For Love of the Duke(71)

Katherine’s steps slowed, but she remained with her eyes fixed ahead, toward the castle.

“And roast quail. I detest orange pudding, but love Shrewsbury cakes,” Jasper said. He adjusted the pile of branches in his arms so they were more precisely arranged, and tucked them under his arm. He resumed walking.

Katherine once again fell into step beside him. From the corner of his eye, he detected her stare directed upward at him. He expected her to fill the silence.

The time he’d come to know Katherine, however, should have taught him Katherine wasn’t one to do the expected.

She remained silent.

They reached the middle of the drive and Katherine placed her fingertips upon his arm.





~22~



He’d not pulled away. That should mean something. Of course, it could also very well mean nothing, which was entirely more likely, but still, Katherine had placed her hand on Jasper’s arm and though he’d stiffened, he’d not shaken free of her touch.

“Your Grace, will this do?”

The butler Wrinkleton pulled her from her silly musings.

Katherine gave her head a clearing shake, and returned her attention to the efforts in the hall. She followed the direction of the butler’s slightly bent finger up toward the collection of ivy woven along the tops of the floral embroideries. Katherine smiled. “I would say so, Wrinkleton, and you?”

He angled his head and studied them a moment, and then nodded slowly.

Katherine reached for an apple and carefully secured it to the evergreen. And she wanted to consider which should be added next to the bough—the paper flowers she’d made last evening or the tiny child’s doll, but could not for all the Wordsworth sonnets, roast chicken, and croquettes of sweetbread, combined, cease thinking of her husband.

She’d entered into their marriage under the illusion that it was a matter of convenience for the both of them; she would escape Mother’s plans to wed her off to horrid Mr. Ekstrom, and Jasper would find in her his duchess and she’d do…she furrowed her brow, whatever it was that duchesses did.

Katherine supposed she should have considered that part beyond the whole heir and a spare bit. Because when he’d informed her that he had no intentions of consummating their union    , well then she would have had some idea of what that meant for her future.

She picked up the small baby doll and turned it over in her hands. A pang jabbed at her heart like a tiny needle prick being touched to the hopeless organ. As it was, all she now knew was that it was not for her future. No sweet-faced ringlet-less daughters or troublesome little boys.

With a sigh, Katherine set aside the child’s toy and reached for the paper rose. She secured it to the evergreen.

But now she knew he enjoyed turtle soup, and detested orange pudding but loved Shrewsbury cakes…and he hadn’t withdrawn his hand. He’d held hers back, which had only forced Katherine to confront the truth.

She’d not merely wed Jasper Waincourt, the 8th Duke of Bainbridge as a matter of convenience.

She’d wed him because somewhere between the Frost Fair, the Wordsworth volume, and the talk of dinners and desserts, she’d come to care for him. With his gruff directness and the unexpected kindnesses he’d shown her at every score, his happiness had come to mean a very good deal to her. Her eyes closed a moment as she thought of the suffering she’d seen in his usually hard eyes, and she realized, his happiness had come to mean more to her than her own.

Katherine would not allow herself to consider the whys of that. Her mind screeched at the edge of anything more than that.

“Your Grace?”

She looked up again from her work, as Wrinkleton gestured to the boughs of evergreen along the staircase rail.

“It looks splendid,” she assured them.

The footman hanging the evergreen paused to smile at her, and then moved on to hang the next.

Katherine fixed another smallish red apple to the thick green branch and forced herself to confront the truth of her situation. She cared for a gentleman whose heart had been buried four years ago upon the death of his true wife. It mattered not that he’d gripped her fingers in his, because the moment they’d arrived at the castle, he’d stormed off as though she’d bore the plague, and she’d not seen him in the days since.

Which only indicated their intertwined hands had been altogether insignificant, merely an attempt to warm his frozen fingers, surely.

A small sigh escaped her, and she lifted the kissing bough. She turned and handed it off to Wrinkleton who waited just at her shoulder.

He handled it with a manner of reverence reserved for his employer's family jewels, turning it cautiously over to another footman who rushed over.