“Caithren…” Kendra eased her back onto the embroidered velvet seat. “May I call you Caithren?”
“Aye,” she said weakly. “Or Cait.”
“Cait, then. I like that better. Jason calls you Cait, doesn’t he?” She plucked a small box from the drawer. “Anyway, as I was about to say, you can protest all you wish, but I’ve got two good eyes in my head.”
“Two eyes?” Cait’s own eyes bugged out in the mirror as she watched Kendra fluff white powder onto her face.
She couldn’t believe she was allowing this, but she felt too shocked and overwhelmed to protest. Jason was a marquess.
A marquess.
“Two eyes,” Kendra said firmly. “And I’d need only one to see the two of you belong together.” Setting down the powder, she took up a stick of kohl. “Why, I haven’t seen Jason squire a girl to a ball since—since ever.” She leaned closer. “Look up.”
“So he doesn’t have a…” Cait couldn’t think how to put it, and besides, it was difficult to concentrate when someone was drawing under your eye. It tickled. “What I mean is—”
“Heavens, no.” Kendra laughed and stood up straight. “He hasn’t anyone special in his life, or if he does I’ve no knowledge of her. He’s never bothered to take a lady anywhere. Most especially not to a ball. I have to beg him on my knees to chaperone me as it is. He hates the things.”
Now, this was interesting information. But Cait found her hopes rising, which wasn’t a good thing. Not with all the half-truths and deceit.
She wasn’t sure what to think of Jason anymore. “He just feels sorry for all he put me through.”
“And what was that?” Kendra smudged color onto Cait’s cheeks. “Do tell.”
Caithren had never had a female friend her own age, and though she barely knew her, she reckoned Kendra could be a good one. “He saw me confronting the Gothard brothers,” she found herself explaining, “and decided I was some woman named Emerald MacCallum.”
“Him, too?” Kendra opened a wee pot. “Is he daft?”
“Exactly what I said. Then, under this preposterous misconception, he tricked me into missing the public coach, to keep me from getting to Gothard first and ruining his chance at revenge.”
“Revenge? As in murder?” Kendra bit her lip and swirled her finger in the pot. “He wants to see Gothard put to trial; he has no intention of killing the man.”
Caithren shook her head. “You’re wrong about that. He wants the reward.”
Her fingertip coated with shiny balm, Kendra paused. “Cait, he posted the reward.”
“Oh.”
Of course.
Cait figured she ought to have been bright enough to put two and two together upon learning his identity, but her head was still reeling. And Kendra didn’t know the whole story. Jason’s dinnertime tale had been abbreviated, to say the least.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “he intends to see the cur dead.”
“Jason? Nary a chance.” With a decisive finger, Kendra slicked the gloss onto Cait’s slack lips. “Jason would do anything to avoid murder. It’s not in his nature to do harm.” She capped the pot. “He’s out for justice, no more. And to see that no one else suffers at the brute’s hands…” A small smile emerged on her expressive face. “Like you.”
“Like me?” Caithren glimpsed herself in the mirror, then quickly looked away. She seemed a stranger. A mysterious stranger.
And at this moment, her feelings were as strange as her appearance.
She swallowed hard. “I’ll admit he claimed as much, but do you truly think Jason took me along to protect me?”
“I’d bet my life on it. It’s an exceedingly Jason thing to do.” Kendra rummaged in the drawer again and came out with a burnt cork. “Sit still. I’m going to use this to darken your lashes. It might feel funny.”
Nothing could feel as funny as Cait’s stomach did now. Could Kendra possibly be right? That would mean she’d been wrong all along. And about more than just his identity. Those qualities she thought she’d glimpsed—
“Look,” Kendra said, pressing a hand mirror into Caithren’s limp fingers.
She raised it to her face. “By all the saints,” she whispered. She hardly recognized herself. Or rather, she did, but she never thought she’d look so…
“Beautiful,” Kendra said, though Cait had been thinking English. Kendra flicked through a small box with a fingertip. “Hold still.” While Caithren watched in the mirror, Kendra stuck a tiny black heart on her cheek. “There,” she said. “You’re perfect.”
“What is it?” Cait lowered the mirror and felt for the little heart.
With an indulgent smile, Kendra pulled away Cait’s hand. “Careful, or you’ll dislodge it. It’s a beauty patch.” She shook the patch box. “Would you like another?”
Cait felt foreign enough as it was. English. “Nay, though I thank you.”
When her hand went to her amulet, Kendra’s gaze followed. “My, that looks old.”
“It is.”
“It won’t match the gown.” She lifted the lid of a lovely enameled box on the dressing table. “Would you like to borrow some rubies?” Jewels flashed as she delved inside.
Cait shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, but nay. This belonged to my mother, and I never take it off.”
“Are you certain?” A frown creased Kendra’s forehead, then she smiled. “I can see that you are. I’ll just get Jane, then. I’ve no talent with hair.” She walked from the room, leaving Cait alone.
Again she took up the mirror. English. She looked very, very English. She put a hand to her quaking stomach.
Jason was a marquess. Jason had been trying to protect her.
Kendra bounded back in with a plain-faced woman at her heels that Caithren assumed was Jane. “It’s past two o’clock already. The play will start in less than an hour, and we must dress you before Jane does your hair.” She swept the gown off the bed while Jane put curling tongs to heat at the edge of the banked fire.
Cait’s fingers shook as she detached her purple stomacher and loosened the laces beneath. What was she doing in London, dressing in English clothes, planning an evening
