“Was it that you were compromised?” Lady Darling asked archly, anger flashing in her eyes.
It was as if the countess resented Kitty for leaving the duke. Her heart quaked as wicked memories seared her. She could still taste his kiss on her lips, still feel the unfamiliar ache between her thighs. Kitty’s composure began to desert her, and her entire body blushed red.
The countess’s eyes widened, and her mother appeared faint.
“Katherine!” Mamma cried in reproach, fanning herself vigorously with a delicate blue and silver hand-painted fan. Yet she shared a slyly triumphant glance with the countess before a facade of motherly concern settled on her face.
“My godson took liberties? I didn’t think he had it in him,” Lady Darling mused softly.
“I declared nothing of the sort,” Kitty retorted, lifting her chin. “My presence at McMullen Castle was improper and scandalous. I am home now, thankfully without society knowing where I have been unchaperoned. If you require any more information as to the state of my attachment to Alex…to His Grace, please confer with him, Lady Darling.” Her chin wobbled and she fought the impossible tears that smarted her eyes. “If you will excuse me, I have a headache. I shall retire to my chambers.”
Kitty stood, dipped into a slight curtsy, and hurried from the drawing room, up the stairs, and into her chamber. Once there, she flung herself on the bed and buried her face into the softness of the pillow. A cozy fire crackled on the hearth, warming the spacious bedchamber, yet there was a chill in her bones that she felt would never depart.
She curled into the thick blankets and tried to rest. Her lids closed and her breathing evened out. Kitty soon found herself plagued by another malady—dreams of the duke, or more like a collage of every tender and wicked moment they had shared.
“Why must you torment me when you are indifferent!” she cried into the pillow. With a raw sob, she pushed from the bed and sat at the very edge of it, gripping the sheets between her fingers.
A knock sounded on the door, and before Kitty answered, it was pushed open, and Anna barreled into the room. She appeared frazzled, almost frightened. Her bonnet was squashed between her two hands, and grass stains lined the hem of her dress.
Kitty lurched to her feet, her heart pounding. “Anna, what has happened?”
“Oh, Kitty,” she said, her eyes glistening. “I…I…” Then she laughed and burst into tears.
“Do not torment me so with your silence. Are you hurt?”
“No, far from it.” Anna tossed the bonnet onto the chaise longue by the fire and clasped her hands, a radiant smile curving her lips. “William asked me…to marry him!”
William? For a moment Kitty did not understand; then she gasped. “You are engaged to Lord Lynton?”
Anna nodded happily, her corkscrew curls bouncing on her cheek. “He asked me just now on our walk through the park. He will speak to his father tonight and then visit Mamma tomorrow morning. Oh, Kitty, I am a nervous wreck. What if his father should forbid the match because—?”
She hurried over and hugged her sister to her. “Because you are wonderful, charming, exceedingly kind and selfless, and so very pretty with the most amiable manners. You may not have a dowry, Anna, but that does not define the quality of wife you would be. The baron has seen that, and I daresay he fell in love with your incurable romantic nature.”
They broke apart laughing.
“Wouldn’t Papa have been so proud? You to marry a duke and me to marry a baron, a man whom I love with my whole heart. I daresay if there is a heaven, he is strutting around with his chest puffed with pride.”
“I am sure of it,” Kitty murmured, then appalled herself by bursting into tears. “Oh, Anna, forgive me!”
Concern darkened her sister’s eyes, and she gently led her over to the chaise, where they sat. “No, forgive me for thinking only of my happiness. I noticed last night there was a sadness in your eyes, but I thought to leave it alone until you were ready to confide in me.”
“Oh, it is nothing. My nerves are simply overwrought from all that ghastly traveling. With more rest, I shall be quite fine.”
Anna held her hand between hers. “Are we not as close as we once were?” she asked with a worried frown.
Kitty’s lips parted, and suddenly she could not bear to utter another falsehood to her sister. “The duke and I are not engaged,” she confessed on a rush, closing her eyes.
“No wonder you appear so wretched, after such a public—”
“We were never engaged,” she said hoarsely, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “I made it up, and then I went and stupidly fell in love with the man. For you see, I was with him in Scotland and not Derbyshire, and now everything is ruined. But we might be saved because you are engaged, and it might not be so awful once society knows there is no longer an attachment.” Then she spent a few minutes telling her sister of the scheme in its entirety.
“I…I…I’m astonished you would sacrifice so much for us,” Anna whispered. “I am certain without this mad scheme of yours, William and I would never have met.”
And Kitty’s heart was glad for it, even if the cost now felt exceedingly heavy. But she could never regret it; she would do it all over again for her family.
“I love you, and Mamma, Henrietta, and Judith,” Kitty said softly. “I’m not ashamed for what I did.”
“And I daresay you should not be,” Anna said with a wobbly smile. “This calls for me to sneak some port from the kitchens or a bottle of wine. For you must tell me everything that happened in Scotland.”