Kitty

The disbelief in her voice was patent. He shifted his shoulders, acutely uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly. Thinking of marriage. Only said Gretna because I supposed you to be under age.’ It occurred to him to question this. ‘How old are you? Much of Kate’s age, I’d have thought. She’s nineteen.’

Kitty lifted her chin. ‘Well, I have the advantage of her, for I am one and twenty.’

‘Are you, by Gad?’ uttered Claud eagerly. ‘Then we needn’t go north, after all!’

She was obliged to dash this hope immediately. ‘I should have said almost one and twenty. My birthday is in July.’

Claud’s face fell. ‘That’s a pity. It will have to be Gretna then. Can’t marry you otherwise without the consent of your guardians.’

‘I have no g-guardians,’ objected Kitty unsteadily. ‘And Mrs Duxford would have a f-fit!’

Her pulse was behaving in a distressingly irregular fashion, and her brain was reeling at the realisation that Claud had indeed put forward the idea of marrying her. The protest bubbled up without volition.

‘And when I said it in your curricle, you nearly had a fit!’

‘I know, but—’

‘You said distinctly that I must not think of such a thing!’

‘Yes, because I hadn’t thought it over. Changed my mind since then.’

Kitty eyed him in mounting perplexity, sinking back down into her chair. He did not look as if he had taken leave of his senses, but then she scarce knew him. Except to be aware that he was both rash and impulsive. And both to her cost. Oh, he was mad! It was an impossible notion, she had at least brains enough to see that. She drew a resolute breath, gripping her fingers together in her lap.

‘You cannot have considered, sir. There can be no question of our being married. Only think what your aunt Silvia would say!’ In automatic mimicry of his obese aunt, she uttered, ‘Don’t do it, Devenick, I implore you!’

A shout of laughter was surprised out of Claud. ‘That’s very good, Kitty! Sounds exactly like her.’

But Kitty, whose talent in aping the voices of others was almost second nature, was hardly aware of doing it. She brushed it impatiently aside.

‘Never mind that! Only think of your mother’s reaction if we were to be wed, for your aunt distinctly told you I don’t know how many times that—’

‘Yes, and that’s just what decided me to marry you!’ declared Claud, pulling out a chair and reseating himself. He leaned across the table. ‘I don’t doubt the Countess will kick up the devil of a dust, for she’s bound to. But there ain’t anything she can do once the deed’s done.’

Appalled, Kitty blinked dazedly. ‘You cannot mean it, Claud! You know that I am the family skeleton. How can you possibly marry me? What about the scandal?’

Claud thumped the table. ‘That’s just it. We don’t know that there will be any scandal. If there was one, it must have happened eons ago. I dare say only the family would remember it, and—’

‘You are forgetting that I look just like Kate,’ interrupted Kitty. ‘Even if nobody remembers it now, they will do so the moment they see me.’

‘Don’t see that at all. In my experience, the ton’s memory ain’t long. They’ll be too busy blessing themselves at the likeness to be concerned how it comes about.’

‘That is exactly what will concern them, and the gossip will be hateful!’

‘It won’t. We’ll think up a tale that will satisfy people, and there’s an end to it.’

Kitty erupted. ‘If that is not just typical of you! It is exactly what you said to me when I asked you what I should say to the Duck.’

‘Yes, and wasn’t I right?’ he argued. ‘You thought of that spangled gown!’

‘That is nothing to the purpose. This is entirely different. What tale will we think up? What tale could there possibly be to account for my likeness to Kate, except that I am somebody’s natural daughter?’

Claud sat back, the frown returning to his brow. ‘Someone’s by-blow? Hang it, I suppose you must be! I wonder who it might be?’

Kitty gazed at him dumbly. Was that all he cared for? Had he no pride? It was all of a piece with his selfishness. Could he not see how she must suffer if people were to whisper about her dubious antecedents? She began at last to wonder why he had determined upon such a course. He was not in love with her. How could he be? Nor she with him, if it came to that. He was personable enough, the more so without his hat when the fair locks did much to improve him. But in character—well, suffice it that his attraction diminished rapidly the more she knew of it!

Only to have such an opportunity dangled in front of her nose—and by a self-confessed lord!—was altogether too tempting. Had it not been for that dreadful reception at the Haymarket house, Kitty could well have been persuaded into taking him at his word. But if Claud had no pride, she had little else!

‘It is useless to think of who might have fathered me,’ she said, not without a touch of resentment, ‘for I doubt we shall ever know. And I have no intention of going to Gretna Green. All I wish for is that you will deliver me safely to the Seminary.’

Claud eyed her with misgiving. She was looking a trifle stormy. Perhaps it was the manner of his offer—if one could call it such—that had offended her. She was a sensitive little thing, that much he had deduced from their short acquaintance. Should he give up the scheme? No, he was hanged if he would! He hurried into speech.

‘You can’t pretend you’d rather go for a governess than marry me, Kitty. Not that I’m a coxcomb, but it ain’t reasonable. And if I take you back to the Seminary, what else is there for you?’

‘And if I were to marry you, I might as well have been a governess, for I don’t doubt that your family will repudiate me, if Society did not.’

‘Aha! But they can’t repudiate you, can they? Mean to say, there you are, as like to Kate as makes no odds. No one can say you ain’t related, be it to the Rothleys, the Cheddons or the Hevershams. And you’re known to Aunt Silvia as well as the Countess, and I’ll lay any odds they know exactly how you are related to us. What’s more, it can’t be an accident that you were christened Katherine, for it’s a name common in our family. M’sister Kath is one, as well as Kate. Called after my grandmother Litton. Dare say if there’d been a Heversham girl, she’d be Katherine too.’

His words were torture to Kitty. She longed to ask about the names he was throwing out. Yet, the knowledge of having already been repudiated—and as a helpless child to boot—could not but whip up her resentment. And Claud expected her to expose herself to the censure of all these people!

‘I wish you will not talk of it! I told you before, I don’t care to hear about your family.’

‘Your family, you mean,’ corrected Claud.

‘They are not my family! If they are, they do not deserve to be, and I will not thrust myself upon them for any consideration in the world, so you may forget this silly idea of marrying me. I will not do it! And why you should have thought of it at all has me in a puzzle.’

But Claud did not intend to expound his reasons. Not the deep truth of them, at any rate. It was not for Kitty to recognise the violent pull of the vision in his head of his mother—utterly confounded! He had it all fixed in his mind.

‘Why, ma’am, what is the matter?’ he would say. ‘You wished me to make a union with my cousin Kate. To all appearances, I’ve obeyed you. This girl is undoubtedly my cousin, too, and as you can see, she is Katherine Rothley in all but name.’

Glee enveloped him as he imagined the features of the Countess, contorted with rage and chagrin—as they would be, by Jupiter! It would be worth any inconvenience, any unfortunate consequence, only to pay her back for the ills he had endured at her hands.

But it began to look as if Kitty was beyond persuasion. He searched his mind for arguments to sway her. He must do so, for now that the scheme had come to him, he was loath to give it up. She had averted her gaze, and was sipping at the remains of the lemonade she had drunk with her luncheon. There was no denying she was likely to be a handful, though she was a comely piece. Not that he had doubts of being able to handle her. He might be obliged to take drastic measures now and then, but it would not be beyond his power to gain the mastery over her, rebellious though she undoubtedly was.

‘I suppose you realise,’ he said conversationally, ‘that there’s little you can do about it, if I do choose to take you to Gretna Green.’

Her head jerked round, the brown eyes round with shock. ‘You would not dare to force me!’

‘Why not? Abducted you easily enough once, as you insisted on calling it. I can readily do so again. Only I should much prefer not to have to go to so much trouble.’

Kitty stared at him, her pulses in disarray. Why had she allowed herself to forget what a brute he was? That stubborn chin was jutting dangerously, and the blue eyes held an inflexible glint. She quailed inwardly, and could not keep the dismay from her voice.

‘But why should you wish to? I don’t understand!’

Claud uttered a short laugh. ‘Isn’t it obvious? If I’m married to you, the Countess and my aunt will have to give up the notion of my marrying Kate. And I’ll tell them the family owes you something and I’m repaying it. No denying you’d be a deal more comfortable married to me than slaving as a governess.’

Kitty was far from denying it. But she had been brought up to recognise right from wrong, and this was indubitably wrong. She hardly knew that she spoke aloud.

‘Nell would counsel me to refuse, I know she would. Indeed, even Prue would say I must not do it.’