Guilford’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I believe he’s next in line for the earldom, behind the lady’s brother, who’s a mere boy.”
So Katherine’s happiness would be forfeited on a whole series of what-ifs. His fingers curled over the arms of the chair, hard enough to leave indents in the solid wood.
Jasper picked up his fork, and speared a piece of bacon. Ultimately, it didn’t matter to him who the lady wed. “She is not my affair.” She is not my affair. She is not my affair. It was a litany he didn’t believe.
Guilford snorted. Neither apparently did Guilford. His friend opened his mouth to speak when a knock sounded at the door.
The footman approached with a silver tray bearing a letter atop it. Upon recognizing the familiar, elegant lines of the scrawl, Jasper’s heart thumped an odd rhythm.
He accepted the note, and Guilford forgotten, unfolded it.
Your Grace,
It occurs to me that I failed to obtain your copy of Wordsworth’s latest volume. I would ask if when the winter storm abates, that you meet me in the same spot alongside the Serpentine River.
Ever Yours,
Katherine
Disappointment stabbed at him. Her note was comprised of a mere two sentences. He frowned, and turned it over in his hands, and then studied the front of it yet again. Direct, and yet coolly polite, Katherine’s letter was this time devoid of the characteristic teasing he’d come to expect from the young lady. He didn’t know how to account for this…
Another servant entered, bearing another silver tray.
Jasper frowned, and reached for the missive.
Jasper,
If you would please deign to send round a note, this time regarding my request for a meeting along the Serpentine. I’m afraid I received quite the dressing down from my mother, at a time when I can ill-afford to anger her.
The unwritten mention of Ekstrom. He clenched the parchment so tightly, he wrinkled the page. Jasper forced himself to keep reading.
If you are a man of integrity, then you’ll honor your word and provide me with your copy of Wordsworth’s work.
Jasper’s frown deepened. The insolent bit of baggage. He’d been called mad, a coldhearted bastard, but no one had dared to question his honor.
I do not mean to impugn your honor. Though, I can certainly see how the above mentioned words might seem that way.
His lips twitched.
But it is with some urgency that I request to meet with you. And obtain that volume.
Ever Yours,
Katherine
Something in those final two sentences gave him pause. The last sentence seemed an afterthought hastily scratched upon the page.
It is with some urgency that I request to meet with you.
Those were not the words of a woman merely eager to obtain a book of poetry.
Guilford chuckled. “I would trade my countryseat in Sussex to know the contents of those missives.”
Jasper folded the two notes, and stuffed them inside the front of his jacket. “Go to hell,” he muttered, and picked up his coffee. He took a quick sip. The now cold brew slid down his throat, and he grimaced in distaste.
Guilford sighed, and tipped back on the legs of his chair. “Does your recent correspondence perhaps have to do with your Lady Katherine?”
“She is not my…” Jasper shook his head, and took another sip. He would not continue to be goaded by his friend.
Lady Katherine Adamson was not Guilford’s business.
Jasper started as he realized that she was in fact, however, his business. His rescue, then their subsequent meeting at the bookshop, followed by their discourse on Wordsworth, and their assignation at Hyde Park made her more than a stranger.
His cup of coffee rattled in his hands, and liquid sloshed over the rim. A liveried footman rushed over to clean the liquid from the table.
Jasper ignored him, unable to form a coherent thought, his mind raced.
Since Lydia’s death, he’d gone to great lengths to shut himself off from the world. He had not wanted the emotional entanglements, the pitying stares, nor his name so much as breathed upon the lips of strangers who found a macabre fascination with his wife’s death.
Yet, in the course of a week, Lady Katherine Adamson had slipped past his defenses so that he wondered after her well-being. It could not be more than that. He’d not allow for it. She meant nothing to him.
Nothing…
He’d resolved to never care again.
“There could be far worse things than finding yourself wed to Lady Katherine Adamson,” Guilford interjected quietly.
Jasper started. His eyes narrowed. “Marriage?” he drawled. Perhaps it was Guilford who should earn the title of Mad Marquess. “I have no intentions of wedding again.” He could not subject another woman to the hell that had claimed Lydia’s life. His eyes closed and nausea churned in his stomach as he remembered the blood. There had been so much of it; a bright crimson puddle upon the stark white sheets. Only this time, in his remembrance, Lydia’s face shifted in and out of focus, alternating with a more recent visage; a minx with brown hair and brown eyes.