“Of course. I’ll pull my Cinderella gown from the closet and come in my glass coach.”
“You needn’t worry about any of that. I made all the necessary arrangements. Jacob Fenton has given permission for any Taggert to be allowed to come and go. My dressmaker is waiting and Mr. Bagly, the tailor, has been given instructions. All you have to do is bring your father, Rafe and Ian.”
“That’s all, is it?” Jean asked, smiling. “My father will be no problem, but Rafe is another matter. And unfortunately, Ian is just like his uncle.”
With a sigh, Houston looked down at her mug. “Let me guess. First of all, you have no way of knowing whether Rafe will like the idea of attending the wedding or not because he is completely unpredictable. He could laugh and be happy to go, or he could possibly shout and refuse to attend.”
For a moment, Jean gaped. “Don’t tell me Kane is a real Taggert.”
Houston stood and walked to gaze sightlessly out the single window, not speaking for several long minutes.
“Why are you marrying him?” Jean asked.
“I really don’t know,” she answered, pausing again. “Leander and I were the perfect couple,” she said softly, almost as if in a dream. “In all the years we were engaged, in essence, since we were both children, I don’t think we ever once disagreed. We had some . . . problems as we grew up,” she thought of Lee’s anger when she’d refused to let him make love to her, “but nearly always we agreed. If I wanted green curtains, Leander wanted green curtains. There was almost always perfect harmony between us.”
She looked at Jean. “And then I met Mr. Taggert. I don’t think he and I’ve yet had a harmonious conversation. I find myself yelling at him as if I were a fishwife. The day after I agreed to marry him I broke a water pitcher over his head. One minute I’ll be furious with him, and the next I want to put my arms around him and protect him, then the next minute I find I want to lose myself in his strength.”
She sat down, her face in her hands. “I am so confused. I don’t know what anything means anymore. I loved Leander for so long, was so sure of my love for him, but right now I know that if I were offered a choice, I’d keep Kane.”
She looked up. “But why? Why would I want to live with a man who makes me furious, who makes me feel like a street woman, who runs after me like a satyr, then pushes me away and says ‘there’ll be more of that later, honey’ as if I’d been the forward one? Some of the time he ignores me, some of the time he leers at me. Sometimes he charms me. He has no respect for me; he treats me as if I were a backward child one minute, and the next he hands me unspeakable amounts of money and tells me to accomplish the work of ten people.”
Houston stood quickly. “I think I must be insane. No woman in her right mind would go into
a marriage like this. Not with her eyes open. I could see being so in love with a man that you’d not see his faults. But I see Kane Taggert as he really is: a man of towering vanity, a man of no vanity. Whatever you can say about him, there is a contradiction.”
She sat down again, heavily. “I am insane. Completely, thoroughly insane.”
“Are you sure?” Jean asked quietly.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure,” Houston answered. “No other woman would—.”
“No, I mean about being so in love with him you’d not be able to see his faults. I’ve always thought—or hoped—that if someone loved me they’d know all my bad points and still love me. I wouldn’t want a man who thought I was a goddess, because when he found out that I have an awful temper, I’d be afraid he wouldn’t love me anymore.”
With a puzzled look, Houston gaped at Jean. “But loving someone means . . . ”
“Yes? What is being in love with someone?”
Houston stood, looked out the window absently. “Wanting to be with a person. Wanting to stay with him through sickness and health, wanting to have his children, loving him even when he does something you don’t like. Thinking he’s the grandest, most noble prince in the world, laughing when he’s said something that hurts you for the fifth time in one hour. Worrying whether he’ll like what you’re wearing, if he’ll be proud of you, and feeling your insides melt when he does approve of you.”
She stopped and was silent for several long moments.
“When I’m with him, I’m alive,” she whispered. “I don’t think I was ever alive until I met Kane. I was just existing, moving, eating, obeying. Kane makes me feel powerful, as if I could do anything. Kane . . . ”
“Yes?” Jean asked softly. “What is Kane?”
“Kane Taggert is the man I love.”
Jean burst out laughing. “Is it really such a catastrophe, being in love with one of us Taggerts?”
“The loving will be easy, but the living with might be somewhat difficult.”
“You’ll never be able to imagine half of it,” Jean said, still laughing. “More tea?”
“Is all of your family like Kane?”
“My father takes after his mother’s side of the family, I’m happy to say, but Uncle Rafe and Ian are true Taggerts. I thought this Kane, because he had money . . . ”
“It probably makes him worse. Who is Ian’s father? I don’t remember meeting the boy.”