A Taste of Honey (28 page)

“Maybe we should talk about something else,” she suggested with a shaky laugh.

“I thought you were enjoying our conversation,” he dipped his head close to her throat as if he were about to kiss her.

“Garrett please don't...”

“It's fine Kat, I was only joking.”

She thought about telling him not to call her Kat, but she knew that he wouldn't listen.

“Winnie has told me that you love to read.” He changed the subject for both of their sakes.

After a moment Katherine nodded her head.  “I love reading.”

“You should visit our estate sometime,” he suggested.  “I think you'd enjoy how many original printings that my father was able to collect over the years.”

“Winnie has been telling me about your library,” Katherine admitted.  “I would love to see it some time.”

“If your sister does become engaged tonight we should plan a trip with Winnie to escape to the country for a few weeks.  I'd even let the two of you go horseback riding without me assaulting you,” he promised.

Katherine began to feel a dreamy sense of contentment in his arms as she danced with him.  They talked to each other easily and even lapsed into a calm silence without feeling awkward.  Perhaps there was a chance that more could exist between them besides those moments of wild passion; something more comfortable and trusting.

“What were you saying?” she asked softly as she realized that he had spoken.  The song ended before he could tell her and Katherine tried not to pout as the warmth of his body was removed from hers.  After placing a small kiss on the back of her hand, Garrett allowed her to drift away.

Before they had left the center of the room Robin came running over to them, taking Katherine quickly by the hand as she pulled her from the room and out of earshot.  “What was that!?” Robin demanded angrily.

“What are you talking about?” Katherine asked annoyed at her sister's tone and still blushing from Garrett's chaste kiss that mirrored the one he had given her days before after riding with her on the horse.

“Everyone saw the way that you danced with Garrett.  You may as well have been kissing the whole time too!  We've talked about him; he's a bad choice for you to be seen with.  Mother would be very disappointed as well,” Robin hissed as she straightened her dress and repositioned her fake smile as she readied to return to Victor.

“You hate Victor, don't you?” Katherine asked bluntly to stop her sister from leaving.

“He is rich enough for that to not matter,” Robin started to say but Katherine had endured enough and she cut her sister off.

“I don't care how rich he is.  If his money is all that you want then you will find yourself miserable in a matter of months.  The only thing truly making you happy is how much everyone else doesn't want you to marry him,” she accused, voicing the fears that she had already been considering.  “You chose him because you knew that mother and father and everyone else would not approve.”

Robin's chin quivered as she listened to her sister's rants.  A tear produced at the edge of her eyes and slowly ran down to her chin.  Usually the sight of Robin crying caused Katherine to pull back and lessen her assault.  This time it inspired her to only drive deeper.  Perhaps being faced with the pain and consequences of her decision would be the only way to shake Robin out of making the worst decision of her life.

“You could choose someone who would make you happy, a husband that you wanted to be around.  Instead you picked Victor, knowing that he would cause the scandals and attention that you crave.  I have been willing to sacrifice my happiness by marring Kent instead of Garrett, simply to save our family should anything ever happen to father.  But you, you would choose to marry someone out of spite.”  There were other, crueler things that popped into her mind at that moment but with a sharp exhale of breath Katherine decided that it was not worth fighting with her sister.  It only made it more likely that Robin would lash out and do something worse.  She stopped her sister from responding by simply walking away.

Only moments later, Katherine saw Robin return to her fiancé and his guests with a smile broader than ever.  Robin was such a good actress that Katherine worried she was starting to fool herself into thinking that she was happy.  The sight made her miserable.

The wine had been watered down for the party and Katherine wondered how many it would take for her to get drunk enough that she wouldn't care about Robin throwing her one chance at happiness away.  She considered going to Kent for some brandy, but that seemed out of the question.

There were three more dances that followed, of which Robin and Victor danced every one, while Katherine moodily claimed her ankle was hurting again and tried to disappear away from the crowds.  It was then that Victor stepped forward and rose his glass to make an announcement.

It was exactly what Katherine had feared was coming.

“I would like to introduce tonight, the future Mrs. Victor Sullivan!” he cried out as he pulled Robin forward.  She acted her part superbly, even smiling up at him lovingly as the crowd toasted to their future and wished them great happiness and many children.

If only it was real, Katherine thought, as she gulped the champagne that she had been handed to toast to the new couple.

“You shouldn't drink that so quickly,” Kent chided, as he pulled the glass from her fingers, despite the fact that it was empty. “You're not happy for your sister, are you?” he asked, believing that he was more perceptive than he was.

Katherine discovered that she might have already had too much to drink after the two glasses of watered down wine and her recent glass of champagne as she answered, “No I'm not happy at all,” before blushing shyly.  “She doesn't love him,” she explained, as if it was the craziest thing that she had ever heard.

“You want the best for your sister,” he stated, rather than asked.  “But why demand that she find something that might not even exist?”

That jolted Katherine out of her thoughts.  “You mean love?  You don't believe in love, do you?”

Kent
knew that he had touched a nerve
.  “Of course I do.  I just don't believe in this new notion that everyone has now, that if you don't marry for love you'll never be happy.  Victor is rich enough that your sister will never want for anything.  It seems to me that what he can offer her will make your sister happy.”

She refused to argue with him when it was the same thing that her sister had been saying.  But it was all so cynical, especially when it was coming from a potential future husband.  “Do you think that you could be happy without love?” she asked watching him closely for his answer.

It took him too long to answer, as if he had to think through how he should answer her.  “From what I have seen, deep friendships can be far more beneficial to a marriage than passionate love.  The kind of love that poets and romantics speak of tends to die away.  A firm and growing friendship is more likely to last.”

At one point, Katherine might have agreed with him, but she had experienced too much over the past few weeks.  She knew that with Garrett she could find love and now she faced the knowledge that with Kent she might not.  Looking at his face she didn't have to ask if he saw their future as one of friendship and not passion.  The term 'friendship' had never seemed like such a disappointing word, until now.  “I'd like to go outside,” she told him unsteadily.

He set their glasses on one of the trays before taking her hand and wrapping it around his arm.  The night air was crisp with a chill that often occurred right before it rained.  It rushed into her lungs, making her feel slightly dizzy and she clasped the railing to keep herself steady.

“I would like to take care of you,” Kent told her as he held her shoulders in his hands, rubbing a tense spot at the top of her spine with his thumb.  It was pleasant, but nothing like how Garrett's touch made her feel.

“But you would never love me.”

“Maybe one day we would have something akin to that, but I don't...”

Katherine placed her finger over his lips to keep him from speaking.  His words erased the illusion that she had created for herself, that marrying Kent would not be her settling for an unhappy marriage.  “Just kiss me,” she told him, grateful that she was drunk enough that she had no qualms about being so bold.

Kent turned her carefully in his arms and tilted her face so that it was at the perfect angle.  Her ey
es slid closed as his face
drew in and his breath fanned her cheek.  He held her tight to him as his lips brushed against hers before his tongue drove into her mouth.

A slug.

Her sister's description seemed to make sense as she let Kent expertly run his tongue along her teeth and into the velvety warm center of her mouth.  She had to admit that he wasn't doing it wrong.  She even recognized some of the same movements that Garrett had once used on her.  Yet when Kent did it, she felt nothing, none of the sparks and excitement that she experienced with Garrett.  There was nothing that felt like the start of love between them.

He would be safe, she would never lose her heart, but kissing him there beneath the moonlight, she felt a mixture of fear and anger welling up inside of her.  It wasn't fair that she had to choose between disobeying her mother or marrying someone safe like Kent who she would never feel anything for but friendship.

As soon as he'd said it, she knew that it was all that they had together.  If she married Kent then she would be just as unhappily married as her sister.  Yet she wouldn't allow herself to compare Robin's situation to hers.  Robin had set out to find someone that would never touch her emotions and she could keep them locked away safely.  Katherine had never intended to find someone like that.  A part of her had always hoped that she could find some way to fall in love with Kent.

Slowly pulling herself away, Katherine ended the kiss and opened her eyes to smile kindly up at him.  In many ways he was more handsome than Garrett, taller with perfectly set features, a larger, more masculine body.  But that didn't seem to matter to her.

As if thinking about him had made him materialize, Katherine saw Garrett as he strode out of the ballroom door and caught her eye before walking off into the garden behind them. Kent murmured softly in her ear and she realized that he had not seen Garrett pass by them and motion to her.

“I need some time to think about things,” she told him as she stepped back further and towards the garden where Garrett had disappeared to.  He moved to follow her but she held up her hand to stop him.  “No, please Kent, just give me a moment alone.”  He nodded briskly before turning back into the ballroom.

Once she was alone Katherine followed the path that she had seen Garrett take.  With every step she became more and more upset with how things were going that night.  Her sister was marrying a man she would never care for, and because of that their relationship was further strained than ever before.  She was considering disobeying her mother and would risk being cut out from her family's life forever.  And the one titled man that she had received a proposal from didn't really love her.  She now knew that she would never love him.  All of this welled up inside of her until she felt like she would burst with all of her contained emotions.  When she finally found Garrett leaning casually against the same statue of cupid that she had seen Kent at earlier that day, she felt her anger pique.

Even from the distance of twenty feet, she could feel the pull between them.  The unquestioning desire that built upon itself, until she wanted nothing more than to go to him and feel the comfort of his embrace.  Even that angered her.

Before fully understanding what drove her to do so Katherine hurled herself at him with a scream.  She beat his chest with her tiny fists as she let all of her rage, fear and desire overflow into the type of tantrums that she had seen her sister engage in, but she had never allowed herself to commit.  Tears streamed from her eyes as she cursed at him with every foul word that she had ever heard spoken, even those that she did not fully understand the meaning of.

Her wrists were easily caught in each of his hands as he pulled them up to wrap around the back of his neck.  Garrett held her tight as her rage crumbled into a horde of tears that she sobbed against his jacket front.  After a moment he began rubbing soothing circles along her back to quiet her crying.

“Hush Kat, it's alright,” he whispered close to her ear as he held her tightly, trying to calm her tears and absorb her pain.

New tremors pulsed through her body as she felt herself react to his touch in a way that she could not react to anyone but him.  Katherine gripped him tightly in her arms.  Pulling his head down she sought his lips with her own and plunged her tongue inside his mouth, tasting and feeling the textures within.

Her body sighed against his as he expertly slid his own tongue along her lower lip and his hand slid to her neck, caressing the soft flesh in gentle strokes.  She needed this.  It didn't seem to frighten her as much as the fear of never being able to have this again.  It was not just the raw emotions nor any physical act that she was craving, it was Garrett himself that she needed and felt that she couldn't live without.

His arm wrapped around her back, supporting her weight as he leaned her head backward, breaking the kiss and feverishly pressing his lips and lightly biting teeth along her delicate neck, licking at the pulse he found along the way to her ear before circling his tongue inside of the hollow.  Katherine sighed against his neck, while her hands turned into clawing vices, trying to pull him closer and securely around her as she used him for strength, comfort and her own desire.