For Love of the Duke(60)

~19~



Jasper drummed his fingertips on his hard-muscled thigh. “We’ve arrived,” he said, his tone brusque.

Katherine shifted and peered out the carriage window into the dark. She squinted, attempting a glimpse of her new home. Regret twisted in her heart. Home.

In order to have a home, one required a family, and the Duke of Bainbridge had been quite clear—he had little intention of ever considering her a wife. In the true sense of the word, that was. She’d never have children. She sucked in a breath at the heartbreak of such a grim truth. She considered Aldora and Michael’s precious little Lizzie. There would be no Lizzie with bright-eyes, or a husband to carry that nameless babe upon his shoulders, as they went on pretend journeys to make-believe places.

Pain licked at her insides.

A servant pulled the door open. Jasper leapt down in one fluid movement, his legs remarkably steady for one who’d spent nearly ten hours in the cramped confines of a carriage.

Katherine took a moment to compose herself, and then stepped down. Jasper extended a hand. She studied it, filled with a childlike urge to swat at it. But she’d not been a child for a very long time. Katherine accepted his offer of help and exited the conveyance.

She looked up at the imposing façade of the Castle Blackwood. She shivered. Cold. Dark. Expansive. With its medieval turrets it most certainly was all those things, and it perfectly suited her dismal mood.

Katherine stiffened as Jasper touched his hand to the small of her back. He adjusted his long-legged stride to match her smaller strides as they walked closer and closer to this new place in which she would spend the remainder of her days. Alone.

Odd, she’d been so concerned with thwarting her mother’s efforts between her and Mr. Ekstrom, she’d not considered the possibility that she could then enter into a loveless contract with a man who saw her as nothing more than a stranger to share his keep with.

The snow crunched under the heels of her slippers; the thin satin fabric, hopelessly ruined from her walk into the Fire and Brimstone Inn last evening. Had it really been less than a day since her world had become unraveled, like the stitches upon an embroidery frame?

From the corner of her eyes, she noted Jasper studying her feet with a black scowl.

“You should be wearing boots, Katherine.”

Her mouth flattened. “I would have, if I’d had the time to properly prepare for our travels, Your Grace.”

His jaw flexed, but he refused to rise to her baiting. Just then she hated him for such indifference.

They climbed the long stone steps, dusted in snow.

A waiting butler pulled the front doors open. The ancient servant with heavily wrinkled hands and shocking white hair greeted them. He bowed deeply when they entered. “Your Grace.” His gaze slid momentarily in Katherine’s direction, and then she might as well have been invisible for all the notice he paid her.

While Jasper spoke to the butler, Katherine rubbed her arms through the fabric of her cloak, and glanced up, up, up, the towering stone walls to the ceilings above. She imagined the ladies of the past who’d been dragged to this remote, lonely castle by the lord of the manor and forced to spend the rest of their days. Unlike Katherine, who’d come here of her own volition, with the dream of…

Something so vastly different than the contract Jasper spoke of.

“Katherine this is Wrinkleton. Wrinkleton, the new Duchess of Bainbridge.”

Wrinkleton. Well, that was a rather apt sobriquet.

“Your Grace,” he murmured.

She inclined her head in greeting. “A pleasure, Mr. Wrinkleton.”

He bowed, and dropped his eyes deferentially to the floor. “Congratulations upon your recent nuptials. If there is anything you desire, I’m at your service.”

Oh, if you could manage a smiling husband, and a gaggle of sweet babes, that would be just splendid. Oh, and a cup of warmed chocolate, for good measure.

She managed to muster a half-hearted smile and settled for, “Thank you.” She peered around at the tapestries that hung upon the stone walls, covered with crisp white linen. Katherine resisted the urge to wander over and tug those linens free. What did they conceal?

“Allow me to show you to your room, Katherine.”

Jasper’s quiet words spun her back around. He didn’t wait to see if she followed, but started up the long, winding staircase that led to the rooms that would belong to her. Forever. And ever. And ever.

Katherine issued a final thank you for the butler, and then scrambled to keep up with her husband. The great, big dunderhead.

He’d not kept the same rooms with her last evening.

She stomped up the steps.

He’d not even had the decency to secure a lady’s maid for her.