For Love of the Duke(29)
His lip tugged up at the corner as he considered his first meeting with Katherine. It would appear the young lady had not changed much since her earlier years.
She continued, and Jasper tried to follow the odd direction her thoughts had taken. “I am the younger twin.” Yes, Guilford had mentioned as much. Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “I’ve always felt more like an older sister. Anne has always been the fanciful, whimsical sister. I’ve always sought to protect her.”
He remembered the panicked, unholy light in her eyes as he’d pulled her from the river, considered her outing this day in Hyde Park in the midst of a winter storm. “And who protects you, Katherine?”
She opened her mouth. Then closed it. Her brow wrinkled. “Since my father died, my sister Aldora fashioned herself as something of a protector of my family.” A sad little smile played about her lips. “Though, she wed three years ago, and now spends most of her time in the country.” She shook her head. “That is neither here nor there.”
He bit back a smile. “Your hatred of water,” he guided her back to her earlier statement.
“Ah, yes. I hate water. One day, Anne and I were playing alongside a river that bordered my father’s property. Anne’s favorite bonnet, a pretty pink one with satin ivory ribbons, fell into the water. She was desperately crying, and so I climbed upon a long tree trunk that had fallen across the river.”
The muscles in Jasper’s stomach tightened. He knew intuitively where her story was going. He would rather not think about a small Katherine Adamson pulled beneath the surface of a river. Not when he’d rescued her from the Thames, and knew the blood-terror that had gripped her in that moment.
“I fell in,” she said. “The current was fast-moving, and so very strong. It pulled at my skirts and dragged me under.”
The image she painted roused the protective instincts he’d thought long dead inside him.
“I was certain I was going to die.” Her words took on a faraway quality, as though she were speaking, but to no one in particular. “My sister managed to toss a long branch out, and I grasped onto it. She pulled me to safety.”
How very strong she’d been, even then as a small child to have battled past the terror to ultimately save herself.
Jasper would have been a boy of fifteen years or so; he wished he’d been there, just as he’d been those five days ago. He wished he’d been there to pluck her from the river so she could have turned her fear over to him.
“My point is this, Jasper,” she went on. “I detest water. It’s unpredictable and dangerous, and it terrifies me.” She held her palms up. “But I cannot live the rest of my life avoiding water.”
“You nearly drowned at the Frost Fair.” He felt inclined to point out.
She took his hand in hers and turned it over. He stiffened.
“But I didn’t, Jasper. Life is horrible and unfair and terrifying. But those are not reasons to stop living.” Katherine touched her fingers to his gloved hand. “You didn’t die, Jasper. You lived.”
His hand tightened reflexively around hers. He’d lived, when Lydia had perished. With his desire for his wife, and the need for an heir, Jasper had killed her with his selfish needs and ducal obligations. For more than three years, he’d punished himself for that great crime.
Only now, with Katherine’s quietly spoken words did he confront the truth…Lydia was gone and no amount of self-flagellation would bring her back.
And he hated Katherine, in that moment, for opening his eyes to the reality of his miserable circumstances. “You need to leave,” he ordered harshly.
She cocked her head.
“I said, go,” he forced out past tight lips. He needed her to leave. He wanted this woman who’d tossed his life into an upheaval to go, and let him go back to the emotionally-deadened man he’d been these past three, nearly four years.
Katherine nodded. Twin splotches of color stained her cheeks. She dipped a curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured.
He loathed the aching need to hear his name upon her lips yet again.
Katherine made to go.
“Your chaperone,” he called out.
She frowned, her face calm and serene, brown eyes cool and removed— the Ice Princess returned. “You needn’t worry about me, Your Grace.”
No, he needn’t.
And yet, he did.
Katherine dipped another curtsy, and then hurried off. He stared after her swiftly retreating figure, until she was nothing more than a small mark upon the snowy horizon.
He thought of the story she’d shared, of the small, unprotected girl fighting the fast-moving river waters. With a sigh, he set out to follow the now headstrong, young lady still in desperate need of protection.