Chapter Five
“What have you been up to?” asked Lydia.
Kitty eyed her younger sister, who always assumed everyone else was doing something they shouldn’t. She should have been a nun. “I’ve been doing what Robert said. To try to sell some panoramas.”
“Where is Patience?”
Guilt traveled up Kitty’s spine and she hunched her shoulders. While she had spoken with Mr. Bexley as they’d ridden in his carriage, she’d nearly forgotten her youngest sister’s existence. “She’s outside playing with one of the cats.”
Lydia scowled and brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. “You’ve been gone for hours. I had to make the meal all on my own. Have you at least some money to show for your tardiness?”
Kitty stared at her boots.
“How many?” asked Lydia, her tone strident.
“Hmm?” Just go away, Lydia…
“How many did you sell today? Robert has been acting like a black storm cloud for the last two hours.”
Kitty glanced from side to side, leaned closer, and whispered the word, “None,” hoping it might make the hearing of it somehow easier.
“What?” Lydia’s voice screeched like the crow that spied on them from her nest in the tallest tree.
Kitty grabbed her sister’s arm. “Lydia, lower your voice.”
“I’ll not. Robert is—”
“He will be glad when he hears what I’ve done.” Kitty released her sister’s arm but kept her own hand close and at the ready in case she needed to grab her again.
“And just what have you—” Lydia squinted her eyes half-closed and studied Kitty from top to bottom. “—done?”
Was she checking to see if Kitty’s clothes were disheveled? Her hair mussed? Kitty was two years older, but Lydia often treated her like a child. “It’s not anything untoward. But I—” Two handsome faces crossed her mind. Similar in coloring yet each had his own distinct attractions.
“Kitty, why are you blushing?”
“I’m not.” Even as she denied it, she pressed her fingers to her face.
“Your cheeks resemble Mrs. Smith’s persimmon tart.”
Kitty bit her lip, trying to hold in the words wanting to escape. Words about handsome men. Wealthy surroundings. How her knees had felt weak when—
Lydia’s fingers dug into Kitty’s arm.
“Ouch.”
“I know that look. Kitty, you’ve been… flirting again, haven’t you?” Lydia’s voice lowered on the word flirting. Did she think that uttering it out loud would cause mayhem to descend on the household?
“I wasn’t.”
Lydia removed her hand but simply stared at her. They’d both have visible finger marks on their arms at that rate.
“Fine.” Kitty let out a breath. “I was… but just a small bit.”
“Who was it this time? The baker?”
She nearly gagged. The baker was so broad across the back he surely must consume nearly all he baked. “I think not.”
“Then who? Oh… Was it that Worsley from the colorman’s shop?”
Kitty shuddered, trying desperately not to think of hideous frogs. “No, it was someone else. Someone… actually two someones.”
“You didn’t. Two?”
“It’s not what you think. They were cousins. The Mr. Bexleys were—”
“Two of them? What am I to do with you?” She shook her head, dark curls bouncing around her face. “You need to go to church more often.”
“You don’t need to do anything with me. I’m quite capable of caring for myself, thank you.”
“Obviously not, when you find yourself in a position with not one but two men who—”
Kitty grabbed Lydia’s arm and gave a yank. “Stop saying the word two like that. I haven’t done anything wrong. Patience was with me.” Of a fashion… all the way across the room.
“Then just what did you do?”
“I’d like to know that myself.”
Kitty jumped at her cousin’s deep voice. When had he snuck up on them? He’d not even been in the room when Kitty had come home.
“Robert…” Kitty swallowed hard. “I, that is—”
“Well, speak up.”
“You see, I met a man today—”
“Two men,” piped in Lydia.
“And one of them, a Mr. Bexley—”
“Which Mr. Bexley?” interjected Lydia.
“Mr. Bexley has invited me to paint some panoramas for his father’s magazine as an incentive for his customers to buy more subscriptions.”
Her cousin’s thick eyebrows rose. “You don’t say? And there are two of these men?”
Kitty let out a slow breath. Would her news please Robert? “Yes, I met Mr. Bexley, the son of a man high up at Sporting Magazine, and also his cousin. With the way things… are here, I assumed it prudent to accept the son’s kind offer.”
“And flirt,” Lydia whispered and smiled sweetly.
Kitty narrowed her eyes at her sister.
Robert rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Good work, Katherine.”
Relief flooded through her. “Thank you.”
His pleasant expression fell like Kitty’s hair on a humid day.
Oh no.
He took a step closer. “And just how are you to get to this office of a morning? I’ll not be paying for a hackney, and I can’t assure you our carriage will always be available.”
“Not to worry. Mr. Bexley—”
“Which one?” Lydia asked.
“—is going to send a carriage for me.”
“I see. Wealthy, is he?” Robert’s brow rose as his interest seemed suddenly piqued.
“He certainly appeared to be.” Expensive coach, shiny Hessian boots, clothing of such exquisite fabric she fancied it had been spun by talented butterflies.
Her cousin’s eyes gleamed. “Good. Very good.” He chuckled as he walked away. Was he already counting the coins Kitty would bring home to him?
Lydia grabbed her arm.
“I wish you’d quit doing that.” Kitty peeled her sister’s fingers off and pushed away her hand.
“Kitty, one of these days you’re going to get yourself in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know… trouble.” She formed her hands in a circle around an imaginary large belly.
“Lydia. What must you think of me?” Did Patience think the same thing about her? Had Kitty’s flirting been obvious with the Mr. Bexleys?
Lydia’s cheeks colored. She averted her gaze. “It’s only that you… you’re always… well…”
“I’ve never done that.” Not that she hadn’t imagined it, but—
“That’s good to hear, at least.”
Kitty crossed her arms and huffed out a breath. “You make me out to be some sort of light-skirt.”
Lydia raised one dark eyebrow.
“I’m not.” Kitty stomped her foot, the sound an unsatisfying thud. “I just happen to enjoy being in the company of men. And Mr. Bexley—”
“Which Mr. Bexley?”
“Stop doing that.”
“Listen,” Lydia grabbed Kitty’s hand and led her to sit down on their settee. “I’m just concerned that something might happen to you.”
“Nothing will happen. Nothing bad, at any rate.”
“You don’t know that.”
Kitty reached up and brushed a few strands of hair from Lydia’s cheek. “You worry too much.”
Lydia tapped her finger on the palm of her other hand exactly ten times, a sure sign she was agitated. “It’s my job.”
Kitty giggled but stopped when Lydia didn’t join in. “No, your job is to be my smart, pretty younger sister. And that’s it.”
“I’m pretty?” She touched her fingers to her cheek.
“Of course you are.” Kitty tilted her head to one side and blinked. “Who says you’re not?”
“That Worsley person.”
“You’re listening to him? Oh, Lydia. The ma
n is a toad.”
Giggles bubbled up from Lydia and surrounded them with mirth. “Well he certainly acts fond of you.”
“Quite. Aren’t I the fortunate one?”
Lydia sputtered another laugh. “He’d marry you, you know. If you’d have him.”
A shiver ran through Kitty. “I’d rather die alone.”
“Surely he wouldn’t be that bad?”
“Lydia, have you gotten a good view of the man?” Kitty tried very hard not to look at him directly unless she had to.
“Appearances aren’t everything. Sometimes we need to see past the surface.”
“True, but I rather think a wife shouldn’t feel the urge to lose her dinner at the sight of her husband.”
“You might have a point. So the Mr. Bexleys are handsome?”
“Oh my goodness, yes.”
“Is one… more to your liking than the other?”
That stopped Kitty short. She’d not considered it until then. They were both enchanting and had paid her much attention. She’d spent a little more time with Mr. Bexley the son, though his cousin had also made her heart race. If she had to choose between them, could she do it?
Would there ever be a need?
Kitty, you’re being a dolt. They might never see you as more than a worker for the magazine.