Page 74 of A Prince Among Pirates
She smiles. “Forgive me. I should have realized you’d be… indisposed. I just had to come see for myself. You really are here.”
“Ah… yes. And you’re… you…”
She follows my gaze to her belly. “They say I’m due in March,” she says.
I grimace at the timing. March, the anniversary of when we were meant to be wed.
“Congratulations,” is all I can manage.
“You’ve grown taller,” she says, ignoring my offer of good tiding. Fair enough; I deserve that.
“Have I?”
She steps into the room, and I am all too aware of the impropriety of us being alone like this. It shouldn’t bother me; it wouldn’t have bothered me eight months ago. I would have reveled in it—but now, something has changed.
Ihave changed.
I take a step back. “I’m not dressed, Katherine—if someone—”
“Kitty.”
“What?”
“I’ve told you to call me Kitty, remember?”
Oh God. “Ah. Yes. Kitty.”
“It’s all right. No one will be in here for some time; they’re letting you rest.” She walks over to the armoire at the far end of the room and opens both doors. “There should be clothing in here that will fit you, if you’d like to dress.” She turns to me with a coy smile—an expression I have never seen on her once-innocent features.
I rather like this new Kitty.
“Is my father here?” I ask as I approach the armoire, careful to leave an appropriate distance between us.
She bites her lip as she considers my question, though I’m not sure what’s so complicated about a simple yes or no. “Yes.”
“Is he with the king?”
Another hesitation. “Yes.”
I frown at her, but she turns away from me to sift through the silks inside the armoire.
“Ah!” she says, before I can question her further. “This here.This was always your color.” She pulls out an emerald-green jacket with gold and blush embroidery along the front and cuffs, then crosses the room to lay it out on the bed. “I always loved you in green. It matches your eyes so well.”
My eyes are not, and never have been, emerald green. They are a drab olive if anything, and more brown than that. But I don’t argue with her. I simply take a gold waistcoat from the armoire and join her at the foot of the bed, where she has opened a large trunk. She is about to kneel to reach into it when I lay a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “I’ll do it.”
She smiles appreciatively and steps back. “I’ll give you a moment to change,” she says. “Join me in the drawing room when you’re done. I’ve brought tea and sandwiches.”
Again she has surprised me. The Kitty I once knew always seemed nothing more than a handsome dowry and a pretty ornament on my arm. What a cad I was to think those things of her. I nod, and she leaves the bedroom in a whirlwind of ivory silks, closing the door behind her.
For a moment I can do nothing but stare at the ghost of her in the shuttered doorframe. Have I imagined her, or is this really happening? I am beginning to wonder if I died two weeks ago on theDeliverancefrom falling bits of wood and this is some kind of strange purgatory, testing me.
Shaking those thoughts from my head, I dig through the trunk until I find a pair of white stockings and breeches to match the jacket. I make quick work of dressing and slide into the shoes I was wearing before, even if they are a little worn anda little snug. After one deep breath, and a grumble of my stomach, I step out of the bedchamber and into the drawing room, where Kitty is sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hand, watching the fire.
Not a dream, then.
I cross the room and bow to her properly, as I should have when she first entered the room. She is, after all, higher ranking than me—and a lady. I take her hand and press a kiss to her knuckles, where someone else’s wedding ring gleams over her white glove.
“Who’s the lucky gentleman who won your heart?” I’m such a rake—it hadn’t occurred to me that she might have fancied someone other than myself.
