Just as he’d known I would, I’d agreed to marry him. Not out of misplaced girlish infatuation, but to protect the people I cared about. My hope had been that he’d drink himself to death before too long, leaving me free to navigate society as a widow. Unmarried but unbound by the rules that governed debutantes.
Darcy tracking us down and putting a stop to things could have proved disastrous. Wickham still had his blackmail material and hadn’t won his prize. I could assume onlythat he was so relieved to have escaped my brother’s wrath with his life that he knew better than to test it again so soon. Helena had married her viscount, and Wickham’s place in society left him unable to touch her, but he could still destroy my life if he chose to. Refusing to think of him was the only way I kept calm about it.
That was the version I told Kitty. After the first time her face morphed into a mask of horror, I delivered the rest of the story to the sleeve of her dress. It was too overwhelming to take in her reactions visually, but I felt them through her fingers with each squeeze of my hand. She didn’t let go for the whole time I spoke.
Once I was done, silence lingered for several moments until she finally whispered a question, like it pained her to even consider it.
“Did he… ? I mean, were you hurt?”
The words themselves were vague, but the meaning was perfectly clear. Exactly how much had Wickham tried to take, or succeeded in taking, from me?
“No,” I assured her honestly. “I think he thought he was being a perfectly upstanding gentleman.”
“He was extorting you!” Kitty protested.
“I did do something wrong,” I said with a shrug.
“No.” Her tone was resolute. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
I could not help the burst of hope in my chest. If kissing Helena had not been wrong, kissing Kitty couldn’t be wrong, either. It seemed unwise to push the idea if Kitty hadyet to land upon it herself, so I just watched her, waiting. She chewed on her lip, clearly debating something, but when she finally spoke, it was not what I expected.
“Did you love Helena?Doyou love her?” she asked.
She was jealous. I had to fight to suppress my smile as I took in the hard set of her jaw and the clench of her fingers. Everything with Helena had happened so long ago that I thought of her only in the past. Even after the business with Wickham had settled and I no longer felt the need to keep away from her for her own good, our lives had gone down entirely different paths. Other than the secret of that one stolen, interrupted moment, we would likely have little to talk about over tea.
“I have not seen her in almost two years. She is married, and I think is now a mother,” I explained gently. Boldly, I traced my thumb down Kitty’s jaw.
“But do you love her?” Kitty insisted, seemingly desperate for confirmation.
“No.”
I thought perhaps that would be the end of things. She had her answer, explicitly stated, and I assumed that was enough to settle the line of inquisition. Until she asked something else, something I had not expected.
“Do you love me?”
My breath caught in my throat, and a few seconds of hindered breathing made me feel lightheaded.
“You have ignored me,” I reminded her. “The whole time I have been here. We…” I looked out into the forest, unsurehow sensible it was to speak so freely in a place where we could so easily be overheard by someone hiding amongst the trees. I’d been candid about my history with Helena, but that did not incriminate Kitty in the potential earshot of her family. “After what happened in the grotto, and that letter, you have barely looked at me.”
“I know,” she said, her voice quiet and cracked. “It is no excuse, but I was… frightened. I have never done anything like that before.”
I was not entirely void of sympathy for the notion, but I still vividly recalled the agony of the past few days. If she’d voiced her worries sooner, having this conversation days prior could have alleviated so much of that pain for both of us.
“You were the one who chose to do it,” I reminded her, taking the gamble that our actions in the shell grotto were as emblazoned onto her brain as they were onto mine.
“I know.” She was even quieter, forcing me to strain my ears to hear her words. “I told you, in that letter, that I didn’t understand these feelings, and I don’t. But I don’t regret it, George. What we did that night. I regret how I’ve acted since you’ve been here, but nothing else. Being around my family unsettled some of the things I thought I was sure of, I have to admit to that, but now you’re here and I can look at you and touch you…” She tugged my fingers to her lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “I am so sure of them.”
“Do you love me?” I asked, boldly.
She did not skip a beat.
“Yes.”
The intensity behind the word surprised us both. It was impossible not to trace Kitty’s bashful smile with the tip of my index finger, trying to memorise the shape.
“Even when I was trying to keep my distance, I couldn’t help but leave you flowers,” she said, her fingers skimming over the hair ribbons laced around my wrist. “I had to express my affections for you somehow, or else they were going to overwhelm me. But now, if you have no objections, I’d prefer to express them like this.”
She moved slowly, giving me plenty of time to move away or ask her to stop, but all I wanted to do was haul her closer as quickly as I could. I forced myself to stay put, letting her come to me. That seemed important. When she finally kissed me, it was worth the wait.
