Once and Always (Sequels 1)

“Hello, Charles,” she answered, her soft voice calm, unruffled.

“Are you finding the party as insufferably dull as I am, my dear?” he asked, surprised at her composure.

Instead of stammering some inanity about it being a delightful party, Katherine had raised her disconcertingly direct blue gaze to his and quietly replied, “It is a fitting prelude to a marriage that is to be undertaken for cold, monetary reasons, and no other.”

Her blunt candor amazed him, but not nearly as much as the strange, accusing look that darkened her blue eyes before she turned and started to walk away. Without thinking, Charles reached out to stop her from leaving. The touch of her bare arm beneath his hand sent a tingling jolt through his entire nervous system, a jolt that Katherine must also have felt because her whole body stiffened. Instead of drawing her toward him, Charles guided her forward, out onto the balcony. In the moonlight he turned to her and, because her accusation had stung, his voice was hard. “It’s presumptuous of you to assume money is my only reason for marrying Amelia. People have other reasons for marrying.”

Again those disconcerting blue eyes of hers gazed into his. “Not people like us,” she contradicted calmly. “We marry to increase our family’s wealth, power, or social position. In your case, you are marrying to increase your wealth.”

Charles was, of course, trading his aristocratic lineage to gain money, and although it was a commonly accepted practice, she made him feel less of a man for doing so. “And what about you?” he taunted. “Will you not marry for one of those reasons?”

“No,” she replied softly. “I will not. I will marry because I love someone, and am loved in return. I will not settle for a marriage like my parents had. I want more from life than that and I have more to give.”

The softly spoken words had been filled with such quiet conviction that Charles had simply stared at her before he finally said, “Your lady grandmother will not be pleased if you marry for love and not position, my dear. Gossip has it that she wants an alliance with the Winstons and she means for you to secure it for her.”

Katherine smiled for the first time, a slow, enchanting smile that illuminated her face and turned Charles’s bones to water. “My grandmother and I,” she said lightly, “have long been at outs over this matter, but I am as determined as she to have my way.”

She looked so beautiful, so fresh and unspoiled, that the armor of cynicism that had surrounded Charles for thirty years began to melt, leaving him suddenly lonely and empty. Without realizing what he was doing, he lifted his hand and reverently traced her smooth cheek with his fingertips. “I hope the man you love is worthy of you,” he said tenderly.

For an endless moment, Katherine had searched his features as if she could see beyond his face, into his tired, disillusioned soul. “I think,” she whispered softly, “that it will be more a question of whether I can be worthy of him. You see, he needs me rather badly, although he is only just now coming to realize it.”

After a moment her meaning slammed into him, and Charles heard himself groan her name with the sudden feverish longing of a man who has just found what he has unconsciously been searching for his entire life—a woman who could love him for himself, for the man he could be, the man he wanted to be. And Katherine had no other reason to want him or love him; her bloodline was as aristocratic as his own, her connections far better, her wealth vastly superior.

Charles gazed at her, trying to deny the feelings that were coursing through him. This was insane, he told himself. He scarcely knew her. He was no young fool who believed that grown men and women tumbled into love with one another at first glance. He had not even believed in love at all until that moment. But he believed in it now, for he wanted this beautiful, intelligent, idealistic girl to love him and only him. For once in his life, he had found something rare and fine and unspoiled, and he was determined to keep this girl that way—to marry her and cherish her, to protect her from the cynicism that seemed to erode everyone in their social class.

The prospect of eventually breaking his betrothal to Amelia did not trouble his conscience, for he harbored no illusions as to her reasons for agreeing to marry him. She was attracted to him, he knew, but she was marrying him because her father wanted to be allied with the nobility.

For two blissful, magnificent weeks, Katherine and he had managed to keep their growing love a secret; two weeks of stolen moments alone, of quiet walks through the countryside, of shared laughter and dreams of the future.

At the end of that time, Charles could no longer put off the required meeting with the Dowager Duchess of Claremont. He wanted to marry Katherine.

He was prepared for the duchess to object, for although his family was an old and noble one, he was an untitled younger son. Still, such marriages took place often enough, and he had expected her to put up a token argument and then capitulate because Katherine wanted this union as badly as he. He had not expected her to be almost demented with wrath, or to call him a “dissolute opportunist” and a “corrupt, lecherous degenerate.” He hadn’t expected her to rail about his ancestors’ and his own promiscuous behavior, or to call his forebears “irresponsible madmen, one and all.”

But most of all, he had not expected her to swear that if Katherine married him, she would disown her and cut her off without a cent. Such things simply weren’t done. But when he left the house that day, Charles knew the woman would do exactly as she threatened. He returned to his lodgings and spent the night in alternate states of rage and despair. By morning, he knew that he could not—would not—marry Katherine, for although he was willing to try to earn an honest living, with his own two hands if need be, he could not bear to see his proud, beautiful Katherine brought low because of him. He would not cause her to be cut off from her family and publicly shunned by society.

Even if he thought he could make up to her for the disgrace she would endure, he knew he could never let her become a common house-drudge. She was young and idealistic and in love with him, but she was also accustomed to beautiful gowns and servants to do her every bidding. If he had to work for a living he could not possibly give her those things. Katherine had never washed a dish, or scrubbed a floor, or pressed a shirt, and he would not see her reduced to doing these things because she had been foolish enough to love him.

When he was finally able to arrange a brief, clandestine meeting with her the following day, Charles told her of his decision. Katherine argued that the luxuries of life meant nothing to her; she pleaded with him to take her to America, where it was said any man could make a decent living if he was only willing to work for it.