Was there ever a more impossible situation? She had thought it would be good for Kit to see his former fiancée at her home with her husband and children around. What better way to show him that Lady Blackstone had moved on? She was beyond his reach now. Instead, he had boldly accosted her the moment he’d seen her. He’d tried to kiss her!
Maddy struggled to find some sort of polite banter to fill the silence. Rose was unaccountably silent, her expressive eyes hopping from one person to the next. Did the girl understand the undercurrents in the room? Probably. Rose was a great deal more intelligent than most people thought. Thankfully, the nurse chose that moment to appear, dragging a sulking little boy behind her. She wasn’t rough, by any means, but Maddy recognized the look of a woman who had reached her limit.
“Ah, so you have found the tart thief!” Maddy cried much too loudly.
Lady Blackstone swiveled in her son’s direction. “And what a dirty mess you have made of yourself,” she said sternly. “Just when I wanted to introduce you to someone special.”
“Dragged me down to the creek and back, ’e did,” said the nurse. “But I knew ’e’d get tired eventually, didn’t I, boy? And next time, you’ll be wise to listen to me and your mum, won’t yeh?”
The boy had a fierce scowl for his nurse, and his mother abruptly burst out laughing. “My God, Christopher, you look exactly like your father when you do that.”
“He does not!” cried Lord Blackstone in mock horror. “I would never appear so dirty before beautiful ladies. And I certainly always listened to my mother.”
Lady Blackstone arched a brow at her husband. “I believe your mother also taught you to never lie,” she said sternly. Then she waved to her son. “Come here, sweetheart, I want you to meet the man you were named after.”
The party was loosely gathered around the terrace, with Maddy and Kit gracing a bench brought up from the grounds. It was no longer proper for Maddy to hold on to Kit’s sleeve, but she was close enough to feel his leg clench and hear the sharp intake of his breath. His gaze slid hungrily to the little boy in muddy clothing and with dirt across his cheek. The child was still held in the iron grip of his nanny, but he was able to study Kit, his steady regard making him appear quite advanced for his years.
“Goodness, you are really quite filthy,” despaired his mother as she pulled him away from his nurse. Rose wrinkled her nose as well and twitched her skirt away from the boy. But Maddy was charmed. It had been a long time since she had been able to talk with a child, especially one this young. Children, as a rule, were banned from polite society.
“Just tell your mama that getting dirty is what little boys do,” she said sweetly. “And also”—she added as the tea tray finally arrived—“it is hungry work.” Maddy picked up a sweet biscuit from the tray and raised her eyebrows at Lady Blackstone. “May I give it to him?”
The child’s eyes immediately went to the cookie, and at his mother’s nod, Maddy was able to pass it to him.
“I am only allowing it,” said his mother sternly, “because I want you to be especially gracious to Mr. Frazier. Mr.
Christopher
Frazier.”
And finally Kit found his voice, though his words came out in a thick rasp. “Call me Kit,” he said. “U-Uncle Kit.”
The boy didn’t say a word, of course. He was busy chewing on his sweet.
“He does look a great deal like his father,” said Maddy as a way to fill the silence.
“Yes. And he has his father’s temper—”
“You named him after me?” interrupted Kit. “In my . . . memory?”
Lady Blackstone nodded. “It was Brandon’s idea, but I liked it the moment he said it. A daughter would have been Christine.”
Maddy watched as Kit’s gaze jumped to Brandon, who confirmed everything with a nod. But then something happened as he gazed to the boy. A kind of trembling fit began to shake his body. It was small at first, a suspension of breath that only Maddy noticed. But then his hands began to shake where they were fisted by his sides. She tried to help him. She touched his arm, but by then the fit was shuddering through more of him. She could see his thighs twitching and knew he had ceased to breathe.
“Kit,” she said, desperate to allay the coming disaster. “It’s such a lovely day. Perhaps we should go for a walk.” But it was too late. His entire body was shuddering.
Lady Blackstone stood up and quickly gathered her son into her arms. Lord Blackstone abruptly passed the girl to the nanny as he slid in front of wife, obviously protecting her.
“Rose!” snapped Maddy. “Take the boy inside to the nursery.”
“What!” gasped Rose, her nose wrinkling at the sight of the dirty boy.
“Do it!” Maddy hissed, and she shoved her cousin forward. Lady Blackstone had already moved toward the doorway with her son, pushing the nanny ahead of her. Rose stumbled behind as Maddy took hold of Kit’s forearm. Even through the covering of fabric, she could tell his muscles were locked tighter than iron. And his gaze had yet to leave the boy.
“Lady Blackstone, please!” Maddy cried. “Please don’t leave. He needs to have it out now.”
Her hostess paused, her gaze steady on Kit, whose trembles appeared to have peaked.
“Please,” Maddy repeated. “Please don’t abandon him now.”
She knew the moment the woman decided what to do. With an abrupt nod of her head, she shoved her son into Rose’s outstretched arms. The child cried out, squirming to get back to his mother, and Rose was no better as she tried to hold his tiny body away from her dress. It was Lord Brandon who came to the rescue. In one quick move, he pulled his son out of Rose’s arms and set him on the ground.
“Christopher! Go to the nursery.
Now!
”
The boy was about to protest, but one look at his father’s face and he spun on his heel and ran.
“Lady Rose, if you would do me the greatest favor and make sure he gets upstairs safely. Last door to the right.” The words were spoken politely, but there was no mistaking the commanding tone in his voice. Rose nodded meekly and followed the child. Which left Maddy with Lord and Lady Blackstone all looking at Kit. Until finally, blessedly, his fit passed.
Chapter 15
Kit found his footing, but his world was teetering out of control. His vision wasn’t even clear as the lawn seemed to bob and weave before him. He was sinking in an ocean of emotions as wave after wave of fury swamped his consciousness. Never before had he come face-to-face with all he’d lost.
“Kit!” It was Maddy’s voice, a single high note of worry, but it did little to beat back the tide.
He thought he’d dealt with everything that had happened. He thought he’d come to accept his lot in life, but now he saw so clearly what had been stolen from him. It wasn’t that he wanted Scheherazade. As a woman, she was little more than a fond memory for him. But her life, her children, her obvious
joy
in all that surrounded her—that is what he’d lost the day his bastard cousin had thrown him onto a boat.
“That boy,” he rasped as he stumbled in the direction of the back house door. “He should have been mine. This life!” He spun wildly, trying to indicate the house, the grounds, the joy he saw in every line of Scher’s pregnant body. “This life was mine!”
A dark figure steadied him, a masculine hand that restrained as much as supported. Brandon, of course, one of the two cousins who had taken everything from him. First Michael declared him dead and shipped him off to Barbary pirates. Then Brandon stole his wife and child.
“Leave me alone!” he screamed, shoving hard at his cousin’s form.
Brandon rocked back on his heels, but he did not release his hold. “You have lost yourself, Kit,” he said.
“Myself?” he said with a wild laugh. “I have lost
everything
!” He straightened and twisted his arm, easily breaking Brandon’s grip. “Stolen!”
“I stole nothing!” Brandon snarled, and inside Kit, the slave crowed. Finally a fight. Finally an outlet to the fury that seethed within him.
Kit crouched before his cousin, his hands loose as he judged the best place to grab the taller man and drag him down to the ground. Once there, no one could best him. He saw Brandon read his intention. The man’s eyes widened in surprise, but that in no way slowed his reaction. By the time Kit had decided on his attack, Brandon had tightened his own hands into fists and was angling for a better position on the terrace.
And then a large pregnant woman pushed her way between them. “Stop it! Both of you!” Then she unleashed her fury at Kit. “How could you think he stole me from you? We thought you dead!”
“He’s not thinking,” came another voice—his angel’s—from the side. “Can’t you understand? He’s angry. He’s lost so much, he just wants someone to blame.”
“Fine,” Brandon said as he gently set his wife aside. “Blame me. I courted her. I seduced her. And then I married her and built a life I never thought possible.”
Kit landed his blows, one to Brandon’s soft belly and the second to his jaw. Slave howled with glee as his cousin dropped like a stone. Not unconscious, though. The man was more hardy than that, but Kit was ready.
He leaped, but caught Maddy instead. She had stepped into the fray at the worst possible moment. He had just been bringing back his fist, intending to rain blows down upon Brandon, but she stepped into his swing. His fist missed her, but his arm wrapped around her neck. And the force of his movement twisted him onto her. His knees caught her stomach and his chest collided with her much softer one.
He heard and felt her exhale as they collided, but she was prepared. Despite the force of their impact, she wrapped her arms around him and held tight. Even her legs spread to trap him, but her skirt hampered them both. They fell sideways, missing his cousin by less than an inch, and rolled against the tea table.
Slave snarled, already trying to lift off her. It was Brandon he wanted, but she held on like a damned monkey. And her grip was too tight for him to easily lever himself off of her.
“Angel!” he growled. “Angel!”
“I won’t . . . let go! I won’t.”
He was fighting her, the table wobbling above them as he banged into it. In his peripheral vision, he saw Brandon roll to the side. In a moment, the man would be on his feet with Kit on the floor. And Angel as well! They could be killed like this! It was too vulnerable.
“Angel!” he gasped as he fought to both protect her and force her to release him. But it didn’t work. She wouldn’t let go. Then the teapot crashed to the floor right beside them, shattering as it landed. Shards of china and burning tea splattered his face. Hers too, as a thin line of blood appeared on her cheek.
“Angel!”
“No! I’m not leaving you!”
He stilled as her words penetrated his churning thoughts. He felt too the burn on his skin from the tea, and the tight clutch of Maddy’s arms as she held him with all her considerable strength. “I’m not letting you go,” she said again, her entire body vibrating with the force of her words. “I’m not.”
The rapid-fire thoughts in his mind began to slow. Sensations poured in, but now he could process them. He felt Maddy clutching him and realized she was solid enough to support his weight. He saw Brandon gain his feet, but not move to attack. And he felt his own heart beating erratically, not to fight, but because of her words.
“I’m not letting go. I’m not. I won’t.”
Inside his mind, Slave still raged. The fury remained, but somehow Maddy’s words made the rest settle. His hands lost their grip on her clothing. He stopped pressing into her ribs. And his breath stuttered out of his chest like a sick horse.
Then it happened. His mind finally stopped raging. Slave was silenced. His body stopped fighting. And in the quiet that remained, an agony began to grow. Like black water rising in his soul, there was no fighting it and no stopping it. It was beyond pain, beyond anguish. It was simply loss—raw and unfettered—and it buried him beneath the tide.
He screamed. He bellowed. He must have raged in a fit beyond imagining. He had no conscious awareness of it. There was only the black water killing him. And her. Wrapped around his body, whispering over and over and over.
“I won’t let go. I won’t let go.”
Time ceased to have meaning for Maddy. At first, all she knew was the anguish of the man in her arms. He didn’t realize it, of course, but it wasn’t just him that she embraced. As he shuddered in her arms, she too cried. She railed at the fate that had killed her father and sent her to care for a spoiled Rose and a lecherous uncle. She vented her fury at the Marriage Mart and the men who daily judged her lacking. And she cried for the man who had lost so much more than she had and who saw no way free of his pain. She cried as he did, and the release was as healing for her as she prayed it was for him. Either way, they made a pretty pair rolling about on the terrace.
She came back to herself before he did. After all, she’d had a few years to mourn her childhood, whereas he had just come face-to-face with the loss of the woman he loved. Maddy felt the aches in her body begin. Her arms trembled where she clutched him. Her head hurt where she had banged against the table. And her cheek stung from the shattered teapot. All these little annoyances began to push into her thoughts, but she resolutely ignored them. She would not release Kit until he was ready to face the world again.
And into this frozen tableau stepped Rose. Maddy should have expected it, of course. Rose would never hide away when something was happening. Besides, the girl believed herself to be the destined bride of the romantic pirate. She could not be that from upstairs.
So while Maddy still lay on the ground with Kit, the French doors opened and Rose stepped onto the terrace. Or rather, she tried to but was stopped by the sudden bulk of Lord Blackstone standing right in front of her.
“Oh my, Lady Rose! I am so glad you came down,” he said as he stepped bodily into her path. “I was most pleased that you could help me with my son. He is such a rapscallion,” he said as he advanced firmly upon her. Rose had no choice but to back up—back into the house—or be bowled over.
“Well, of course, my lord,” she said. “But as the children are well settled now—”
“Do you know,” said Lady Blackstone as she too followed her husband, easily blocking any view of Maddy and Kit on the floor, “I believe it’s going to rain. I think we shall have to settle inside. Lady Rose, have you seen my front salon? I vow it is most acceptable for tea. Not quite as comfortable as your home in town, I’m sure. In fact, would you care to give me some advice on the proper way to arrange it to look more stylish?”
“Well, of course, I would, Lady Blackstone. But—”
“Right this way, Lady Rose,” said Lord Blackstone.
Then their voices faded from hearing. Maddy exhaled in relief. Thanks to their hosts’ quick thinking, Rose wouldn’t see her current disreputable situation. Rose was always taking her to task over her country ways. Imagine what the girl would say to this! The thought was amusing enough that she found she could smile. And as Kit had come to his own place of peace, she soon realized that he was looking at her. Sadly, his expression was anything but amused.
“It’s all right, Kit. I’m not insane.”
He rolled slowly off her, shifting his weight such that he could free one hand from beneath her body, though their legs were still intertwined. She eased her grip as well, trying not to wince as blood seeped back into her fingers. Her efforts were in vain. He saw every flicker of her expression as his gaze never left her face. And when one of his hands was free, he lifted it to her cheek, wiping away the tears and the blood.
“I have hurt you,” he said softly.
“And yet I am still here. And still smiling, I might add.”
His fingers trailed across her mouth and she tasted salty wetness on her lips.
“How do you feel, Kit?”
His expression shifted then, flowing through myriad emotions, none very clear. In the end, his eyes simply turned tragic. “They are so happy,” he said softly.
She didn’t need to know who he meant. He referred to Lady Blackstone and her husband. “Yes,” she said as gently as she could. “Very much in love.”
Kit nodded, the movement almost too tiny to perceive. But they were nose-to-nose, so there was nothing in his body that she did not know, including a warm and very present thickening in his groin.
“And Alex is happy too. His family embraced him, his father wept, and his mother . . .” Kit sighed. “His mother is still alive.”
It took a moment for Maddy to remember that Kit’s mother was dead. And the head of his family was Michael, the Earl of Thornedale, who had declared him dead while secreting him away on a doomed boat. “Do you begrudge them their joy?” she asked quietly. She did. A tiny part of her hated them all for being so happy when she was not.
“I don’t want Scheherazade,” he said softly. “I swear to God that I don’t. But I want her life. I want Alex’s family. I want . . .”
“To be happy again.”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead against hers. She was becoming more aware of his organ, thickening hot and hard against her hip. If only she could succumb to the physical desire they felt for each other. If only she could let him come to her at night again, let him strip away all of her cares as easily as her clothing. Then, for a time, she would feel happy. She would likely feel ecstatic!
He groaned and rolled away from her. Not far, but enough so that she could no longer feel the press of his organ against her. “What has become of me?” he said, his gaze looking up at the sky. “Angel, I can barely breathe for the emptiness.”
“It is like your soul is gone, and your body just a shell,” she said, thinking of her life just after her father died. “And all you feel is—”
“Loss. And anger.”
“Such anger,” she whispered.
He turned his head toward her, and she read tenderness in his eyes. “I am so sorry about your father,” he said.
Her mouth curved into a healing smile. “I’m so sorry the Earl of Thornedale is an arrogant idiot. Either one could be forgiven, but combined . . .”
“Do you know, he is considered influential in politics.”
She groaned. “God save England.”
His lips twitched in humor, but the lightness quickly faded from his eyes. So she levered herself upright such that she was sitting and looking down into his rugged face. “Do you remember what Alex’s sister said to you?”
He covered his eyes with his forearm. “She is but a child.”
“She said you were a man who made his own luck.”
“I have nothing,” he said, still hiding behind his arm. “A ship that is not seaworthy and a crew who needs to be paid. No cargo and no reputation with which to find one.” His arm dropped away and he looked into her eyes. “I can’t even pay next month’s rent on my rooms. I got them for Alex, so he would not have to sleep on board. And because the ship’s repairs would send me to land anyway. But I have no money for next month’s rent. In four weeks’ time, I could very well be in debtor’s prison.”
“You had less than that as a slave,” she reminded him. “And yet you bought your freedom.”
He sighed. “I was lucky, then. And patient. It took months, but Venboer came to trust me a little. And with that little freedom, I found opportunities. I became a thief, first to steal food, then gold and jewelry. I secreted it away, hoarded it.” He shook his head. “I did such things, angel.”
“You made your own luck. And in time, you bought your freedom. And from there, you created more luck. You survived as a freed slave in Africa. And now you have a ship and a crew, and you have given Alex back his life.” She leaned forward and stroked a finger across his cheek. “Such a man can do anything.”
His expression shifted, but not to anger. She could see the fury drain from him, and the emptiness fill with . . . something. Not passion, not hunger, not even hope, but a curious mixture of all three. Plus awe, she realized when he spoke. His words held awe.
“How is that you can say such things?” he whispered. “After all that you suffer, how can you believe them?”
She smiled. “With you, it is easy.” How she wanted to kiss him then. She could read the desire in him as well. But they were outside in full view of anyone who cared to look. So she forced herself to remember that she was an unmarried miss, a woman who needed to guard her virtue closely. She pushed to her feet with a sigh. “Rose can be distracted only so long, you know. And she is not a fool. She will want to know what happened to us.”