Gregory, Lisa (43 page)

"And
you expect me to just fade out of sight like that? Hole up in here with you and
never go anywhere? Just sit over my needlework all day or read uplifting
novels?" The rage boiled up within her and spilled over. "Well, I'll
be damned if I will! I am not to blame for what happened, and I will not be
judged on supposition, either. I intend to readopt my way of life, just as it
was! In fact, I think that I shall have a dinner party this very week!"

She
stormed out, leaving the two stunned women staring after her.

Almost
immediately, she regretted her words. She had absolutely no desire to see
anyone, let alone face a whole room full of avid, curious faces. But she had
rashly committed herself, and she had to brazen it out.

The
thing was a disaster from start to finish. Half the people she invited coldly
refused, and the others came out of morbid curiosity. Lillian Stephens was one
of those who came, her face full of malicious triumph. Her father, once
Katherine's suitor, assiduously avoided her. The rest conveyed disapproval even
as they plied her with questions, all studiously skirting the matter of her
downfall.

"How
awful for you," Lillian said, demurely casting down her eyes. "Is
that pirate really such a devil as they say?"

"Don't
be silly," Katherine said calmly, though she felt a sudden stab of pain.
Oh, if only Matthew were here, he would—he would what? Why, just put his hand
against her arm to support her and look at them with that icy stare, and none
of them would dare look at her in that shocked, superior, disapproving, eager
way. "He was a perfect gentleman the entire time, even though I was his
hostage. Did you not find him an exceptionally courteous man, Dr.
Rackingham?"

"Why
yes, I did," the old man lied stoutly, though his eyes twinkled at her in
shared mirth. "Gave Miss Devereaux and me the best cabins, while he and
his ensign slept with the men."

"Indeed?"
Mary Whitman said slyly. "I had understood that Southern men were really
shocking and not at all genteel."

Katherine
was seized with a sudden desire to describe her true adventures, just to see
the shock on their faces, but she forced herself to remain calm. "Oh, my
goodness, no, where social graces are concerned, I know of no one but the
English who can match them." She suppressed a smile, thinking of the
Englishmen she had met! "And I believe he was quite the bravest man I ever
met."

"Why,
Katherine," Lillian said innocently, "you have turned into a Rebel
lover."

"Hardly.
I just don't blind myself to their good points."

"Absolutely."
Dr. Rackingham jumped in to draw their fire and led into a rambling, boring,
fictitious account of their days at sea.

Katherine's
one charge at the bastions of Society finally ended, and she did not try it
again. No one called on them or invited them to social gatherings. Her life
settled down into a frustrating, boring regimen of idle handwork and
socializing with Aunt Amelia. Her father adamantly refused to allow her to
return to her work at the shipyards.

"My
Lord, Katherine," he said when she broached the subject, "how can you
think I would expose you to danger like that again? I have been consumed with
guilt ever since he kidnapped you. If only I hadn't been so selfish, it would
never have happened. But because I needed you there, I let you work, even
though I knew I should not have. I certainly shan't make the same mistake."

"Good
Heavens, Father!" Katherine stared at him. "Surely you can't believe
that there is anyone else capable of doing what Matt—Captain Hampton did. Or
rash enough to even try it, for that matter. Besides, the prisoners are not
allowed to work there now, so there is no possibility that it could happen
again."

"Katherine,
I simply cannot risk it. There are other things that could happen. It simply is
not a safe place for a woman. Besides, it was scandalous before, when your name
was spotless, but now, with your reputation already so—"

His
daughter rose, her voice cold as ice. "Please, Father, you need say no
more. I quite understand your desire that I not blacken your name any further.
In fact, if you will give me a modest stipend, I shall be happy to change my
name and move to another city. Someplace far away, of course—California, say?
Or would you prefer I moved to another country? France might accept me, ruined
as I am."

"Katherine,
please, there is no need to act like this. I am only thinking of you. It's your
safety and reputation I'm thinking of."

"Father!"
she snapped. "I have been kidnapped, raped, and abused—by more men than
Matthew Hampton; I have been in a battle, tended wounded men, and lived through
a North Atlantic storm; I have stabbed one man and tried to shoot another. And
now you expect me to spend the rest of my life knitting and sewing?"
Violently, she stormed out of the room, leaving her father staring after her.

Though
she icily avoided her father, he did not give in and permit her to go back to
work. Daily she and Pegeen took a brisk walk, but that took up very little of
her time. She read a great deal and spent a large amount of time daydreaming.
She grew quite tired of knitting mufflers and stockings and monograming
handkerchiefs and doing needlepoint. Then she was seized with the idea of
making Matthew's material into dresses. For the first time since she had
returned, she enjoyed what she was doing. Eagerly she and Pegeen pored over
pattern books and fashion magazines and cut and sewed. The rose pink she turned
into a simple day dress with a scoop neck and puffed sleeves, remembering how
Matthew had said the little muslin dress had shown off her beautiful chest. The
emerald wool they made high-necked and long-sleeved, with a touch of lace at
collar and cuffs to soften it. She tried them on and Pegeen declared the dusky
pink one lovely and the green one simply elegant. And then they fashioned the
gold satin into a lovely ball gown. Katherine knew there was no point; she
would never have the chance to wear it, but she didn't care. She made it to
wear for Matthew, not to wear for Boston. The neck was low-cut and square,
exposing the elegant column of her neck, the creamy, soft expanse of her chest,
the swelling tops of her breasts. The sleeves were narrow and tight and came to
a point on her hands, accenting her slender hands and delicate wrists. The
skirt belled forth in yards of material. making her waist appear tiny. It was
very simple and understated, but suited to her; when she put it on, her hair
and eyes and gown all seemed to blaze and shimmer and her skin looked
invitingly warm and golden. He knew, she thought, he knew how I would look in
this. He saw the beauty in me that no one else ever had. She grimaced; damn
him—why did it have to be such a heartless, cold man who saw her beauty?

Carefully
she folded her golden gown in tissue paper and stored it away. Her emerald
dress was packed away in mothballs to save for winter. But the pink one she
wore, much to the disapproval of Aunt Amanda, who pronounced it quite sinful.
Katherine, however, was like a child after her first taste of sweets. After
all, Boston couldn't keep her from shopping. She and Pegeen bombarded the
stores, buying shoes and cunning hats and gloves and ribbons and hair combs and
parasols. Most of all, they bought yards of material and the latest
Godey's.
Katherine was not about to entrust herself to the Boston dressmakers. If
she was outside the pale, so be it; she would dress just as she pleased. So she
and Pegeen made her dresses, their nimble fingers turning out a
gold-and-white-striped traveling suit that looked good enough to eat, a frosted
green morning dress that was scalloped around the bottom so that frothy white
lace peeked out, a chocolate brown silk evening gown with a figured brown and
tan bodice and a sweeping train, and countless others, all suited to her
coloring and style and attributes, without a spinsterish one among them.

Aunt
Amanda seemed on the verge of a seizure over Katherine's buying sprees and the sort
of clothes she was making. It was shocking, she declared. She should, by all
rights, be meekly hiding her shame, yet here she was out in public, buying
positively gaudy clothes, acting not one whit ashamed. She was, in fact,
dangerously close to acting like a loose woman. Katherine simply laughed at
that and said, "But, Auntie, that's what I am."

One
afternoon, as Katherine sat in her father's study, trying to puzzle out a book
on naval strategy, the butler entered to tell her that she had a caller.

"A
caller?" she repeated, startled.

"Lieutenant
Perkins, Miss Katherine."

"William!"
Katherine sprang to her feet, and the book in her lap went tumbling to the
floor. "What is he doing here?"

The
butler said impassively, "What shall I tell him, miss?"

Katherine
recovered herself enough to say, "Show him in, of course. I shall see him
in here—and there is no need to inform my aunt that he is here."

Something
close to a smile flickered briefly, but he said only, "Very good,
miss."

Katherine
picked up the book and replaced it on the shelf, all the while trying to bring
her mind into some sort of order.

"Katherine!"
Lieutenant Perkins paused in the doorway, struggling for control.

"William."
She dropped him a nervous little curtsy.

He
crossed the room in two strides and took her hand and kissed it tenderly.
"Oh, Katherine, my dear, are you all right?"

"Yes,
very." She blushed, confused. "Please sit down, William."

He
sat down, pulling his chair close to hers, and once again took her hand in his.

Katherine
smiled at him stiffly. "I thought you were on the blockade."

"No;
we are stationed in New York now. I wrote your father as soon as we docked,
inquiring about you, and he telegraphed me that you were home and safe. So as
soon as I could finagle a pass, I caught a train up here."

Katherine
looked at him and then back at her hands. "William, you must know that I
have to call off our engagement."

"What?
Katherine, don't be silly."

"I
am afraid I am quite a scandal," she said lightly.

"You
cannot think I care about that! Katherine, my only concern is that you are safe
and well. Why, I could kill that scoundrel with my bare hands, if he weren't
already dead, but—"

"Dead?"
she echoed, stunned. "Hampton is dead?"

He
shrugged. "He suddenly disappeared about a month or so ago in England. No
one seems to know for sure, but the word is that he killed a nobleman in a duel
and that he was wounded in the arm. Then the arm got infected, and the last
anyone heard he was in London on the verge of death, and then he simply dropped
out of sight. The Rebels say he has gone home, but they are just trying to
conceal his death, because he hasn't attacked a single ship or put into port
anywhere. And his ship, the
Susan Harper,
left England under a new
skipper. When we put into port and heard that he had died and there was no
mention of you, I wrote your father immediately to see if he had heard from
you."

Her
head whirled; she felt dazed, as if all the air had been knocked out of her.
Dead? Matthew could not be dead. Blindly, she groped for something to catch
hold of in what he had said.

"He
killed a nobleman?"

"No
one knows for sure. They say he dueled some baron in Liverpool."

"Liverpool?"
Her heart began to thud heavily. "Why?"

"Something
unsavory about a girl in a—" he blushed, "the kind of place a lady
wouldn't know about."

That
meant a brothel. He had killed a Liverpool nobleman over a girl in a brothel.
Not her baron, surely. Dear God, if he had been killed because of that maniac's
abusing her! Dear God, if he was dead! I will die, she thought numbly, I will
die.

"Katherine,
don't look like that. It was stupid of me to even mention his name. Just put
him out of your mind completely. Forget about all that has happened. I shall
make it up to you, I swear."

"No.
William, please, I cannot discuss it now." She could feel the tears
forming behind her eyes, the hysterical sobs welling up in her throat.
"Come back tomorrow, if you must have an explanation, but right now
I—" Suddenly she darted from the room and up the stairs to her bedroom.