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Kitty was about to protest that she felt it unseemly, after all, to continue, but as she opened her mouth Lord Silverton’s came down swiftly, and her protest was a muffled squeak almost immediately extinguished by a sudden rush of pleasure.
This was only acting, she qualified in the brief moment she had any conscious thought as to the rights and wrongs. She clasped her arms more tightly around his neck and kissed him back, while her breath ratcheted up a dozen knots, and then suddenly she was on the settee and he was over her, kissing her lips, his tongue plunging into her mouth, heightening her desire. She felt lost when he moved to kiss her jawline and throat, then exultant as he kissed her décolletage. Mindlessly, she hooked a leg over the back of his knees and arched into him just as his hand found her bare breast.
“I’m sorry, Kitty!” He stood up abruptly and stared down at her with deep contrition. “That wasn’t in the script. I don’t know what came over me.”
Kitty at up feeling dazed as she smoothed her skirts. “Nor me,” she said, unable to look at him. “That was wrong of me, Lord Silverton. Please, pretend it never happened.”
“No, No!” He shook his head, wildly. “It was wrong of me to take such advantage. You’re about to be married, and the last thing I would want is to get in the way of your life’s ambition.” He turned and went to the fireplace where he leaned against the mantelpiece. Still breathing heavily, he said in a low voice, “I envy Nash for having you, Kitty. I don’t deny it. I’ve never felt what I do here...” he tapped his heart “...with any other woman. Your bright eagerness and your charming sweetness will never be dimmed, I suspect, and that is a wonderful trait.” He looked sad for a moment. “I wish I was to be in Lord Nash’s shoes on Saturday.”
Kitty’s heart felt torn in two. But this was not an offer, she realized. Lord Silverton was quite safe in saying such things, when he’d also made it clear he had no intention of ever marrying Kitty.
She rose. “Don’t berate yourself, my Lord. I showed my wanton nature, and that should disgust you. Th
e trouble is, I do like you exceedingly.” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve met a nicer man than you, but Nash loves me more. He’s giving me what I want and I love him deeply, despite everything. It will be a good match, I think. And I shall enjoy dancing with you in respectable ballrooms, too. I shall enjoy gloating and will continue to hope, even, that you come to feel you missed an opportunity for happiness when you put up all those important social considerations which are, of course, what prevented my father from marrying my mother and thus making me what I am. Beneath you, Lord Silverton.”
She turned and took a step toward the door, but he quickly crossed the room and gripped her hand. “Would you really see me trade places with Nash if I had made a similar offer?”
Kitty forced herself to be insouciant. “I cannot say, my Lord, for I have not experienced the two offers to know how I would feel. But I am destined to marry Lord Nash, the dashing nobleman with the scar beneath his eye, and I love him and he loves me. I will not allow other considerations to cloud my happiness.”
“Despite harboring such inconvenient feelings for me?”
“Now you are putting tickets on yourself, my Lord, for you do not know what my feelings are.”
His voice sounded strangled. “I felt the way you responded to me. I didn’t have to be possessed of magical powers to know your feelings are very...favorable.”
Kitty turned with a tinkling laugh she hoped would put an end to what was becoming an uncomfortable conversation. “Immaterial when you are not a contender for my affections, my Lord. No, you have made that very clear. You are very safe in espousing all that you have, for you are in no danger of ever having to act upon any of the sentiments you profess to have for me. Now, please will you pull the bell and summon Dorcas for me.”
***
Silverton’s last image was fixed in his brain. Her smile had been bright as she’d waved to him before she and Dorcas left his townhouse to return to Kitty’s abode. But her words had been loaded with portent as she’d told him, with a meaningful stare, that she must hurry if she were dress in order to receive Nash, whom she must duly honor since he was prepared to defy society in order to fulfill Kitty’s dreams.
Long after she’d left Silverton alone, sipping another glass of Madeira, he stared soulfully into the fireplace and wondered why he suddenly had no inclination to venture out, either in company with Debenham or to seek more preferable company at his club. He wished he could erase that image of her staring hopefully into his eyes. She’d spoken defiantly of waiting to receive Nash, almost as if she were daring him to make her a better offer.
Silverton shook his head and stared into his unfinished drink, touching a finger to his lips where he could still feel the sensation of her kiss; a kiss she’d tumbled into as if it had been an abyss and she’d had not been able to resist the plummet to its depths.
It had been a surprising experience for him, too. Although he’d long envied Nash and often spoke flippantly to Kitty of being prepared to offer himself up for trade, he’d not realized until that kiss quite how much she affected him.
Silverton shook his head. In just a few days, she’d be entirely another man’s. The faint idea that, one day, either she or Nash might tire of the other was just a dream. Kitty was ever-faithful. She’d never leave Nash. Certainly not once she was his wife.
Reaching for the letter he’d received that afternoon, he scanned its few lines and wished he felt more excitement about what he had willingly pledged.
Dear Silverton,
Your offer was an expected surprise, if I can put it in those terms.
We have been comfortable with one another for so many years that I cannot imagine not having you in my life. Yet as your wife?
It’s true that I have found myself placed in difficult circumstances suddenly, and that your marriage offer provides a multitude of conveniences for your family, for mine, and certainly for me.
But what of love? Do you love me? I would wish that you held some spark of feeling that transcended mere friendship if we were to become bound together for life.
I thank you for sounding me out on my feelings before you approach my father. He would be overjoyed at a union between our two families, and indeed it is eminently good sense.
But before I speak to them of your marriage proposal, I would ask for an avowal of the state of your heart, dear Silverton, and how it may be engaged by thoughts of me...
Miss Octavia Mandelton. He dropped the letter and reflected on her kind, homely face. She had a good skin, but he did not remember the color of her eyes, and indeed would be pressed to find a complimentary name for the shade of her hair.
But she would make a good wife. Steady, loyal, and kind. Living on the neighboring estate, she was like a second daughter to Silverton’s mother.
