanting to admit to him her unwillingness to return to Scotland only to watch him turn one day to the arms of another woman, his next lover, and eventually to a wife someday. That she thought it might be better to wonder from afar rather than experience the heartbreak first hand.

  “You should return with us,” he insisted. “It would save you from those biddies tonight and others like them. Besides, I am not done with you yet and nor would I wager are you done with me.”

  “No, I’m not, but…” Kitty bit her lip.

  “But?” Jack asked the question as Kitty turned her big, green eyes upon him, eyes so soft, tender and full of emotion that felt his heart clench in response. Suddenly he knew. He knew what she was going to say and sought to stop it with a jolt of panic, but he was too late.

  “I want you to know, Jack, there would never be a day I am done with you.” Her eyes held his calmly, not betraying the nerves jumping beneath the surface. The time had come for him to know how she felt…and to assure him she had no expectations from him. “I want you to know I love you, Jack,” she whispered so softly that he barely heard the words.

  Jack shook his head in denial. “It’s not so, Kitty, you just think it is. Many women equate what they feel during an affair with…”

  Kitty stilled his rebuttal with a finger over his lips, before returning to stroking his chin and cheek tenderly. “I love the man you are – your courage, sense of duty, reliability. I love that you make me laugh and make me angry and make me feel like a goddess. I love that you care for my daughter so dearly and I love the idea of what an incredible father you could be.”

  “But still,” he persisted in arguing.

  “I felt this way long before we began sleeping together,” she told him, to cease his retort.

  Those words stopped Jack’s thoughts dead. “What?”

  “I’m saying this isn’t something new, Jack,” Kitty persisted. “I just thought it was time I told you and before you say anything else, I am not looking for you to say anything, or asking anything of you. I know you are content with our arrangement as it is, but before you return to Scotland, I just wanted you to know.”

  A thousand thoughts flew through Haddington’s mind. An encaged panic. A rush of powerful self-satisfaction. A potent urge to flee the continent. Another compulsion to take her in his arms and say the words that had never left his lips. Trying to weed out the feelings of alarm ringing through his head, he pulled her into a tender embrace, tucking her head beneath his chin so she couldn’t watch and attempt to interpret the emotions he knew were showing on his face.

  He cared for Kitty, true enough. Probably more than he had ever cared for another person aside from his sisters and mother. It certainly wasn’t a sisterly affection he felt and couldn’t be confined to mere friendship, for while he valued his friendships with the MacKintosh men, this was definitely nothing like that either. He’d never had a lover he was friends with, so perhaps that was what confused him. Never known a woman he was so drawn to, but he wasn’t ready to define it. Wasn’t prepared to put a label on it.

  “I don’t know what to say, my love,” he whispered, feeling that affectionate endearment almost inappropriate in the face of her declaration. He wished he could take the words back.

  “I told you I don’t expect you to say anything, Jack,” she assured him softly. “I certainly don’t expect a declaration of any sort, so please relax.” The words were teasing, prompting him to smack her bottom lightly.

  “What do you want then?”

  “I just wanted to tell you, so when you do eventually go back home you will know that you carry my heart with you.” She place
d a tender kiss to his chest.

  Jack’s heart clenched again in regret. “But, Kitty, we’re leaving at the end of the week. MacKintosh and I purchased our tickets yesterday for a berth on the RMS Germanic.”

  Kitty pushed away from him to stare in disbelief. “But I thought…” I thought we would have more time! I thought maybe eventually you would feel as I do and we would marry and have a family.

  “MacKintosh feels he must return as he’s been away for more than six weeks already,” Haddington explained. “He has business obligations he must attend, and political ones as well. Even your sister has mentioned returning soon, you know.”

  Kitty nodded. Eve had expressed a need to return before her pregnancy advanced too far. She also had obligations, as she had promised to see Moira out into Society. “But you…”

  “I also have business to attend to,” he told her. “I will admit it is not as urgent as MacKintosh’s, but I agreed to return with them. It hadn’t occurred to me you wouldn’t be joining us.”

  Kitty shook her head, in denial of his words as much as of her intention to stay. “I hadn’t thought to. The only reason I went was to avoid Freddie after all. That problem has been neatly solved.”

  “Surely you would be happier in Scotland,” he argued, imagining a life in Scotland without her. He wanted her to come back. Needed her too, for reasons he refused to scrutinize. “You should.”

  “I don’t know.” Kitty’s mind warred with her heart. The latter urged her to go to Scotland with him, to love him while she could. The former insisted she should stay to avoid the heartbreak that would surely come to her at some point in the future. “I told Mother I would stay.”

  “She would understand,” he argued, all the while wondering why he bothered. Her confession would surely make relations between them uncomfortable in the days to come. Perhaps it would be better for him if she stayed and allowed them to make a clean break of it. It would be so much easier on both of them. Still he said, “You needn’t decide now. We booked a suite for you if you should change your mind.”