Her Scoundrel

by Geralyn Dawson

  “If he dies, you won’t be to blame. This was an accident, and accidents happen. They’re part of life. As much as we want to, we can’t protect children from life. They have to be free to run and grow and—” her voice faltered just a bit as she said “—play with puppies.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, Kat. I don’t know anything about children. That’s why I have no business being responsible for any.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling, Jake. I do. You’re afraid. Afraid of being a parent, afraid of getting close to these children. It’s already happened, though. Can’t you see it? You already love these little ones.”

  “As an uncle. Not a father. A father would have been here to stop Robbie from falling down the stairs.”

  Kat swallowed hard. “And a mother would have been there to stop her daughter from darting into a wagon’s path.” He flinched and she stepped to his side, touched his arm. “Don’t you see? It’s not that simple. Parenting is far from simple. It’s complicated and messy and difficult. But it’s the most rewarding, most wonderful job in the world.”

  “How can you say that, Katrina? Your little Susie died!”

  “Yes, she did, and losing her almost destroyed me. But does that make me wish she’d never been born? Never been a part of my life? No, absolutely not. Even knowing the outcome, I’d do it all over in a heartbeat. In a sense, that’s what I’m doing here with Penny’s children.”

  Standing beside the bed now, she reached out and stroked Robbie’s soft skin, his silky hair. “I didn’t see it until now. I’ve been given the chance to be a mother all over again, and that makes me terribly lucky.”

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”

  Her smile bittersweet, Kat leaned over and pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead. “That’s all right. I think I finally understand myself.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AT SEVEN MINUTES BEFORE noon, Robbie Barrett, Marquess of Harrington, dug his elbow into Jake’s chest and let out an angry cry. Joy rang through the halls of Chatham Park.

  The jubilant mood continued for the next week as Jake and his bride spent their days with the children and their nights wrapped in each other’s arms. They picnicked and played and laughed and frolicked. Twice Jake thought he heard Caroline let out a giggle, but he never could be certain.

  In an attempt to make a fatherly difference before he left, Jake made it a goal to get the girl talking. Every day he peppered her with questions, direct and indirect, encouraging her to respond. More than anything he hoped to hear Caroline ask what’s for dinner or tattle on one of her sisters or say “Good night, Uncle Jake,” before he departed for Tibet.

  That day was fast approaching, and never before had the prospect of an expedition left him so ambivalent. Never before had he dreaded leaving home. In fact this was the first time in memory he felt as though he were leaving a home. Kat had done that. In a short span of time, she’d created a home at Chatham Park, in a place that didn’t suit her at all.

  Kat didn’t belong in this big monstrosity of a house. She didn’t belong in England. He’d watched her interact with neighbors since their marriage, with the brides before that. While she could blend in wherever she wanted—her social skills were superior—the woman was simply too American. She belonged in Texas.

  She belongs with me.

  The idea floated in Jake’s mind like a song. Jake could live anywhere. The children could live anywhere, too, at least until they were grown. Robbie had his title, and he’d need to return to England at some point to assume those duties, but that was a long time away.

  Jake eyed his wife and the children as Belle and Miranda spread a quilt upon the lawn near the orangery. Theresa carried a handful of storybooks; Caroline, the basket containing the tea cakes. Kat carried the willing- to-climb-anything marquess. They looked like a family.

  Jake’s gaze settled on the necklace hanging from Kat’s neck. He admitted to being thick upon occasion, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that the message of his Tibetan dream could have referred to the scene before him. Find the necklace, Jake. Find your family.

  Yet, if he believed in the dream, that meant he believed in the mountain magic, which meant Daniel didn’t die in that cave. After all these years—after the promise he’d made to his father that he’d never stop looking for his brother, a promise made to Bernard Kimball as the man lay dying—could Jake walk away? Could he put the past behind him and walk forward into the future?

  The question plagued him while he read fairy tales to the children. It haunted him while he pretended to swipe cake off Caroline’s plate and harassed him while he tickled Theresa’s nose with a dandelion puff.

  Perhaps because thoughts of staying and leaving weighed so heavily on his mind, Jake knew in his bones what it meant when Chatham Park’s butler arrived with news that a visitor awaited Jake in his study. Jake was tempted to turn his attention back to the children and pretend he hadn’t heard the butler.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Kat asked.

  “A business partner,” he replied, shifting his focus away from her. He couldn’t tell her who he suspected the person might be. He didn’t want to see her reaction.

  Kat never mentioned the upcoming expedition. In fact, she went out of her way to change the subject whenever he attempted to broach the topic. His departure for the Himalayas hung over his marriage like a black cloud.

  Excusing himself, Jake made his way to his study where a tall, stocky man stood at the window overlooking the rose garden, sipping from a glass of whiskey. Jake’s mouth twisted in a brief, humorless grin. Damned if he hadn’t been right. “Captain Wallace, welcome to Chatham Park.”

  The captain turned toward Jake and smiled. “Thank you. It’s a beautiful home. I imagine you’ll find it difficult to leave.”

  “It’s brick and mortar,” Jake said, shrugging. What would be hard was leaving the people who lived there.

  “I brought a message for you,” Captain Wallace continued. He reached into his jacket pocket and removed an envelope. “It was a strange thing. A man claiming to have worked with you in the past called at our shipping office day before yesterday and asked that I deliver this to you personally. He was quite insistent about it.”

  “What’s the fellow’s name?” Jake asked as he crossed the room to accept the missive.

  “He never said.”

  When Jake touched the envelope, be damned if his fingertips didn’t tingle.

  It bore no writing on the outside, but showed significant signs of travel—smudges, creases and bent edges. Jake frowned as he carried it over to his desk, retrieved a letter opener from the center drawer and slit the envelope.

  It contained a single sheet of paper folded in half. The paper emitted a scent—bayberry, Jake believed. He flipped open the page, and the sight of the familiar handwriting punched him in the gut.

  Daniel.

  No, it couldn’t be. Not after all these years.

  Hand trembling, Jake sank into his desk chair. Shock created a roaring in his ears as he tried to focus on the words written on the page.

  The sentences were brief: “Greetings, brother. I wish you fair winds and a safe journey. I look forward to seeing you soon.”

  Jake’s heart pounded. His mouth had gone dry as the Arabian desert. Daniel was alive. His brother was alive!

  Jake looked up at the captain of the Ulysses. “How fast can you prepare the ship?”

  KAT KNEW something was wrong the moment Jake rejoined them on the lawn. Oh, he still smiled, still teased the girls, but he had a distracted air about him. She sensed a tension in him that was new since his trip to the house. Plus he avoided meeting her gaze. Instead he kept looking to the east as if the answer to whatever troubled him could be found in that direction.

  Dread clutched her stomach as a troubling thought occurred. “Is it Emma? Did you hear something about Emma?”

  He gave her a blank look. “Emma?”

  Her heart eased. If he�
��d had bad news to impart regarding her sister, he wouldn’t have appeared so dense when Kat mentioned Emma’s name. So what else would bother him so? She could think of one other possibility.

  Jake was leaving. She’d bet her favorite hat that he’d made the decision to go. Early, at that. The visitor must have brought some news or made an argument that influenced Jake, convinced him more effectively than her efforts both in the marriage bed and out.

  She caught her breath, closed her eyes. Her heart pounded.

  “What’s wrong, Kat? Why are you worried about your sister?”

  “I’m not,” she managed to get out past the lump of emotion in her throat. Anger, hurt, disappointment. Anger. “It’s nothing.”

  Nothing but rejection. He was leaving the children. Leaving her. After the good times they’d shared, the joy and laughter and loving, he didn’t want to stay. She couldn’t hold him. She’d failed in her task.

  She stewed about it for the rest of the afternoon, waiting to see what he’d say, how he’d attempt to justify his actions. Never mind that he’d been up-front with her from the first. Never mind that this had been his plan all along. Never mind that she’d agreed to it. That was before she’d changed her mind!

  Jake disappeared into his study after supper and failed to appear when the time arrived to put the children to bed. Coward, she thought. As each hour passed, Kat grew more certain she’d guessed correctly. By the time she heard him coming down the hall toward the master suite, she was spoiling for a fight.

  Rather than enter the suite in his usual manner through the shared sitting room, the yellow-bellied scoundrel had avoided her by using the door that led directly into the master bedroom. With that, Kat had had enough.

  She marched across the sitting room and shoved open his bedroom door and let it crash against the frame. Her gaze fell upon the traveling bag lying open on his bed. It hit her like a boot to the belly.

  “When do you leave?” she demanded flatly.

  For a long moment, Jake went still. Then, calmly and deliberately, he added a stack of shirts to the case. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Early.”

  “I see.”

  She didn’t see, of course. She didn’t see at all. How could he do it? How could he walk away from this…this…this family? “What do you intend to tell the children?”

  Standing at his wardrobe, his back to her, he froze for a second, then yanked a pair of trousers off a hanger. “It’ll be easier for them if I just go.”

  Easier for them, my elbow. Easier for him, he means. “And you’ll be gone for how long?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I thought you’d planned a two-year expedition.”

  His only response was a shrug.

  Two years, Kat thought. He’s leaving for two years, and he didn’t even intend to tell the children goodbye? Kat stared at him, blinked her eyes, as icy-cold fury whipped through her. And me, had he planned to sneak out on me, too?

  She might have made a noise because Jake glanced over at her, an implacable tight in his gaze.

  His look silently challenged her, and Kat took up the banner. “Well,” she snapped. “You certainly had me fooled.”

  She detected the slightest hardening of his features, but he didn’t respond, didn’t defend himself. She stepped toward him, her chin up and her tone scathing. “You’re good, Jake Kimball. I knew years ago that you were a thief, a liar, a dishonorable cad. Then—” she held up the pendant hanging around her neck “—I discovered proof that I was right. Indisputable proof.”

  She released the necklace and braced her hands on her hips. “But did that matter? Did I listen to my own instincts? My own good sense? No. Featherbrain that I am, I let a smooth-talking, stick-handed, pretty-eyed pretty boy turn my head. Again!”

  He slammed his hand against the wardrobe. “God dammit, don’t compare me to Rory Callahan! Just don’t. I’m sick of being compared to that bastard every time I turn around. He’s dead, Katrina. Dead and gone and out of your life.”

  “And so are you, apparently.” She sucked in a breath against the pain. “As for comparisons, I can do, say, whatever I darn well please! And do you know what? You won’t be here to stop me, will you? You’ll be halfway across the world.”

  He let out a heavy, aggravated sigh. “Kat, I have to go.”

  “Why? Because you might find the next Koh-i-noor diamond? Or maybe you yearn for the earthy aroma of mountain goat droppings.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  Angry tears stung the back of her eyes. “For Miranda’s sake. For Theresa’s and Belle’s sake. For Caroline’s and Robbie’s sake. What is more important than those children, Jake Kimball? What is more important than—” She bit off her sentence before she spoke the humiliating word aloud. Me.

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “Don’t do this. Please. I’ve been up-front with everyone about my plans. The girls have known from the first that I’d be going, and so did you.”

  “But that was before, damn you!”

  “Before what?”

  She waited, the words hovering on her tongue. Words she’d shied away from, even in her own thoughts. Did she want to lay herself bare before him this way? To sacrifice her pride, her dignity? Did she want to admit aloud something she’d never admitted to herself?

  But they were words that could make a difference. Words that might make him stay.

  But the risk. He might deny it, but Jake was like Rory. His actions today were those of a hard-hearted scoundrel. Why should she give her heart again, allow it to be trampled again, when she’d finally begun to heal? No, she couldn’t trust Jake Kimball, so those words would remain unspoken.

  Kat took a deep breath, then offered others that humbled, others that could hurt, but wouldn’t destroy. “Before I asked you to stay.”

  Jake muttered a curse, dropped his chin to his chest. His arms fell to his sides.

  She stepped toward him. “Stay with me, Jake. Don’t go. Stay and be a father to the children, a husband to me.”

  “Dammit, Kat. I want…” He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I can’t.”

  It rocked her, but didn’t knock her down. “Don’t ever again try to tell me that you’re not like Rory Callahan.”

  Jake visibly gritted his teeth. He reached into his pocket, then handed her a note. “It’s Daniel. I heard from my brother. He’s alive, Kat. He sent this.”

  Scanning it quickly, she shrugged. “So, he’s alive. Why didn’t he come tell you that in person? Why should you drop everything, leave everyone. Why doesn’t he come here?”

  “Kat, I…finding him…hell…I’ve been searching for him half my life. Maybe I couldn’t admit it, even to myself, but that goal has been the driving force behind everything I do.”

  And that goal was obviously more important to him than the children, than her. Kat felt a rush of relief that she’d never said those three humiliating little words. “Fine, then. Go.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw, and she thought he’d continue to argue or explain or attempt to justify. Instead he turned toward the door, and her heart crumpled.

  Jake took a step into the hallway, then abruptly stopped. “Dammit, Kat.” He whirled and returned to her, yanking her into his arms, taking her mouth in a long, deep, passionate kiss that was different than any they’d shared before. It filled her with yearning, arousal and hope.

  He lifted her off the floor, carried her to his bed. With his knee he shoved the travel case off onto the floor and placed her gently upon the mattress. Jake proceeded to make love to her with intensity and devastating care. The heady, masculine scent of him filled her senses as his hands stroked her body, caressing her as if she were a precious treasure. His lips blazed a slow, sensuous trail over her face, her neck, her shoulders, before paying slow, sweet homage to her breasts. As his mouth and tongue worked their magic, the familiar heat flared within her, and Kat gave herself up to the passion of the moment. The thoughts crowding her mind gave way to feelings and
a storm of sensation.

  His attentions drifted lower. Her belly trembled when his tongue dipped into her navel. Her breath caught when his lips continued to descend until he gave her the most intimate kiss of all.

  Through it all, he never spoke. He didn’t whisper the earthy words she’d grown accustomed to him using. He didn’t tease her or murmur praise or express his own pleasure. Unlike any other encounter between them, he made exquisite love to her in almost reverent silence. So beautiful was the experience that tears spilled from her eyes even as he brought her to climax time and time again.

  When at last he joined his body with hers, sliding home with an exquisitely slow, smooth stroke, he held himself still for a long moment. Their gazes met and held: his, steady and unblinking; hers, shiny with tears. As the seconds ticked by, a wrenching understanding became clear to Kat.

  Jake was telling her goodbye.

  She let out one little inadvertent whimper as her heart twisted, then she searched inside herself for strength. Finding it, Kat nursed it to a numbing anger.

  So he’s leaving. Let him go. Let him throw us away. But be hanged if I make it easy for him. Be hanged if he walks away without regret. Jake Kimball might go, but by God, he’ll take memories of me with him. He won’t walk away and forget me.

  With that, she set about making it happen. Kat turned aggressive, rolling him over, taking control. She teased and she tormented. She used every sexual, sensual weapon in her arsenal along with her extensive knowledge of Jake’s body, his penchants and preferences, to drive him wild. Time and time again she brought him to the edge, time and time again she denied him the relief of going over until finally she destroyed the tethers of his control by taking her own pleasure.

  Jake let out a feral roar and flipped her onto her back. He plunged into her once, twice, then groaned out her name as he shot his seed deep within her body.

  He collapsed against her, hot and heavy and gasping for breath. Kat had worn him out and wrung him dry. She knew that she’d won. Jake Kimball would have to travel farther than Tibet for longer than two years to forget her, by God.