“WHISTLEJACKET”

KICK - She was the Kennedy who conquered London—and the one her family tried to erase. In 1938, when Joseph P. Kennedy arrived as American Ambassador to England, his youngest daughter Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy struck London like a meteor. Beautiful, brilliant and magnetic, she became the most popular of the Kennedys. Then she fell in love with William “Billy” Hartington, heir to Chatsworth Palace and the future Duke of Devonshire. Their marriage united Kick with one of Britain’s most powerful aristocratic families—and created a rift with her own. The Kennedys feared the marriage would damage Jack’s political ambitions. Kick was pushed to the margins of the dynasty, ultimately airbrushed from its history.

Tragedy came swiftly. Billy was killed in London shortly after their wedding. A month earlier, Kick had lost her beloved older brother Joe—the only Kennedy to attend her wedding. Devastated and alone, she spent a turbulent year in London, even seeking refuge in a nunnery in northern England.

Then, at a glittering ball honoring British commandos, she met Earl Peter Wentworth Fitzwilliam. Their connection was immediate. For the first time since Billy’s death, Kick had found love—and a future. But fate had other plans.

Traveling to Paris to seek her father’s permission to marry, Kick and Peter were killed together in a private-plane crash. She was 28. Years later, JFK visited Kick’s grave at Chatsworth, overcome by grief. He vowed never to speak her name again. Bobby Kennedy made the same pilgrimage—and reached the same conclusion. Yet Kick could not be erased. She survived in memory, in legend, and in the name Bobby gave his first child: Kathleen “Kick,” after the aunt she would never meet.