The Lady Who Broke the Rules (20 page)

It was a simple piece of jewellery. A hinged oval of chased gold decorated with sapphires. Kate had gone quite pale as she held it in her hand. ‘Is it Millie’s?’

‘No!’ It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would think that. The denial came out far too harshly. Kate flinched. ‘Of course it’s not Millie’s,’ Virgil said in a quieter voice. ‘What would a slave have been doing with something so valuable?’

‘I’m sorry, I just assumed…’

‘It belonged to Malcolm Jackson. To be completely accurate, it belonged to Malcolm Jackson’s betrothed. That’s her inside. Here, let me show you.’ He took the locket from her and opened it, then returned it to her. On one side was a miniature executed in watercolours, somewhat faded. On the other side was a lock of hair. ‘Louisa Gordon, that was her name,’ Virgil said, squatting down beside Kate’s chair. ‘She wanted to marry him before he left Scotland for America, but he was set upon making a home for her first, and left her behind. She was killed in a carriage accident about a year later. The letter telling him of her death crossed his asking her to come to him, he told me.’

‘That’s tragic.’ Kate touched the lock of hair. It was brown, slightly lighter than her own. Louisa’s eyes were brown too. ‘And your Mr Jackson, he never married. He must have loved her very much.’

‘I guess,’ Virgil said uncomfortably. ‘The point is, he asked me to bring this back, to bury it beside her.’

‘So that he could feel he was with her, you mean? Your Mr Jackson sounds as if he was quite the romantic. How he must have repented leaving her behind. I feel sure she would have preferred to be with him in the New World, no matter how difficult or dangerous. I feel sure he underestimated her. Look at her, she has a very determined set to her mouth.’

‘Kate, you can’t know that. It’s just a picture, and poorly executed at that. She died almost forty years ago.’

‘And he never forgot her.’

‘More likely he discovered that he was perfectly content without her. He could easily have married if he wanted to.’

Kate shut the locket with a snap. ‘Why did you show me this?’

Virgil took it from her and slipped it into his coat pocket as he got to his feet. She was angry. What had he said to make her angry? He tugged at his neck cloth. He’d sent Watson back to London, but somehow he’d got into the valet’s habit of tying it too tight. ‘I thought you’d understand. When he asked me to bury the locket, I didn’t plan to come all this way across the Atlantic just for that obviously, but the opportunity to do business with Josiah came up, and I read about New Lanark, and it was as though—I felt it was the chance to make a fresh start.’

‘To bury the past, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s not your past, it’s Malcolm Jackson’s,’ Kate said with a frown. ‘When you talked about your future a few moments ago, it was all about schools and libraries and houses. How many must you build before you forgive yourself, Virgil?’

‘You asked me that before, and I told you. I can never forgive myself.’

‘Then burying a locket won’t make you free,’ Kate said sadly as she got to her feet and picked up her pelisse.

‘What about you, Kate?’ Virgil grabbed her by the arm and spun her towards him. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about dwindling into an aunt if you married. You could leave Castonbury, have your own home, your own family, but you won’t, will you? Because you can’t forgive yourself either, can you? Admit it, there’s a bit of you that thinks you deserve your fate, isn’t there? And there’s a bit of you that thinks every man you meet is like Lord Anthony Featherstone. And there’s another bit of you that’s afraid, is there not? Between that cold-blooded family of yours and that ambitious bastard you were betrothed to, they’ve got you thinking that no one could love you. Well, isn’t there?’

‘Why are you shouting at me? Why are you so angry? You have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my life.’

‘Any more than you have to tell me, but that didn’t stop you.’

‘You have it all wrong. I’m not at all afraid of—of love,’ Kate said furiously. ‘I could marry if I chose to, I have not lacked offers. I simply don’t choose to, that is all. You sound as if you want me to throw myself at the first man who comes my way.’

‘I don’t.’ He didn’t want to think of her with any other man, but he knew that was wrong. ‘Kate, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

‘I’m not crying,’ she said, scrubbing at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

Virgil pulled out his kerchief and dabbed at her cheeks. ‘I just want you to be happy.’

‘I don’t need a man to make me happy, any more than you need a woman.’ Kate sniffed. ‘You are right, I should not have come here today.’

‘Don’t say that. Kate, I just— I want— Oh, hell, Kate don’t cry. Don’t go. Not like this.’ He didn’t mean to but he couldn’t not. His arms went around her. He dragged her hard, tight up against him, and he kissed her.

If she had not kissed him back. If she had not been so upset. If she had not thrown all those things at him that he didn’t want to hear, he wouldn’t have had to block them out. If she hadn’t looked so tragic and so brave at the same time. If he hadn’t been thinking of her day and night since he left her. Then…then he would have been able to stop.

But she did kiss him back. And she made that little noise that sent the blood rushing to his groin. And her kisses were so angry and so hungry, just exactly like his own. She savaged him with her mouth and he thrust his tongue into hers. She arched against him; he pushed her up against the door, the better to mould her to him. She said his name, the way no one else said his name, and he said hers, the name which could only be hers. Passion consumed them. He hadn’t thought it was possible to burn so hot and so high so quickly. There was no gentle build, no slow burn, but a white-hot searing which made him achingly hard and had her panting, her fingers clutching at him, tugging at his clothes without any sort of finesse.

‘We can’t, not here,’ he said, at the same time as he pulled her clear of the door only to ram a wooden chair under the handle.

‘Albert could walk in at any time,’ Kate agreed, as she unbuttoned his waistcoat and yanked it with his coat down over his arms.

They staggered, entwined and kissing frantically, towards the table. Virgil lifted her onto it. Her dress buttoned up the front. Tiny buttons. He tried to undo them, but they defeated him and so he pulled at the fabric, scattering jet buttons across the floor. Her corsets underneath were black silk. ‘Sweet heaven, Kate. If anyone knew how you look underneath. Have you any idea what it does to me?’ He breathed in the sweet scent of her, kissing her throat, and down, to the mound of her breasts. Her skin was flushed. He could feel her heart hammering. Same as his own.

Kate moaned. She yanked at Virgil’s shirt. ‘Take this off. I want to see you. Take it
off
.’

He pulled it quickly over his head and tossed it over his shoulder. The action drew in his abdomen, making his chest expand. She could count the muscles. He was like velvet. Every time she saw his skin that’s what she thought of. Dark, luscious velvet that cried out to be touched. His muscles weren’t sinewy but round and hard. She hadn’t ever seen muscles like that. She was so tense she thought she might break. Hot and shivery. Throbbing and fluttering.

He pulled her back to him, to the edge of the table, and kissed her again. Her hands stroked and plucked at his skin, his shoulders, his chest, his nipples, the shadow of his rib cage. She didn’t have enough hands. His lips were hot on hers, and hard. He rucked up her dress. ‘Black,’ he said, looking at her stockings with satisfaction. ‘I knew they would be black.’

His hands stroked up to the flesh at the top of her stockings, then hovered over her sex. ‘I don’t want you, Virgil,’ Kate said, digging her nails into his shoulders. Still he hovered. ‘I don’t need you,’ she said.

With his other hand, he pushed her skirts higher. ‘You don’t need any man,’ he agreed, stroking her.

‘No.’ It was a struggle to keep her eyes open, but she managed it, holding his gaze, tawny rimmed with gold. He had hardly touched her, but she was struggling to contain her release. ‘I don’t.’

‘You don’t,’ Virgil agreed.

He kissed her mouth hard. Then he tipped her, suddenly, back onto the table, and dropped down to his knees before her, and licked into her. She cried out as his tongue flicked over her sensitive flesh. She could have sworn he made sparks shoot out. It felt like all her blood rushed to that single spot as he licked and sucked, and she tumbled, headlong and out of control, shoving her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Virgil pulled her towards him, sliding his finger inside her, feeling the clenching of her climax around him. She pulled at his wrist, put his finger in her mouth, then kissed him, mingling the taste of them, the essence of her. He thought he would explode, the way she did it. Deliberate. Challenging.

‘I don’t need you,’ she said, her voice husky with sex.

He needed to be inside her. Urgently. ‘No more than I need you,’ Virgil said, unfastening his buckskins, pulling her to the very edge of the table, wrapping her legs around his thighs, and entering her, pushing right into her, into the sleek, slick heat of her, in one thrust.

Her eyes darkened. She said his name. Urgent, just as he felt. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She tightened her ankles around his waist and tilted so that he pushed higher inside her.

Her eyes were fixed on his. She clenched around him, holding him completely still. He let her, for a moment. Then he moved and her eyes widened. He slipped his hands under her bottom to lift her, and thrust. Her hands were icy on his neck. He thrust again, and felt the delicious eddy of her climax. Another thrust, and she gave a muffled groan, and it was like being caught in a maelstrom inside her. He was whipped up, tossed high, pounded, helpless. He lost control, thrusting into her again and again until it took him, too, and at that moment he would have given anything to be able to spill himself into her. But he pulled himself free just in time, and afterwards, as he held her, clutched tight around him, he had never felt emptier.

* * *

Kate sat on the edge of the table, stunned by what had happened. Virgil was pulling on his clothes. She tried to fasten her gown, but half the buttons seemed to be missing. It didn’t matter, she could button her pelisse over it. She couldn’t believe what they’d just done, in Albert Moffat’s best parlour. If she was a different kind of woman she would be ashamed of herself. If Virgil was a different kind of man…

If he was a different man, he wouldn’t be Virgil. She retied one of her garters and made a vague attempt to pat her hair into order. She most likely looked as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She dragged her pelisse over her dress and fastened it.

This time, she had no doubt it was goodbye. At the Dower House, she realised, she’d still had some hope. She had none now, but still she felt a sadistic urge just to make sure. ‘It is impossible, isn’t it?’

Virgil had been looking out of the window while she dressed, but he turned now, and came to stand beside her, taking her hands. He held them against his chest, bracing her. She didn’t want him to brace her; it meant he thought she was going to be hurt. ‘Don’t answer that,’ Kate said hurriedly. ‘I know the answer.’

‘You will take care of yourself, won’t you, Kate?’

She nodded. ‘And you.’ She pinned a smile to her face. ‘I will see myself out. Don’t watch me go. I won’t look back.’

She thought he would kiss her again. She thought it was something akin to pain she saw in his eyes, but it was gone before she could be sure. ‘Goodbye, Kate.’

‘Goodbye, Virgil.’

He pulled the chair away from the door and opened it for her. Kate made her way down the stairs of the inn, feeling as though she were descending into Hades. She didn’t look back.

* * *

She did not remember the walk back to Castonbury. In her bedchamber, she rang the bell for Polly and a bath, then sank down on the window seat as the tub was filled. She was aware of Polly casting her anxious looks, and thankful that she said nothing until the bath was ready, the screens draped with towels set up by the fire.

For once, she allowed Polly to help her undress. ‘What happened to your gown? You look as if you’ve been in a fight.’

Kate shook her head, biting her lip. Tears again. What was the point in tears? She had nothing at all to cry about. ‘Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.’ She sank gratefully into the depths of the lavender-scented water.

‘I heard Mr Jackson was still at the inn. Snow, I heard, though it’s to clear by the morning.’

Kate said nothing.

‘John Coachman said you didn’t take the gig. He said you went walking instead. Did you see him? Mr Jackson, I mean.’

‘Yes,’ Kate said with a sigh. ‘I did. I wanted to say goodbye.’

‘You didn’t— I hope you were careful, my lady. There’s ways and means if you weren’t, but they’re not pleasant and they don’t always work.’

She considered pretending ignorance, but Polly was too perceptive and Kate was a terrible liar. ‘There’s no need to worry. Virgil was—was careful.’

Polly nodded. ‘He’s a good man, but it wouldn’t have done, my lady. They would never have tolerated it.’

‘There was never any question of that, Polly. It was just—we were just— I am not in love with him, and he’s certainly not in love with me. It was just—what did you call it? A fling. And now it’s over, and I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.’

‘Of course you are, my lady. You don’t need him. You don’t need any man.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Kate said. Her lip quivered. It was ironic that the only person in the world—in her world—who knew her well enough to see beyond her words was a woman who had spent the better part of her life selling her body on the streets of London. She burst into tears.

* * *

Kate spent the following days keeping extremely busy, ensuring that Alicia was comfortable in the Dower House, taking her and the child on short drives around the countryside when the weather permitted, keeping out of Aunt Wilhelmina’s way and reviewing her plans for extending the Castonbury school. She did not think, would not let herself think, about Virgil, in the daylight hours. She was bright and cheerful and useful, and that was enough, she told herself. At night it was a different matter. She did not cry, but she ached. Under cover of darkness she could admit that she missed him, but that was as far as she would go. She would not hope or even dream. There was no point and no need. She was lonely here at Castonbury, but she had always been lonely. It was just she hadn’t noticed before.