[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

  ‘Before you there was only ever Wendell. And now, there is not. I feel things for you. Things that make me feel like I am betraying him.’

  So he said the words she needed to hear. ‘Our making love, our sleeping together, it was just to satisfy our bodies’ physical needs. Lust, not love. Wendell would understand. Your heart is intact, Kate. You have not betrayed him.’

  ‘Lust, not love?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes.’ But he looked away to tell the lie.

  She reached her hand to cup his cheek, turning his face back to hers. Tears leaked from her eyes, glistening like crystal as they rolled down her cheeks in the moonlight.

  ‘But, you see, the problem is that my heart is not intact, Kit. I still love Wendell, but I love you, too. No matter how hard I have tried not to. I have to tell you. I have to make you understand.’ Her voice was thick with emotion. ‘I cannot break my vow to Wendell, but I love you, Kit.’

  He pulled her into his arms and held her, cradling her against him, pressing his face into her hair. ‘I love you, too, Kate.’ But he did not deserve her love. And once she discovered the man he had been, once she learned what Kit Northcote had done, she would not love him any more.

  He wanted to carry her to his bed. He wanted their bodies to merge. He wanted to show her the truth of his feelings with his body, but he could not be so selfish. ‘But you know we cannot make love. There could be no annulment if we did.’ He spoke the words into her hair. ‘And we both have our vows.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered and he felt the sob she stifled in her chest. ‘But I don’t want to be alone, Kit. And I don’t care what you say, I know that you cannot be alone tonight. I want to be with you.’

  ‘I want to be with you, too, Kate.’

  She looked up into his eyes and he held her face in his hands and carefully captured each of those precious tears.

  ‘We cannot make love, but we can hold one another,’ he said.

  ‘We can hold one another,’ she echoed softly.

  He took her hands in his and led her to his bed. They climbed beneath those covers and he held her. And she held him. All through those long dark hours of the night. And when she finally fell asleep in his arms he was not sure she had not been right. He was not sure that he could have made it through this night alone.

  * * *

  The next morning when Kate awoke, Kit was gone.

  When she finally caught up with him at the breakfast table it was as if none of it had happened, not last night, not their admissions of love, not the death of his mother. All of his barriers were once more intact, built so high she wondered if she had ever really succeeded in finding a way through them, if he had ever really lowered them at all.

  He smiled at her, but it was his smile that showed he was hard and tough, and strong and emotionless. The first three were true, the fourth, she knew for a fact, a lie. She knew it in the kind way he spoke to Tom, even now.

  * * *

  He took her and Tom around London in his carriage all that day, buying them ices and chocolate from Gunter’s Tea Shop. The relationship between him and Tom was changing; the little boy seemed to have found a way to pierce through Kit’s armour, for all that Kit would deny it. And even though the way it was between her and Kit was a masquerade, a pretence, the way his hand was warm around hers, the way his lips brushed her cheek, the way his eyes caressed her body and that secret smile that spoke volumes to all those around that stared so, it felt real. Or maybe it was just her own wishful thinking.

  Regardless, she did not think, she just embraced the illusion and enjoyed their time together, acting out all that was the truth of what she felt for him. Laughing with Tom, hugging the boy, linking her arm through Kit’s, wiggling her hips when he was watching, looking at him with eyes that said she wanted to loosen his neckcloth and lead him to her bed and do all sorts of wanton things. Everywhere they went people stared—and the black sheep returned, his American wife and the boy they were whispering was his adopted son of questionable origin, gave them something worth staring at and they had the time of their lives in doing so.

  They took dinner at a chophouse, then bought iced cakes that they ate in the carriage on the way home. According to the baker the cakes were replicas of the very same sponge iced doves served at the Prince Regent’s latest banquet but they all agreed that the doves looked more like white versions of Bob.

  ‘No more cake,’ she said to Tom as if he were her own little Ben, ‘or you will make yourself sick. You have icing all round your mouth. Come, let me wipe it clean.’ She pulled her handkerchief at the ready.

  But Tom beat her to it, wiping the sleeve of his new tailcoat, that was identical to Kit’s, across his mouth, to leave a nice white trail of icing over the black superfine. ‘All done.’

  ‘Tom!’ She pulled a face.

  Tom grinned like a Cheshire cat.

  She looked at Kit and the two of them shared a laugh.

  ‘This is like having a mother and father,’ Tom said. ‘We’re like a real family, aren’t we?’

  But they were saved from a reply by the carriage coming to a halt outside the house in Grosvenor Street and the footman opening the carriage door.

  Tom jumped down and raced up the stone steps to the front door of their home. Kit stepped down, then offered her his hand to assist her.

  This is like having a mother and father. We’re like a real family, aren’t we?

  Their eyes met and held, and there was a tightness in her chest and a lump the size of a boulder in her throat, and the prickle of tears in her eyes.

  ‘What is that you are saying, Mrs North? You cannot wait to get me inside and upstairs?’ he said, naughty play-acting for the Admiralty spies and the rest of London, distracting her from Tom’s words and all they meant so that she would not betray them both by weeping. He threaded his fingers through hers. ‘Very well. I acquiesce.’

  She smiled and stoppered the tears. But when he turned away and tugged at her hand to take her with him, she resisted, pulling him back to her, knowing what would happen once they were inside and free from the eyes of servants and watchers, and needing this closeness with him, feigned or not, to last that little bit longer.

  He came to her, stood close, indecently so, looking down into her face. ‘We are attending a dance at the Argyle Rooms this evening,’ he said quietly.

  She nodded.

  The teasing sensuality had vanished from them both. Their gazes held and all of the world around her seemed to vanish. She looked into those so serious, so strong, so deep dark eyes and her heart was aching so much.

  He leaned in and kissed her. Not a teasing playful kiss. Not a kiss that was all hot hard desire. A kiss that was nothing of masquerade or pretence, but serious and honest. A kiss that told her that he understood and felt the same.

  A discreet clearing of the throat sounded from the butler who stood nearby.

  The kiss ended and the moment was over. She could no longer defer the inevitable. He released her hand and she followed him up the stone stairs into the rented house, holding on to the thought that they would not be inside for long. There was still this evening’s outing to come. She knew he would dance with her. She knew he would hold her close. And probably even kiss her again.

  And that at least was something.

  * * *

  In the Argyle Rooms that night Kate was wearing a deep midnight-blue silk that revealed just enough of her figure to torture all of the men in that dance room, and him, with all that would never be theirs. It was not play-acting when his eyes were hard and hot upon her, or when he stood that little bit too close or let his fingers brush against hers.

  It was not play-acting when he led her out on to the dance floor and waltzed with her before them all, their bodies moving together, as natural and rhythmic as they had been in bed.
>
  She was a natural seductress, lowering those long dark lashes, then meeting his gaze with boldness and strength. This woman who had defied a pirate’s world of masculinity and hostility and rivalry to reach the top. This woman who could weave the ultimate illusion and hold true to a vow. He wondered if she would be able to sustain the pretence once she learned the truth about him. It was something of which he did not want to think, not right now, when the scent of her was in his nose and the satin of her skin beneath his fingers. He was all too aware that the grains of sand were slipping too fast through the hourglass, but he held to these small precious moments, committing them and everything of her to memory.

  And then he raised his eyes from her face to glance across the floor and saw Devlin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kate felt the sudden change that rippled through Kit’s body, the tightening and tensing of muscles, the honing of attention that came when one sighted the enemy. Following his gaze, she saw the four tall dark-haired men who stood tight-lipped and cold-eyed at the corner of the room watching them, waiting like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The last notes of the music sounded.

  She curtsied.

  He bowed.

  The dance was over. She had the sense that something else was over, too—the waiting. Whatever battle he had come back to fight involved those men.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ she asked.

  ‘With whom I must reacquaint myself.’

  Alone. Four against one was hardly fair odds. ‘Introduce me,’ she said.

  He looked into her eyes, as if weighing her words. ‘Very well,’ he agreed at last.

  Tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow, together they went to face the men.

  ‘Devlin,’ he said to the tallest, most arrogant looking of the men and gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

  Devlin. The tortured words of a nightmare whispered again in her mind and she felt an instant dislike and wariness towards the handsome-faced man.

  ‘Monteith, Bullford, Fallingham.’ He named them all in turn.

  ‘Northcote,’ the man he had called Devlin replied. ‘Or is it North? There seems to be some dubiety over which name you are going by these days.’

  Kit smiled his cold hard smile and said nothing.

  She could feel the bristle of animosity in the silence that followed, feel the coldness that existed between them and wondered why Kit was even here talking to them.

  ‘So you have come back.’ Devlin’s tone was arrogant and dismissive.

  ‘As you see.’ Kit’s eyes were cold and hard, but that same hint of a smile played around his lips.

  ‘And creating quite the scandal.’ Devlin’s eyes flicked to her.

  She returned his gaze with frosty dislike.

  ‘I succeeded in that before ever I left,’ Kit answered. ‘May I introduce my wife?’ he said to them. Then to her, ‘His Grace the Duke of Monteith, and Viscounts Devlin, Fallingham and Bullford,’ he introduced each of them to her. ‘My oldest friends, darling.’

  Blue-blooded aristocracy and nothing of friends if the way they were looking at him was anything to go by.

  They all bowed, the perfect noblemen, but it was not North they called her. ‘Mrs Northcote.’

  The atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife.

  ‘Perhaps your lady should avail herself of the withdrawing room.’ Devlin’s eyes were fixed on Kit.

  ‘Thank you kindly for having such a concern over my welfare, Lord Devlin, but I have no need to visit the ladies’ withdrawing room.’ She stepped a little closer to Kit and eyed the viscount coldly. ‘You can say whatever it is that you want to in front of me.’

  Devlin looked at Kit.

  She saw the tiny muscle flicker in Kit’s jaw and knew that he was not as cool as he was pretending. His eyes slid to hers, holding them for a tiny second so that all of the world seemed to roar between them in that moment, before he returned his gaze to Devlin and gave a nod.

  ‘You should not have come back,’ said Devlin.

  ‘I disagree,’ Kit said smoothly.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Whatever they are, you are no longer welcome in London, Kit Northcote.’

  Kit smiled. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Go back to wherever it is you have been hiding these three years past.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘How dare you speak to him like that? You have no idea—’

  ‘Kate.’ Kit’s warning stopped her.

  ‘You have not told her. She does not know.’ Devlin laughed and it was a cruel sound that sent a shiver all the way to the tip of her soul. ‘I suppose I should have expected nothing other from you, Northcote.’

  With a nod of his head, Devlin and the three other noblemen turned their backs in a way that was clear to all who watched was an insult.

  But Kit did not leave. He stayed with her in those Argyle Rooms, dancing with her, remaining in that spotlight of disapproval and gossip, smiling his cool hard smile, his hand warm and possessive against the small of her back, but there was something in his eyes when he looked at her that frightened her, something that told her that they were both standing on the brink of something terrible.

  * * *

  This time when eventually they left and travelled home, there was no teasing sensuality, no loitering by the carriage, no kissing. Only that tight-wound sense of foreboding and the haunting echo of the mocking words that Viscount Devlin had spoken.

  You have not told her. She does not know.

  Neither of them spoke, not until they were in the drawing room of the house in Grosvenor Street with the door firmly closed and the curtains drawn and the staff dismissed for the evening.

  A branch of candles burned upon the mantelpiece.

  He stood by the fireplace, staring into the dark hearth with its carefully built pile of coal and kindling unlit upon it.

  She came to stand there on the Turkey rug behind him.

  ‘So, Kit,’ she said softly.

  He glanced up into the looking glass above the mantel, meeting her gaze in it. ‘So,’ he said.

  Their eyes held.

  ‘I deserve their contempt,’ he said. ‘I am not the man you think me, Kate.’

  ‘Whoever you believe yourself, whatever heinous crime you have committed in the past, have you not punished yourself enough?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know you, and you are good and strong and a man of integrity.’

  He laughed, a bitter cynical sound, and shook his head. ‘No, Kate, I only wish that I were, but Kit Northcote is none of those things.’

  ‘So what is he?’ she demanded.

  He turned to face her, holding her gaze. ‘He is a liar, a cheat and a coward.’

  She shook her head in denial.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘What did you do, Kit?’

  ‘I was an arrogant weak wastrel who did nothing save drink, womanise and game. Three years ago I went to a gaming hell in Whitechapel with Devlin and the rest of my friends and gambled away my father’s fortune. And when it was done, I ran away like a coward and left my family penniless, ruined and shamed.’

  She stared at him. ‘You were young and reckless, you made a mistake—’

  ‘No,’ he cut her off. ‘You do not understand. I sold my soul to the devil, Kate.’

  She felt a shiver run through her.

  ‘I cheated,’ he said. ‘In that gaming hell, I cheated and I was discovered. I should have paid with my life—it is what they do to men who cheat at cards in Whitechapel. I deserved it. But the tough I played against struck a bargain—everything on one turn of the cards. I lost everything—my father’s money, my honour, my soul. Devlin and the oth
ers swore an oath that they would never reveal the truth of that night—that I had cheated. And they never did.’

  A small silence hissed.

  ‘So now you know the truth of me,’ he said quietly, and there was a terrible grimness in his expression.

  ‘Now I know the truth,’ she said.

  She saw the regret in his eyes, the guilt...the self-loathing...and at last she understood. All that lay at the heart of him, the terrible burden he had carried through the years. And what it was he had come back to London to do. And it made her chest feel tight and crushed beneath the weight of sorrow. The tears spilled from her eyes. ‘Kit...’ There was so much she wanted to say.

  The drawing-room door opened and Tom stood there in his nightshirt, his eyes moving from her to Kit and back again, the smile on his face fading to be replaced with concern. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything is just as it should be,’ said Kit as he walked from the room, tousling the boy’s hair as he passed him in the doorway.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Tom stood there staring at her, shadows of fear in his eyes.

  ‘Captain North is right,’ she said, wiping away her tears. ‘I was just telling him how much I missed my children at home in America.’

  ‘You have children?’

  ‘A little girl who is four years old and a boy who is not so much younger than you.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  ‘Why don’t we go down to the kitchen and I will warm us some milk and tell you all about them.’ She put an arm around Tom’s thin shoulders and guided him towards the stairs.

  There would be time to speak to Kit later.

  * * *

  Kit stood by the window of his bedchamber, staring down on to the moonlit street. The hands of the clock on the mantelpiece showed a quarter to one.

  He heard the soft knock on the connecting door between his bedchamber and Kate’s, but he made no move.

  ‘Kit,’ she said quietly through the wood.

  But he could not bear to see the disgust and pity in her eyes. It turned out he was still Kit Northcote, after all, still that same coward. He might face down all of London. But he could not face down Kate Medhurst.