For Love of the Duke(92)

“It is yours,” he said hoarsely, coming out from behind his desk. It is all yours, Katherine.

“Thank you.”

He stopped in front of her. So formal. So very polite. How could they be so stoically calm with talk of her walking from the room, and out of his life?

“Is there anything else you require?” Jasper’s distant question may as well have belonged to a stranger.

She shook her head. “No, Jasper.” Katherine studied her hands a moment, and then crossed the small distance between them. She leaned up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to forever hold onto the scent of honeysuckle and lemon that clung to her. “I…I…” Love you. Tell me you love me, Katherine, even as undeserving as I am. “Be happy, Jasper,” she whispered, and then stepped away from him.

She dropped a curtsy and walked out of his office. Out of his life.

Jasper’s gaze fixed on the door. His throat moved up and down.

How could he ever be happy again when with her, she’d taken his every last remaining reason for dwelling on this earth?

He wandered over to the front of his office and pulled back the thick brocade curtains covering the windowpanes. He peered down at the snow-covered drive as footmen hurried back and forth with trunks and valises belonging to Katherine’s family.

He stood there, fixed to the spot, waiting for the moment Katherine stepped into that carriage.

He waited so long he convinced himself that he’d imagined the whole, hellish exchange.

Then she appeared. The green muslin cloak a bright flash of color in a stark, white horizon. He’d come to know her so well, he could detect her body’s every nuance. She stiffened, as though she knew he studied her. Her chin ticked up a notch, and then she drew her hood up, and stole from him the vision of her lush brown ringlets and warm brown eyes.

Jasper rested his forehead alongside the wall and shook it slowly back and forth.

Do not leave.

Please do not leave.

The quiet of the cool winter’s day magnified all sound and he detected the moment the carriage door opened and closed.

Jasper’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled back to the edge of the window in time to see the footman hand her up into the carriage.

He devoured the delicate span of her back, the bold tilt of her neck, and cherished his every last glimpse of her, until the door closed, and Michael Knightly’s black lacquer carriage rocked forward.

Jasper pressed his brow against the glass panes and peered after the slow-moving conveyance until it dissolved into nothing more than a faint mark in the horizon.

Once again, left—alone.

The walls he’d constructed around his heart, the ones Katherine had rattled from the moment he’d pulled her from the Thames fell firmly back into place, surrounding the wounded organ that beat within his chest. He embraced the hurt, fueled the bitter resentment tearing through him.

With a steely set to his jaw, he dropped the curtains back into place.

He’d stood mooning like a lovesick swain over his wife long enough.

Katherine had left.

And it was now time to move forward.





Part II



Spring 1815



“How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?

Because the lovely little flower is free

Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.”

― William Wordsworth





~29~



“Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,

Was wanting yet the pure delight of love

By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,

Or by the silent looks of happy things,

Or flowing from the universal face

Of earth and sky…”



Katherine glanced up from the pages of her book and tried to blink back a sneeze. The fragrant cuckoo flowers and bluebells in full bloom of this floral sanctuary of Kensington gardens tickled her nose.

“Achoo!”

A white kerchief appeared over the page of her book.

She accepted the white scrap of linen. “Achoo!” and sneezed into the previously unsullied fabric. “Thank…” Katherine blinked, as the sudden, unexpected appearance of a mysterious kerchief registered.

Katherine spun about the wrought-iron bench.

“Your Grace,” an increasingly familiar Earl of Stanhope drawled.

She pointed her eyes skyward and snapped her volume closed. “Lord Stanhope.”

The tall, impossibly handsome rogue claimed the seat next to her. “Henry,” he corrected.

Katherine grunted and shifted in her seat. “This seat is not designed for two people, Harry.” Katherine handed back the soiled linen.

Harry heedlessly stuffed it back into the front of his jacket. His lips curved up in a partial grin. “You know I detest when you call me Harry.”

She did, which was why she’d taken to calling him Harry.