For Love of the Duke(58)
With a sigh, she sat back in her seat, and pulled the curtain back. Thick frost covered the windowpane flecked with frozen snowflakes. She ran a finger over one star-shaped flake.
The carriage dipped ever so slightly as her husband’s broad, thickly-muscled frame filled the inside of the conveyance.
He claimed the seat across from her, and then the door closed behind them.
A few moments later, the carriage lurched forward and they were off to the cold, dark, expansive castle her husband had dwelt for the better part of his life.
A blanket of quiet enveloped them in an uncomfortable fold. She bit the inside of her cheek. In the frosted windowpane she detected the immovable lines of Jasper’s face.
She’d never seen him express any grand emotion. Oh, she knew he surely had—at one time. For his Lydia. Her heart twisted, and it was like a vise was squeezing the blasted organ. Jasper had surely not abandoned his first wife on their wedding night. And he’d certainly allowed the woman a maid to help with her daily and nightly ablutions.
Yes, Katherine would venture that his first wedding had been met with great celebration and laughter and a wondrous feast.
Unlike his wedding to Katherine, which had been a hurried affair, not even worthy of the meal arranged by Cook.
Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked back the tokens of embarrassed hurt. When she’d asked Jasper to wed her, she’d not really considered anything beyond being free of Mr. Ekstrom and Mother’s horrid plans for her future. And so, she’d not really considered the possibility that she’d be met with such an icy disinterest from Jasper.
Her hair had been like spun gold.
Katherine angrily shoved a now-limp brown ringlet back behind her ear. The mocking strand fell right back into place. She hated ringlets as much as she detested ivory and white ruffles. She didn’t expect Jasper should love her. She had expected that he might feel…something, because he, even with his wintry treatment of her, had come to mean something to her.
His disinterest last evening bespoke a different tale.
Fool.
A single tear streaked a path down her cheek, and she discreetly swatted at it. She’d not further humiliate herself by turning into a watering pot in front of him.
Another blasted drop squeezed past her eyelid.
She folded her trembling hands into the fabric of her cloak, in a desperate attempt to conceal any weakness. Jasper was not a man who’d respect weakness, and surely not in the woman who was now his wife.
Or bride. She was still embarrassingly, and most assuredly, a virgin.
Oh bloody hell. The tears fell in earnest.
For the first time, Katherine appreciated that Jasper’s total disinterest spared what was left of her tattered pride.
Christ.
She was crying.
Jasper’s heart squeezed in a clear reminder that the organ still beat.
Something about her, tucked forlorn in the corner, making a desperate attempt at concealing the crystal drops that fell down her cheeks, ravaged him.
He would trade his bloody landholdings if it would spare her pain…and yet, he didn’t know how to call forth the words to halt her grief.
Did she regret her decision to wed him?
His gut twisted in a tightly coiled knot at the thought of it. Jasper could not blame her for any regrets she carried over their marriage. He was a coldhearted, unfeeling bastard of a man. If he wasn’t, he’d know just what words to utter to ease her pain, he would take her in his arms and rub soothing circles over her back, and he would drive back her quiet tears, replacing them with joyous laughter.
Instead, he reached into his jacket, and fished out the white monogramed kerchief. He handed it over to her. “Here,” he said, his tone gruff.
Katherine didn’t take her gaze from the window, but her fingers grasped the small square, and she blew her nose noisily into it. All the while her shoulders trembled.
The sight of it threatened to turn him into the Mad Duke Society proclaimed him to be.
“What is it, Katherine?” I should have done so much differently. I should have allowed your maid to come and attend you so you had at least that comfort. I should have allowed you to break your fast, and do so with you. I should have…
Never wed you.
Because the man Jasper now was, the man he’d become four years ago to this day, would never be worthy of her.
Katherine shook her head. His usual loquacious, bright-eyed sprite uncharacteristically silent.
He should cease his line of questioning. Katherine did not want to speak to him. She wanted to carry on with her own private misery, but he could no sooner stop the questions than he could stop his heart from beating.
Jasper leaned over and touched his fingers to her chin. She resisted, but he gently turned her to face him.
Oh, God. Her eyes were twin pools of despair.