breathe her in, to taste her? The muscles in his stomach clenched. It had been a long time since such thoughts had occupied him. Eleven years.
Lady Kate looked up, perhaps conscious of the intensity of his gaze. Their eyes snagged. A trickle of sweat ran down between Virgil’s shoulder blades. He couldn’t understand how he’d ever thought her severe. He couldn’t take his eyes off her plump lower lip. Moist. Pink. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked a little desperately.
Kate gazed down at her untouched plate and shook her head. Around them the scraping of china, the clatter of silver being dropped into the clearing baskets, made it clear that she’d been wool-gathering for some time. ‘You don’t like the beef, Mr Jackson,’ she said, looking at the slab of meat sitting untouched in front of him.
He grimaced. ‘Blood. You will call me heathenish, but it puts me off.’
‘Monsieur André, our very superior French chef at Castonbury, would call you heathenish. He thinks beef is overcooked if the animal’s heart has ceased to beat,’ Kate replied, ‘but I prefer it properly dead and what he would call burnt to a crisp. Not that I would dare say so to his face. Monsieur André has a very Gallic temperament and would likely beat me with his rolling pin.’
Virgil laughed. ‘I would like to see him try.’
‘I wish you could—come to Castonbury with me, that is,’ Kate said impulsively.
‘Well, I … That’s very nice of you, but—’
‘It’s not nice, it’s selfish. I have to leave first thing tomorrow, you see, and I haven’t had the chance to talk to you properly. There is so much I would love to discuss with you, I have so many questions, but there are matters—family matters—oh, why is it that family matters always arise at the most inconvenient of times?’
‘I wouldn’t know, since I have no family,’ Virgil said.
‘Lucky you!’ Kate exclaimed, then was immediately contrite. ‘Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry, I did not think. Have you indeed no family at all? Your parents—?’
‘I was separated from my mother as soon as I was weaned,’ Virgil said tersely.
‘So, too, was I. Mama was not much interested in any of her children, and as a female of course, I was …’ Kate broke off, covering her mouth in horror. ‘Do you mean you were sold?’
‘Family ties are very much discouraged in the plantations. It was—still is—common practice to separate mothers and children.’
‘And your father?’
Virgil shrugged. ‘I never knew him.’ He took a draught of claret. ‘As I said, family ties were discouraged. You should be grateful for yours, whatever your relationship with them.’
‘I am quite humbled.’
‘That was not my intention.’
‘You need not concern yourself. To be honest, what I meant was that I ought to be humbled. If you knew my family, you would understand why it’s very difficult to be grateful for them—some of them, at least.’
He liked that hint of wickedness in her smile. She was not only unconventional but irrepressible. It was a pity their acquaintance was doomed to be of such short duration, Virgil thought. ‘You are not, then, in the habit of doing as you ought?’
Her smile disappeared abruptly. ‘My aunt would tell you that I am rather in the habit of never doing so. Tell me, Mr Jackson, did Weston make that coat?’
He would have taken the change of subject for a deliberate snub had it come from anyone else, but he was pretty sure that a snub from Lady Kate would be much more direct. He had obviously quite inadvertently touched upon a sore point. ‘My tailor was Weston, though how you knew I have no idea.’
To Virgil’s relief, Lady Kate laughed. ‘My brothers go to Scott, being military men, so I knew it was not one of his, and I confess that I know only one other tailor. It was an educated guess, that’s all. You will have the Bostonian ladies sighing into their teacups at your style, Mr Jackson. Though perhaps you are interested in the sighs of just one particular lady?’
‘I am not married, and nor do I have any particular lady in my life,’ Virgil replied curtly. ‘As to my coat—I doubt it will see the light of day when I get home. It took that valet I hired several minutes to get me into it, and I feel as if every time I breathe the shoulders will burst at the seams. Back home, I dress for comfort.’
‘I’d like to hear more about back home,’ Kate said, telling herself that the fact that Mr Jackson was unattached was neither here nor there. ‘May I ask how long you expect business to keep you here in Staffordshire?’
‘Actually, I’m planning on heading north tomorrow while Josiah’s men work on the samples for our wares. We’ll meet up in London to conclude our business before I return to America, but I have other business in Glasgow to see to in the meantime, and there is a model village not far from that city which I have arranged to visit.’
‘Do you mean Mr Owen’s New Lanark?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘How I would love to see it. I am a great admirer of Mr Owen, I have read all his works, and in fact our own little school in Castonbury was established along similar lines—or at least that is what I would like to believe.’
‘Your school—you mean you have set up a village school?’
‘Do not look so astonished. Not all English ladies confine themselves to playing the pianoforte and painting watercolours for amusement, Mr Jackson. Some of us prefer to utilise our time to more effect,’ Kate said stiffly.
‘So you rescue streetwalkers and educate the village children. I did not mean to offend you, but you’ll admit it is something out of the common way, to meet a duke’s daughter who is a revolutionary.’
‘You are far too modest. Rare as we revolutionary aristocrats may be, a freed slave who has made himself into one of the richest men in New England must be rarer. I wish you would tell me more about how you became so.’
Virgil shook his head. ‘I am much more interested in your school. Do you teach there yourself?’
‘I help out when I can, but we have an excellent mistress in the form of Miss Thomson. I rescue governesses in addition to streetwalkers,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘Miss Thomson tries to follow the principles which Mr Owen set down, but to see them in practice would be so much better than reading about them. I wish I could visit New Lanark. How I envy you. Were you serious about establishing a similar place?’
‘Serious about testing its merits. Very serious about the school. Without education, it is not possible to make the most of freedom. I believe that education is power.’
‘With that I wholeheartedly agree. My own education did not amount to much, which goes some way to explaining why even setting up a simple school has taken an enormous amount of effort.’ Kate pulled a face. ‘That, and the fact that as a mere woman I am not considered worthy of having an opinion on the subject. Being female does rather shackle one.’
Virgil bit back a smile. ‘You don’t strike me as being someone constrained by her position in society.’
‘I know perfectly well that there is no real comparison between myself and a female slave,’ she replied, disconcerting him by reading his thoughts, ‘but it is nevertheless how I feel sometimes. Perception and reality are not always the same thing.’
‘That is most certainly true.’
How had he come by his education? Kate was about to ask when a footman leaned over her shoulder, a huge lemon syllabub trembling on the platter in his hands. She shook her head impatiently. Sir Merkland was clearing his throat. The change of course dictated a turn in the conversation. Port and cigars and business would detain the gentlemen until tea. She would be obliged to surrender her monopoly of Virgil Jackson to the other guests when she had barely scratched the surface of what she wanted