Just Wicked Enough (17 page)

He’d thought to acquire wealth so easily, and now he thought he might willingly give it all up to have her want
him
—just once.

S
tonehaven’s ball was perhaps the most well attended of the Season.

Earlier Kate had danced once with her husband. She was anticipating doing so again. She couldn’t deny she cherished the way he looked at her, as though he were coming to appreciate her as much as she was him. Oh, he still had his moods and he wasn’t very forthcoming with revealing information about himself, but she had to admit that the intimacy they shared in the bed seemed to be flowing over into their lives. That he would stand behind her when she was at the desk looking over the accounts. He would lean near and point out a particular purchase. Sometimes his cheek would almost touch hers, and she wondered if he took delight in tormenting her with his nearness.

Sometimes she would be fairly melting by the time they retired for the night.

“Are you blushing?” Jenny asked.

Kate waved her ivory fan. “It’s so warm in here.”

“I’m thinking of stepping out for some air. Did you want to join me?”

“That sounds lovely.”

Jenny slipped her arm through Kate’s. “The Season is near to ending, and I’ll miss it terribly.”

“I’m sure you’ll be invited to all sorts of country parties.”

“Perhaps I’ll come spend some time with you at your estate.”

Kate welcomed the feel of the softly blowing breeze against her skin, as they stepped on to the veranda. “I’d like that, but you must give us a few months to get everything back in order.”

“Oh, Kate, I don’t care about all that. I’d be there to visit with you, not to check out the particulars of your house management skills.” Jenny stopped in her tracks on the pebbled path and looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, dear, I forgot something. Go on without me. I’ll catch up.”

Before Kate could inquire as to what her sister could have forgotten, Jenny was hurrying back toward the terrace. Kate thought about returning to the ballroom, but it was a lovely fog-free night and other guests were walking about. Why not her?

Although if she’d realized Jenny was going to abandon her, she’d have asked Michael to join her. She’d begun to enjoy his company even when he wasn’t talking. There was a comfortableness in having him near. The one thing she couldn’t determine was why he never kissed her. And why he never lingered in her bed. He
showed
her good night and then he left. And she so wanted him to stay—but not because she asked him to. She wanted him to stay because it was what he wanted.

“Hello, dear girl.”

The voice coming out of the shadows almost had Kate hopping out of her shoes. She spun around and could see Wesley crooking a finger at her, beckoning her to join him behind the trellis of roses. She cast a furtive glance around her, pausing momentarily at the spot where Jenny had left her. Had this rendezvous been pre-arranged by her sister? She had a sneaking suspicion that it had been.

“I only want a word, Kate,” Wesley whispered.

She’d seen him arrive with his wife, had even taken a moment to speak to both of them, although she couldn’t imagine what it was about Melanie that had caused Wesley to marry her. Her money, of course. The girl, bless her heart, had the largest set of teeth imaginable. Kate wondered if in the dark, Wesley imagined she was Kate.

“Please, Kate,” he urged.

Reluctantly, she joined him. “This is entirely inapp—”

Then he was kissing her, kissing her as though they were still married, kissing her as though it was his right, kissing her as though he still loved her, as though his very happiness depended on it.

Kissed her with an intimacy she never received from her husband. Michael made love to her, but he never kissed her mouth. He kissed her neck, her breasts, her thighs. He’d even kissed her toes, every one of them. He never pressed his lips to hers, never swept his tongue through her mouth.

Pulling back, Wesley cradled her face between his hands. “I miss you desperately.”

Breathless, she stared at him. “Need I remind you that you’re married?”

“Which only serves to add to my misery. Melanie, bless her, is not you.”

“But you knew that when you married her.”

“Yet, what choice did I have? What choice did either of us have? Your mother saw to that. I shall never forgive her for tearing us apart.”

“Mother is not entirely to blame. As long as you were unmarried there was a chance I could convince them that we were meant for each other. You didn’t wait.”

“I admit I became impatient. She wouldn’t even let me see you. She returned every letter.”

“You wrote me?”

“Of course, I did. I thought I could be happy with Melanie. But she hasn’t your fire. I want you back in my life, Kate, even if it’s only a moment here or a moment there. You are an addiction that I simply—”

“Remove your hands from my wife, sir, if you wish for them to remain unbroken.”

Whether or not Wesley actually did as he was commanded was a moot issue, because Kate spun around to face her husband, effectively removing Wesley’s hands from her person for him. She knew the sound of Michael’s voice when he was angry, and this was beyond seething. What she felt undulating off him now was raw fury.

“Michael—”

“It would be best if you not speak at this precise moment, madam.”

Wesley chortled, actually chortled. “You have no hold over her.”

“She is my wife.”

“Only because her father outbid all the others.”

Kate snapped her head around to look at Wesley. “What?”

“Did he not tell you? He put himself up for auction—to the highest bidding American father.”

She turned back to Michael. “I don’t understand. My father said you asked for my hand—”

“Only after he was assured your father would provide a settlement higher than any other.”

She wanted Wesley to shut his mouth, wanted Michael to deny the charges. To say something, anything. To laugh out loud at the ludicrousness of Wesley’s words. To punch Wesley in the face.

“Is what he said true?”

Even in the dimly lit gardens, she could see the struggle being fought, the struggle to deny, the one to admit. That he had to struggle at all was answer enough. She felt the tears begin to burn her eyes. “You had men bid on you?”

“He did.”

She spun around. Wesley jerked back. She could only imagine what emotions might have been visible on her face. “How do you know so damned much?”

“Because Melanie’s father was one of the men he invited to the private—and secretive—auction.” Wesley fairly spat each word.

“My father wouldn’t be so desperate for me to marry…he wouldn’t debase himself…” She jerked her attention back to Falconridge. “I knew money was involved, but not to the extent that it was all I am to you. Money. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

“Kate—”

“Damn you to hell.”

She lifted her skirts and hurried from the garden, avoiding the house, seeking out the gate. She emerged at the circular drive where so many carriages were waiting for their owners. Swiping at her tears, she searched frantically for Falconridge’s coach. She had to escape, had to get away…

When at last she found it, the footman opened the door for her. “Take me to my father’s,” she instructed as she clambered inside.

“What of his lordship?”

“He’s not coming.”

Even though her parents’ house was not that far, the journey seemed to take most of her life to complete. Images tumbled through her mind: her wedding day, Falconridge’s startled expression when she’d mentioned his asking for her hand, laughing with him, his hands and mouth—

The coach came to a stop and she flung the door open before the footman could get to it. If she hadn’t feared she’d trip and break her neck, she would have hopped out. Instead she waited impatiently for his assistance.

She raced up the steps and pounded on the door. As soon as it opened, she barreled past the butler.

“My lady—”

“Where’s my father? The library?”

“Yes, my lady. I’ll announce you—”

“Oh, please. I don’t need announcing.”

As a matter of fact, she suspected her presence and agitation would be announcement enough.

Her father was exactly as she’d known he would be: sitting behind his desk, peering at his ledgers through a cloud of smelly cigar smoke. He looked up, his eyes widening as though he’d expected someone else, and then they narrowed, his brow furrowing as he slowly came to his feet.

“Kate, what’s wrong? What are you doing here this time of night?”

“You
bid
on him?”

Her father’s shoulders slumped forward. She’d never seen him take that sort of defeated posture, but almost immediately he straightened.

“Damn, Falconridge, I thought he was a man of his word.”

“A man of his word?”

“The auction was to be kept secret. I didn’t think you’d ever hear of it—”

“He didn’t tell me. Wesley did.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed further as he snatched up his cigar, took a deep puff on it, a habit he indulged when he was involved in difficult ciphering. “Jeffers,” he finally mumbled. “I’ll sue him for breach of contract.”

Kate stepped nearer to the desk, braced her hands on it, and leaned toward him. “I can’t believe you would think a man who would auction himself off like a…a fancy heirloom was worthy of marrying your daughter.”

Her father reached out and lifted the lid on the carved wooden box that held his precious cigars. “Want one?”

It was their secret, her guilty pleasure. She’d spent many an hour going over the books with her father, puffing on a cigar as though she’d been born a son rather than a daughter. She shook her head. She wasn’t in the mood tonight to share in their little ritual.

He walked over to the liquor cabinet and splashed whiskey into two glasses. He brought them over and held one out to her. “You’ll want this. Sit down, Kate.”

“Papa—”

“Take the whiskey and sit down, sweetheart.”

She did as he bid her, watching as he took the chair beside hers, close enough that he could take her hand if need be. When had he grown so old?

“A father isn’t supposed to have a favorite among his children,” he began, “but the Lord knows, you know, your mother knows—hell, Jenny and Jeremy know—you’ve always been mine.”

“If you loved me so much why didn’t you let me stay married to the man I loved? It makes no sense. You said he was a fortune hunter. Well, what do you call a man who puts himself up for auction to the highest bidder?”

“Honest. You gotta give him that, Kate. The man was honest about what he was doing, what he wanted, and what he was offering.”

“I don’t have to give him anything,” she grumbled, before sipping on the whiskey, allowing the familiar flavor to roll over her tongue and down her throat. “He doesn’t love me and I wanted love. Wesley at least loved me.”

“I could argue that. Hell, I have argued that. But not tonight. That’s not why you’re here tonight.”

“No, it’s not. I want to know why you could bid on a man—”

“Your mother wanted you to marry an aristocrat, a man with a title. There was one for sale and so I bought it.”

“Because you didn’t think I could acquire one on my own?”

“Because I was running out of time, darling, and you weren’t
trying
to acquire one on your own.”

Kate’s stomach lurched at the implications. “Jenny thinks Mother’s ill, that that’s the reason you keep taking her to the seaside.”

He tossed back his glass of whiskey before nodding.

“How ill?”

“Ill enough. She didn’t want you girls to know.”

“Does Jeremy know? Is that the reason he’s spending time in London with us instead of gallivanting around the world?”

He nodded, wrapped both hands around the empty glass, and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “I didn’t love your mother when I married her, Kate. I married her because I saw in her a strong-willed woman who wouldn’t settle for failure, a woman with ambitions that outshined mine. And I knew together we’d be unstoppable, that we could reach heights of success that neither of us had grown up knowing. When those New York knickerbockers snubbed your mother, when they didn’t send her an invitation to their balls…we have more money than any of them, Katie, and it wasn’t enough. We built the finest house and wore the nicest clothes, but it wasn’t enough. When your mama looked in the mirror she saw a young lady who got married in her best dress, and it was frayed around the edges. And the man she married, he wasn’t dressed much better.”

He wore a sad smile as he studied the empty glass in his hands. Kate took it from him and replaced it with hers. Nodding he gulped the whiskey.

“I don’t know when I fell in love with her, Katie. One day she was scolding me about something, she was always scolding me to reach farther than what I could touch, but this one day, I just looked at her and thought, I love this woman. With everything in me. I am where I am today, because your mother believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I will do anything and everything to see that she dies happy.”

“But if you’d only told me—”

“It makes it too real, sweetheart. If no one knows, then I can pretend it’s not true.”

“What does she have?”

“It’s a cancer and I’m not going to discuss the particulars.”

“How long?”

“A year. Maybe more. You know your mother. She believes in doing things her way. I suspect she’ll give Death a run for his money.”

Kate felt as though she no longer had any stability in her world. It had been a long time since she’d wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her. She’d always been closer to her father.

“You should tell Jenny, Papa.”

He nodded. “I know.”

For several moments they simply sat in quiet reflection.

“Is your marquess so awful?” he finally asked.

She shook her head.

“Maybe one day you’ll look at him and think, I love this man and maybe you’ll think of me with a little more kindness.” Reaching across her lap, he squeezed her hand. “Don’t let your mother know that you know…about any of this.”

“I won’t.” She stood up. “I understand why you did what you did. Perhaps a part of me even admires you for it. But I can’t forgive you for it.”