Page 34 of A Daring Desire

You will not believe what that odious creature has done now. Oh, the nerve of the man! Just wait until I see him again. I shall give him such a set down he won’t dare speak to me ever again.

―Excerpt of a letter to The Most Hon’ble Catherine ‘Cat’ St Just, Marchioness of Kilbane (daughter of The Most Hon’ble Lucian and Matilda Barrington, The Marquess and Marchioness of Montagu) from The Right Hon’ble Lady Rose Carmichael (daughter of the Right Hon’ble Maximillian and Phoebe Carmichael, Earl and Countess of Ellisborough)

25th December 1849, Connaught Place, London.

“Fuck!” Kilbane ran a trembling hand through his hair. That had not been his intention. None of it. “Bloody, buggering bollocks,” he added for good measure.

His heart was thundering, and he felt most peculiar. He’d been ill, he reminded himself, nearly died. That was the only reason he felt so shaken. It had nothing to do with the kiss. Not a thing. Yet it still dwelt inside him, like a living thing, firing sparks and setting light to the dark places inside him. It burned on his lips, the imprint of her soft body branded against him, an indelible mark he would never be rid of. He indulged in another bout of swearing and cursing, turning the air blue, but he didn’t feel any different.

Hell and the devil. Why had he done such a damned stupid thing? She had looked so lost and so heartrendingly sad, and he’d done that! How many years had she spent hiding her sorrow from everyone? Her letters to him had always been so joyous and full of life, but had this been what she hid from him, from the world? He muttered a curse, for he knew it was, had always known it, but never wished to acknowledge it. All the time his wife appeared content, he could delude himself that he owed her nothing, that she was better off without him, but now…. And then to compound his idiocy, he'd had to go and kiss her. Why? Why had he done it?

Because he couldn’t not have done it, he realised. The moment he’d walked away from her last night, he’d known it was for the best, known it was too dangerous to take even a step in that direction. He knew all too well the risk of temptation, had been a master of luring those to him who knew they ought not to walk in his own dark world, but with Catherine… Something in his heart shifted, pain and guilt and regret. If he’d been anyone else, a different man, but he was who and what he was, and the truth of that fact had never sat as heavily as it did in this moment. Yet he must try to repair the damage he’d done, as little as he wished to face her again. Another damned apology, he supposed.

“And look where the last one got you,” he muttered wrathfully, but he could not let her run off believing he had kissed her to mock her or to teach her a lesson, because it wasn’t true.

God help him, but it was a very long way from the truth. It had been nothing more than instinct, an urge to protect himself as he had looked down into her eyes and seen the care for him there, the love, and felt an answering tug in his own heart that had scared him to death. He pushed such terrifying thoughts away, determined to ignore them. His life was a cesspit, littered with wrongdoing and vice and so very many terrible decisions he could not even begin to count them. Somehow, despite her marriage to him, Catherine remained untainted by his past, by him, and he must keep it that way. If she was going to start over, she would do it the way she started this awful business, untouched. Her husband, whoever the bastard would be, would soon discover just how innocent she was.

The thought made him stop in his tracks, his hand stilling on the doorknob as pain and anger ripped through him. He took a breath, shaken by the depth of feeling, and by the realisation it was not merely anger, but jealousy.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered, but there was too much doubt behind the word.

He, who had cared for no one, had never given a damn for fidelity and scorned those who did, was out of reason jealous at the idea of anyone else laying so much as a finger on his wife. His wife. The sudden knowledge that he did not—would not—give her up, made him feel giddy. He paused for a moment, pressing his forehead against the cool oak of the door while his world spun out of control.

Daunted, and almost sick with terror, he considered this new and unwelcome information and forced himself to look at it, to turn it over in his mind. Gradually he saw the pattern, saw how she had caught him without his knowledge or consent. Those damn letters. He ought to have burned them like he’d promised to do. Hadn’t he known she was dangerous? He’d forced her to promise never to follow him for he knew she’d gain a foothold in his life by fair means or foul, but the letters…. What a fool. She had reeled him in like a great fat fish, drawing him into her world with her wit and her peculiar outlook on the world. He had developed feelings for her, and she’d not even been in the same country. That was how bloody dangerous she was. That was why he’d stopped going out, stopped entertaining or finding anything to appeal to him in anyone else. He could not remember the last time he’d taken a lover. He sucked in a breath and let it out on a groan, banging his head against the door.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What have you done now?” came a resigned voice from behind him.

Jones, damn the man. Didn’t he know when to let well alone?

“Go to the devil.”

“Been there, didn’t like the scenery,” Jones remarked dryly. “The company was pretty dismal, too.”

Kilbane snorted.

“Anything I can do for you, my lord?”

“Put a bullet through my brain and put me out of my misery,” Kilbane muttered savagely.

“I’ve been tempted a time or two in the years I’ve served you, I’ll admit, but I don’t reckon Lady Kilbane would like it none. She’s a fierce little thing when her temper’s up, and I reckon she’d defend you tooth and claw. Not worth the reprisals. Besides, I’d have to find another employer, and I’m used to you now. Better the devil you know, eh?”

“You are such a comfort,” Kilbane remarked, turning to give Jones the benefit of an icy glare.

“Want to tell me what the matter is?” Jones suggested, his tone gentler now. “Might be I can help.”

Kilbane hesitated, tempted for a moment, but then shook his head.

Jones sighed, muttering something under his breath that sounded very much like bloody pillock, but Kilbane agreed too heartily with the sentiment to reprimand him for it.

Jones stared at him for a moment and then threw up his hands. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Kilbane demanded, irritated now.

“Don’t just stand there, go after her… before someone else does,” Jones added, and with such emphasis that Kilbane felt a chill roll down his back.

For once in his life, he did as he was told.