For Love of the Duke(30)

~10~



After a long carriage ride through the snow-laden streets of London, Katherine at last arrived home. She climbed the steps with dreaded anticipation. Perhaps she’d not see her mother just yet…perhaps…

Ollie opened the door. She took a hopeful breath and stepped inside with a murmur of thanks for the old servant.

She freed the hook that held her cloak together and handed the sopping wet garment over. “Thank you,” she said as he took her cloak. She shook out her snow-dampened skirts, the flakes dissolved into small droplets of water atop the marble floor. “I…” Her words faded, as she met her mother’s scowling countenance.

Mother stood in the foyer, arms planted atop her hips. Anne hovered at a point beyond her shoulder. Her sister stood shaking her head in a commiserative way.

Katherine sighed. “Mother…”

“Where have you been?” Mother launched into a stinging tirade. “First you take yourself off to the Frost Fair, unchaperoned, and nearly find yourself drowned.”

Sorry, Anne silently mouthed.

“Then you arrive with the Mad Duke…”

Katherine clenched her hands into tight fists. “He is not mad.” He was hurting and scarred and forever changed by the loss of his wife. The pain he carried did not make him mad.

“Bah.” Mother slashed the air with her hand. “You have run wild for the last time, Katherine.” There was a hard edge, an unspoken order to those words.

Katherine’s stomach tightened. “Mother…”

“I’m speaking to your uncle. You need a husband who will bring you in line.”

Anne gasped. “Mother, no.”

Mother carried on as though Anne hadn’t interjected, as though Katherine’s heart was not beating hard with panic. “You’re actions will jeopardize your sister’s ability to make a most advantageous match.”

Her sister’s ability.

Not Katherine’s.

It was expected by all that beautiful, vibrant, accomplished Anne would secure a well-titled husband. The expectations, however, for Katherine were not so very great. They were rather bleak, in comparison to her sister’s.

“Where were you off to in this storm?”

Katherine’s mind went blank under the weight of the truth. She could not very well explain that she’d gone to meet the duke. Her gaze met Anne’s, and the flash of something that looked very nearly like guilt, lit the blue irises of her sister’s eyes.

So Anne was behind Jasper’s missing second missive. Of course.

She offered her sister a gentle smile.

Anne had dragged Katherine along on any number of madcap schemes; of the latest, which was their unchaperoned trip to the Frost Fair. The decision to brave the storm, and Mother’s wrath had been Katherine’s alone.

“Get to your chambers,” her mother snapped, jerking Katherine back to the moment. “I’ll speak to you in private.”

Katherine managed a tight nod, and with head held high marched past her mother, up the stairs, down the hall, to the security of her own rooms. Once inside, she closed the door, and leaned against the wood paneling, borrowing the support of the hard surface.

He kissed me.

Her eyes slid closed. And she’d kissed him with a desperate longing she’d never known existed within herself.

Katherine’s childlike dreams of fanciful love had faded over the years, to be replaced with a woman’s logic. The only dream she’d carried for so long was of a secure life, married to a gentleman who’d not squander their every last possession, but instead would care for her, give her children, and perhaps enjoy a quiet read beside a warm hearth.

Until his kiss.

Jasper Waincourt, 8th Duke of Bainbridge’s one kiss and fevered caress had thrown into question everything she believed she’d wanted for herself. He’d awakened her to a burning passion that Katherine hadn’t believed herself capable of. His heated touch had scorched her skin, and somehow, irrevocably altered her, in ways that terrified her—ways she could not consider.

Because she could not, would not ever wed a pitiless, cold man like the duke. His kiss might liquefy her, but he’d been clear, all gentleness within him had died with his wife.

Jasper could never be that gentleman to sit beside her, quietly reading, with a gaggle of children at their feet.

A knock sounded at the door.

Katherine jumped as the reverberations shook her back. She should have not spent her time ruminating about Jasper, but instead formulating a response for her mother’s impending tirade. She took a deep breath, and turned around.

Her mother opened the door and sailed into the room. She ran a hard stare over Katherine’s damp frame, a pinched set to her mouth.