For Love of the Duke(62)

“I do not—”

“You do now, husband. So accustom yourself to the very thought of it. Now,” she marched over to the door and pulled it open. “If you will? I have matters to attend.”

With his unreadable gaze, he did a cursory search of the barren room.

If he so much as mentioned the absence of any trunks or material possessions that constituted things she could attend to, by God, she’d plant him a facer.

Jasper stood there, a firm set to his intractable lips, and then took those remaining paces out into the hall, pausing a moment to turn back.

He opened his mouth, and Katherine closed the door. She turned the lock with a satisfying click.



Through the years, as the Duke of Bainbridge, Jasper had come to expect certain deferential treatment where he was concerned. Hardly, obsequious on his part, but rather demonstrated through the actions and words of those who’d crossed his path since he’d been a surly babe in the nursery.

He knew he stared, and had lost track of how many minutes he’d now stood rooted to this particular spot staring at the door his new wife had closed in his face.

And locked, the devilish imp had locked it as well.

Because he’d become so accustomed to those certain deferential treatments afforded his status, he found himself quite flummoxed by being shut out of a room, in his own manor.

He supposed many of the previous Dukes of Bainbridge who’d lived within these dank walls, many, many years ago, would have taken the door down with their hands.

The other Dukes of Bainbridge surely would have been too occupied by their mistresses to either know or care that said door had been locked.

Lest he be discovered by his rather limited household staff gaping at a door like a nannypanny, Jasper spun on his heel and strode with determined steps through the house, until he at last reached the library.

People didn’t defy him, and yet, this small slip of a lady had not only defied him but commanded him, insisting he celebrate the Christmastide season.

Jasper shoved the heel of his Hessian boot against the door. He relished the reverberations as it shook in its frame.

Lock the door on him, had she.

Jasper stormed over to the floor-to-ceiling-length shelving of books, and tugged free a white sheet draped across the leather volumes. It danced to the ground in a noisy, wrinkly heap. He stepped over it, and furiously scanned the titles of books he’d not touched in years.

He pulled out a collection of Coleridge’s poems and tossed it to the floor. The disregarded sheet dulled the solid thump of book hitting floor.

What had she expected of him?

Jasper pulled out one of Byron’s works. His eyes skimmed the title, and then he dropped it atop the forgotten Coleridge works. Considering the fury thrumming through his energized frame, Jasper would sooner burn the romantic work of Byron than read it.

She’d been clear that theirs would be a marriage of convenience and that she carried no real affection for him. His brow wrinkled. Or, he’d not believed she’d mentioned anything where emotion was concerned.

His Katherine was practical and logical and not the heady, flighty creatures flitting around London.

Only in the two days and a handful of hours since they’d been wed, she’d shown herself to be a highly emotional creature, and he didn’t know how to handle such feelings. Especially not with the years he’d been shut away from Society. And especially not with Katherine, the one person who’d managed to infiltrate the fortress he’d constructed around his heart.

He preferred the cool indifference he’d carried toward not only life, but to anyone who crossed his path.

Jasper didn’t want to worry about another being hurt, or injured, or even happy, for that matter; because all of those sentiments required something of him, and he didn’t want to give anything, because frankly—he didn’t have anything left to give.

Or he’d thought he had nothing left to give, no warmth or joy or interest—until Katherine.

He reached slowly, absently for another book and stared unblinking at the title.

She’d forced him to accept the disquieting, uncomfortable truth.

He cared.

Somehow, she’d shattered the lie he’d made of his life since Lydia’s death.

Wordsworth.

Jasper reared his arm back to toss the volume atop the copy of forgotten books, but froze. He lowered it, and studied the title a minute. An hour?

He walked over to the leather sofa, creased and weathered from age and wear and sat with Wordsworth’s book on his lap.

Before Lydia, he’d considered himself a sensible gentleman. He’d possessed a reputation amongst the ton as a ruthless, emotionless man. Then Lydia had shown him happiness could exist.

With her death, he’d realized happiness was nothing more than an illusion and so he’d retreated from Society and buried himself in the solitude of his castle to lick the wounds left by his misery.