Jasper opened his mouth but was silenced by her black glare. Goodness, with that reproachful stare, his wife could rival the sternest matron at Almack’s.
“And lest you forget, Your Grace, it is you who scooped me up and placed me on your lap.” She wiggled her rounded-buttocks upon his center, and his head fell back as he sent a silent prayer for patience skyward.
Alas, life should have well-taught him that there was no God, not even one to oversee such small favors. Katherine continued to squirm on his lap, and with a startled screech, toppled backwards.
The muslin fabric of her cape, and her satin skirts flew over her head.
“Bloody hell,” she cursed, and struggled on the floor of the carriage.
Jasper swallowed, knowing it was the height of ungentlemanly behavior to not immediately help her up, but he remained frozen at the sight of her flesh exposed to his hungry stare; the trim ankles, the lean, legs, and lush thighs that were meant to wrap around a man’s waist, urging him on…
He groaned.
Katherine batted at her fabric, and shoved it down into place, favoring Jasper with another scowl. “You’re groaning, Your Grace? It is I who is seated here upon the floor of the carriage.”
He leaned over her. “Need I point out, Your Grace,” Katherine’s brows dipped. “That you are the one who squirmed yourself free.”
“Well,” she said on a huff.
Jasper reached down, and gently pulled her back up, and settled her on the cushions of the seat opposite him, a safe distance…
His eyes dipped lower as he considered her now-concealed, willowy limbs. Or, a safer distance, anyway.
Jasper rested his neck along the back of his seat and stared up at the ceiling of the carriage. It was going to prove a very long journey with his wife.
~17~
Katherine yawned, and placed her hands along the base of her back. She arched the cramped muscles, knowing Mother would be scandalized should she see her bold display of discomfort, and stared at the sign dusted in snow, that hung alongside the inn’s door.
Fire and Brimstone
She scrunched up her nose. Well, really, what a rather horrid name for an establishment, and not at all the place a young lady envisioned spending her first day as a married woman.
Jasper touched a hand to her lower back and she jumped.
“Are you all right, wife?”
Wife.
That one word, spoken in a silky, mellifluous baritone warmed her more than a blazing fire on a winter’s day.
Katherine reminded herself that her husband was surely accustomed to more sophisticated, less moon-eyed young ladies, and tossed her curls. “Quite, fine.”
He started forward, and Katherine stared after him.
It appeared to take him a moment to register that she did not follow, and he glanced back, a question in those green eyes that made her yearn for the spring.
“I lied,” she confessed. She pointed at the sign. “Fire and Brimstone, Jasper? It is a horrendous name for an inn. Why, why…one might as well call it, Hell and Damnation.”
Did his lips twitch? With amusement? Oh the lout. “As a learned woman, I would gather you do not judge a volume by its title alone.”
Hmph. Very well. So he was correct, in this regard. She quickened her step, and then looped her arm through his.
The tightly coiled muscles cased within his coat bunched under her touch. A smile played about her lips. Her stoic husband might maintain a cool disinterest where she was concerned, but every so often his body would betray him, and reveal that he was not as indifferent as he appeared.
They entered the inn. Katherine shook out her skirts, and all at once, registered the absolute stillness of the dimly lit establishment.
She froze and glanced up to find a quite full inn…and all sets of eyes were trained upon her and Jasper.
A smallish, older gentleman with a bald pate rushed over. “May I help you….?”
“The Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge. We require rooms.”
Those quietly spoken words still managed to thunder through the still room.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened, and he bowed low at the waist. “Your Grace, it is an honor. How many rooms may I—”
“Two,” Jasper interrupted.
The innkeeper nodded. “I have two rooms available, a fare of roasted beef and potatoes. And a tankard of ale.” He motioned to the lone empty table in the corner of the inn.
Two rooms?
Two.
As in, more than one.
She shook her head. Her husband was merely doing the polite gentlemanly thing in procuring two rooms, so that she might prepare…prepare…
Katherine fanned her cheeks and looked around the crowded taproom floor. Her eyes collided with a buxom serving girl with a pitcher of ale and an empty tankard in her hand. The lush creature trained her eyes on Jasper.