For Love of the Duke(78)

So very different than the world forever captured upon canvas by a too-knowing, intuitive painter. An artist who’d accurately immortalized the resentment, the loneliness, the hurt, of a boy who could be no more than nine or ten years of age.

She closed her eyes.

Oh, Jasper. Is it a wonder you’ve this rigid shell about you?

Unable to bear looking on the remembrance of his past, Katherine turned to go, when her eyes snagged upon another of those single white sheets.

She wet her lips, but could no sooner leave without ripping that covering down than she could turn Aldora out for the holiday.

Directly opposite the unhappy rendering of Jasper’s family, hung the covered portrait. Katherine made the very long walk to that sheet, and in a single pull, delicately tugged it from the top of the mahogany frame, inlaid with gold, narrow bandings.

Her heart thudded hard against the wall of her chest, and her breath caught on a shuddery gasp.

For all the misery and vitriol captured in Jasper’s parents’ renderings, this painting depicted the very opposite—joy, unfettered love, tranquility.

The golden beauty, stood with the tips of her long, elegant fingers resting upon Jasper’s sapphire blue coat sleeves. Only this Jasper, this Jasper was nothing like the cynical boy of nine or ten years. His gentle, loving stare forever fixed upon his wife’s perfect, heart-shaped face. The woman, no—Lydia, gazed up at Jasper with such unadulterated love, Katherine felt like the worst sort of interloper. It was as though the artist snuck upon an intimate exchange and forever committed it to the canvas. Their locked gazes depicted two who shared a secret that none of the mere mortals looking on were privy to.

Katherine rubbed her chest, in an attempt to dislodge the odd knot formed in her chest. Her efforts proved futile.

This moment, this was why Jasper stared at Katherine and the rest of the world with icy disdain. This was why he frowned and snarled and snapped like an injured animal. Because how could one know this…this…splendor, and ever survive after having it so cruelly plucked from their grasp?

Katherine bent down and picked up the thick, shockingly heavy white sheet filled with a wholly selfish, and horrible urge to toss the covering back upon the mahogany frame.

Because then she wouldn’t have to see it, and know just why Jasper could and would never love her.

Tears filled her eyes and Katherine blinked back the salty drops of despair, humbled by the depth of her vileness. Knowing it was horrible and wrong, as she gazed up at Lydia, the true Duchess of Bainbridge, bitter jealousy flared inside Katherine for this dead woman who’d taken Jasper’s heart.

The rapid beating of her heart slowed. Katherine blinked, and took a staggering step backwards. “No,” she whispered into the quiet. Her heart resumed its cadence, and then steadily increased in an ever pounding rhythm until she slapped her hands over her ears to dull the loud thumpthumpthumpthump that echoed even within her head. “No,” she whispered again, shaking her head.

It could not be. Because if it were true, it would destroy her in ways the frozen River Thames never could have…

Her eyes slid closed. A fat, single teardrop squeezed past her clenched lids.

I love him.

The tear blazed a warm path down her cheek. She brushed the drop back but another only took its place, and another, and another.

She’d gone and fallen in love with a man whose heart forever belonged to another—to a woman without silly brown ringlets, and dull brown eyes. To a woman whose beauty inspired the great poets like Wordsworth and Byron to forever honor them within the verses of their sonnets.

And Katherine? Well, she would never be anything more than…more than…whatever she was. Her breath grew ragged.

I cannot bear this. With a great, gasping sob she spun on her heel and fled through the door.

All the air left her on a ‘whoosh’ as she collided with a wall.

She bounced backward and landed on her buttocks. Pain radiated up along the point of contact, and shot up her spine.

The blasted tears continued to fall as she gazed through blurry vision up at Jasper’s frowning countenance.

He loomed over her, a great big, unbendable oak of a man. “Katherine?” He held his hand out. “What is…?” She reached for him, just as his hand fell back to his side, and his words died.

Katherine gulped, and shoved herself awkwardly to her feet. She followed Jasper’s gaze across the portrait room. With the intensity of his stare, he threatened to bore a hole through that fragile canvas. Then his eyes drifted lower—to that blasted white covering. Her stomach flipped over itself.

“Jasper, I…”

His gaze swung angrily back toward hers. “What are you doing in here? I ordered this room closed off.”