For Love of the Duke(76)

At his silence, she trailed the tip of her tongue over the seam of her lips. He’d trade all the money in his coffers to lay her down here in his office and worship her mouth with his own, to learn the secrets of her body that made her cry and moan with breathless desire.

“Jasper?”

Jasper started, and tugged at his immaculately folded cravat. “I do not have company at Castle Blackwood.”

She nodded in a way that suggested she understood as much. Then, “Is that all, Jasper?”

He angled his head, flummoxed by Katherine’s agreeability. He’d expected there to be all manner of foot stamping and fiery shouts from his spirited wife’s delectable lips. “It is clear then?” Because in the time he’d come to know Katherine, he’d come to realize that nothing was ever truly clear.

Katherine nodded, this time more emphatically. The sudden gesture sent a brown curl falling across her brow. “You are perfectly clear, Jasper. There are to be no guests.” She brushed the strand back. “If you’ll excuse me.” She started for the door.

A mere ten more steps and she’d be out the door, away from his office, and he’d be alone with his dark musings and deepest yearnings. An odd panic filled his chest. “You will speak to them, then?” he called out, as her fingers pressed the handle.

Katherine spun back around, her lips screwed up. “Speak to whom?”

Jasper closed his eyes and counted to ten, and because counting to ten didn’t seem to have any calming effect on him where his wife was concerned, he instead sent a prayer skyward for patience. “Your sister and her family,” he said, when he opened his eyes.

Katherine raised a hand to the panel of the door, and drummed her fingertips in a distracted, staccato rhythm. “Whatever for?”

Oh, Christ. “About leaving,” he snapped. Enough with this blasted discussion, already.

Katherine’s hand froze mid-beat and then fell by her side. She took a step toward him. Then another. And another. Until the tips of their feet met. She looked at him through eyes of impenetrable slits that would have raised holy terror in any other man. “You’d have me send my sister out for the holiday?”

Jasper frowned, and glanced over at the heavily curtained windows. “It is not snow-…Oomph” His words ended as Katherine jabbed him hard in the chest.

“You would have me send her and sweet Lizzie—”

“Lizzie?”

“Her and Michael’s babe,” she didn’t so much as pause. “You would send them away in this cold, forsaken weather for the holiday?”

“Not now,” he amended. “But after they’ve rested a day or so.” He lowered his voice. “I believed I was clear when I said there are to be no guests.”

Katherine’s brows shot to her hairline.

Jasper tugged at his collar. He’d imagined himself incapable of being shamed.

Katherine proved that thought wrong with the next jab of her finger. “And they are not guests, Your Grace.” They appeared to be back to the whole Your Grace business, “They. Are. Family.” She jabbed him again. “And they are staying. All of them. Are there any other matters you cared to discuss?”

Jasper shook his head.

She gave a flounce of her curls. “Very well. Then if you’ll excuse me.” And with all the grace and aplomb of Helen of Troy, Katherine strode from the room with a determined step. She slammed the door in her wake.

The abrupt movement displaced a log within the hearth, and the fire snapped and hissed with a fury to match Katherine’s rage.

Jasper shook his head. “Well, then, I am very glad we had this discussion, Your Grace,” he murmured into the quiet.

He grinned.





~24~



Katherine stomped through the castle, wishing she hadn’t donned her ivory satin slippers, instead wishing she’d opted for the thick, black serviceable boots she wore in her jaunts through the snow. Because the soft pad of her slippered feet served as no suitable match for the outrage thrumming through her.

“Guests,” she mumbled beneath her breath.

Yes, the solid, click of her boot-heels upon the hard, stone floor would be vastly preferable.

A maid peeked out from one of the doors, and then must have seen something dark in Katherine’s expression, for she ducked back into whatever room she’d been tending. Katherine didn’t even know how many rooms or what manner of rooms existed within these cheerless, dank walls.

She increased her pace. And this is what he’d turned her into? A frowning, scowling, boot-wearing, fast-moving duchess, who inspired fear in her staff.

With a quiet curse, Katherine spun back around, and walked several paces. She paused inside the doorway.