Virginia Henley (43 page)

“What about Barbara and Terry?” she asked faintly.

“To hell with them,” he said. “What about Patrick and Kitty?”

She giggled.

“There’s no hope for Barbara, anyway. Once you’ve bedded
with a Gypsy, no other mate is wild enough for you,” he teased.

“Oh, really? And what about the O’Reilly blood? I’d say it’s too hot to be considered normal,” she said and laughed.

“Would you?” he sounded most pleased. “Are you going to use your nails and teeth on me again, you little witch?”

“That just proves I’m more passionate than you,” she provoked.

“Is that what biting proves?” he asked and promptly took her nipple into his mouth. She screamed in mock terror.

After their desires had been sated she stretched against him like a cat.

He whispered erotically, “When I give you cream, you purr.”

She sat up and threw the covers back.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Going back to my own bed. We can’t have the servants find me in here.”

“Get back into bed. Now lie down,” he commanded. “An hour is no good to me; I’m going to keep you abed for a week.”

When they arose the next morning Kitty discovered the young pair had left. She puzzled over their whereabouts, hoping Patrick’s temper hadn’t driven them away.

Kitty had horses saddled for Patrick and herself and they rode about the estate; she dreamy-eyed and languid, he bound by the spell of her beauty.

“This must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. You know I never could buy it from you,” he said.

“I don’t want it to be yours, nor mine; it’s ours. Ours to share forever,” she said wistfully.

When the evening closed in and darkness descended, Kitty peered out the window for signs of the missing pair. Patrick had disappeared into the kitchen an hour past. All of a sudden
the door burst open and a radiant Barbara announced, “We were married!”

“How? Where?” asked Kitty, completely taken by surprise.

“Patrick arranged a special license for us,” said Terry.

“The four of us are going to have a wedding celebration!” shouted Patrick, coming through the doorway with a bottle of champagne in each hand.

“Where in the world did you conjure that from?” asked Kitty, amazed.

“Didn’t I tell you last night I could perform tricks that would leave you breathless?” He winked.

She blushed at his meaning.

Terry laughed and said, “What’s a wedding without a coarse jest or two?”

Patrick shouted, “Did you hear the one about the duchess who …”

“Enough of that, you rogue!” screeched Kitty, throwing a cushion at him.

The wedding supper was a delightfully happy time, with toast after toast being drunk to the newlyweds.

Much later, in love’s afterglow as Patrick caressed the silken curve of her back, he said, “God, how I envy them! I’m going to go to Charles when we get back and ask him to release you.”

“No, Patrick you mustn’t!” she cried. “Promise me you won’t! If you love me, you won’t!”

“You seek to tie me hand and foot. Don’t you understand I want all or nothing?” he demanded.

“Promise me!” she insisted.

He groaned, “I promise not to confront him, but I’ll do everything in my power to separate you from him and bind you closer to me.” He crushed her in a demanding embrace.

Patrick swept the covers from her and knelt above her in a
towering passion. His face was hard and dark, his eyes stained with desire. “Lord God, how I’m going to make you quiver,” he vowed.

His tongue annointed her from throat to thigh, every silken inch, every secret cleft, until Kitty lay in a love-drunk sprawl. “I’d love to do these wicked things to you if it weren’t so wrong,” she breathed huskily.

He murmured openmouthed against the soft inside of her thigh, “When we share a bed there is no such thing as wrong, no such thing as sin, no such thing as forbidden.” He drew her hand to his shaft to show her the enormous effect she had on him. Her fingertips brushed across the velvet head, drawing forth drops of liquid love juice.

Kitty knew an overwhelming desire to taste him. She raised her fingertips to her lips and sucked the taste of him from them. It was a mix of salt, spice and smoke, all heavily scented with pure male animal. Without coherent thought she slid down his body and drew him whole into her hot, wet mouth.

Patrick’s cry echoed round the bedchamber and she knew an insatiable need to hear the dark, hoarse, intimate sounds again. Patrick was determined not to waste his seed in such a frivolous way. He pushed her back down on the bed and entered her with a thrust that sent him deeper than he’d ever been before. As he felt his seed start he groaned, “You know I cannot give you up now. Not even if you beg me.”

As his white-hot life poured into her, she was too far gone in rapture to even hear him.

Their time together was over. Kitty lay cradled in his arms inside the coach. They were traveling to the coast together, but she insisted on taking the public ferry back to Liverpool.

“Give me time?” she begged with tears in her eyes.

He kissed her temple and murmured:

She surrendered her mouth to his, half faint with the thought of separation.

“I feel I am dying of love,” she wept.

“I have the cure,” he promised. He opened the window and called to the driver, “Stop at the next inn. My lady is ill and in need of attention.”

The couple who kept the inn were consumed by curiosity when the well-dressed gentleman swept in with a woman in his arms and demanded their best bedroom. They spent the next three hours conjecturing what was happening above-stairs.

Kitty was worried. She counted again to make sure there was no error in her calculations. “It’s not possible,” she told herself, but an inner voice contradicted her mockingly. “Not only possible, but probable after such wanton behavior. But Patrick would have been careful. He would never have been negligent in such matters, not again,” she told herself.

Then his voice came to her loud and clear: “I’ll do everything in my power to … bind you closer to me.”

“Oh, no; please, Lord, no! Don’t let him have deliberately gotten me with child,” she prayed silently.

“Let’s see: It happened at the end of September, beginning of October … that would make it … seven, eight, nine … end of June, beginning of July. I’m only frightening myself! Next month everything will be back to normal,” she promised herself fervently.

In November her menses again proved elusive. With many sighs, Kitty resigned herself to the inevitable. At least she wouldn’t be big enough to show before Christmas, when social activities couldn’t be avoided. She really didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish with her secrecy, and the mocking voice from within kept repeating, “Ignore it as much as you like, it won’t go away!” So far she had managed to avoid Patrick by becoming almost reclusive, and whenever his words came back to her about demanding that she leave Charles, she pushed them resolutely away. The scandal she would bring down upon their heads frightened her. Not for herself; she had never given a tinker’s damn
what anyone said about her, but Charles would be devastated. She could never hurt him so cruelly. Then there was Charles Patrick. How could she take him from Charles? It was unthinkable. She would sacrifice her own happiness a thousand times over before she would do that. “Oh, Patrick, why can’t you understand?” she asked silently.

The morning sickness began; in fact, it lasted most of the day. Just before Christmas, Charles came upon her gazing unhappily through their bedroom window. He came up behind her to see what held her solemn attention on the ground below. She was watching the birds eat some crumbs. “Remember the blue and yellow parrots that flashed through the trees on the island? Do you miss them sometimes?” he asked.

“Oh, no, I love the starlings. They make me laugh when they run on their little red legs.”

“Then why are there tears on your cheeks?” he said softly.

“Well, they also make me feel sad, especially when they lift one foot up and tuck it underneath them because the ground is so cold.”

“It all sounds most fanciful to me. Come and tell me what’s ailing you, darling,” he coaxed gently.

“I’m with child,” she blurted.

He stared at her in amazement.

“You’re shocked,” she said.

“No, only surprised, and I shouldn’t be surprised after pushing you to seek diversion, should I?” he asked gently.

“Charles, I wish with all my heart that I didn’t have to hurt you like this,” she said wretchedly.

He patted the sofa. “It isn’t the end of the world, Kathleen; come while we consider it carefully. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that everything in the world has its advantages and its disadvantages. Charles Patrick needs a
brother or a sister; it will do him a world of good. My stock in society will go up as they whisper, ‘There’s life in the old dog yet,’ and you will just adore another baby.”

“And the disadvantages?” she asked faintly.

There were crinkles around his eyes. “I can’t think of any.”

Kitty wrung her hands. “Damn you, why are you so saintly? Why don’t you beat me, or throw me out?” she cried.

He came to her and held her close. “I cherish you. If anything ever happened to you I wouldn’t care to live.”

Now, at least, she didn’t have to lace so tightly or disguise the fact that she was feeling wretched. She knew she could put off seeing Patrick no longer. She sent a note around to Half-Moon Street, but it was returned with a note from his man that he was out of town for the New Year’s holiday and would be returning about the middle of January. As it happened, Charles got to see him before Kitty did. They met at the club when Charles was with a couple of government colleagues. The conversation was all war and how to make profits from it. Patrick was always good for a few tips that would swell the old coffers. Patrick turned to Charles. “Will you be coming to Julia’s party Friday?” he asked almost too casually.

“I think we’ll have to send our regrets. I’m worried about Kathleen. She’s such a little thing. The doctor says she’s not strong; far too thin.”

“Doctor” Patrick was alarmed. “Is she ill?” he demanded.

“Well, not really ill. Confidentially, she’s in a delicate condition. I don’t think she wants anyone to know about it just yet, so don’t let on.”

Patrick was stunned. She’d kept it from him for four months! He cursed himself for his careless inconsideration.
She was having a bad time, too. No wonder she hadn’t been near him since they returned from Ireland.

The next day, while he was writing her a carefully worded note, he was relieved when his man told him that the duchess was there to see him.

He looked down at her with longing. It took an iron will not to crush her in his arms. She was definitely thinner; there was no way he could have guessed she was carrying a child.

She began in a rush of apology for not seeing him, and the excuses fell from her lips in bright little phrases. It began to dawn on him, incredibly, that she wasn’t going to tell him! “You do understand that the stolen moments we shared must never be repeated?” she said in a rehearsed little speech.

“What about my baby?” he asked slowly.

She flew at him with clenched fists, her composure shattered. “You did do it on purpose! Oh, I just could knock you down. If only I were a man!”

He held her arms to her sides to ward off the blows. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you? You know damned well I’d insist on claiming my children and you!”

She completely broke down at his words. “God help me, Patrick, I can’t walk out on him. I have too much pity and compassion for that. You are so strong, Patrick. No one ever could pity you,” she said, sobbing.

“Thank God for that,” he said quietly. Her plight touched his heart; he was so vulnerable where she was concerned. “My own love, I brought you pain when I told you to decide between us. The pity of it is, it was just male pride. I know you love me. I respect you for standing on your principles.” He kissed her brow.

She clung to him desperately. “Principles are a trap door; when you do stand on them, you go straight through.” She looked suddenly stricken. “I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.”
He helped her to the bathroom. Afterward he washed her face gently.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “I bet you’re thankful you’ve been saved from a terrible fate.”

He didn’t laugh. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to lose this baby, Kitty. I couldn’t bear that and neither could you. I want you to go home and rest, and for God’s sake, eat! You’re so fragile, you look like you’re going to shatter. Try to be calm; think beautiful thoughts, and don’t worry your head about me. My God, am I such a bastard I’ve got you worrying your guts to fiddle strings? He brushed her lips with his. “Go now. I’m here if you need me.”

The May afternoon was warm and sunny. Kitty had spent endless hours with Old Tom, the gardener, planning a butterfly garden. The old man had been so skeptical when she told him that in the islands they planted certain flowers to attract different varieties of butterflies.