Storm (16 page)

* * * *

When Olivia and Kate rejoined the others in the dining room there was a noisy political debate in progress and it was not paused while the ladies took their seats. Clearly this family did not abide by the usual rules of polite society. They'd even begun to eat.

But Kate was somewhat relieved that no great notice was made of her reappearance. She slipped into her chair and placed a napkin in her lap, her pulse no longer quite so rapid.

She could manage this. She would have to, wouldn't she?

Sometimes a person never knew how strong they could be until they found themselves in a desperate situation and Kate knew that all too well.

Besides, had she not realized that eventually she would have to tell Storm all about her past? It wouldn't be fair to keep the truth from him.

She would just have preferred not to be rushed into it.

"My family would like to hear you sing after dinner," said Storm.

Thud. There went her heart again.

"But feel free to refuse if you have no desire to do so," he added. "I warned them you might not."

"I can play for you," Olivia exclaimed, smiling at her warmly. "I would love to hear you."

"Do say you will sing, Mrs. Kelly." Ransom Deverell studied her across the candles, sitting back in his chair, a man in control of her fate and very much enjoying himself. "We're in need of some new talent to entertain us."

She licked her dry lips. "Very well. After dinner."

Ransom smirked.

The bristling tension between him and Storm was palpable. She did not know what caused it, or what they had discussed while she was in the kitchen with Olivia.

Whatever else was said at the table that evening, she heard none of it. She could not even taste the food and enjoy it.

* * * *

Storm knew something was wrong. It was as if all the prideful stuffing had gone out of her and she was left hollow.

When they gathered in the drawing room again after dinner and she stood at the pianoforte preparing to sing, conferring with Olivia over the music selection, he thought her as beautiful as ever. But she was changed. Her eyes were blank, shuttered.

Ransom came over with his cigar and a snifter of brandy resting in his cupped fingers. "I must congratulate you, brother. Mrs. Kelly is quite stunning."

"As I said, we are just friends."

"But you must want more, surely. Or has my brother turned into a monk since I last saw him?"

He smiled grimly. "Not a monk. Just respecting her wishes."

"Really?" Ransom drew on his cigar, the tip burning bright for a moment. Then he blew out a circle of grey smoke and said softly, "That's a shame.
For you
."

Olivia played a few notes and then Kate began to sing. She did not look at anyone in the room, but seemed to focus on the wall above their heads. It was a lovely voice, soft and sweet, the notes lingering through his mind like a teasing caress. He liked it better though when she thought no one was listening. When he heard her and no one else did.

Ransom whispered, "I'm surprised you're not pursuing her. You gave up so easily."

Storm said nothing, gritting his teeth.

"But if you're not going to try, brother, you can't be angry if I do."

"Stay away from her." It shot out of him on a harsh breath but no one else heard. "She's not the sort of woman you play around with in London."

A low chuckle blew across his cheek, along with another gust of cigar smoke. "Is she not?"

"No. She's a respectable woman."

"Sakes! You really don't know, do you? I thought perhaps you were pretending. I can see I'll have to enlighten you."

"About what?" he snapped.

Ransom leaned close and whispered in his ear.

Chapter Fourteen

Kate sang two songs and then, when asked to sing a third, politely demurred, feigning the beginnings of a sore throat.

Olivia played on and she walked over to where Storm stood, one arm leaning on the mantle. He'd gone very quiet and unusually white. His eyes were cold as he looked at her. "I'm ready to leave," he said.

"Yes." She looked down at her hands.

With awful certainty she knew Ransom had told him. His brother now sat across the room watching them and sipping brandy, evidently pleased with himself for putting a cat among the pigeons. She was only surprised he hadn't made an announcement to the whole room. He struck her as the sort who would enjoy the attention and creating a ruckus.

"Is there anything you want to say to me?" she demanded boldly, facing Storm. "I sense there is something troubling you."

"It can wait. Until we're alone."

Shortly after this they said their goodbyes, Sims retrieved their coats, and within a half hour they were back in that little rowboat. The moon was full, reflected in the rippling surface of the dark water.

Music that Olivia had played kept running through her mind, starting over and stopping mid note. She couldn't make it finish.

At last he said, "Were you ever going to tell me,
Kitty
?"

She steadied her breath, but it seemed as if the boat was rocking more than it had done before, so it was necessary to grip the sides. "Yes. Of course."

"When?"

"Soon."

He looked away from her for a moment. The moonlight touched his profile with silver. She saw how tense his jaw was as he ground his teeth.

"When Flynn was born I needed work," she added, her fingers gripping the sides of the boat tighter. "I had been dismissed from the house where I worked, and they gave me no references. If I went to the workhouse they would have taken my son from me and I have no doubt he would have died there.
Failure to thrive
, as they call it when those poor children never come out again."

"So you performed on a stage, in a seedy room," he spat, heaving back on the oars even harder and making the boat yaw, water splashing up the side and dampening her coat. "Showing rich gentlemen your legs and more besides, if they paid you enough."

"I certainly did not!" Kate didn't know what she found most irritating— that his brother had obviously exaggerated, or that Storm suddenly decided to turn prudish. Men! Hypocrites, every one of them. "I sang on a stage, yes, but I—"

"In a revealing gown so that a roomful of drunks, crooks, rogues and gamblers could admire you."

"Flynn was sick. He needed medicine, clothes—"

"Did you let them
touch
you, these men for whom you performed?" He had stopped rowing, the oars up out of the water, his forearms on his thighs, leaning forward, his eyes fierce as those of a wild animal.

"No! Good God no! I told you the only man I ever knew that way was Flynn's father."

He stared hard at her, merciless. Now he spoke slowly, every word falling hard, thrown down between them. "How can I believe you now?"

She choked out her reply, "Because I'm here, aren't I? I would never have run away from that place if I was willing to sink so low."

"I do not know." He lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I do not know anything about who you really are. Or what you are."

"I'm the same woman I was earlier today."

"No. It's changed." He looked away again, his jaw hard and stubborn. "You kept me at arm's length," he hissed. "But not all those other men. I should have known when I saw those stockings—"

"I sang songs on a stage and sometimes I ate dinner with a gentleman who paid for me to sit with him. That's all I did."

"Sit with him," he yelled. "Sit with him?"

"Yes," she yelled back. "That was all. And thank the lord you're finally shouting. At last! I'd begun to think there was something seriously wrong with you!"

"I don't believe that's all that happened."

"Believe me or not, I don't care!" But she did care. It tore new holes in her heart that he was so ready to turn away from her. Tears burned in her eyes, anger boiled her blood.

"Ransom says you were very successful. Kitty Blue was very popular. He tried to hire you away from that place, but the manager wouldn't release you from the contract. He tried several times."

So that was why he had come to the Music Box to watch her perform.

"He recognized you immediately," Storm added, his tone bitter, his eyes on the horizon instead of her. "Said how unforgettable you were."

She realized she had bitten her tongue for there was blood in her mouth.

Storm gave a thin, hollow laugh. "And all this time...a
hat factory...
pretending to be celibate...so concerned of what people might think. Christ! What a fool I've been."

"You hypocrite!" Now she lost her temper. "You dare take the moral high ground with me? You— the man who believes in the
more the merrier
when it comes to women. A man who will marry no one for fear it might ruin his blissfully uncomplicated life of rutting about the countryside with any woman willing— any woman who expects nothing more from him but a quick tumble? A man who says whatever he wants, like an overgrown
boy
with no fear of recriminations. You think to turn your nose up at a woman trying to make a living and a life for her son?" She reached up and wrenched the velvet choker from her throat. "Here take your blasted gift and may it
choke
you
!" She threw it at him.

Storm put up his hand to catch it and missed. It fell into the water with a splat.

The boat rocked hazardously as he leaned over to reach the butterfly, where it gleamed there on the surface for just a moment. He cursed, still straining to reach it. "Damn woman! Look what you've done. That's the last time I buy a bloody gift for a wretched, ungrateful wench!"

"I didn't even want it. I hate it, and I hate you. Row me to the shore at once and we need never see one another again."

Flynn would be upset. Oh well, life was full of disappointments and he may as well get used to it. Start expecting the worst of people now, before he too got hurt.

Storm was trying to reach the choker with the end of an oar, still muttering curses under his breath. "I would gladly leave you alone, woman, but as I told you once, it's a man's duty to get reckless, giddy females out of the puddles in which they find themselves. You need me."

"So you're my Knight in Shabby Armor?" she shouted scathingly. "Don't put yourself out. And for pity's sake leave that ugly thing and let the Bumble Trout eat it!" she spat.

But he ignored her.

Kate decided she wouldn't wait any longer for him to start rowing. She didn't want to spend another moment in his company. But as she got to her feet in the perilously unsteady boat, she couldn't see how far it was to the shore, or guess how deep the water might be there.

"Sit down, woman! I swear, if you overturn this boat I'll —"

The warning came too late. The boat tipped too far to be saved. With a loud splash they both tumbled into the water.

* * * *

He panicked. They were still a long way from the bay and he knew she couldn't swim. In that gown she had even less chance. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her.

Then the panic passed and survival instincts came to the fore. Under the water he stripped off his own coat which would have hampered his stroke and then swam for where she was sinking and flailing, bubbles all around her.

One arm around her waist, he pulled her to his side and brought her to the surface. She flung her head back, hair dripping over her face, clinging across her mouth. She sputtered, spitting water and seaweed.

"Let me go," she screamed. "Get off me, you heinous person."

But he swam for the boat, dragging her with him. He yelled at her to grab hold of the upturned, bobbing vessel and she complied. Her soaking wet gown must have been heavy for she gave up kicking, finally. After bruising him severely in a few tender places. Mayhap he deserved that.

"I'm never going in a boat again," she shouted. "I hate the sea."

Apparently she hated everything now.

He saved his breath for the swim back to shore, towing the boat and her after him. The oars were lost, but hopefully they would turn up on the tide line. Or they might float along to Roscarrock Island. At that moment the boat oars were of little concern. His heart thumped hard with the shock and sudden exertion, but it was also exhilarating. Nothing like a near drowning to put things in perspective, he mused.

If it hadn't been Ransom who broke the news to him, would it have felt so very bad? Was it the suddenness and the way it came out that bothered him most? Or the man who delivered it so callously?

He'd seen red when his brother told him about 'Kitty' and described her seductive act, the way she teased the audience. Aloof and aristocratic in her delivery, yet conveying enough promise to keep them coming back for more.

That red rage had faded now, softened and blurred at the edges.

She had left that world behind her for a fresh start.

And the truth was, he didn't want to lose her.

He wanted to keep this woman and nothing else mattered. She could scream at him and hate him. He'd get over it.

Once his boots touched the sandy bed, he stood upright, turned the boat over and hauled her into it. She lay there with her skirt caught on the wooden oar rest, breathing hard, obviously too spent to keep shouting at him. Slowly he pulled the boat to shore.

* * * *

When she fell into the water she thought she would die. Her gown dragged her under and wrapped around her legs. She could do nothing. She would drown and Flynn would be an orphan.

Pray God someone kind took him in. Olivia perhaps. Yes, Olivia. Dear Olivia.

Would her carcass wash ashore with the seaweed and old fishing nets? Her eyes would doubtless be pecked out by gulls before anybody found her. She'd be buried in a pauper's grave because no one would know about the money in the spinet.

Who could she have told about that? No one. So there it would sit.

Unless, by chance, someone opened the spinet to fix it and then found the strange contents. Her thievery would be exposed and she wouldn't be there to speak up for herself, to explain that it was rightfully hers.

As for Storm Deverell— he would shake his head and say, "
I knew there was something about her. Told me she once worked in a hat factory. As if I could believe that. She kissed me once, brazen as you please. But she was a hussy, a harlot. That's what my brother told me
."

And on her grave the stonemason would carve: Beware small boats on rough seas and the men who sail aboard them.

The man responsible for her drowning would go on with his "simple" life and forget all about her. Perhaps one day he'd marry Sally White and have a dozen brats with rosy cheeks and fair curls.

Suddenly his arm had come around her waist and then he was dragging her up to the surface. To air and to life.

Flynn would not be orphaned. Her eyeballs would not be pecked out.

When the boat finally came to a halt on the sand and he stood there looking down at her, the moon was behind his big stupid head so that it gave him a most unlikely halo.

Sopping wet, limp as an old dust rag, she could only lay there hating him, softly cursing under her breath, while he hauled her over his shoulder and carried her to his cart.

* * * *

When they arrived at her gate, he halted the horses and then lifted her out. Her gown was still wet, the shoulder torn, exposing part of her corset and chemise. The skirt and petticoat was ripped too, all the way to her thigh. Before tonight he would have tried not to look. He didn't bother now, but looked his fill.

She primly held the pieces together with one hand and stumbled against the gate because she'd lost one of her shoes in the sea.

"Goodbye, Mr. Deverell," she said, her voice hoarse. "I think it best if we avoid one another from now on. Don't bother fetching my son from the Smith's tomorrow. I'll get him myself."

"Marry me."

What the hell was he doing? What had he said? Was he drunk?

He swept his wet hair back with one hand and stared at her.

The woman kept walking as if he hadn't spoken.

Perhaps it was just as well. He should get back up in his seat and ride away at speed. Pretend he never said it. Never let the thought creep in.

But he couldn't.

"Marry me," he said, louder this time.

She stopped and turned slowly, still holding the torn pieces of her skirt together. The soft material that had earlier cosseted her breasts, tempting his gaze— and his bloody brother's— drifted downward like a sad flag of surrender. The moonlight kissed those two full mounds where they rose up from the edge of her bodice, no longer protected from his lusty admiration by that flimsy layer of fabric.

He needed this woman in his house, to see her every day, and lay with her every night. Simple. She'd just been trying to complicate it. Or he had.

"I want you to marry me," he shouted. Christ, maybe he
was
drunk.

Her lips parted slowly, as if they weren't sure how to form words. "No, thank you," she managed finally. "Good evening."

"What?" Storm strode across the yard toward her. "You'd better marry me, or else."

She swayed backward, eyebrows elegantly arched. "Or else what?"

Suddenly he realized something was cutting into his palm. He looked down and opened his hand. The butterfly choker. He must have grabbed hold of it in the water without realizing.

"Oh! You found it." As she spoke, her slender, white-gloved fingers reached for it.

His fist closed over it again, almost catching her fingertips. "Say 'yes' first." He stuck out his jaw, feeling extremely belligerent. "Say you'll marry me."

She blinked. "I know what you're doing." She put up her chin, pert and haughty again despite her bedraggled appearance. "Now you think you have to save me. You think I need you to rescue me again. Poor Kate needs a man to make her respectable now that everyone will know she was just a bad actress in a tawdry supper room, showing her ankles and singing daft songs. Well, I don't need rescuing. I don't need
you
."

"I just saved your life," he growled.

"Yes. Thank you for that."

"That's all you have to say? I'm your
Knight in Shabby Armor
, whether you like it or not!"

"Sir." She squared her shoulders and the thin material fell further, neglecting its duty. He could almost see her nipples. He rubbed his mouth with one hand. "Shortly before we fell overboard from that rotten little boat," she continued, "you inferred that I am a wicked woman of easy virtue and no morals. I can only assume the subsequent tip into the sea caused you to bang your insufferably big head and thus feel the need to propose marriage to a woman you just roundly insulted. Either that or you drank too much wine at dinner."

"I am perfectly sober and sane. And I know what I want. Since I'm a Deverell, you must know I always get it." There, take that, woman! He knew she didn't have any weapons with her at that moment, other than her tongue. That gown revealed everything.

"I'm never going to marry and let some bumptious man reign over me, and I wouldn't marry
you
if you were the last man on the moor and the Queen decreed it. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to go in and change into dry clothes."

He lunged forward to stop her, but in so doing his foot caught on a dragging section of her skirt and, as she moved away at the same time, the silk was ripped clean off at the pleating. Now her left leg was exposed from the hip down, as was the lower portion of her left cheek. She spun around, trying to hide it.

"Too late." He laughed huskily, pulling her against him. "Now you have to marry me, Kate."

She shoved him back with a firm poke of her elbow, which was decidedly pointy. "It's a pity you don't know me better. If you did, you'd be well aware that I don't believe in ‘have to’. My father found that out when I refused to settle for a life he'd picked out for me. Flynn's father found that out when he wanted me to be his mistress and stand in the shadows behind the woman he
had
to marry. And Albert Soames of the Music Box supper room found that out when he tried to keep me under his thumb with a contract."

The heat she gave off was surely enough to dry his clothes and hers too. "Well, those men weren't me," he said quietly, stepping closer to her as she backed up against the ivy by her door. "You told me once before that I'm nothing like the other men you've known. Remember?"

She faltered, her face flushed.

"I'm patient. I won't try to force you. I've got all the time in the world to wait for you to fall in love with me. But I will get what I want. Eventually."