“Ah.” His whole body changed in that moment. His warm flesh cooled and hardened into stone. “Unlike me?”
“Aidan.”
“You’d take me as your lover, but—”
“Yes, as my lover. And everything that means.”
“Well, what does it mean?” he snapped.
“Aidan, I’ve no experience with this. But I’m given to understand that in London . . . in London . . .”
She saw his head turn slowly toward her, his eyes glinting in the faint light. “What have you heard?”
His voice had gone so hard that she lost her nerve and could only shake her head. “Never mind.”
Aidan sat up and swung from the bed to pace to the other side of the room. “What have you heard about London?”
“I only heard that married women there take lovers as a matter of course. Is that not true?”
Aidan stared silently at her, his shadow a blank space in the room.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
He’d frightened her with his reaction, and now her fear turned to anger. “Why are you stomping about the room as if I’ve insulted you? You cast it as dishonor to be asked to my bed? Is that what you think I’ve done? Dishonored myself?”
“I . . . No. No, of course not.”
“As if it’s an insult that I want you!”
“No. I’m sorry, Kate. It’s only jealousy. Of him and his name and his hold over you. That he would come between us . . .”
Kate slumped back into the bed, all her nervous outrage stolen away. She understood, because David did still sit between them, though in ways that Aidan couldn’t comprehend.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I want this thing for us, Aidan. Not for the ceremony or title of it. I don’t need your name. Do I?”
He moved closer and sat wearily on the mattress. “No. You’re right. This is enough. It’s everything. But what if there’s a babe? Surely that is more than enough motive to consider divorce now, before it becomes necessary?”
“I have been married a long while, and there has never been a child.” That was true enough, though David had come to her bed rarely, and never after the first few years. And every month she had said a small prayer of thanks.
His hand splayed against her belly.
“We cannot simply go back to where we ended,” she said quietly. “There’s no going back for us.”
“I know,” he said, and she could tell by the terrible weight of his words that he did.
“But we can have this, can’t we? Does it have to be a disappointment?”
She waited, feeling the lovely heat of his hand against her stomach. She wanted desperately for it to be enough for him, because what if it wasn’t? She couldn’t give him more. She couldn’t
be
more. And if Aidan left now, she’d spend her lifetime remembering what she might have had.
Aidan sighed. “Of course it is not a disappointment, Kate. Never think that. It’s more than I dreamed possible.”
“Then come back to bed.”
He hesitated for only one heartbeat before sliding back beneath the bedclothes.
“I’ll leave before dawn,” he promised, but it felt so far away that Kate didn’t care. This was enough for her, because it must be.
He was gone the next day, and Kate’s world returned to normal. She swept and filled orders and brewed samples. She interacted with her neighbors as if nothing had changed, answering the occasional question about India and her husband. No one looked at her strangely. No one commented on her transformation from wraith to woman. It was as if he’d never been there.
Yet there were the places on her body that felt different. The raw places where his roughened jaw had scraped her. The space between her legs that his cock had stretched. Her mouth felt full and sensitive. Her hands weak from clutching him to her. And her heart . . . that was altogether changed, her blood replaced by something brighter and quicker.
But no one noticed, and the secret only made it all the more delicious.
She had a lover, and it felt even sweeter than it had when she was a girl. That sweetness buoyed her courage, and she was restless to face what she’d once run from.
She hadn’t meant to hurt Gerard. Not that night, nor any time before. But she’d known from the start that his feelings for her had been nothing like what a son should feel for his father’s wife. She could understand that. They’d lived in the jungle, isolated from the world, and Kate and Gerard had been nearly the same age. “You should’ve been my wife,” he’d once whispered. He’d still been young then, and Kate had only stammered and blushed until he’d left her room. But he’d grown more persistent after David’s decline in health.
Still, she’d never expected his jealousy to drive him to such madness.
When midday arrived and the shop grew quiet, Kate locked the door and walked out into the bright day. The sun was high, but all its warmth was lost somewhere in the heavens. As she hurried through the busy streets toward the dockmaster’s house, the air stuck to her skin like ice. By the time she knocked on Lucy’s front door, she was shivering. She’d finally left the heat of Ceylon behind.
A maid let her in, but only a half second passed before she heard her name called. “Kate!” Lucy trilled, skipping down the stairs. “I was just coming to see you!”
“The dinner was lovely last night.” Her last word was smothered by Lucy’s hug.
“Oh, it was, wasn’t it?” She stole a look around the entryway. “Come. Let’s go for a walk.”
“It’s freezing outside, Lucy.”
“Oh, I don’t care! I feel like I’m going to burst.”
Kate raised her eyebrows and retrieved her cloak from the maid. “Well, then. We’d best walk.” Or Kate would die of curiosity.
Before they’d even reached the sidewalk, Lucy bubbled over. “He is so kind, Kate. So genteel.”
“Mr. Penrose?” she asked with a grin.
“Yes! Let’s walk past their office, shall we?”
“Oh, Lucy, they’ve already gone. Did Mr. Penrose not tell you?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “He told me. But perhaps they were delayed.”
Kate chuckled, but she tucked her hand around Lucy’s arm and they walked toward the street where Aidan had let rooms for an office. “Are you in love, Miss Cain?”
“Come now. Surely I’m not so far gone.” But her eyes sparkled with happiness. “He told me that Mr. York looked at houses yesterday afternoon. He’s considering opening a permanent residence here.”
Kate’s heart first fell to her feet before floating high. Fear and hope tangled together and tumbled through her body. If he stayed near, she could have him whenever she liked. So many nights filled with pleasure. But if he was closer to her body, he’d be closer to her secrets too.
“Mr. York is apparently very impressed with our shipyards,” Lucy said with a droll look.
Kate ignored that. “Tell me more about your Mr. Penrose.”
That did just the trick, and Lucy launched into a nearly word-for-word tale of exactly what Mr. Penrose had said to her during dinner.
“His grandfather was a ship’s captain, though his father did not care for the sea. But Mr. Penrose says he has spent all manner of time around ships, and he so understands my love for them.”
“Ah, that must have been the passion I saw in his eyes while you two spoke at dinner.”
Lucy’s happy laugh echoed off the buildings of the narrow street. “He is so very kind. I cannot explain it. I’ve spent my life around sailors and gentlemen, and while one seemed too rough, the other was always too soft. But Mr. Penrose is very . . . Oh, I cannot find the word.”
“Perhaps it’s that as Mr. York’s secretary, he stands in both worlds.”
“Perhaps. That is what I’ve always felt as well. I am the daughter of a man who was once a sailor. Yet I’m not meant for a sailor, am I? But if I married a gentleman, would he think me lucky to have him? I’d rather it be the other way around.”
Kate squeezed her arm. “But a gentleman’s secretary? What would your father say?”
“My father would say ‘Thank God’ if I chose any man. And I don’t think Mr. Penrose will be a secretary forever.”
Kate grinned. “I think you’re right.”
“But it is only a flirtation,” Lucy murmured, her head bent in thought as if she were weighing the truth of her own words. She slowed to a stop before Aidan’s office, and they both looked up at the blank window. “Mr. Penrose says he is changed here.”
“Pardon?”
“Mr. York.”
Kate cleared her throat and tugged Lucy on to continue their stroll.
“He says that Mr. York is another person here. He smiles and laughs and walks with a light step. He’s a different man.”
“That’s silly,” Kate said. “Mr. York has always been the epitome of the charming gentleman. He is well known for his good humor.”
“I don’t think you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. In fact, Mr. York said the same thing about Mr. Penrose. They are men who work together and have their gruff male conversations. That is all.”
“Kate,” she said softly. “I think he’s in love with you.”
“That’s not true! I’m married. I—”
“That’s what makes it so romantic!”
“No.” She pulled Lucy to a stop.
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
“Lucy, it is not romantic. Not at all.” She slowly raised her head and met Lucy’s gaze. The words rose from her throat without her permission. “I knew him before,” she whispered, leaning closer. “I knew him long ago. That is all you see. A remembered friendship.”
“Oh, Kate.” Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.
“Hush,” Kate said, before she raised her gaze to the sky to stop her own tears. “It’s only memory you’re seeing on his face. Nothing more.”
“And what about yours?”
That stopped her cold. Did she love him? She watched a single white cloud float across the desolate sky. Her heart was calm.
Did she love him?
Hadn’t she always?
She lowered her chin and met Lucy’s wet eyes. “Did you ask your father about English newspapers from Ceylon?”
Lucy’s face crumpled in confusion. “Yes . . . I . . . He’s found some already.”
“Wonderful. Perhaps I can retrieve them after our walk.”
“Oh, certainly. I’ll have them wrapped up for you.”
“Thank you.”
Lucy nodded, and though her eyes were dark with disappointment, she changed the subject and began discussing the newest details in the saga of Gulliver Wilson’s debt-ridden brother.
Kate fought the urge to race back to Lucy’s house and steal away with the papers. But only just. Because she could not move forward with her life until she found out what she’d left behind. And suddenly, the future seemed so much brighter.
Aidan stared intently out the window of his old bedchamber, Penrose’s voice a gnat’s buzz in his ear. This section of the York gardens had been his view for so many years of his childhood that he didn’t notice the beauty anymore. All he could see was Kate as she’d lain sleeping the morning he’d left. She’d never been to his family home. He wondered if she would like it.
He’d been gone from her for two weeks. Two horrid, maddening weeks.
He wanted nothing more than to return to Hull, but this morning’s train had brought him to the family home and all the people who loved him. Yet at the train station, he’d stared dolefully at the signs pointing in another direction.
Normally, business would be his escape from his restlessness, but now it seemed there could be nothing more mind-numbing than importing problems, and he couldn’t focus enough on new proposals to make any real decisions.
Opening a drawer in Penrose’s portable desk, Aidan rifled through it until he found his personal stationery, not noticing when Penrose’s words slowed to a halt.
“Mr. York, is there a letter you wish me to write?”
Aidan grunted a negative as his hand closed around a pen.
“Sir—”
“You’ll go to Hull tonight.”
“I will?”
“Continue your search for respectable lodgings. Make sure of adequate space for my study.”
“Yes. Of course. But . . . Mr. Ferris requested an answer—”
“Fine. You can send an answer just as easily from Hull. Tell him I’ll meet with him in London in five days.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And please be sure that any house you let in Hull is furnished and available for my arrival next month. No later.”
His secretary appeased, Aidan turned his attention back to the letter for Kate. Perhaps he was overstepping himself, taking a house in Hull, but if he was, so be it. It was only a house. And his pride. And his every hope. He knew from experience that those things could be lost, but Kate was worth the risk.
He spent a good five minutes deciding on a closing to the letter, finally settling on a frustratingly simple
Yours, Aidan
, then worked hurriedly through a stack of aging correspondence. Now that he knew when he would return to her, he found it easy to address business issues. Before an hour passed, he’d wrapped up the simpler problems and was walking down the stairs to finally greet his family.
He’d escaped that duty when he and Penrose had arrived two hours before. Edward and Cousin Harry had been out riding. His mother had yet to rise. And nobody knew when Marissa and her husband would arrive.
The house had been eerily quiet when Aidan had walked in, and now as he followed voices to the library, he felt a smile tug at his lips. Despite his eagerness to return to Kate, it felt good to be home. Better than it had felt in years.
“Well, Harry,” he drawled as he stepped through the open doors to find his brother and cousin lounging near the fire. “I hear you’ve finally talked a woman into accepting your suit.”
“I have.” Harry rose to pull Aidan into a tight hug with a few bracing slaps to the back.
“Congratulations. Dare I ask which one? Mother has had me on tenterhooks.”
“Miss Elizabeth Samuel.”
“She’s a lovely girl. And Marissa will be thrilled that her closest friend will become part of the family.”
Harry grinned proudly. “You look well, Aidan. Your smile makes me fear for the bank accounts of the gentlemen you left behind in London. What have you gotten up to?”
Aidan looked past his cousin’s shoulder and found that Edward’s gaze was dangerously sharp. “I’m only excited to hear there’s another wedding on the calendar.”
“Good Christ,” Harry barked on a laugh. “If you don’t wish me to know, simply say so.”
Aidan smiled. “I don’t wish you to know.”
“If it has you smiling, you may take your secret to the grave with my blessing.”
Edward didn’t look quite so enthusiastic, but his narrowed eyes couldn’t pierce Aidan’s mood. In fact, Aidan chuckled as he dropped into a chair and set his feet on a table.
“And,” Harry continued, “if it’s a business you’ve taken over, please consider gifting me with a share as an engagement present. I won’t consider it the least unsentimental.”
“Duly noted.”
Harry clapped his hands together. “All right. I’d best change. I must sit for my portrait in an hour.”
Aidan gave Harry an incredulous look. “Portrait?”
“Yes, a wedding portrait, to be debuted at the wedding, of course. I believe your mother whispered something about tying doves to the sheeting, to gracefully whisk it away just as we are introduced at the breakfast.”
“Good God, man,” Aidan croaked, picturing a flock of panicked doves tangled in linen and trampled by frightened guests. “You cannot be serious.”
“Your mother is serious, and I am not man enough to defy her. Are you?”
Aidan shuddered at the thought of his mother planning his own wedding. Thank God that if it ever came to marrying Kate, it would likely be a quiet affair. Then again, his mother didn’t know the definition of quiet.
“Poor Harry,” Aidan said when his cousin had sauntered out. “Mother is getting her revenge for Marissa’s hurried wedding, I suppose. I wonder if she has commissioned that golden carriage she spoke of?”
“She tried to sneak the bill past me,” Edward said. “But I caught her out. You didn’t reply to my last letter.”
Aidan blinked at the sudden change of subject. “I apologize. I’ve been traveling.”
“To Kingston-upon-Hull?”
He tried to keep a straight face. This was serious, after all. Kate was a married woman. But he couldn’t help the slight quirk of his lips.
“Aidan.”
“She’s left her husband.”
That snapped Edward up straight. “When?”
“Not for me. I mean she moved back to England without him.”
“But she still has a husband,” he growled.
Aidan’s shoulders suddenly burned. He rolled his neck and closed his eyes before resting his head against the back of the chair. “I know that.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that she is mine again and I can hardly fathom it. I’m thinking that I haven’t felt this alive since I said good-bye to her ten years ago.”
When his brother didn’t answer, Aidan opened his eyes to find Edward frowning down at him. “You never told me what happened.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I asked for her hand and her father refused me. You know that.”
“But there’s more. You said things sometimes, when you’d been drinking. . . .”
Aidan cleared his throat and crossed and uncrossed his feet. “We argued. There were ugly words between us. But it hardly matters now.”
“Aidan . . .”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t turn his gaze away at the censure in his brother’s voice. Edward could call him foolish if he liked. Aidan would gladly play the fool for Kate.
In the end, Edward only shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll save my breath.”
“Clever fellow.”
Edward laughed, his face finally relaxing as he took the seat opposite Aidan. “You’ll do what you like, I suppose. You always have.”
“Ha. Do you remember when I told you I meant to marry her?”
“Yes. I told you quite emphatically that you were too young.”
“And I accused you of being a stiff old man who didn’t know a thing about love.”
“I was all of twenty-six.”
Aidan smiled. “Ancient. Nearly dead, by all accounts. But the next day, you gave your blessing.”
“Mother interceded on your behalf.”
That was something he’d never heard. Aidan drew his chin in. “She did?”
“She said I was torturing you. That you truly loved her. That our father had only been twenty-two when he’d proposed and they’d loved each other until the day he died.”
“Well.” Aidan uncrossed his ankles again, then put his feet to the floor and sat straighter. “She does adore a good melodrama.”
“She wanted you to be happy.”
Aidan ran a hand across the nape of his neck, digging his fingers in.
“And what happened afterward . . . She didn’t mean to cause more pain.”
“I know. I never thought it was intentional. It was only that her desire to titillate and thrill overcame any caring she had for me.”
“Aidan.”
The disapproval in Edward’s voice brought heat to Aidan’s face. “You cannot know the effect she had.”
“Can’t I?”
Aidan looked away, focusing on the farthest corner of the room so he would not have to see his brother’s eyes. Of course, Edward had heard all the tales. And in those first years, he’d likely seen the evidence of Aidan’s debauchery with his own eyes. “I am the one who chose to take advantage of the legend she created. The young man devastated by love and grief. The heartbroken hero in need of comfort. But when I found out she was the person who’d told my secrets . . . It was a relief to have someone else to hate besides myself.”
The fire snapped against the silence. Sparks shook free of the flames and slowly floated up the chimney.
“Can’t you forgive her?” Edward asked softly.
“I forgave her long ago.”
“I’m not sure she knows that, Aidan.”
Yes, she likely wouldn’t. He’d made peace with his mother’s actions, but he’d never made peace with his own. Hard to distinguish one anger from another, he supposed. While he was considering that, Aidan’s eye caught on the wing chair in the small alcove near the corner window. A scrap of gray fabric seemed out of place. He craned his neck, scowling.
“Is that Aunt Ophelia?”
“No, I . . . My God.” They rose together and descended upon the alcove to find ancient Aunt Ophelia dozing in the weak sunlight. She opened one eye and stared balefully at them.
“Aunt Ophelia,” Aidan shouted. “A pleasure to see you again. May I escort you to your room?”
She pushed to her feet before either man could help and shuffled from the room without a word.
“Do you think she heard anything?”
Edward laughed. “She hasn’t heard anything in years.”
“Right.” Aidan frowned at the echo of a door closing farther down the hall. “Of course.” He was distracted from his worry by the sound of lively voices from the entry. He prayed it was his sister and not houseguests, and soon enough he recognized her voice.
The whole household descended to greet her and touch her and ask after her journey. Aidan gave her a long hug, then solemnly shook the hand of her husband, Jude. Jude had been a good friend once. Good enough to volunteer to marry Marissa when she’d found herself compromised. But now Aidan and Jude eyed each other warily while Marissa discussed their honeymoon trip to the Ottoman.
The bronzed tint to her naturally pale skin spoke to her adventures, and her eyes sparkled like emeralds as she wove tales.
Their mother smothered Marissa with dramatic kisses. “My darling!” she exclaimed. “You’re as dark as a Persian harem girl!”
“I’m sure that harem girls are kept quite fair, Mother. They are not allowed to tour the country on camelback, for instance.”
“Never say you did!”
Marissa grinned. “If you’d prefer I not speak of it . . .”
“Nonsense! I can’t bear it, but your brothers will want to hear it!” An utter falsehood, of course. Their mother was fairly trembling with excitement, and if Marissa wasn’t careful, she’d find her next exotic trip with her husband fully encumbered by a maternal stowaway.
As entertaining as Marissa’s story was, Aidan found himself drifting away, as he always did. He’d separated himself from his family long before, and now he worried that he’d permanently severed those ties. He watched his mother and brother and sister and cousin as they laughed and talked. Even Aunt Ophelia hung on Jude’s arm, smiling up at some story he told. Aidan headed toward the door.
He’d take his favorite horse out for a hard run and rejoin his family for dinner. By then, he’d be ready to face them again.
“Aidan!” Marissa called just as his hand touched the door.
He froze and turned reluctantly back, but when she threw herself into his arms, Aidan hugged her hard, and planted several more kisses on her cheek. “Your new status suits you,” he said honestly. “You look beautiful. And happy.”
“I am happy.”
Her grin turned his heart to jelly. Two months before, he hadn’t even hoped she could be happy in her marriage, only content. But now she looked prettier than ever, her smile wide and wicked.
“Are you sneaking away?” she asked, her expression finally sobering.
“Just for a ride. I’ll be back for dinner.”