“Only to himself,” Francis assured her. “Wallis is the biggest gossip in town and I’m sure it was he who made such a fuss with the rumors a few days ago. Odious gent. My guess, he hadn’t seen Eve and I were in attendance when he stopped you and Jack.”
“I can’t believe you hit him!” Eve stared in awe at her sister. “I’ve always wanted to, you know. He is a toad, just as you said.”
“He deserved it, trying to brew up trouble like that,” Kitty insisted, then gave Eve a shaky smile. “I can’t believe that I did it either. We’ve come a long way, eh Evie?”
“We have.” Her sister shot her a smile and squeezed her arm affectionately. “Ten years ago, that would have been me, while you watched, completely appalled.” She leaned across her sister to inform Jack, “Kitty was always the proper one, did you know?”
“She’s told me the same before but, nay, I have a hard time believing it, given what I’ve just witnessed.” In truth, he couldn’t picture it at all.
“Kitty was mother’s little protégé, on her way to becoming the next grande dame of New York. She was meticulously well-behaved and proper.” The corner of Eve’s mouth rose in a half grin as she cocked her head, considering her sister. “She knew exactly what to say and how to behave in any situation. The Kitty of those days would never even think of saying what was said tonight, much less express those thoughts so vocally…and with such physical punctuation. She was flawless.”
“She still is,” Jack put in, and smiled down at Kitty’s surprised face. “I’m proud of you, lass. Wallis has needed to be taken down a notch for years and you did that to perfection tonight. I am privileged to have had such an excellent seat to watch his carnage from.” He raised her hand and kissed it affectionately.
“Really?” she asked with a shaky smile. “Because, now that it’s all over, I am completely appalled by my behavior.”
“There’s my Kat.” Eve grinned.
“It felt good though,” Kitty admitted, still feeling a bit wobbly. “The chastising, not the hitting of course. My hand is killing me! How is it you men can hit someone and look like you didn’t feel a thing?” Jack and Francis shared a pity-filled glance over the ladies’ heads that Kitty should be so familiar with a man’s aggressive blow. She went on as if she hadn’t a care, however. “I think I might need some camphor oil or ice to put on this before it swells.”
“I’m sure Sung Li will know just the thing for you, Kat,” Eve assured her softly.
“Of course, he will.” She raised her head to find them all looking at her. “What?”
They all shook their heads in denial.
They arrived back at Glenrothes townhouse moments later. Following Eve and Francis up the steps and into the house, Kitty and Jack lingered in the foyer, her hand tucked firmly in his. “My little incident cut the evening much too short and it’s early yet. Would you like to come in, Jack?”
“I don’t know if I should.” Hobbes slid discreetly out of the hall as Jack questioned his own sanity for remaining in her company for too long in one stretch.
“Why ever not?”
“Because I am mightily tempted to do things I know I should not,” he confessed in his baritone brogue. It seemed he could only take so much temptation before his senses and control abandoned him. “Though having you stand before me in the candle light is as much of a temptation. You’re such a bonny lass,” he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I long for the day I can take you in my arms and make such love to you as you have never imagined.”
“Are you accepting my proposal then? Have we a bargain?” Her voice trembled as the images that had plagued her in recent days took up residence in her vivid imagination once more following his confession.
“We do,” he murmured against her ear, as his arms slid around her waist. “My love, my bonny lass.” He groaned, as her arms rose to slide up his chest, over his broad shoulders and into his hair. “You have me groveling at your feet for your affections. The anticipation is nigh unbearable. A kiss, darlin’? That would not be so wrong. Might I steal a kiss?”
Kitty capitulated with a low moan as his lips descended upon hers, sucking her lower lip lightly then boldly urging her mouth open and delving inside with a sweep of his tongue that teased her lips before delving more deeply. He moaned deep in his chest, releasing an answering moan from her as desire rushed through her veins.
“Oh, Jack.” She sighed and tugged on his hair, begging for more. He obliged. His hand brushed the tiny sleeve of her gown off her shoulder, pressing kisses down her throat before nipping at her exposed shoulder and sucking on the flesh there. “I have wanted to do that all night.”
“You have?”
“Damned little sleeves were driving me mad,” he confessed. Kitty swallowed a giggle as his mouth returned to hers.
Oh, his marvelous lips, she thought vaguely as he continued to plunder her mouth, rousing them both to a state of frenzied lust. He crushed her against him and took what he wanted, turning her to press her up against the wall.
Weeks, months, years! He’d wanted this woman before he had even known her.
Jack pulled her against him, mating her curves against his hard planes as if they were two parts of the whole. A perfect fit. One hand reached down to cup her bottom, pressing her against his arousal so she might know how she affected him.
He could feel his control slipping just as an agonized scream drove them apart.
* * *
“Kat!” Eve screamed painfully from the family parlor at the rear of the house.
“What’s going on?” she gasped to Jack as they dashed through the hall to the back of the house. Kitty stopped at the door to catch her breath before, with a feeling of dread, she went in to find her sister sobbing convulsively in Francis’ arms. “Francis?” she asked, her voice thready with fear. “What is it?”
He pointed to an opened telegram on the table and said only, “I’m so sorry, Kitty.” He turned back to his wife’s needy embrace.
Wooden feet carried Kitty a step but no farther as she stared at the paper, willing it to come to her. She couldn’t move, but then it did come to her, as Jack moved the rest of the way to retrieve it for her. He held it out to her, and she took it in her shaking hands.
It was from her mother.
It read:
Your father has died STOP Please come home as soon as possible STOP I cannot believe I have to go through this alone STOP Wire when you have your travel plans END
Kitty read it again, but the words remained the same. Her father was dead? Impossible! Nothing could stop Lelan Preston. Not even death. He was everything that was life. He was her hero, her…her…Da.
A sob heaved its way through her body as the telegram slipped from her numbed fingers. She swallowed it back, but another followed quickly behind it.
Jack, having read the missive quickly with her, watched the tears pour unabated from her glassy green eyes. He was certain she didn’t even know they were flowing but when that first sob tore through her it felt as if it were being rent from his own chest. He could not stop himself from taking her in his arms. She clung to him like a baby kitten, curling her nails into his coat and chest as the sobs melted into one another until she was shuddering and gasping, trying to catch a breath.
The anguish Kitty was experiencing was beyond his skills in comforting. He could comfort a little girl who had fallen down, or a sister rejected by her first crush, but this was beyond his experience. Not knowing what else to do, he held her to him as tightly as he could and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, murmuring assurances that everything would be all right, though he didn’t know if it were true or not. All he knew was his heart was breaking at the sight of her pain and he would give anything to be able to take it away for even a moment. He was hopeless in the face of it, and terrified by what it might mean.
“Kat?” he heard Eve’s choked voice and turned as Kitty’s head rose from his chest to stare at her sister.
&nbs
p; “Oh, Evie!” The women flew into each other’s arms, sobbing again as they each comforted the other in their loss.
The sight of them crying left Jack more ill at ease than he had ever been. He might know how to comfort a woman to some extent, but not how to stand by while they poured out their pain to one another. Thank God, MacKintosh was there to show him the way.
“Come, my friend, let’s let the ladies have their privacy, shall we?”
That night, as Jack drank his weight in whiskey with his oldest friend, he feared that his life was never going to be the same.
Chapter 22
Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again.
Wisely improve the present. It is thine.
Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean
Aboard the White Star Line steamship SS Teutonic
Early June 1892
“I still can’t believe you decided to come along,” Kitty commented absently as they reclined in a pair of lounge chairs on the upper deck of the SS Teutonic, the luxury ocean liner taking them to New York.
“It will be much harder for my creditors to harass me in America,” he shrugged with mock indifference.
A ghost of a smile tugged on the corner of her lips before it faded away with a heavy sigh that clenched Jack’s heart once again in a vise of sympathy.
It was the fifth day of their ocean voyage and the first when she had left the solitude of her stateroom to join him on deck. It had been well over a week already since the night of the ball, as he preferred to think of it, hesitant to linger on a tragedy causing her such anguish. After days of planning and packing, their party of family, nursemaids and majordomos had taken a private train to Liverpool where they boarded the Teutonic, the only ship available leaving in a timely fashion to New York, without stops in other ports along the way.
Their first-class berth, Jack thought, was awe-inspiring in its opulence. Surely few people lived as well in their own homes as they did on this ship. Each surface was a study in wealth and extravagance, and the service and meals were better than he’d experienced in years.
Yet Kitty remained unimpressed and withdrawn, speaking only occasionally to Evie and rarely to him. He understood mourning, or so he thought, but her reaction was beyond his comprehension. Perhaps because the only person he had ever been close to who had died had been his own mother, and that had happened early in his childhood, leaving no impression greater than a sense of loss.
It had taken MacKintosh to explain to him the special bond the two Preston girls had with their father. Though the man had been raised a second son of minor Irish nobility and was a man of monstrous stature and pure Irish temperament, he had been a hands-on father, taking an active and affectionate role in their upbringing. Preston had allowed his girls a life away from Society and nursemaids, taking them upon his own knee to nurture. Though he had only seen his own father for a few moments daily, Jack had seen behavior of that sort in Francis’ father, Alexander MacKintosh, a man who had treated Jack more as a son than did his own father. He mourned that great man’s passing but not to the extent that Kitty and Eve mourned their father. He hoped someday he might be a man who was loved so dearly.
After so many minutes of silence, Kitty’s voice almost startled Jack when she spoke again. “Who knows, perhaps you’ll meet some nice, Knickerbocker heiress while you’re in New York and all your troubles will just fade away.”
He scowled darkly at her jest. He didn’t want some Knick-Knacky heiress, didn’t she know that? Yet her comment was detached, just enough to give the impression that she cared not a whit what he did, one way or the other.
“Do you think you might come out to the salon for supper tonight?” He bit back a flare of irritation and asked just to make conversation.
“I am mourning, Jack,” she reminded, with a significant look down at her body.
She wore black, of course. Eve had resurrected the wardrobe she had thought to be done with for many a year and divided the gowns between herself and Kitty, since the latter had not been in Edinburgh long enough to have anything made that might have been dyed. Despite the dismal color of her gown, Jack thought she still looked lovely, though her cheeks were pale and her eyes dulled of their normal luster. As they were out on deck, she wore a large brimmed hat with a short veil as well.
He cast about for something, anything, to say that might bring her out of the reverie that engulfed her thoughts. She worried him with this attitude of hers as much as it made him grind his teeth in frustration. He wondered how he might cast away the shadows lingering over Kitty. If she continued with this aloof testiness much longer, he might just pull out his hair, for he didn’t how to cope with it. Friendship with a woman was trial enough without compounding it with the difficulties involved with one so emotionally troubled. Under normal circumstances, he would just wash his hands of the problem but, for reasons he cared not analyze, he found himself unable to walk away from Kitty.
Unable to think of anything else, he could only say again sincerely, “I am sorry about your father.”
Kitty turned to him with a sad little smile. “I know you are.” She sighed and reached over, taking his hand in hers and giving it a little squeeze. “And I am thankful you are here with me, though I know I haven’t shown it. I haven’t been myself at all, have I? But, truly. I can’t tell you how much your presence means to me.”
“I had got the feeling you might be wishing me back to Scotland.” He meant the words to tease but they emerged with the annoying ring of honesty. “I was nearly ready to jump overboard and swim back.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Well…” He waved his hand at her, speechless.
A smile twisted her lips. “I apologize if I’ve made you feel unwanted. At this moment in my life, you are strangely my best friend despite our brief association. Odd, isn’t it? That I’ve only known you a couple weeks when I feel like I’ve known you my whole life?”
Her words reached out, stroking his damaged soul and warming his heart. “Not so strange, since I feel much the same. Friends with a woman?” He laughed but shot her a more intimate glance. “But surely that is not all?”
Kitty couldn’t stop the blush that rose to her cheeks. She ducked her head shyly, glancing up at him provocatively through her lashes. “Perhaps not just friends,” she conceded. “I would be bereft if you were to attempt a swim back to Scotland. Will you walk with me for a while instead so I might keep you from jumping overboard? I haven’t seen much of the ship yet, but it certainly looks nicer than the one I took when I came over.”
Had it only been a month since she fled to Southampton from New York, Kitty wondered. She hadn’t been in Scotland more than a couple weeks and yet her life seemed completely different than it had when she arrived. She felt like a different person, a stronger person; perhaps a better person. She had found that person, she realized, because of the man beside her. His odd confidence in her, his admiration, swept away the Kitty molded by the harsh tutelage of her husband. She certainly liked her current self better than the wispy shadow cowering under Freddie’s thumb these past six years.
And Jack liked her as well. He had told her so, but even if he hadn’t, she would have known from the spark in his eye when he looked at her.
She liked him as well. Simply liked him, apart from the lust and desire that clouded her thoughts whenever she touched him. He was such an unlikely mix of rogue and lord. In public, a man of arrogance and disdain. In private, one who took his responsibilities seriously and cared deeply about his friends.
A man so easy to like might also be a man easy to love…if one were to allow oneself the risk. It would be a risk, she knew. She heard too many stories of his numerous affairs and dismissive attitude toward women to think herself so unique he would sacrifice his bachelor life for love of her.
“How is Hannah taking all this?” J
ack asked as they strolled the first-class promenade.
Kitty was touched he would think to ask about her daughter, for he had only met the toddler once before their hasty departure. “Betsy has been keeping her occupied in our stateroom and bringing her up to play on deck. I think she is a bit afraid of the weeping belle I have become and only seems to cry at my side when we are together.” She offered this with a watery chuckle.
“Does she know?” He tried to pick his wording carefully so as not to upset her once more, now that it seemed she was emerging from her shell a bit.
“No.” Kitty frowned, “I tried to explain it to her, but I don’t think she really understands what is happening. I suppose she will have no memory of him when she grows older and that is a shame. He was such a wonderful man. A true father in every sense of the word and a doting grandfather. He would carry Hannah about on his shoulders much as he did me when I was a girl. I remember feeling so high up when he did that. I wonder if she’ll remember that.”
“You will remember him to her,” he told her. “I would imagine you can tell a lively tale when you choose. And in the years to come it will become easier to talk about your father and the memories will be a reminder of happy times, without the sadness they hold today.”
Kitty cast a smile into his eyes. “Why, Jack, what a surprisingly sentimental thought.”
“Especially coming from me?”
“Especially.” She smiled more fully. “Did I mention I am terribly glad you decided to come along?”
“You didn’t mention the ‘terribly’ part before.”
“Consider it said.”
“I will.”
He walked her along the upper decks, pointing out the game rooms and recreational facilities she had missed by hiding out in her room. He felt more relaxed than he had in days, as if the emotional separation between them in the past week had impinged on his own ability to be contented. Their renewed banter was satisfying to them both, it seemed.
All You Could Ask For Page 72