Authors: Lindsay Kiernan
“I would prefer it be my son,” Mrs. Brentley informed Robin. “At least he is someone that I can trust to act like a gentleman around my charges.”
Garrett nodded gravely before winking at Katherine when no one was looking.
“I've heard that one or two of your friends might be attending this event Garrett. Please keep my charges away from them.” She had tried to sound cryptic and had confused Robin who then shrugged it off, but Katherine knew exactly what Mrs. Brentley was trying to say. Kent would be there tonight.
Her spirits lifted, knowing that she would be able to see him tonight and get to know him better. She had to find some way of getting Garrett away from her for awhile so that she could speak candidly to Kent.
Victor was the first to greet them as they exited the carriage, he reached his hand in to help escort Robin and Mrs. Brentley out. When he reached in to help Katherine he found Garrett at the door. “I'll help her,” Garrett growled possessively and Katherine swatted at his hands as he lifted her to set her outside of the carriage.
“Really, must you act quite so barbaric?” she chided him with a grim frown.
“Last time that Victor touched you, you were bedridden for two days. I'm not letting him near you.”
“Garrett!” she hissed quietly, once he had set her down but rested his hand along the small of her back to escort her into the ball. It felt like he was trying to lay claim to her in front of all of the other men. “Let go of me,” she said and she pulled his protective hand off of her, letting it drop to his side.
The room was lit as it always was for these dances, and the band played much of the same music that it had at the last one. For the first hour Katherine was only allowed to sit and watch others dance. Without being in the action of the events, it became rather boring and she wondered why some of the older ladies made sure to attend each and every one of them only to sit on the side and watch others have fun.
After sending Garrett for something to drink, she felt a prickle along her neck, warning her that someone was watching her. “How is your ankle?” a deep voice behind her purred and she jumped at the sound, turning around to see Kent standing there smiling down on her. After not seeing him for awhile she was happy to find that she had not imagined how handsome he was. And he knew that he was handsome, she decided. He even seemed to smile slightly crookedly to appear more dashing.
“It is much better. And thank you for the flowers that you sent, I love them,” she told him, motioning for him to sit in the chair beside her.
“I'm happy to hear that they got to you, both Brentley women hate me so much that I expected them to be thrown out with the waste the next morning.” Motioning to Garrett across the room, who was glaring at them, Kent asked her, “Has he been lording over you this whole time?”
Looking across at Garrett's disapproving face she whispered to Kent, “Worse than you could imagine,” she giggled slightly, amazed at how much more exciting the dance could be with Kent there for conversation.
“Can I have the next dance?” Kent asked as he leaned into her. “I still haven't gotten to hold you,” he added wickedly.
So the rumors were true. Kent was no good. Yet Katherine loved that roughish part of him. “Not this time either, I'm afraid. Garrett won't let me dance yet. He's too worried that I'll re-injure my ankle just as it's healing. I was only allowed to attend if I promised not to dance.”
Leaning back into the chair, Kent smiled. “Then I must find other ways to entertain you. Do you like music?”
“Yes, of course,” she admitted, though she hoped that she wouldn't have to play for him. She had been told that she was good but she still felt shy about being put on the spot. It was only when she was alone that she liked to practice.
“Well, there is a small music room just off of the main hall that I would love to show you. Meet me there in an hour,” he told her and stood to walk off as Garrett arrived with the punch. The men nodded to each other but said nothing as Kent left.
“For being best friends, neither of you seem to like the other very well,” Katherine commented after Kent had dissipated into the crowd.
“Kent wants something of mine,” Garrett said plainly. “Until one of us has won he won't let us be friends.”
“Are you two really fighting over me? Some might find that romantic but I assure you that I do not,” Katherine told him, annoyed that it was a game they seemed to play with each other. Had Garrett not been so persistent before discovering that Kent wanted her as well, she might have worried that it was only a competitive nature that drove him.
Garrett ignored her outrage and sipped at his own glass of wine. Over the next hour, she invented many excuses to try and get away from him but he found a way around each one of them until finally, he stood and asked her to take a walk with him. Happy to just get out of her chair Katherine agreed. While walking down the main hall Garrett stopped them at the music room and swung open the door to find Kent reclining on the couch. Kent looked expectantly at the door as it opened, then frowned at seeing that she was not alone. “Not tonight,” he told Kent, before closing the door and walking Katherine out to the gardens.
“But how did you know..?”
“Kent tried that same trick with one of his friend's mistresses just a few years ago. Boasting about how he got her to sneak away from her lover to meet with him in the library just off of the main corridor. When you kept trying to get away from me, I assumed that he was trying the same thing again.” Helping her down a step that led to the pathways he pulled her closer, “If you were looking for someone to have a few stolen moments with, you should have asked me,” he whispered close to her ear.
“Garrett, I wasn't just looking for anything like that. As I've told you all along, I'm trying to catch a Lord and Kent happens to be one. Can't you let this go and leave me in peace?”
“No, I can't,” he said sincerely as he looked her over. “I don't think you know how much you mean to me.”
She felt uncomfortable at hearing such a bold and romantic statement from someone that she was trying to avoid. Still she had to admit that it stirred her insides to be needed so completely. Katherine decided that she wanted to talk about something, anything else.
She wasn't sure whether or not the topic of his ex-fiancé was considered taboo, but she decided to bring it up anyway. “Is this about you trying to get over Amelia?” Garrett stiffened at hearing her name and Katherine tried to backtrack from the subject, “I'm sorry I shouldn't have mentioned it. Forget that I said anything,” she babbled, trying to somehow erase the air by filling it with new words.
“No, you can ask about Amelia. You must be curious about her,” Garrett assured her. “I'm sure that Winnie told you some of what happened.”
Nervously Katherine admitted as much. “She only told me a little, it sounded like it was quite a painful subject for her so I didn't press her too much.”
Garrett smiled sadly, “Winnie loved Amelia possibly more than I did. They became very close friends after I proposed to her and brought her to stay with my family at our estate. She had recently been orphaned. My family and my friends became her family and friends. That's one reason why I wanted her, to help her. My mother understood
that
about me. She approved of the match.” Garrett walked her along the pathway lined with various fruit trees that still held some of the ripe fruit on their branches. They hung low, making it easier for passersby to pick. The brilliant moon light lit the trees making some of the branches appear silver. However the dense trees formed their own shaddows, cloaking Garrett's face and allowing them both to be honest in the sheltering darkness.
“You loved her very much,” Katherine stated rather than asked.
Garrett stopped walking and turned her towards him. “Yes I did love her,” he said after some thought. “The way that she made me feel, like I could protect her from anything. With Amelia I felt that if I cared for her enough then nothing would be wrong and I could save her from any pain or fear.”
“And now you want to protect me?” she asked. He had moved on from pining over his love and had begun looking for a new one. Most women would have enjoyed the protective nature he had but it seemed to frighten her away from him.
“I don't think you understand, Katherine. I needed Amelia to need me, and she did. Had she lived, that would have been enough for me. She fit the things that I wanted at the time and I loved her for that.” He drew in the night air heavily as if he needed the brisk air to fill his lungs before he could continue.
“When I found you in that alleyway, things changed. I felt alive for the first time since her death, like I had died along with her without ever realizing it until the moment that you stepped into my life. When I held you that night, I knew that you were better than what I'd had with Amelia.” It was strange to hear him speak so frankly about his longing and wants but Katherine enjoyed that he was being honest with her. “I would have loved her forever, but I loved her for the wrong reasons. I don't feel that way with you, and if you marry Kent I'm worried you'll have the same regrets that I almost had. I'm worried that you will have chosen him for the wrong reasons.”
Katherine turned to start walking with him again and considered his advice. “If I just owed this to myself, then I could listen to you. What you don't understand is that I'm not the only one who has a stake in this decision. There are certain things that are expected of me,” she sighed heavily. “It's not so simple as choosing what you want and what you think is best for you. Life is never that clear.”
“Love is,” he told her as his lips hovered near her ear and his breath fanned into the delicate hollow, bringing both chills and an inner heat to fight within her body.
“You promised me,” she muttered even as her eyes fell shut and her body tensed, ready to be kissed.
“I know,” he whispered in her ear. He held back from touching her but she could sense how much he wanted to. “Tell me that I can hold you, Kat. Tell me that I can kiss you,” he coaxed and somewhere deep inside of Katherine she wanted to do just that.
“We can't, someone could see,” she warned him as she looked around the empty pathway as if it would soon be filled with people.
Garrett grasped her arm and pulled them both off of the path and into the rows of fruit trees where he gently pushed her up against one of the trunks whose branches cocooned around them, dripping apples from the heavy branches.
Katherine tried to laugh at his impulsive nature but the hunger in his eyes stilled her and she licked her lips in response. Just one little kiss she thought, and almost said it out loud.
“No one will know,” Garrett coaxed as he seemed to recognize the same need in her face that he felt.
She marveled at how much he sounded like that wicked little voice in her head and she tried to shake it away. “I'll know, and that's bad enough,” she told him.
“I won't even kiss you,” he offered as he bracketed her in by placing a hand on the tree trunk on either side of her body. “I'd let you kiss me. I know that you're curious.”
It was a proven weakness of Katherine's, to be curious. “You'll just stand there and let me kiss you and you won't do anything to me?” she asked, while telling herself that she was mad to consider such an offer.
“Yes,” he said as her lips moved closer to his.
“I don't believe you,” she teased and pressed her lips against his, holding them there innocently before pulling away from the brief kiss. Garrett kept to his word, digging his fingers into the bark to stop himself from holding her or pushing her against his body.
“What would you be doing if I told you that you could touch me?” she asked as she stared at his lust filled eyes wanting to know the thoughts within even as she feared them.
“You don't want to know,” he said roughly as she placed another light kiss against his jaw.
Katherine frowned at his tone. “That is one of the things that I don't like about the kind of love that is too passionate, there is nothing delicate about it.” She touched his fingers where they dug into the bark, felt the power of his body as it hovered over her, barely contained. “The feelings of need are too raw and untamed. It's one of the things that scares me about us,” she admitted softly as she met the dark haze of his eyes. “I prefer logic and reason but when I'm with you, I can't even remember what those words mean.”
His entire body tensed above her own and she slid her hands up his arms to the bunched up muscles by his neck and shoulders. There was so much power within him and she knew that he fought to keep it in check, to prove her wrong.
“You could never be gentle with me, there would be too much passion between us,” she warned. Even as she lectured him, she could feel the irrational impulse to press her body against his, to give in if only for a few stolen moments.
“Of course I could be gentle,” he told her, between quickening breaths.
Katherine knew that she was playing with a force too powerful for such silly games, but she couldn't help herself. She leaned back against the tree, exposing her neck and tilting her lips up towards him. “If you can be gentle then I'll promise you one dance once my ankle is better. However, if you've lied to me, you have to take me back there and not protest when I'm talking to Kent.”