Should she move to the door? Crack it open and attempt to hear crumbs of conversation? The risk of detection rooted her to the floorboards, a shadow of disappointment stifling her mood. She exhaled thoroughly and placed the plum on the counter, no longer interested in the fruit.
She had hoped to finish the week in Brighton before her return to London. It was somewhat of an agreement, never solidified as her father freely changed his mind and expected her to accept his contrariness without objection, but implied nonetheless. After the tumultuous confrontations in their past, Angelica had wisely approached her father with an attitude of compliance, though a slice of injustice urged she leave through the front door and not look back. She discarded the foolish notion as soon as it formed. There was much to weigh in concern of her future and she wasn’t a coward. Failure was not an option.
Returning her eyes to the garden, Angelica watched her father command the conversation, the words overflowing as he jabbed at the ground with punctilious gesticulation. A nearby sparrow took wing to avoid being skewered. Father pivoted and advanced a few steps and Grandmother followed. The conversation had seemingly progressed to a more heated level if their expressions were any indication. Grandmother didn’t approve of Father’s dedicated zeal for religion and Angelica wondered if Father had shared his plan and thus prompted the switch in congenial discussion to vehement diatribe. Her father screwed his face into a scowl of condemnation she’d come to know well. His steps stalled a second time. How could he behave so to his mother?
Angelica loved her grandmother above all else. Her affection was the only maternal influence she’d experienced. Her grandmother’s nature was in contrast to her father’s, a strict pious man who raised his daughters with reserved obedience.
The fleeting image of Helen flittered to mind and Angelica allowed the forbidden memory to settle in her heart with a hollow ache. Would she ever see her sister again? Why must everything be so complicated? Perhaps her father preferred it this way. One daughter proved easier to handle than two, especially when every proposition was met with opposition.
With renewed anger tipping the scale, Angelica strode through the door and out into the sunlight. She’d face her father and see why he’d arrived on short notice. She owed that much to Helen and there was no other way for her to plan her future or escape if she didn’t assemble as much information as possible. She wouldn’t repeat Helen’s mistake. The realization pricked like a thorn on the stem of a rose. Angelica would design a better plan, conspire smarter, otherwise how else would she ever honor her sister’s memory?
Kellaway secured Nyx in his stall and eyed the gilt carriage parked against the far wall. A beat of anger drummed to life, for he knew the carriage as his mother’s. The conveyance, one of elegant lines and crafted design, was expensive and refined, in juxtaposition to his mother’s true character. The persistent serration of conflict that accompanied thoughts of a new altercation with her gained strength. He was a good son, at least by most measures. He wished to honor his mother, and protect her, but the foolish societal mayhem she perpetuated in response to his father’s indiscretions rubbed him raw. Kell preferred to keep his private life just that, under lock and key where no one could turn a critical eye.
In contrast, his parents had created a lifestyle that resembled a poorly acted theatrical drama. Their petty squabbles and humbling adulterous escapades added fuel to a fire that needed to burn out. Worse, his mother played Kellaway to her advantage, asking him to resolve differences and intercede, sometimes to appeal to his father, which instigated further acts of inconsequential revenge. The entirety damaged Kell’s reputation as much as his sire’s. Had his grandfather not interfered and taken Kell’s father to task, who knew to what length his parents would have carried their immature squabbling?
Kell shook his head in despair. He’d come to Brighton to escape the familial mess that had plagued him since his early twenties. A decade of endurance seemed penance enough.
He fetched a brush from the tack room, lit a lantern, and began Nyx’s grooming ritual. He enjoyed tending the Arabian in the same fashion he’d cared for her during their return travels to England. No stable hand would ever attend Nyx as Kell did. And in truth, more evenings than not, the organized practice of grooming soothed Kell’s mood in equal measure, the scent of leather, fresh hay, and barley a predictable comfort. Theirs was a silent understanding—one of loyalty and respect.
He worked the brush in strong circular movements across the horse’s flank, his mind as busy as the tool. His mother would want a favor. And she would ask for it prettily, veiled in panoply of inventive promises, and he would comply in an objectionable tendency that caused him to drink in excess after she’d departed. The reality of the exchange darkened his soul. He was a grown man inclined to react when his mother pulled the leading strings. Alas, the heated exchange with his father and their last scene brought it all to the square in public display. Perhaps that explained his mother’s unannounced arrival and, further, this week of unexpected visitors.
The horse nickered as if to indicate Kell had come full circle in his thinking. True enough the singular incident drove him to Brighton in the first place.
When Kell was younger he’d wished, hoped, prayed for parents who took the slightest interest in his affairs. Parents who would attend his graduation, acknowledge his accomplishments—he’d scored double firsts at Oxford in a bid for their approval—but that was not to be. He’d learned independence and self-sufficiency at the ripe age of twelve, experienced a whore’s pleasure at thirteen after winning an unseemly wager in the back room of a St. Giles gaming hell. He’d frequented every place a lofty aristocrat shouldn’t and hardened his heart along the way, somehow maintaining a barely respectable presence in society while simultaneously seeking pleasure and pursuing challenges whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The elite viewed him as privileged, the heir to a fortune, a title, and moniker that would serve him through life, but the opposite proved true. Any monies set aside for his future gathered dust in the bank. Kell made his way by intelligent wager and shrewd investment, amassing his fortune by ingenuity and design, beholden to none. And his title? His familial ties to the Duke of Acholl? Perhaps it had aided his path at times, but never let it be said Kellaway depended on his relations. He’d learned all too quickly he was of no true importance aside from his legitimacy. With a caustic scoff, he tossed the brush aside and discarded the bitter memory.
“I can’t fathom what she’ll ask of me now, though only a fool would trust the verity of her request.” He grasped Nyx by the bridle and lowered the Arabian’s head before he retrieved the crimson ribbon from his pocket and double knotted the length in the horse’s mane. Releasing the leather strap he rubbed a palm over Nyx’s muzzle, leaning in to rest his head against the horse’s neck. He’d gather strength from the animal. He’d draw endurance.
But instead of his mind combating the numerous conflicts his mother might impose once he entered the house, Kell’s thoughts returned to the kiss he’d shared in the cottage and the mysterious beauty who had startled him into unexpected emotion: a depth of reaction for which he had no label. He lost himself in the sensual pleasures of women whenever he needed release, but this seemed different. This was rare and unsettling, and perhaps a shade dangerous to his well-guarded heart.
It hardly mattered. In the daylight he had grown less sure that he would see her again. But who was she? A simple miss who lived in Brighton? She couldn’t be. Nothing about her appeared common. Not the multiple shades of gold in her flowing hair or the tide of emotions in her turquoise eyes. He recalled her scent, the sweet softness of her skin and the delicate curve of her waist beneath his palms, and his blood heated with desire. He could find joy in a woman of such tempting beauty. He could forget for a time all the wrongs, and just breathe.
Something whispered to his soul that there was much more to discover. Their kiss had been powerful and delicate. Exquisite and impactful. A longing for more of her
