Chapter Twenty

Not since his school days had he been required to report to a certain place at a certain time upon pain of expulsion. He'd always thought of himself as an unstoppable force.

But the more time he spent in it, the more he could almost feel this sitting room at The Grand Palace on the Thames subtly reshaping him. Like an excellent mattress might both make a spine creak into alignment while absorbing the weight of his day. Or the way an ocean lapped away at a cliff. In his arrogance, all his life he had not thought he could be changed without his permission. He'd traditionally resented any attempts to try.

He would leave here understanding that his life had long been missing all the rests and grace notes that transformed noise into a symphony.

And he ought to leave straightaway.

He should find another room in another hotel, one without rules, and without a beautiful girl always in the periphery of his vision, leaning as she was now toward Mrs. Pariseau, as if she could hardly wait to hear the next sentence of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

Or chatting happily at the dinner table about riding in Rotten Row in Lord Holroyd's high-flyer.

They kindly, carefully skirted each other as if they each were human bruises. No one else seemed to notice. They passed gravy or jam as the case might be at the dinner table. They did not exchange words. This had gone on for a week and a half now, and he'd begun to think he would be able to endure it until he moved back into his home.

For his days were as full as ever, and his house repairs were coming along. The walls were restored; the roof would take longer. It would be at least two months, perhaps more, before it would be fully habitable again.

He wondered if Catherine would be engaged to Lord Vaughn by then.

Another breathless gossip item had appeared in the newspaper insinuating such an event might be imminent. The newspapers seemed to be basing this on very little more than a few dances, granted, but this had never stopped them from printing anything.

"Kirke, I've something to ask you," Mr. Delacorte said with great dignity. "It's a bit delicate."

One of his favorite things about The Grand Palace on the Thames was never knowing what might emerge from Mr. Delacorte's mouth.

"Given what I've learned about you in the past few weeks or so, I doubt very much that it's delicate, Delacorte."

"Ha ha! How do you feel about donkeys?"

"Fine beasts," Kirke replied, as if this was an ordinary question to ask of anybody.

"I don't suppose I could interest you in attending a donkey race with me?"

Kirke stared at him, eyebrows diving. "I don't know if our relationship has progressed beyond chess to the donkey race stage yet, Delacorte." He was only half-jesting.

"Only one way to find out," Mr. Delacorte coaxed.

Kirke studied him thoughtfully.

Mr. Delacorte seemed to be holding his breath.

"What does this entail?" He couldn't help himself: he was curious. "This donkey race?"

"It involves loud cheering and wagers and donkeys running. And drinking. From what I understand you're loud when you want to be."

"I am at that." Kirke was amused.

"If we leave now, we can get a spot close to the finish line."

He had the sense that Mr. Delacorte was crossing his fingers for hope and luck beneath the game table.

Suddenly, leaving this room seemed the wisest thing he could do. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. He flicked a glance at the back of Keating. For some ridiculous reason even the nape of her neck seemed poignant.

"I'll get my coat," he told Delacorte, who gave a delighted little hop.

In the wake of the Shillingford ball, Lady Wisterberg was consumed with the final preparations for their party, to be held within a week. She'd invited nearly seventy carefully curated (according to her standards) people. And all of them—all of them!—were coming.

Well, as of yesterday, all of them were coming save three, as three invitees had just regretfully informed Lady Wisterberg that they would not be able to attend, after all, and they were, to Catherine's relief, Miss Seaver and the Hackworths.

Oh, but that's to be expected with every party, Lady Wisterberg had said, airily. We shouldn't receive more than that.

Catherine had spent several mornings during the past week at Lady Wisterberg's town house with Lucy, pressed into helping to make decisions about flowers and menus and the order of dances, and whether they should hire someone to draw a fancy chalk design on the ballroom floor.

When the invitation to Lord Vaughn's friend's house party at last arrived—addressed to Catherine and Lucy—Lady Wisterberg had spent a moment speechless with glee and triumph, her hands clasped over her heart.

"Oh. My dear," she said, sounding subdued. Awestruck. "It's like a dream come true, isn't it?"

The young woman who had arrived in London a few short weeks ago would certainly have nodded in vigorous agreement.

Catherine knew what to do: she nodded. And she could, with a little effort, in fact muster a faint pang of genuine excitement, an echo of the enthusiasm with which she'd arrived in London. And given time, she might be able to fan it into a flame.

Surprisingly, no new invitations to balls or parties or picnics had yet arrived for her this week, but Lady Wisterberg wasn't concerned.

"Oh, it's probably just a lull, dear. After the Shillingford ball, everyone needs a bit of a rest," Lady Wisterberg said, comfortingly.

And now she lay stretched out on her bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep.

Now and again the floorboards above her creaked as he moved across the room.

Odd to think that she might never have another conversation with him. She had seen him only briefly this week. And there would come a day when she might not ever see him again.

He was impossible to forget. That was the trouble. But he was designed that way. And yet, perhaps it wasn't personal to her at all. The sun, after all, feels warm to everyone. She supposed that was the destiny of some people, to be felt far and wide.

Perhaps he was writing to his son.

She wondered if Anna, now married to another man, had thought about Dominic every day for seventeen years, even when she was in bed with her husband. Had she longed for him at night? Had she thought about him every time she looked at Leo? When and how had the longing for her first love ebbed, if circumstances were indeed as civilized as Dominic claimed? Had it at last felt merciful when the pain subsided, or had she been sad to realize the last of the old feeling was gone?

Had life seemed dull to Anna in the absence of that longing, or had she been relieved at last to be free of it, content with the life she'd made for herself? Had she truly managed to fall in love with the farmer she'd married?

Catherine couldn't quite shake the aching jealousy—perhaps it was more like envy?—she felt for Anna, who was the first and might be the last to ever have him. But it was undeniably tempered with compassion.

For how she must have suffered. Missing someone whom you know is gone forever was one thing. Missing someone while they still walked the earth was quite another.

And missing Lord Dominic Leo Kirke was something else altogether.

To know him when he was free and naive and passionate and open... who could have resisted him?

He had clearly never forgiven himself for a moment of passionate selfishness that had ruptured lives. But she could not seem to muster anything like the total censure he seemed to feel he deserved. He'd been so young. And thanks to him, she now understood how passion could be a temporary madness. One could be lectured about its risks, but like love or death, there was no true way to comprehend how overwhelming desire could be until one experienced it. For instance, in a garden, in the moonlight, with one's skirts hiked up.

She thought about Leo, and how he must feel about discovering that he and the brothers and sisters with whom he'd been raised had different fathers. She wondered how his brothers and sisters might feel about it. Was there relief, or a new loneliness in this, too, to learn he was different? He'd thought he'd known who he was his entire life. And suddenly he was new to himself, and to them.

Just like she was. Changed forever as a result of Lord Dominic Kirke.

She wondered if he yet knew how lucky he was to have Dominic as a father. The man who raised him no doubt truly was a good man. But now he also had a father who would surely go to the ends of the earth for him, and do it with fiery flair, should the need arise.

She thought she'd heard Dominic curse—a staccato rap of a word—which made her smile. Perhaps he'd stubbed a toe, or read something outrageous, or spilled ink.

And then, at last, for quite some time, it was very quiet.

Perhaps he'd gone to sleep.

She listened to the silence for a time.

On a surely irrational impulse, she slid out of her bed, and gently moved the little porcelain vase stuffed with blossoms from the desk to the floor.

And then she climbed up on the chair, gingerly. She spent a moment balancing, to make sure it could hold her weight. And then she took a step up onto the desk. Which brought her face just a little closer to the ceiling.

And she listened.

She just wanted to see if she could hear him breathing.

One could lead a horse to water but not compel it to drink; likewise, one could put a quill to paper, but not compel it to write. Kirke had inked up just the same, hoping tonight would be the night.

He moved the quill aimlessly in absent, wavy lines across the foolscap. Thinking, but not of his speech.

He'd never anticipated that he'd tell his oldest, darkest, most painful secret in broad daylight, in a sweetly blooming garden near the docks, to a clear-eyed girl more than a decade younger than he was. He'd felt a trifle unsteady since, a bit as though a fever had broken. He wasn't certain if he felt lighter, or freer, or just odd: it was a weight he'd borne so long, it almost felt as though it had affected his very posture. How would Atlas have felt if someone had lifted the world from his back? Grateful, or resentful of a loss of his purpose? Would he need to seek new meaning?

He'd told her in the spirit of honesty, to release the two of them from their feverish dalliance. To convey to her why it needed to end.

But he'd also told her because he wholly trusted her more than any other person he knew.

This realization shook him almost as much as telling her had.

He knew it was often impossible to trace an origin of a belief in something, whether it was in genies, ghosts, God, or the Whigs' chances of ever having a majority in Parliament. Was one born with a predisposition to a belief? Or was it shaped by circumstances? Instilled by upbringing? He'd told Keating that people's habits tend to mutate in unusual ways when they didn't have a useful occupation.

And maybe his useful mutation was just precisely what she'd suggested: the injustice done him—his lover and child and his right to be a father taken from him—had essentially forged him into what he was today. A justice seeker. A protector of innocents. That Catherine had indeed seen what happened to him as an injustice—that she hadn't looked at him with horror or judgment, but with compassion—had been a revelation, and he was reluctant to accept the unexpected grace of this. No part of him was yet willing to believe he deserved it.

She was giddy with plans for the party at Lady Wisterberg's; he'd overheard her discussing them in the sitting room. The party to which Lord Vaughn had also been invited. And now he realized part of the unsteadiness he felt was anticipation: soon enough some young man would claim her.

He had tried more than once to imagine what life would be like when that day came. But his mind encountered only blankness. As if the story of his life simply ended there.

He deliberately thought of it now, rehearsing for devastation. His heart obliged him, turning over hard in his chest. It felt like a jagged rock.

His quill screeched across the foolscap and he nearly fell out of his chair at the sound of an apocalyptic crash below.

Catherine yanked open her door at the sound of thumping.

Dominic's fearsome expression evolved into what looked like knee-buckling relief when she appeared. He flicked a swift inspecting gaze over her.

He was breathing like a bellows, and he looked ready to slay marauders.

"Dear God, did you break any bones?" he said.

"Oh—no—oh my goodness—I'm so sorry to disturb you."

He inspected her more closely, his eyes narrowed, to ascertain whether she was telling the truth.

And then there fell a little silence during which they stared at each other like awkward strangers.

Gradually, his eyes lit with amusement. "Were you cavorting again?"

She could feel herself flushing. "I was... standing on top of the desk."

There was something about being stared at by his dark eyes that compelled the truth out of her, no matter how mortifying.

"You were... standing on the desk," he repeated thoughtfully. "And then..."

"And then I slipped."

His eyebrows jabbed upward.

She cleared her throat. "And in order not to fall to the floor awkwardly, I was... I was compelled to take a sort of... a sort of great leap."

"A leap," he repeated, as if this was a fascinating, salient point.

"Whereupon I"—she swallowed—"landed. I skidded across the floor, and collided with the bedpost and then I..."

He gazed at her relentlessly.

"...fell to the floor," she admitted.

A long moment ensued during which he studied her, his expression rather a fascinating blend of things, one of which was clearly hilarity.

"Exactly how I pictured it," he said.

She gave a little shout of laughter, covered with her hand.

They regarded each other in somewhat fraught silence, while she held her shoulder with one hand, where it stung from the collision with the bedpost.

"Why were you standing on the desk?"

He asked as if anything she'd just said had been at all reasonable.

It was a long moment before she could reply. She could feel her face scorching now, but she knew she was going to tell him.

"I wanted to know if I could hear you breathing." Her voice was hoarse.

Ironically, in that moment, he visibly stopped breathing. Almost as though he took the words like a blow.

His face blazed briefly with light she could feel in her chest.

His features were screened quickly with caution.

"Could you?" he said carefully.

There was a little silence.

"I can now," she whispered.

He pressed his lips together. His face was unreadable now. But then his eyes flicked to her arm and his face registered concern.

"Catherine... your shoulder. You're holding it. How badly is it hurt?"

"It's just a bump. It will... it will fade in time." Unlike whatever happened to her when he was near.

Too late, they both realized he'd reflexively reached out to lay his hand against her shoulder by way of comfort.

They both froze.

And as though he was Midas, just like that he transformed her blood: not to gold, but to lava. She could feel its slow, hot progress through her veins.

She tipped her head until it rested on his hand, and closed her eyes.

"It feels better now," she said. Her voice was cracked. "Thank you."

She could hear him breathing more swiftly.

"Tell me to leave, Catherine. So help me God. Tell me." His voice was a scorched whisper.

Have mercy, he'd said.

But what about her? Where was the mercy for her, when she wanted him so very badly, and he was standing right in front of her?

"Close the door," she whispered.

He could interpret that any way he pleased.

When she heard the soft click of the door closing behind her, and he hadn't moved his hand from her arm, her heart launched into her throat.

She opened her eyes to see his fixed upon her, burning.

His hand still on her shoulder, he steered her slowly into the room until her back was against the wall. And he stood inches away from her, staring down into her face.

His eyes were almost angry. Mesmerized. Helpless. For a moment she was certain he half hated her.

In this moment of madness she didn't care. In a way, she half hated him, too, for making her want him.

As long as he didn't leave.

Her heart was slamming now.

She wanted to tear off her night rail and hurl it across the room so she could feel his body on hers. She knew she didn't dare.

She would not have stopped him if he chose to tear it from her, however.

They were so close she could feel his hardening cock at the juncture of her legs. She moved deliberately against him and watched his eyes flare to black.

And then he lunged. He scooped his hands beneath her buttocks and brought her hard up against his cock, and he buried his face in her neck. He lightly bit the place it joined her shoulder.

She gasped as shocking pleasure forked through her. And when he dragged his lips then his tongue to her ear and gently scraped the stubble of his beard over her tender skin, a low moan rose in her throat as pleasure sparked everywhere in her body.

She braced her hands against his shoulders.

Their hot breaths met in a gust between them as they deliberately ground against each other. Their eyes never leaving each other's faces. They were each intent on a swift, animalistic release. His cock was so hard even through his trousers it nearly hurt her to move against him, but it felt indescribably good. She was already close. "Yes," she rasped.

She could see herself in his pupils, wanton, her lips parted with her gusting breath, her body rocking as they collided with each other.

"Oh Christ," he rasped. His forehead was sheened in sweat.

Within moments her release ripped through with a blinding white light behind her eyes.

Her body whipped upward and her head fell back on a long, near silent scream. She would have crumpled, but he held her fast, driving himself relentlessly to his own release. And with several swift thrusts he came apart, on a groan shaped like her name. It racked him; she could feel his body quake, against her gripping fingers.

Almost at once they took their hands from each other, as though burnt and stunned. Chests heaving with violent breaths.

She was grateful for the wall to hold her up. She could not have done it on her own.

Her entire body rang from bliss. But his eyes on her were almost like wounds. Amazed and tender, but a trifle hostile, too.

He fleetingly covered them with his hand, a gesture of almost despair. As if the very sight of her blinded and overwhelmed him.

"I'm sorry," she nearly said. She didn't know why. She almost wanted to hit him in frustration.

Finally he cupped her face gently, briefly in his hand. She turned her cheek to fit into his palm, as if it was its natural home.

And then without another word he left her, closing the door quietly.