Seething, Kitty called Sillikin and left the room without explanation. She retreated so she wouldn’t say something unforgivable, but she needed to read Ruth’s astonishing news.
Perhaps Andrew Lulworth had been offered a grander parish, or even a place in a bishop’s establishment. Kitty had no idea how advancement in the church was achieved, but she was sure Ruth’s husband deserved it, if only because Ruth had chosen him. Perhaps they’d received an unexpected inheritance, or found buried treasure in the garden. Perhaps the Regent had dropped by for tea!
Her flights of fancy were interrupted by the sight of the portrait of her husband hanging over the stairs in such a way that it always confronted her as she went up. It had been painted after Marcus’s death, but based on a miniature done in 1807, before his heroic maiming. It showed a young, dark-haired officer in his gold-braided regimentals, bright with vigor and life. It showed the Marcus Cateril she’d never known, for she’d met him after he’d lost a leg and an eye, been scarred in the face, and broken in other ways that caused him pain till his dying day.
She fought tears, as she still often did, not of grief over his death, but of sadness for all he’d lived with. He’d often said he wished he’d died alongside others during that magnificent assault at Roleia, and she knew he’d meant it. The overdose of laudanum that had killed him had not been accidental, no matter what the inquest had said.
She hurried on into the refuge of her room and wrapped herself in two extra shawls. Fires in bedrooms were left to die down in the morning and not lit again until close to bedtime. Then she unfolded the letter, hoping for truly diverting news.
Now for the main impetus for writing, Kitty. The sickness carried off our local lion, Viscount Dauntry, and his only son, a lad of eleven. That was sad, to be sure, but it also produced an interregnum.There’s a daughter, but of course she can’t inherit, so no one knew who the heir was or, indeed, if there was one at all.
Now the new Lord Dauntry has arrived. He’s a very distant relation of the fifth viscount, who had no notion of being in line and has never been here before. By blessed good fortune, he and Andrew both attended Westminster School only a few years apart, though he was plain Braydon then.
Ah. A friendship with the new viscount might advance Reverend Lulworth’s career.
Dauntry has joined us to dine quite frequently in the weeks he’s been here, and thus we have become familiar with his situation.
At this point Ruth had run out of paper and begun the crosswise writing, so Kitty turned the page.
He did not rejoice to find himself a lord. He didn’t need the wealth or want the running of estates. To make matters worse, the late Lord Dauntry’s will makes his successor guardian of his daughter and imposes a duty to care for his mother, who lives on in the house. In short, Dauntry has decided he needs a sensible woman to assist him with these responsibilities. I immediately thought of you.
A laugh escaped. What was Ruth thinking of?
Then she read the next line.
It would mean you living close, Kitty. Only think of that!
Oh. Yes. Only think of that.
She and Ruth had met when they were both parlor boarders at school in Leamington. They’d become inseparable, but when they’d left school their paths had gone in different directions. Ruth had found employment as a governess. Kitty had returned home and soon been wooed into marriage by Marcus. They’d rarely met since, and not at all since Ruth’s marriage four years ago.
To be close again.
Wondrous, but surely impossible.
I know it would mean exchanging life as part of a noble family for one as a servant, but I have the feeling that you’re not entirely comfortably situated.
It was so like Ruth to read between the lines. Kitty had tried to put a bright face on her situation here, just as she had during her marriage, for she didn’t believe that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. It seemed to her that complaining of trials that couldn’t be changed was merely sharing the misery.
Was this a possible escape? What would this position be? Surely the girl had a governess. Was she to be companion to the elderly lady? That might be no better than being trapped with Lady Cateril—except that she’d be free of mourning and have Ruth nearby. There could even be weekly visits.
Kitty focused eagerly on the page again.
I put forward your name and explained why you might be suitable, which I confess involved a little exaggeration of your sober nature, but then Lord Dauntry shocked me by saying he’d resolved that the lady he needs must be his wife. My hopes were exploded.
Kitty’s were, too.
How could Ruth lead her on like that?
She crumpled the letter and threw it across the room. But Sillikin ran to retrieve it and bring it back to her, stub tail wagging.
“This isn’t a game, you foolish creature.”
But she took it, picking up the dog to hug. “I don’t suppose I’d have liked the position anyway. I’d have been a servant, no matter how it was dressed up, and with no other company than my lady, who could be even worse than Lady Cateril.” The dog licked her chin. “Yes, I know I have you. But would I be allowed to keep you?”
Sillikin turned to settle on Kitty’s lap, but pushed the letter sideways with her paws so it slid toward the floor. Kitty caught it and realized she’d not yet reached Ruth’s astonishing news. Perhaps that would raise her spirits. She smoothed the paper and found her place.
I was bold enough to ask why, and Dauntry pointed out that his ward is hard to handle and the dowager Lady Dauntry difficult in her grief. Then he asked if you would fulfill his requirements as wife.
