“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “And at any rate, I don’t know what it is.”
“John,” he said, and he tried to remember the last time anyone had called him such. His mother did, but only occasionally. His friends all called him Bret. He thought of himself as Bret. But as he looked at Catriona Burns, who had already shifted herself to a sitting position on the chaise, he wondered what it would be like to have someone in his life who would call him John.
“I heard Lord Oakley call you Bret,” Catriona said.
“Many people do,” he said with a small shrug. He looked down, finding it suddenly awkward to meet her gaze. The conversation had made him wistful, almost self-conscious—a sensation to which he had never been accustomed.
But this feeling that seemed to wash over him whenever he was with Catriona—it was growing, changing. He’d thought it lust, then desire, and then something that was far, far sweeter. But now, swirling amid all this was an unfamiliar longing. For her, certainly for her, but also for something else. For a feeling, for an existence.
For someone to know him, completely.
And the strangest part was, he wasn’t scared.
“I couldn’t possibly call you Bret in front of the others,” Catriona said, pulling his attention back to her face.
“No,” he agreed softly. It would be improper in the extreme, not that anything in the past day had been proper, normal, or customary.
“And I should not call you Bret when we are alone,” she added, but there was the tiniest question in her voice.
He brought her hand to his lips. “I would not want that.”
Her eyes widened with surprise, and—dare he hope it?—disappointment. “You wouldn’t?”
“John,” he said, with quiet determination. “You must call me John.”
“But nobody else does,” she whispered.
He gazed at her over her hand, thinking he could stare at her forever. “I know,” he said, and at that moment something within him shifted. He knew—and by all that was holy, he hoped she knew, too—that their lives would never be the same.
Catriona stopped at her small garret before making her way to Fiona’s bedchamber for tea. She needed a moment. She needed a thousand moments.
She needed to breathe.
She needed to think.
She needed to find a way to face her friends and speak like a normal human being.
Because she did not feel like a normal human being, and she very much feared that Fiona and Lady Cecily would take one look at her and know that she’d been kissing the Duke of Bretton in the sitting room with the door open, and before he’d finally pulled away, his hands had been on her skin, and she’d liked it.
Good God above, she’d liked it.
If he hadn’t stopped, she didn’t know if she could have done so. But he had lifted his lips from hers, cradled her face in his hands, and looked into her eyes with such tenderness. And then he’d whispered, “Say my name.”
“John.” She’d barely been able to make a sound, but he was staring at her lips; surely he’d seen his name upon them.
He’d taken her hand, helped her to her feet, and said something about her joining the other ladies before they became concerned. Then he bowed and headed to the nearest exit.
“You’re going outside?” she asked. “It’s freezing out there.”
“I know,” he replied, his voice a little strange. He bowed, then said, “Until supper.”
And so Catriona made her own way through Finovair’s twisty halls, gathering her thoughts, tidying her appearance in her room, and then finally locating Fiona’s sparse bedchamber.
Tea had already arrived, and Fiona and Lady Cecily were deep in conversation. Fiona was expertly pulling a seam out of an ancient blue gown. Lady Cecily was sucking on her finger.
“I’ve stabbed myself,” Cecily said.
Fiona shook her head. “I told you to let me do it.”
“I know,” Cecily replied. “I just didn’t want to feel so useless.”
“I should think,” Catriona opined as she took a seat next to Fiona on the bed, “that given all we’ve been through, we’re entitled to feel anything we please.”
The two ladies turned to her with identical expressions. Expressions which, Catriona was alarmed to realize, she did not know how to interpret. Finally, after she could no longer stand it, she turned to Fiona (since she could hardly be so rude to an earl’s daughter she’d met only the day before) and said, “What?”
“You’ve fallen in love with the Duke of Bretton,” Fiona said.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Catriona tried to scoff. But her voice did not come out as briskly as she would have liked.
Fiona stared at her from behind her vexing little spectacles, lifting her auburn brows as if to say—
Well, Catriona didn’t know what she might be saying, or rather, implying, since it wasn’t as if Fiona could speak with her eyebrows. Still and all, Catriona knew she had to nip this in the bud, so she said, very firmly, “You can’t fall in love with someone on so short an acquaintance.” It was what she believed. It was what she’d always believed.
“Actually,” Lady Cecily said softly, “I think you can.”
That got the other ladies’ attention, so much so that Lady Cecily blushed and explained, “My parents have a love match. It has made me a romantic, I suppose.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Catriona, grateful for a change of subject, voiced the obvious question. “What do you suppose they are all thinking?”
“Our parents?” Fiona asked.
Catriona nodded.
“They’ll be angry, of course,” Fiona said slowly, “but once they realize it’s only Taran who has taken us, they won’t worry for our lives. Or our virtue,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
“They won’t?” Lady Cecily asked.
“No,” Catriona agreed. “Taran may leave our reputations in tatters, but we will be returned every bit as alive and virginal as when we were taken.”
And then, with an aching gasp, she realized what she’d said. But if Fiona took offense, she did not show it. In fact, Fiona’s voice was completely unaffected as she explained, “It is well known that while Taran’s sense of honor is unique, it does exist. He would never allow us to be harmed in any way.”
Catriona wanted to say that she had never believed the gossip about Fiona, but she could hardly bring up the subject in front of Lady Cecily. Now she felt a little knot of shame in the pit of her stomach. Why hadn’t she gone out of her way to offer Fiona her support? It was true that their paths hadn’t often crossed; Catriona had always been much more likely to come across Marilla at local gatherings.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to have a dress altered for you before supper this evening,” Fiona said to Lady Cecily, expertly steering the conversation back to mundane waters. She frowned down at the ice blue brocade in her hands. “I promised Marilla I’d finish this one first. Then I’ll do yours.”
“Surely Marilla can wait,” Catriona said. “Didn’t you already see to that red dress she was wearing today?”
Fiona snorted. “If I had seen to that red dress, you can be sure I’d have yanked the bodice up a few inches.”
“But what about you?” Lady Cecily asked. “I insist that you see to your own gown before mine.”
“Nonsense,” Fiona replied. “I can—”
“I will not take no for an answer,” Lady Cecily said forcefully, “and even if you alter a frock for me, I won’t wear it until yours is done.”
Fiona looked up at her and blinked behind her spectacles. “That is very generous of you,” she finally said.
Lady Cecily shrugged, as if walking around in ill-fitting gowns was nothing to the daughter of an earl. “There is nothing to be gained by complaining about our situation,” she said.
“Try telling that to my sister,” Fiona muttered.
Catriona and Lady Cecily looked at her with identical expressions of sympathy.
Fiona just rolled her eyes and went back to her sewing. A few moments later, Lady Cecily turned to Catriona and asked, “Have Mr. Ferguson’s nephews visited Finovair before?”