‘We have agreed that we are now as strangers and it surely follows that any feelings that once existed between us must be as though they had happened to two different people. Now, I shall return to the ballroom and I would appreciate it if you do not follow me. In fact, I think it might be for the best if we avoid one another as much as possible. Then, when we do meet again, as I am sure we will, we shall pretend this never happened.’
She pivoted on her heel and walked away, concentrating on keeping her head high and her pace slow, acting the society lady as she had never acted before.
Chapter Six
Two weeks later
Adam gazed gloomily around Almack’s, wondering what the hell he was doing there. He had no interest in marrying anyone, yet it seemed that every person he met...well, those who were female, anyway...was convinced he was in the market for a bride. He stifled his snort of derision and sipped again at his glass of orgeat, an insipid light wine that passed for liquid refreshment in this godforsaken place. The choice, he had been loftily informed, was that or ratafia. What wouldn’t he give for a wee dram right at this moment?
Lady Datchworth had taken it upon herself to instruct Adam as to the places a well-born gentleman simply must be seen and this place had been high on her list. She’d presented him with a voucher as though it were manna from heaven, impressing upon him how grateful he should be that the Patronesses had granted him permission to attend, and all his polite refusals to her request that he escort her tonight had met with the utter conviction that he did not mean it. And he had remained exceedingly polite, even in the face of extreme provocation.
And now he was here he could not for the life of him see what all the fuss was about and why so many people vied with one another for a voucher. The dress code was ludicrous—silk knee breeches, indeed—the refreshments wretched and the entire evening promised to be a bore.
‘Well, Kelridge? Who takes your fancy?’
He glanced down at Lady Datchworth, seated on a chair, her gloved hands wrapped around the head of her cane which was planted firmly between her legs, spread apart in a very unladylike manner, albeit still covered by her skirts. The head of her cane, which accompanied her everywhere, was fashioned in the shape of a dog’s head...a terrier...and that is exactly what she reminded him of. A terrier who, once it buries its teeth into something, refuses to give it up. And, it would appear, he was her latest obsession. And he...oh, hell and damnation...to be brutally honest, most of the time he found her company amusing, unlike many of the prattling idiots of the ton and despite her highhanded belief that she knew what was best for him—and for everyone else, for that matter.
He sighed. He had to face the fact that he liked the meddling auld woman. He would not willingly upset her, but he still had to refrain from throttling her every time she began to blather on about finding him a wife. And what made that worse was that her favoured candidate appeared to be Miss Mayfield, Kitty’s stepdaughter, a circumstance that rendered him excessively uncomfortable given his history with Kitty and his renewed friendship with Robert. Talking of Robert, Adam had caught sight of him, his expression one of studied stoicism, not five minutes since—which meant his womenfolk must also be here. So much for Adam’s attempts to avoid Kitty since Lady Charnwood’s ball. He had not spoken to her since, although he had seen her at several events...had watched her, wondering about that near kiss. But she had appeared utterly indifferent to his presence and so he had continued to avoid her, as that is what she appeared to want.
A sharp elbow nudged him. ‘Well? You cannot attend Almack’s and not stand up for the dances. And, if you are serious about making a match, you will do well to follow my advice.’ She looked around her. ‘If Miss Mayfield isn’t to your taste, what about Miss Penhurst over there...?’ She flipped her cane up to point, almost spearing a passer-by. ‘Oh! Catherine, my dear. My apologies. I did not see you there. I was intent upon helping poor Kelridge here with his marriage plans.’
A pair of startled grey eyes flew to Adam’s face and, to his intense irritation, he felt his skin heat as he blushed. Blushed! What was he...a young girl still in the schoolroom?
‘I have no marriage plans and Lady Datchworth is well aware of that fact, for I have told her so many times,’ he growled, embarrassed both by the subject and by the rush of pure desire through his body.
‘Nonsense, Kelridge. You have a title and a fortune, you are getting no younger and you need an heir. Of course you must wed—it is your obligation as a peer of the realm. You start at a disadvantage, it is true, but I am sure there are chits here who would be prepared to overlook your unfortunate upbringing if only you would wipe that black scowl from your face and apply yourself to the task in hand.’
She looked him up and down, and he set his teeth. The woman had as much tact as a charging bull and was as impossible to deflect, but he was grateful for the spike of anger that helped to quell his desire.
‘You have a fine figure,’ Her Ladyship went on. ‘Very manly. Of course, you will not display to advantage on the dance floor—unless you are lighter on your feet than you look—but there are chits who positively favour a man with a muscular frame such as yours. Do you not agree, Catherine, my dear?’
Adam caught Kitty’s amused twinkle as she mimicked Lady Datchworth in looking him up and down. His teeth ground together.
‘Oh, indeed, ma’am. A fine figure.’
The suppressed laughter in her voice wound his temper higher. How dare she mock him? How dare they both presume to treat him like...treat him like...?
As suddenly as it arose his anger subsided and he surprised himself by laughing.
‘Now, now, ladies. Please do control yourselves. I must ask...is it entirely proper for ladies to discuss a gentleman’s figure in quite so blatant a manner? And within his hearing, no less?’
Lady Datchworth, when she wasn’t amusing herself by playing matchmaker, had helped Adam no end with learning and understanding the ways of this world.
She grinned up at him. ‘I see you have taken in some of my lessons after all, Kelridge.’
‘Lessons?’ Kitty arched one brow. ‘What, pray, has Lady Datchworth been teaching you, my lord?’
‘Oh, this and that.’ Lady Datchworth waved an airy hand. ‘He is a receptive pupil when he has a mind to co-operate. But he has proved himself remarkably stubborn in certain areas.’ She fixed Adam with a darkling look. ‘You will do well to heed my advice. You are already six-and-thirty...time is not on your side and, as your poor mother cannot be here to guide you, it falls to me as her oldest friend to step into her shoes.’
Kitty tucked her lips between her teeth, but the sparkle of her eyes gave her away.
Adam looked away, scanning the dancers. I am pleased my situation is providing her with such enjoyment.
‘Perhaps I will—’
‘No!’ Lady Datchworth held up a peremptory hand. ‘I understand your predicament better than you know, Kelridge, and I have the solution—dance with Lady Fenton here. That will ease you in gently and, in time, you may find the confidence to ask one of the younger, more eligible ladies to be your partner.’ She sat back, satisfaction writ large on her face.
‘I—’
‘That is a splendid notion, ma’am.’ Kitty tucked her hand through Adam’s arm. ‘Come, Lord Kelridge. We shall soon build your confidence.’
Adam found himself manoeuvred away from Lady Datchworth and out on to the dance floor where sets were starting to form. He planted his feet, giving Kitty no option but to stop.
‘I have nae need of your charity.’
Her grip on his arm tightened. ‘Is the prospect of dancing with me really so objectionable that you would prefer to endure yet more of Lady Datchworth’s unique variety of persuasion?’
Her voice remained low; her words were forceful, with a hint of anger, but her expression was serene—light-hearted, even—belying
her tone.
‘The last time we spoke ye could not wait to rid yourself of me. And yet, here you are, nigh on begging me to dance. I wish ye would make up your mind.’
‘I have no more desire to dance with you than you do with me, my lord, but I took pity on you as I would on any other harried-looking gentleman suffering the undivided attentions of Lady Datchworth. I have no further agenda, I assure you, and what I said still holds true: what happened fifteen years ago happened to two different people and I have come to the conclusion that we cannot avoid one another for ever.’
‘Verra well.’ He walked on, leading her among the other couples forming sets. ‘As you said before, after fifteen years we truly are little more than strangers. Blame my testiness on Lady D. The woman effortlessly stirs my ire. She is so...’ He could think of many words to describe Her Ladyship, none of them suitable for a lady’s ears ‘...exasperating. So, thank ye for rescuing me from her...um...efforts on my behalf.’
‘No thanks are necessary. But...do not condemn Lady Datchworth too harshly, Adam. She actually has a heart of gold beneath her overbearing ways.’
His heart twitched at her seemingly unconscious use of his forename.
‘I am aware of it, or I would not continue to tolerate her,’ he said, then frowned at his own words. ‘No. That is unfair. I admit she amuses me more frequently than she frustrates me.’
‘That is at least one thing we have in common, then.’
‘Indeed.’ He glanced at Kitty. ‘I confess I am surprised to find ye here. It does not appear the sort of place—’
She tensed. ‘In the first place, my lord, you have precisely no idea of my current interests, likes or dislikes. In the second place, I am here as chaperon for my stepdaughter and this is precisely the sort of venue a young lady is expected to attend in her debut Season.’
My lord! Adam did not last long.
‘Of course it is. I am still guilty of overlooking the passage of years, it seems. I wonder, though...’
Could he bury his hurt at her betrayal? He kept forgetting how young she had been and he could surely make allowances more easily for Kitty’s behaviour than for his mother’s lies. It was not Kitty’s fault that she had mistaken a young girl’s infatuation for love, but it was his mother’s fault he’d wasted fifteen years of his life believing himself unworthy of an earl’s daughter.
‘...as we agree we are now strangers, might we also agree to get to know the people we are now a little better?’
Surely that would be preferable to this constant sniping at one another? Kitty slid him a sideways look and her expression softened infinitesimally.
‘Yes. I think we might agree upon that. And I admit it is true that I have no great liking for this place but, as I said, I am here for Charis. Almack’s is the perfect place for young, unmarried ladies to display their elegance and beauty.’
‘It is known as the marriage mart, according to Lady D.’ Adam couldn’t resist the chance to tease her. ‘I assume it is an equally suitable venue for young widows to attract a future husband?’
Kitty frowned. ‘Not for this widow, I assure you, for I am resolved to never again marry.’
The dance began, Adam taking Kitty’s hands as they circled one another. ‘Why are you opposed to marrying again? Was your marriage to Fenton so very distasteful?’
He remembered that stubborn tilt of her chin. The action exposed the pale skin of her throat, and, without warning, a starburst of longing exploded within him. The memory...her skin, warm beneath his lips; the fresh scent of his lass, of crushed grass and the earthy smell of the woods where they held their trysts; the taste of those lush lips, as full and rosy now as when they tasted of the berries they picked.
But her lips were no longer stained with blackberry juice. His heart lurched as sorrow flowed through him. She was not his lass. His Kitty. She was Catherine, Lady Fenton. Fifteen years had changed them both and he still struggled to come to terms with it.
It was the strangest dichotomy: a girl he had known so well, a girl who had taken root in his heart and who had been a part of him—staying the same in his memory for fifteen long years—a girl he had loved, yet here she was...a woman who was a stranger to him. And his feelings for this stranger were...complicated. Undoubtedly, he felt physical desire for her. She was a graceful, beautiful woman and he...he was a man. How could he not want her?
They had agreed to get to know one another again, but could he truly move forward and view her afresh? Could he break those chains to the past, chains forged by the pain and the insult to his pride caused by that news of her hasty marriage? He could bury his hurt, yes. But it still existed and still coloured his reactions to her. It still confused him.
He clenched his jaw and dragged his thoughts into the present as Kitty replied.
‘My marriage was far from distasteful, but I shall not discuss it with you other than to say I miss my husband a great deal. I shall not remarry because I am perfectly happy remaining with my family at Fenton Hall and I have other interests that occupy me fully. I shall not remarry because I have no need. I shall not remarry because I have no desire to do so.’
Desire. That word on her lips stirred his own desire, even though she did not use the word in that context. Was it nostalgia that returned his thoughts to her and to their shared past so frequently? Or was it the growing conviction that there were still words unsaid between them? He wanted answers. He wanted to know how she had gone from a broken heart to marriage just two weeks after his departure. He wanted to understand how she had so speedily recovered from the anguish she had accused him of causing.
How he longed to sit down with her and talk about what had happened. Perhaps then he might untangle this mass of emotion that knotted his stomach.
But the opportunity to do so was unlikely to present itself here in London. Besides, was there any point when Kitty appeared to be utterly uninterested in him? He was a seething mass of contradictory emotions whereas she revealed no hint of any residual feelings for him.
Except...there had been that near kiss. That, surely, meant something?
The steps of the dance separated them, and he partnered others without really seeing them. No doubt he would be branded uncouth... Lady D. had told him often enough that a gentleman was expected to entertain the ladies with gay conversation and subtle compliments. Well, his tongue had never been silver. He veered more towards the unvarnished truth. His gaze roamed over the dancers until they found Kitty and, this time, his heart lodged in his throat.
All those months...all those years...he had suffered guilt over his treatment of her and she...she...had moved on without a second thought. All those years that his own attempts to find love had come to nothing because his heart had never been in it. Because they weren’t her. They weren’t Kitty.
They came together again in the dance and their hands met, but barely...her touch having no more substance than that of a feather lying in his palm.
And this is what we have come to. Two strangers, with an ocean of hurt and mistrust lying between us.
Did he want more from her? Or was he right in the first place and it was simple nostalgia swelling this lump in his throat and weighing down his spirits? But even if he did want more, she had made her position crystal clear.
The decision came from nowhere.
‘I leave for Kelridge Place tomorrow.’
Her grey eyes regarded him. He could read nothing of her thoughts. His gaze dropped to her lips as they parted and he mentally swatted aside the sweet nip of desire and tamped down the swell of longing. He must use reason and logic to overcome her effect on him and keep reminding himself that she was a stranger, not the Kitty he had fallen in love with.
‘The Season has another two weeks at least before families leave for the country.’
Adam shrugged. ‘That holds no interest for me.’
‘I t
hought...’ She paused and frowned.
The music finished and Adam bowed.
‘You thought?’
Kitty curtsied. ‘The dance has ended.’
The tinge of relief in her voice stirred the pain that lurked ever ready in his depths, making him long to lash out at her. To make her feel the same hurt he suffered.
He proffered his arm.
‘I shall escort you back to your family.’
Again, he barely registered her hand on his arm and was forced to glance down to assure himself it was there. She roused emotion within him like no other female ever had, but he was hard put to know if it was love or hate. Was it the past casting rainbows over the present that was keeping that sliver of hope alive deep inside him? He could not tell and neither could he tell if she, too, still felt this connection that hovered between them, binding them. She was so guarded, so difficult to understand, and he longed to provoke her into some show of the emotion she claimed was absent, but which he sensed—hoped?—was there, well hidden beneath her serene surface.
‘You thought?’ His voice harder this time—he would not allow her to wriggle out of explaining herself. He was confused enough, without her adding more questions to the list circling inside his head.
Again, that familiar lift of her chin.
‘I thought you would wish to make the most of this time, while everyone is in town, to more fully establish your position.’
‘To what purpose? These people mean nothing to me. They are not my friends. I have an interest in politics and I am happy to have my say in the Lords but, as to the rest...’ He contemplated his surroundings and the people within. ‘I miss the purpose of earning my living. This is not a way of life that I recognise or find fulfilling. I find no merit in lives lived in pursuit of idle pleasures.’
Kitty halted, releasing Adam’s arm. Her mouth was tight and, when she spoke, so was her voice. ‘You may leave me to find my own way to my companions, Lord Kelridge. I should thank you, I surmise, for your condescension in agreeing to so frivolous an activity as dancing. I trust you will find your estates in good repair when you go to Kelridge.’
The Earl with the Secret Past Page 7