gold of his skin.
Her husband had stopped being safe.
“Shall we go in together?” he asked, holding out his elbow.
Even that slight motion tweaked her perverse memory. Where once he’d apologetically claimed the space he needed, constantly pulling his elbows into his side, now he seemed to fill an area far beyond his skin. It seemed an act of bravery to reach out and set her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He radiated an unconscious aura now—as if he were more dangerous, more intense. Give this man a wide berth, her senses shouted.
Instead, she closed her hand about his finely woven wool coat. She could feel the strength of the arm underneath.
“I don’t think we’ll fool any of them, coming in together.” She forced herself to look up, to meet the intensity of his gaze. “If anyone knows the truth about our marriage, it’s the people in the room in front of us.”
His head tilted to one side. “You tell me, Kate. What is the truth of our marriage?”
He did not smile at her, nor did he waggle his eyebrows. His question was seriously meant. As if somehow, he did not know. His ignorance, Kate supposed, must have been bliss for him. For her, however, it sparked a deep ache beneath her breastbone.
“Our marriage lasted a few months. Once you left, what remained faded faster than the ink on the license. And what’s left … well, it could blow away in one tiny puff of wind.”
“Well, then.” He spoke with an air of certainty. “I’ll try not to exhale.”
“Don’t bother. I stopped holding my breath years before.”
Even when he’d been a young, deferential boy, he hadn’t truly been safe. He’d hurt her when he left. Now she felt a stupid surge of hope at his words. A damnable, irrepressible whisper of a thought, suggesting that something might yet come of her marriage.
The real danger wasn’t the strong line of his jaw or the powerful curve of his biceps under her fingers. No; as always, the real dangers were her own hopes and desires. It was that whisper of longing, a list that started with, step one: find a night rail….
Those old girlish wants would return unbidden if she gave them the least encouragement. It wouldn’t matter how lightly he breathed.
And nowadays, she had far more important secrets to occupy her worries than a little scrap of silk.
“Well,” he said, “let’s give it a go anyway. Our guests expect us.” Without waiting for an answer, he set his hand over her fingers, clasping them to the crook of his arm. The gesture was strong and confident. He didn’t know what awaited them. Kate ignored the queasiness in her stomach and walked with him into the room.
After the dimness of the hall, blinding white morning light filled her vision. All sound ceased, swallowed up by an immense shocked silence. Then fabric rustled; a flurry of lavender blurred across Kate’s vision, and before she could blink and get her bearings, a silk-clad form cannoned into Ned beside her, breaking Kate’s contact with her husband.
“Ned,” the woman said, “you ridiculous man. Not a word of warning, not one hint that you’d arrived. When were you planning to tell us?”
“I just landed,” Ned said. “Late last night. You’ll find the missive on your return.”
The woman was Jennifer Carhart, the Marchioness of Blakely. She was Ned’s cousin’s wife, and as he’d explained to Kate after their marriage, also one of Ned’s dearest friends. “I missed you,” Lady Blakely was saying.
Lady Blakely was pretty and dark-haired and clever, and Kate felt a prickle of unworthy resentment arise inside her. Not jealousy, at least not of that sort. But she envied the easy friendship Lady Blakely had with her husband.
When the marchioness pulled away, her husband, the marquess, took her place. “Ned.”
“Gareth.” Ned clasped the offered hand. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I know my good wishes are much delayed, but I only just had the news from the solicitor this morning.”
“My thanks.” The marquess glanced at Kate, briefly, and then looked away without meeting her eyes. “Lady Kathleen.”
Naturally, Ned did not notice that little dismissal. Instead, he clapped his cousin on the shoulders. “I do wish you’d hurry up and spit out an heir, though. It’s uncomfortable dangling on your hook.”
“No.” Lord Blakely spoke directly, almost curtly. But his gaze cut to his wife, who poked him. “No,” he amended with a sigh. “But thank you for the sentiment. I’d much rather have children than an heir. I’ll keep my girl—you and yours can have the damned marquessate when I’m gone.” His gaze flicked to Kate again, as if it were somehow her fault she hadn’t burst forth with twin sons, with her husband half the world away.
Kate should have been playing the hostess here, setting everyone at ease. Instead, she felt as if she were an interloper in her own home, as if she were the one returning after a bewildering absence of three years. And perhaps her feelings had something to do with the precariousness of Louisa’s situation. But this gap, this feeling of not belonging, had arisen long before she had even known the danger Louisa was in.
It had happened so gradually, on her husband’s disappearance from England. Kate had blamed Blakely for sending her husband to China. Foolish; she’d known Ned had volunteered, that he’d wanted to leave as much as she had wanted him to stay. She’d blamed the marchioness, out of a deep envy for the woman’s easy friendship with her husband. Kate had known the response was neither reasonable nor rational, but her resentment at being left behind had been too large to direct at only one person.
Over the years, the familial relationship had quietly strained. A different woman might have made some attempt to mend what had frayed; instead, Kate had excused herself. She had her own set of friends. She didn’t need to add her cousins by marriage to that number.
And so it had come to this: everyone in the room, if they knew what she had done, would see her as the enemy.
Her greatest enemy stood next in line to greet her husband. The Earl of Harcroft was slim and tall. He was Ned’s age, but he looked as if he were still eighteen, his face unlined by worries or age. The earl, Kate thought bitterly, appeared to be quite the golden child. He was a master at cricket, a veritable genius at chess and an expert when it came to appraising Flemish paintings of goat-girls. He gave to charity, never swore and attended church, where he sang hymns in a delightful baritone.
He also beat his wife, taking care to hit her only where the bruises wouldn’t show. It was his legal right, as Louisa’s husband, and if he discovered that Kate had hidden her away, he could compel her at solicitor-point to give her up.
Kate wasn’t about to give him the chance.
Ned relinquished Harcroft’s hand and looked expectantly around the room. “Where’s Louisa?” he asked brightly. “Is she lying in, finally? I certainly hope she hasn’t taken ill again.”
Silence fell. The three guests exchanged glances. Kate’s spine straightened; Lady Blakely subsided into her chair and spread her hands carefully down the light purple of her gown. She did not meet Ned’s eyes. Instead, she glanced at her husband, who by a shake of his
