Katherine blanched and her whole body jerked as if he’d struck her a physical blow. The sight of her suffering struck him worse than a lash across the back.
Wind beat hard and cruel against the glass window panes, the spirits railing at him.
Katherine gave a jerky nod. “You needn’t leave your chambers, Jasper,” she said with a shocking strength to her words. She fetched a sheet and draped it about her slender frame. “I’ll l-leave.” This time her words broke, and his gut clenched.
Katherine marched back toward the door, more regal than any queen.
He wanted to reach for her. Halt her forward movement. Beg her forgiveness.
Katherine opened the door. It closed behind her with a soft, decisive click.
And he did none of those things.
He was a bloody bastard.
~28~
Katherine studied the familiar copy of Wordsworth’s latest works she and Jasper had sparred over. She fanned the now well-read pages, swallowing past the silly lump in her throat.
She didn’t have another drop to shed for Jasper. A knock sounded at the door, jerking Katherine from her reverie. “Enter,” she called quietly.
The door opened. Aldora hovered at the entrance. Her gaze went from Katherine, and then over to the small valise at the food of Katherine’s bed.
Katherine handed the book over to the maid Mary, who’d been so good as to serve as her de facto lady’s maid.
Mary placed it in the valise and looked around. “Is that all, Your…Lady Katherine?”
The unspoken question pertained to the mound of ivory and white satin gowns heaped upon the center of her bed. Katherine never wanted to see another white gown for the remainder of her days. “I do not require anything else, Mary. Please, do with them as you would.”
Mary nodded, and bobbed a curtsy.
Aldora advanced deeper into the room.
“That will be all, Mary,” Katherine said, dismissing the young servant.
The maid dropped her gaze to the wood floor and sketched another curtsy. She hurried from the room.
“Are you certain you want to leave?” Aldora asked when the door clicked shut. “He is your husband, Katherine.”
The gentle reminder brought tears to Katherine’s eyes. She swatted at them. “Bah, silly tears,” she muttered.
Aldora handed over a handkerchief.
Katherine accepted it and blew her nose noisily into the white fabric etched in Michael’s initials. She remembered the cruel words Jasper had hurled at her last evening, made all the more cruel for the truth to them. “Ours is a marriage of convenience, Aldora. I wed him to be free of Mr. Ekstrom and he wed me for…” For reasons she still didn’t fully understand. “I’m a bother to him. He’ll be grateful for my departure.” Her heart wrenched. She loved him. Would always love him.
Aldora took her hands. “I believe he must care for you in some way.” She gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “The duke does not strike me as a gentleman to do something because he doesn’t want to. He wed you for a reason.”
Katherine shifted the conversation to a far safer topic. “If you’re too tired from your journeys and you’d rather wait until tomorrow to leave…”
Aldora sighed. “Michael has seen the carriage readied. Though I’d not imagined we’d spend Christmas traveling back to London.”
Nor had Katherine.
Tears blurred her vision yet again. She blew her nose noisily into the soiled linen.
“Does he know?” Aldora asked gently.
Katherine shook her head. “I will speak to him. He’ll be relieved, I’m sure of it.”
“No gentleman cares to be abandoned by his wife,” Aldora said with a wry twist to her words.
A frisson of guilt spiraled through Katherine, but she brushed it aside. Jasper couldn’t have been clearer in his feelings regarding their marriage.
And Katherine? Well, she found herself a bigger coward than she’d ever believed, because she could no longer share the same walls with Jasper and the ghost who would forever hold his heart. The pain of unrequited love would slowly destroy Katherine until she became the same empty shell of a person Jasper had become after his wife’s death.
Her eyes shifted to the reticule atop the pile of white and ivory gowns. She reached for the delicate purse, and made to place it inside the valise. Something gave her pause. She set it back down on the mountain of white.
“Michael said if you’re determined to journey with us to London, then we’d be wise to leave within the hour.”
Katherine nodded.
Her sister opened her mouth, as though prepared to say more, but then gave her head a sad little shake, and took her leave.
Katherine stared at the closed door a long moment.