Page 26 of A Daring Desire

Kilbane let out a breath of shock. Not that he’d had any illusions. Montagu reviled him, and with good reason. Reluctantly, he remembered taunting the man years ago, issuing an invitation to him and Lady Montagu to come to his bed. Heat crawled up the back of his neck, an unwelcome sensation he hardly recognised squirming in his guts that felt very much like shame. He tried to remember what had provoked him to say such a thing, and brought to mind Montagu’s silver eyes, full of scorn and revulsion. Ah, yes. That.

“How can you say such a thing?”

Kilbane strained to hear his wife’s soft words, laced with sorrow, a shaft of pain skewering his chest to discover she could still feel anything but anger for him.

“Don’t tell me you still care for him? After everything you’ve been through?”

“Everything I have been through was not his fault! I did it, Papa! Me. He gave me his name, and he left me alone, which, at the time, was precisely what you wished for him to do.”

“Yes, and I wished he would have stayed gone and had the decency to allow his lifestyle to kill him as everyone supposed it would. As it has not worked out that way, it leaves us with no other option. It is time you filed for divorce. There will be a scandal, naturally, but there’s no one who would think ill of you. Not now. Not after so long and with your place in society secure.”

Divorce.

The word echoed through his mind with a finality that made his heart skip with agitation. He held his breath, listening, desperate to hear her rebuke her father, to tell him it was none of his affair, that she did not wish for a divorce, but there was nothing but silence until Montagu spoke again.

“You’d be free, my darling girl. You could start over with a good man, one that would love you and treat you as you deserve to be treated. You could have a family, and don’t tell me you don’t want children, for we both know how much you do. I’ve seen you with your friends’ babies on your knee, seen the hopeless longing in your eyes until I’ve wanted to cross the bloody channel and kill him with my bare hands. If that’s what you want, it is the only way.”

Kilbane waited, but perhaps they had moved away from the door, perhaps they spoke too quietly for the sound to reach him, but there were no more words in his defence, no rebuke or refusal of her father’s suggestion. Only silence.

She wanted children, a family, and not the kind that must be hidden from the world to protect them from the shame of illegitimacy. The one thing he had so emphatically denied her. He had told her he would recognise any female children, but everyone would know, and how could she feel joy in a child when she would spend her entire confinement fretting over the possibility it would be a son? A boy he would refuse to give his name to. So, she would divorce him. He wouldn’t contest it, naturally. How could he? She could accuse him of so many things it was hardly worth debating it.

Suddenly the room felt cold, the sunshine that had been so bright this morning disappearing behind a cloud and sucking all the light from the room. The fire still crackled merrily, but Kilbane felt chilled and empty, and very much alone.

It took Cat a good hour to settle herself after her father had gone. She had never had such an argument with him in her life. Oh, she’d been scolded often enough, but she’d always richly deserved it and, as much as it had been an uncomfortable experience, she had never resented him for it. She had never shouted at him in such a way. Never had seen such hurt in his eyes because of the things she’d said to him. Yet, she could not let him speak of her husband like that, to wish him dead.

She knew it stemmed from her father’s desire to protect her, from so many years of impotent rage where he could do nothing to save her from the situation she had landed herself in without making matters far, far worse. He could not have called Kilbane out, for it would have made a terrible situation far worse, and even he had agreed in the end that it had not been the man’s fault. As much as he hated that Cat was alone, he did not want Kilbane anywhere near her, and there was his dilemma. Cat knew her father could be ruthless when the need arose, and she admitted to a chill of anxiety, wondering what he might have done if it had been Kilbane’s fault, or if Cat’s feelings had not been engaged. Shivering, she decided she would not think about that.

Once she had calmed herself and repaired the damage caused by the tears in which she had indulged after her father had gone, she returned to Kilbane’s bedroom.

He did not hear her enter at first, his head inclined towards the window where the morning sunshine had disappeared behind grey skies and the threat of rain. His expression was so bleak she hesitated, watching him. How alone he looked, and how very sad. Her heart went out to him, and she moved into the room. He saw her then, turning his head and looking quickly away with a frown.

“I’m not taking any more vile medicine, so you can leave me in peace, I thank you,” he said icily.

“No. No more medicine until dinner time. You are quite safe. How is that cough today? Does it still trouble you?”

“I’m fine.”

“But the pain in your chest, has it eased at all?”

“I said I’m fine!” he shouted, glaring at her with such fury she stopped in her tracks, wondering what had happened to put him in such a flame. “Just leave me be. I don’t need you or want you. Why are you always here? Always fussing over me and… and—”

He broke off, twin peaks of colour high on his cheekbones, his breathing harsh and erratic and she was hardly surprised when the cough came upon him, making him clutch at his side and leaving him spent and gasping.

Cat hurried to the bedside and poured him some fresh water. Carefully, she sat beside him, slipping her arm around his shoulder and putting the glass to his lips. The fight seemed to have gone out of him all at once and he submitted, taking a few sips.

“Has poor Mr Jones put you in such a tweague?”

“No,” he snapped, irritated. “And I am not in a tweague. I’m not your maiden aunt.”

Cat chuckled at the suggestion. “Indeed you are not,” she remarked, her lips quirking. “Here, your pillows are all in a tumble. What have you been doing with them? Was there a fight? Sit forward now and I’ll arrange them more comfortably.”

Grumbling, he allowed this, and Cat settled him back, taking a moment to straighten the bed sheets too. “There. Much better.”

“So you say. Now leave me be, for the love of God.”

He sent her a baleful glance, and Cat almost complied, retreating to leave him in peace, but there was something else in his expression that made her pause. Her instincts told her to not to listen to his words, but to attend to that lost look in his eyes, the uncertainty there, the look that told her he did not want her to go at all.

“But I don’t want to leave yet.”