She shivered imagining what his pretty near actually looked like. It didn’t matter. The drop was heart-stopping anywhere along those bridges.
“Can we keep them?” Theresa asked. “There’s only eleven of them.”
Only eleven kittens. She could have wept. The cat population in the Worth household—already approaching dangerously Malthusian levels—had nearly quadrupled with the retrieval of that sack.
But she’d promised her brother and sister that even if they didn’t always have fine clothing and servants, they would always have love. She thought of Camilla, sent away because girls of her age talked too much. One of her sisters was somewhere in England—and maybe not loved at all.
She thought of Benedict laughing, looked at him running a finger down the soft fur of that little black kitten.
And she thought of Christian. He’d been everything to her once. At least, he’d been the promise of everything. For all that he’d wanted to marry her—for all that he cared still—when push came to shove, he’d not thought of her wellbeing at all.
She came over to the edge of the bed and picked up a little yellow cat who emitted a mew of protest.
“Benedict,” she said, “Theresa. There was a rule. The rule was: No cats.”
Theresa’s lip trembled. Judith took off her bonnet and let the strings trail on the bed. It was instant mayhem: three kittens leapt at once, pouncing on this new and exciting prey.
“I’m proud of you,” Judith said. “I wouldn’t want siblings who thought that rules were more important than kittens. You did the right thing.”
Their faces lifted, twin expressions of joy lighting them.
“Here are the new rules,” Judith told them. “We can each keep one kitten. You have to find homes for all the others.”
“Yes, Judith.”
“You have to keep order. No teaching them to climb or whatever it is that you do. And it is your job to keep the females locked in a room when they go into heat.”
Her two scapegrace siblings smiled and nodded. Of course they did; they’d say anything now. Judith knew who was going to be stuck actually enforcing these rules.
But Benedict was smiling again, and Judith didn’t care.
“If you don’t pay any mind,” she reminded them, “you’ll discover that inattention on that score is how sacks of kittens end up hanging from hooks on bridges or worse. Do not fail me.”
“Yes.” Theresa nodded vigorously. “Thank you. Oh, thank you, Judith.”
“And so, until we can find them all homes…”
She looked at them, and then snapped her wrist so her bonnet strings trailed over her brother’s lap. “It’s kitten wars!”
Four little cats raced over him, claws out. They were still small enough that they would do no more than tickle. Kittens batted. They pawed. They pounced. Her brother shrieked, and she ran the bonnet strings across his legs.
Benedict dissolved into laughter as the cats regrouped, rolling around and pouncing once more. “Can’t. Breathe.” He choked. “Too many kittens.”
“Just eleven, did you say?” Judith narrowed her eyes at her brother and sister. “Fear my wrath. Feel the claws.”
“No, no!” he shrieked. “No claws. No claws! I will retaliate!”
He didn’t. He laughed and gathered the kittens in his arms.
“Do your worst,” Judith said. “I’ll be waiting.”
Christian awoke at the toll of noon the next day.
Acceptable, if this had been mid-Season, and he’d been burning the midnight oil in a socially acceptable fashion. Embarrassing, since he’d gone to bed at eleven. His head ached with the subtle pressure that came from not enough sleep. His eyes felt as if they’d been dragged through gravel. He’d dreamed again last night, a wisp of memory that had largely vanished from his conscious mind. Something about empty rooms and unending corridors in the Tower of London.
By the time he made his way downstairs, he’d done his best to dull the ache of his head with willowbark tea. He’d managed to lose the most persistent throb of his head, if not the sense of unease that accompanied it.
The voices that he heard in the parlor didn’t make him feel more comfortable.
He inhaled and strode past the open door.
“Christian.”
The voice was like a noose, catching him up. He turned.
“Where do you think you are going?”
His mother and his cousin sat together, looking suspiciously innocent. Like a pair of panthers that had been lying in wait at the watering hole for prey to wander past.
“Come.” Lillian patted the sofa nearest her. “Join us. Tell us how you’ve been.”
“I’ve an appointment.”
“Oh, you mean the one you had Mr. Lawrence make at your solicitor’s office?” His mother smiled. “No, you don’t. I’ve moved it.”
“Mother.” He strode into the room. “I’m twenty-eight, for God’s sake. I have responsibilities, duties, business. You can’t move my appointments as if I were a child.”
Her smile sharpened. “I would agree, dear, except—”
Lillian set a hand on his mother’s arm, clearly a prearranged signal.
She sighed and subsided. “Christian. We are worried about you.”
This was not going to be simple. He sank into a chair near her. “Am I shirking my responsibilities?”
“Yes,” Lillian said. “You’re not taking care of yourself. You must have lost a stone this last year. You only ever make jokes; you hardly laugh at anyone else’s. You’re so pale. You don’t go riding any longer. You don’t have any fun.”
A snippet from last night’s dream snapped back into his head—of turning a corner of one interminable hallway and seeing Anthony Worth in front of him. His friend had been dressed in the blue-and-something undress uniform of a beef-eater.
“That’s not yours,” Christian had said. “You shouldn’t be wearing it.”
Dream Anthony had simply shaken his head and frowned. “Who are you?” he’d asked. “I don’t know you.”
In his dream, just as in reality, Christian had called for help, screaming. Guards had come—this time, the real yeoman warders of the Tower of London, their faces shadowed in dark clouds. They’d laid hands on Anthony, and his friend had burst into shards like a vase shattered with a stone.
Christ. No wonder he could scarcely sleep. A year ago, the last of the investigators had returned. The man had talked to three of the convicts on Anthony’s prison ship. All three of them had reported the same thing: Anthony had not disembarked at any point from that ship.
Up until that point, Christian had held onto hope. He’d held onto all his hope as hard as he could. He’d tried his best to believe that Anthony couldn’t be dead.
“I think you should see my doctor,” his mother said.
His mother meant well; she loved him. With his father gone, it was his job to protect her, even if the thing he protected her from was the truth.
He had been an odd child, given to making lists and counting objects. He’d thrown tantrums about colors, of all things—he hadn’t been able to learn his colors like the other children. But it was the nightmares that had been the final straw. He had used to throw fits in the middle of the night—massive screaming, shouting fits that he could not be woken from, and that he did not remember the next day.
His father had worried that he was mad. In fact, he’d wanted to have Christian put away. His mother had protected him from that. She’d found a physician, and together, they’d helped him sleep through the night.
He could never let himself forget that: His mother had acted out of love. She had protected him. She had saved him.
If she ever found out what had resulted from her efforts, she’d never forgive herself. He couldn’t protect her from what was happening to him now, but he could protect her from that discovery.
And so instead of telling her to never mention that physician to him again, he simply folded his arms. “There’s noth
ing wrong with me that a physician can cure,” he said gruffly. “And you know I hate the taste of his mixtures.”
Lillian reached out and took his hand. “Christian. We’re your family. We love you. If something’s wrong with you, we want to help.”
He looked at his hand in hers. There were worse things than being loved, far worse things than having a cousin and a mother who cared for him and worried over him.
“What is it, Christian?”
He could have made a joke, but even he couldn’t figure out how to work England’s greatest chicken killers into this moment.
“It’s guilt,” he said. “Good, ordinary British guilt. Nothing more.”
The two women watched him intently. “Go on,” his mother said.
“I worry,” he said. “What I did with Anthony Worth—”
“Hush.” His mother patted his hand. “Nonsense. Nothing to do with you.”
He saved my life when you almost killed me, and I couldn’t even return the favor.
“Nonetheless,” Christian said. “Ever since I’ve realized that Anthony…” He could say the word. He could.
“Perished?” his mother provided.
“Perished.” He swallowed. “Ever since I’ve been sure he did, I’ve felt haunted.”
She looked down. “Now, Christian. I know you think yourself above my physician’s treatments. I know you’ll say you’re not a child any longer, that you’ve outgrown such things. But consider. Just consider…”
“No,” he said swiftly, before she could make the offer.
He did want. He wasn’t above. He still wished, after all these years of not giving in. A tiny taste of oblivion; one night, when he might escape it all. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms until the pain drove out that sick desire.
If there was anything more horrific than escaping Anthony’s memory with a cup of laudanum, Christian didn’t know it.
“It might help me sleep,” he said instead. “It won’t help me sleep well. Laudanum only intensifies my dreams.”
She sighed. “If you insist. But you might give it a try, don’t you think?”
He ignored this. “I have a better solution in mind. I’m speaking with Judith Worth. She’s agreed to lend me her brother’s journals. Once I’ve had a chance to go through them, I’ll finally be able to set this all in the past where it belongs.”
His mother frowned. “I had not thought the two of you were on such terms as to allow easy conversation.”
“We aren’t. Matters are improving. Mildly.” They weren’t friends, and yet they were…something. Maybe now, maybe now she knew he’d help, maybe now she would trust him with them early.
Because the sooner he had those journals, the sooner he could relieve his worries, and the less likely that his mother would finally offer him the one thing he didn’t want to crave in a way he couldn’t refuse.
“In fact,” Christian said, “I’ll send along a note with the request now. Maybe we can have this all settled by sundown.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Christian said. They’d chosen a neutral venue for their rendezvous—a dock near Judith’s home, not so cozy as her house nor so intimate as his.
A walk along the wharf would remind neither of them of their old walks in the orchard. For one thing, the air was perfumed by the gritty pollution belched from steamships’ smokestacks. For another, Christian was not alone with Judith.
The wharf was crowded. A world’s worth of sailors thronged the docks. Lascars from India. A crowd of mariners from Portugal talking together. A Scotsman at the edge called out a chant as bare-chested men hefted a weight in the air.
And Judith did not take his arm.
She walked beside him in a gray gown that might have been called “serviceable,” emphasis on service, had his mother seen the thing.
“You said you had news from your solicitor.” Judith looked over at him expectantly.
“It is the news of bafflement and protest,” Christian said. “Nobody has any inkling over there. If I could give some further particulars—”
“No,” Judith said. “No particulars.”
“My solicitor can dispatch a man to comb through the relevant precedents, but searching for such odd cases will take time. Weeks, he says.”
Judith’s nose wrinkled. “Weeks.” She blew out a breath. “But… Wait. All my urgency was because I thought Camilla would be coming out soon, and I wanted it to be known that she wasn’t completely penniless.” She frowned. “Now that I don’t know where she is, the urgency is…”
She trailed off, as if recognizing the stupidity of saying that matters were less urgent because her sister could not be found.
“There’s no urgency on your end, perhaps.” Christian swallowed. “On mine… I had a question.”
She looked over at him, her eyes narrowing. Not suspicion; that was real fear he saw reflected there. The last time he’d put a question to her on a walk… Oh, God.
Back then, they must have spent hours every day walking demurely together. Demurely on her part, that was; he’d spent the entire summer consumed by lust, remembering her brother’s warning, and telling himself the entire time that he had to wait. She had not yet come out; he could not claim her. She had not yet come out; he wasn’t even supposed to flirt with her.
Friendly banter and long walks it had been. Followed, on his part, by lengthy dips in ice-cold rivers.
He had behaved himself. Oh, very well; he had mostly behaved himself. Somewhat behaved himself until his last night there. That last night had been warm and magical. The apples were still hard lumps above them, but they were beginning to look apple-shaped. Summer had been coming to a close.
They’d both been out on what had started ostensibly as separate strolls—he, because he didn’t care for the cloying smell of cigar smoke in her father’s library. He didn’t know her excuse. At that point, they had intended to accidentally cross paths so many times that all excuses had blurred together into a sea of flatly unbelievable pretext.
He’d bowed to her most properly. He’d offered her his arm a little stiffly. He had asked whether she would mind if he intruded on her solitary walk, and she’d put her head to one side as if she had to think the matter over.
“I suppose not,” she had said.
Sometimes, when he thought of her, the crook of his elbow still burned with the memory of her fingers on that night. With the imagined path he’d wanted her hand to trace down his arm.
But Anthony had warned him off. Judith deserved a Season. She deserved a choice. Don’t do anything irrevocable; not anything mildly untoward.
And Christian had agreed. He’d hated that he had agreed that night. Hated it, because his thoughts had been consumed with all the lovely, lascivious irrevocable things he wanted to do to her.
“You’ll dance with me at my come-out?” she had asked near the end of their walk.
“If you still wish me to do so,” he’d said, trying valiantly to be honorable.
Back then, she had looked at him as if he hung the stars for her, as if he were the embodiment of every clichéd hero.
“How could I not?” she had asked.
“You say that now, but you’ll be surrounded by men. Fellows will admire your beauty. Noble, serious men. Your card will be full, and you might regret having promised a spot to your elder brother’s mildly amusing friend. I would hate to impose upon you under those circumstances, Lady Judith.”
Her fingers had tensed on his arm. He turned to her.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they had started moving, up from his elbow to his bicep. He swallowed.
“Don’t you dare Lady Judith me,” she had said. “Not you. Not tonight. Not unless you want me to call you Lord Ashford in retaliation.” Her fingers had flirted with his shoulder, the lapel of his jacket. “Don’t be a goose.”
His breath had sucked in. “You wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t dare not call me Christian.”
<
br /> “I wouldn’t count on my not daring it, were I you.”
He’d taken her hand in his. Honestly, he’d meant to return it to his elbow after her fingers had wandered. But somehow, once his hand had clasped hers, he hadn’t quite been able to let go.
“We mustn’t do this,” he’d said as their hands intertwined. “They’ll get the wrong idea about us walking together in the moonlight. They’ll think…” He trailed off as Judith took his other hand. His fingers convulsed around hers.
“They’ll think what?” she said. “That we have an understanding instead of a friendship?”
“Judith.” His voice cracked. “We can’t have an understanding. Not until you’re out.”
“Is that so?” She’d looked at him. “Pardon me, but I think we do have an understanding.”
“Judith.”
“What are you telling yourself, I wonder?” She looked at him. “That you must let me have my Season? That you must watch me fall in love with another man? Why, when you could watch me fall in love with you instead? I know I’m not perfect. Are you afraid that I will drive you mad?”
“I’m afraid of the day you don’t,” he’d whispered. And then he’d pulled her close. Twigs had crunched underfoot—the sound of Christian breaking the promise he’d made her brother. He’d taken her face in his hands and kissed her.
It had been a slow, sweet kiss. Her lips brushed tenderly against his. His fingers splayed against her jaw, tilting her head up, and then he’d pulled her close—close enough that their bodies touched, close enough that he could feel her tremble. It was the kind of kiss that had brought his entire body to life, like waking up at the seashore to the sound of the ocean, the smell of salt, and the expectation of sun and sand.
Eventually, he’d managed to pull away. “I will dance with you at your come-out,” he said. “If you want. I’ll squire you to every event that we both should attend. I’ll take you on walks through the park and on horseback rides and I’ll buy you ices and I’ll try not to be boring long enough that I can fool you. And next May, when you’ve had a chance to see a few other gentlemen, I’ll ask if you prefer me still.”