With Every Breath (18 page)

She watched him with a combination of hope and fear. “Trevor, do you ever still think of Deirdre?”

Where had that come from? He hated talking about Scotland, or anything about his past, yet he couldn’t keep pushing Kate away. He cared about her too much.

“No. I hardly ever think of Deirdre.” It was the truth. Deirdre seemed such a pale long-ago memory compared to the fiery, blazing glory of the woman who held his hands so tightly.

“You have no idea how much I resented you back in school,” Kate said with a watery laugh. “I used to think of you as ‘the horrible Trevor McDonough,’ and yet now I think you are one of the finest people I’ve ever known. And if you don’t think of Deirdre anymore . . .” Her thumb trailed across the back of his hand, and he held his breath. “I want you to know I think of you a lot. Pretty much all the time.”

He knew exactly what she was driving at, and he wanted it so badly it was hard not to lunge across the few inches that separated them. He wanted more from Kate Livingston than she could possibly imagine . . . but she didn’t know him. Not really.

“Kate, I’m not a good bet.”

She stiffened. “Why not?” She withdrew her hands, leaving a cold void between them. “Does this have something to do with why you changed your name? Or those missing two years? Were you in prison or something?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” he muttered. He pushed his chair back and stood. This was a mistake. If she knew the truth about those two missing years . . . well, it was far worse than prison, and Kate deserved much better than someone like him. She deserved a hero. He was nothing but a man in a white lab coat who pinned his hopes on a long-shot cure based on cod liver oil and sunlight.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” she pressed. “Why do you have to keep everything locked down so tightly? I won’t bite, Trevor.”

“You’re already biting. I need you to stop.”

He crossed the office to his desk, yanking out drawers to look for the rubber stamp he needed to finalize Ephraim Montgomery’s death certificate. It was time to shut these inconvenient feelings off and get back to work. Toying with the attraction that simmered between them was dangerous. He needed to revert back to the professionalism that worked so well.

“I think I should go home,” Kate said weakly.

His fist tightened around the stamp, but he couldn’t turn around to look at her. “I won’t listen to any nonsense about you quitting.”

“I just don’t feel well,” she said. “I want to go home.”

He couldn’t keep driving her this way if he wanted her to stay. “Go then. I expect you back here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

She didn’t say a word as she left and closed the door behind her.

13

K
ate had never felt so strangely horrible in her life. Her stomach ached, her head pounded, and she wanted to draw and quarter Trevor.

How mortifying to be rejected by him.
Twice
. She hadn’t been discouraged after that first overture when he clammed up on the rooftop. She didn’t expect the famously reticent Trevor McDonough to fly into her arms at the first hint of affection. He would need to become accustomed to the idea, and that was why she bided her time.

But there was no mistaking that yesterday he had flat-out rejected her. He had plenty of time to process her statement on the roof, and he clearly wanted nothing to do with her.

She dreaded Trevor’s arrival to the office, even though she doubted he would acknowledge their odd conversation or change his behavior in any way.

Which was why she was surprised at how uncomfortable he seemed when he finally arrived, almost two hours late for work. She was at her desk, tabulating yesterday’s statistics, when she felt a presence behind her. Trevor stood in the doorway.

“Is there something you need?” she asked.

“I was wondering if you could come with me on a call after work today.”

“A call? What does that mean?”

He cleared his throat and stared at a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. “A friend of mine would like to meet you. She’s very ill and can’t travel, so I’m hoping you will come to her home this afternoon. It won’t take long.”

She had a stomachache and didn’t feel like doing anything other than going home and curling up in bed. “I don’t know, Trevor.” It seemed churlish to refuse when he’d been so good about coming to her house for dinner over the past few weeks.

“I wouldn’t ask, but Mrs. Kendall has been declining fast and—”

“Mrs. Kendall?” The name made her sit up straight.

He moved to his desk, where he began tidying stacks of papers. He still wouldn’t look at her. “She has tuberculosis,” he said. “She’s survived the disease longer than anyone I know. I make house calls for her.”

“I notice you and Mrs. Kendall share the same last name. Dare I hope there is a connection?”

His mouth thinned. He looked like he would rather have a tooth pulled than provide an answer, but she wasn’t going to budge until he did. He folded his arms across his chest and stared over her left shoulder again. “Yes, there’s a connection. Mrs. Kendall was the housekeeper in Senator Campbell’s house. I met her when I was thirteen years old.”

“Right after you arrived from Scotland?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you change your name to match hers?”

He met her eyes. Sometimes Trevor could look like that wounded boy she once knew on the playground, and now was one of those times. He looked away again before speaking.

“I never had much of a relationship with my father. He sent me to America when I became inconvenient, and Mrs. Kendall was the only person in this country who seemed to care if I lived or died. She meant a lot to me. Still does.”

Trevor was inconvenient to his father?
Inconvenient?
She wanted to ask him what he meant by such an odd statement, but he was still struggling to find words and she dared not interrupt him.

“During those years in school, Mrs. Kendall was the only one I could talk to, and I told her about you. She always wanted to know what was happening at school. The only thing I cared about was making good grades, and since you were the measuring stick I used to judge myself by, we ended up talking about you a lot.”

Strange, because it had been the same for her. She used to tear her hair out every time Trevor bested her in a competition, and her parents always heard about those Herculean battles with “the horrible Trevor McDonough.”

“Anyway, Mrs. Kendall is dying,” Trevor continued. “I don’t know how much longer she has, but probably not more than a few weeks. When she heard I hired you to work at the clinic, she asked to meet you.” An ironic smile flitted across his mouth. “And I’m afraid I’ve never been able to deny Mrs. Kendall anything. So I would be very grateful if you could pay a visit with me. If today won’t work, perhaps another day, but it will need to be soon.”

“All right,” she said.

She would be there if she had to walk every step of the way.

* * * *

They took a streetcar all the way to Georgetown. Unless Mrs. Kendall was independently wealthy, Kate suspected Trevor was probably footing the bill for the town house.

“You won’t need a mask,” Trevor said as they walked the final block alongside a row of leafy trees. “I tested Mrs. Kendall this morning, and she isn’t contagious. She will probably offer vanilla custard. It doesn’t hold a candle to your mother’s cooking, but please accept. You can bet she spent most of the afternoon making it.”

As they approached Mrs. Kendall’s door, Kate heard voices from inside. A lot of voices. She thought they would be visiting a woman on her deathbed, but the rumble of laughter and good cheer from inside was unmistakable.

Trevor looked equally confused as he rapped on the door.

A second later, the door was flung open by a matronly woman with frizzy orange hair. “Trevor!” she squealed and drew him into a hearty hug. He looked awkward as he submitted to the embrace, but she released him quickly. “You must be Kate,” she said in a rush. “You can’t imagine how much we all heard about you when we were growing up. Come in, come in.”

There were at least a dozen people crowded into the apartment that smelled of warm vanilla and spiced tea.

“It looks like we’ve just stumbled into a reunion of Senator Campbell’s household staff,” Trevor said. “Sorry about this, Kate, I didn’t expect it.”

A handsome older gentleman wearing a tweed vest stepped forward. “Allow me to make the introductions, Mrs. Livingston,” he said in a voice that sounded like it belonged on a Shakespearean stage. “I am Marcus Coburn. I was the butler in Senator Campbell’s house for twelve years. This is Mary Hatch; she was a parlormaid. And her sister, Alice, who did the laundry. The good-looking fellow in the corner is Martin Harkin; he was in charge of the stables.”

Kate’s eyes widened in surprise. Martin Harkin was the coachman who drove Trevor to school every day. He winked at
her in recognition, and she smiled back. But the butler hadn’t stopped with the introductions. He nodded at the woman with orange hair who’d opened the door. “That’s Nellie Kendall, Mrs. Kendall’s daughter. She helped with the cooking.”

There were other introductions Kate struggled to hold straight in her head. How amazing to see Trevor surrounded by so many people eager to see him. He always kept himself so aloof at the hospital—not that he was terribly different here. He was taciturn as he guided her through the crush of people to a frail woman sitting at the kitchen table, an impressive braid coiled around the back of her head like a crown.

“Kate, this is Mrs. Kendall. She was the housekeeper for Senator Campbell during the twenty-four years he was in office, and is no doubt responsible for this hullabaloo.”

Mrs. Kendall tilted her head to get a good look. “So you’re the woman who tormented my poor boy all those years.” The woman’s eyes sparkled as she said it. Kate sat in the chair beside Mrs. Kendall. It was hard for a frail person to keep her neck turned like that, and it was Mrs. Kendall she’d come to see.

“I never thought of Trevor as a poor boy, but I confess to keeping him tormented. He returned the favor with equal fire.”

Her comment was greeted with a roar of laughter. “Good for you, Kate!” someone called from the other side of the room. A plate of warm vanilla custard was placed before her, and the others began gathering around the table.

She scanned the group, all of whom seemed flush with good cheer. One of the men had a flask and added a little fortification to the spiced tea. The flask was offered to Trevor, who declined with typical reserve.

“So all of you knew Trevor as he was growing up?” she asked. If so, this place would be a gold mine of information.

The woman with frizzy orange hair nodded her head. “Except
back then we called him Trevor
McDonough
. Now that Mother has taken him under her wing, does that make us brother and sister, Trevor?”

“You were always as annoying as any sister could be,” Trevor said dryly.

“I’m taking that as a compliment!”

He winked at her. “I meant it as one.”

Kate was breathless to hear more about why Trevor changed his name, but the conversation flew so rapidly, making it impossible to stay on the topic.

“Hey, do you remember the time Trevor challenged Martin to see who could haul more coal in from the shed?”

“I won,” Martin said proudly.

“I was only thirteen and you were eighteen,” Trevor protested with a smile. “Of course you won.”

Mrs. Kendall buried her head in her hands. “The whole servants’ wing was a disaster. Coal dust tracked everywhere, and the two of you were as filthy as coal miners.”

She met Trevor’s gaze, and he gave a little shrug. How easily she could imagine him challenging an older boy to a competition, even for something as pointless as carrying buckets of coal.

Other memories were tossed around, and Kate realized this was a sort of family reunion. A couple of the women bragged about their babies, and the men swapped stories of old times. Trevor seemed to be included in most of the stories. From what Kate gleaned of the conversation, it seemed he ate in the servants’ wing and caroused with them. As the guests started breaking up into smaller groups, Kate stayed beside Mrs. Kendall. For some reason, the old housekeeper had made a point of wanting to meet her.

“Trevor tells me you were quite a cook,” Kate said. “That your vanilla custard is world famous.”

“Bah.” Mrs. Kendall waved the comment away. “My cooking is marginal at best. I wanted to meet the girl who kept Trevor on his toes all those years. And who interested him enough to come looking for her more than a decade later.”

Heat gathered in her cheeks. Four months ago she would have cringed in horror at any suggestion that Trevor might be interested in her, but now she couldn’t stop the reckless fantasies of sharing something more than an office with him. Apparently his interest was limited to her mathematical abilities.

“He told me he wanted me on his team because I am as competitive as he is,” she said.

“Is
that
what he said?” Mrs. Kendall drawled. She laughed a little, and it ended in a raspy cough.

“Why? Did he tell you something different?”

Mrs. Kendall shook her head. “That boy has always been closemouthed about himself. You have to read the tea leaves with Trevor.”

Kate would never have a better opportunity than right now to get a peek at Trevor’s mysterious past. He was deep in conversation with a few of the other men. Or rather, he was listening as the other men talked. Trevor was always more of a listener, silently gathering information and filing it away in that awesome mind of his.

“Senator Campbell was Trevor’s guardian,” Kate began, “but it seems he was closer to the servants than to the senator’s family. Or his own, for that matter.”

“True enough.”

“Why is that? It seems so strange for a man to ship his son off . . .” Kate let the sentence trail away. She knew virtually nothing about why Trevor came to America or why his father thought him “inconvenient.”

Mrs. Kendall laid a hand on Kate’s knee. “Trevor arrived to
us with more burdens than any thirteen-year-old should carry. And they aren’t my business to discuss.” The old woman’s eyes were kind and her hand frail, but the message in her tone was clear. Mrs. Kendall would defend Trevor’s privacy with her dying breath.