“Not formally in a church ledger, no. However, he would have returned to us if he could.He may have been absent most of my life, but headoredus.” That was one thing she knew about her father. “Everything was very special when he was home. He taught my sisters and me all his favorite card games. I’m not a good gambler, but Gwendolyn knows every trick.”
“Gwendolyn is a sister?”
“My oldest. The next one is Dara. She just recently married.” More words that sounded simple and weren’t.
“And you are traveling back to your Gram?”
Her heart turned heavy. “She died a little over a year ago.”
“Elise, why are you traveling alone? Why wouldn’t a sister be with you?”
“It is complicated.”
“It’s not,” he countered. “You shouldn’t be out in the world without an escort. Your complaints were exactly correct. We men think every woman should be ours for the taking, especially when the woman is young and attractive. We are louts. There are more Tommys lying in wait.”
“I’ll be more cautious in the future,” she insisted. Who was he to tell her what she could and couldn’t do? “I’ll also be safer in Ireland.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“There it is again. That wordfine. You use it every time I say something you don’t like.”
“I’mnotreturning to London,” she answered.“I can’t.” Her anger at Dara was easing, but the source of it was not forgotten.
He made an impatient sound. “You can. You are just too stubborn to. Your sisters should never have ever let you go off alone.”
“They don’t know where I am,” she shot back.
That seemed to shock him. He sat straighter. “They don’t know you are traipsing around England?”
“You traipse around England,” she said.
“I’m male—” he countered as if that carried the weight of the world, and then caught himself. There was a beat of silence between them. Then he said in the patient tone of someone explaining to someone who was simple, or obstinate, “Yes, you are right. Men can do as they wish. That doesn’t mean women don’t need protection.”
“But that is unfair.”
“No,” he countered as if he was being reasonable. “That is just the world we live in, Elise. Right or wrong, those are facts.”
“I refuse to acknowledge those facts. Why, if I listened to you, my sisters and I would never have gone to London.”
“Except now you are returning to Ireland. Where is the logic in that?”
“Your arguments make my eyes cross. No one tellsyouwhere you can go. Or insists you have a chaperone at all times.”
“No one tries to climb under my skirts or takeme captive. The other night the coachman made a suggestion that was so foul, I wanted to choke the life out of him.”
The suggestion had been shocking, but Elise could not afford to admit it. “You do not need to worry about me.”
“Of course I do. You are the most stubborn, willful woman I’ve ever met. But if Our Maker had wanted you to do as you please, He would have given you something more between your legs.”
Elise didn’t miss a beat. “PerhapsSheshould have.”
Kit shook his head as if he hadn’t heard her correctly, paused, and then he burst into laughter.
Elise was ready to take offense. Was it so difficult to consider that a higher power could be female? After all, the ancients had many goddesses. She and Lady Whitby had put forth this argument several times at her ladyship’s afternoon salons.
But before Elise could expound upon her opinions, he said, “Damn, Elise. You are an Original. PerhapsSheshould have,” he repeated. “And you are right. You should be able to travel where you wish without worry.”
