Jasper’s skin tingled at the sudden awareness of eyes upon his person. He stiffened, and glanced at a point beyond Katherine’s shoulder. His gaze locked on a tall, unfamiliar gentleman. And Jasper knew.
Knew with all the intuitiveness of a man hopelessly in love with his wife, that the golden-haired Michelangelo hovering nearby, with a flinty expression in his eyes was none other than Lord Stanhope.
Jasper’s fists curled into tight balls at his side. With a growl, he grasped Katherine by the hand, and tugged her forward. His bold actions were met with horrified gasps and increased whispers.
Katherine gasped and nearly stumbled. He righted her, and proceeded to guide her forward.
“Jasper, what are you doing?” she whispered at his side.
He gritted his teeth, unwilling to have this exchange. Not here. Not in front of the ton.
Not in front of Stanhope.
“Will you slow down,” she implored.
Jasper cursed, earning another flurry of whispers and ever-widening stares. But he slowed his stride. They made their way up the long staircase, through the corridor, out to the foyer.
When they remained free of Society’s impolite stares, Katherine dug her heels in. Her brows stitched into a single line. “Jasper, what are you about?”
Jasper took a deep breath. “Come with me, Katherine.” He really was creating quite a scene and she really did require her cloak…but he needed to be free of this crowded hell. His throat closed up choking off breath and he feared he’d suffocate from the attention fixed on him.
Her lips dipped in a frown. She folded her arms across her chest.
He closed his eyes a moment, and then opened them to find her standing there, an insolent brow arched. Jasper tried again. “Katherine, will you please come with me?” Come away with me.
She hesitated a moment. And for that seemingly infinitesimal moment, he suspected she intended to deny his request. His breath came faster. Then, she nodded slowly, and marched toward Lord and Lady Harrison’s front doors.
This time, Jasper hurried to catch his wife. She started for his black lacquer carriage, and accepted the hand of a nearby servant, who reached out to hand her up.
Jasper glared at the young man who dared touch her hand.
The servant paled to the color of his white, powdered wig, and then scurried off.
Jasper leapt into the carriage. His eyes struggled to adjust to the dimness of the space. When they did, they alighted upon Katherine seated in the far corner of his carriage. An unreadable expression on the face that had haunted his dreams.
The carriage rocked forward. And still they sat there in silence.
He’d thought of no one but her since she’d walked out of his life. After Guilford’s visit to Castle Blackwood, Jasper had ordered his horse saddled, and he’d ridden like the devil himself had been at his heels. He’d raced his poor mount, working him into a fine lather.
In his mad race to London, he’d considered what words he would say to Katherine. He would profess his love, and beg her to return with him. He imagined he’d have pretty compliments and recite sweet verse to convince her that she desired a life with him.#p#分页标题#e#
Instead, he’d arrived at his townhouse to find her gone. And the horror of imagining her with Stanhope had become all the more real for Jasper’s sudden arrival in London.
A vitriolic, violent jealousy had filled him until he’d wanted to stalk through the London streets like an untamed beast and pull open doors until he found Stanhope and destroyed the fiend.
Jasper gnashed his teeth. “Have you taken a lover, Katherine?” He winced. The steely, angry accusation would hardly convince Katherine to set aside her feelings for Stanhope and return to Castle Blackwood.
Katherine’s brows dipped. She leaned across the carriage, and the honeysuckle scent, so boldly hers, wafted about them, and filled his senses. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?” Cool rage underlined those clipped words.
Jasper fished into the front of his jacket and withdrew a sheet he’d neatly torn from The Times. He handed it over to her.
Katherine hesitated a long while, and then accepted the paper. She skimmed it. Her gaze narrowed. And then she wrinkled the item into a ball and threw it at his chest. She touched her hands to her chest. “Do you believe this of me?”
Jasper glanced down momentarily at the rumpled words that had turned him into the kind of Mad Duke who stormed, uninvited, into a ball and dragged his wife from the ballroom, amidst a sea of curious stares. “I…oomph,” he grunted as she stuck a finger in his chest.
“I am not your mother, Jasper,” she said, her words, flat and emotionless.
“Stanhope?” Jasper forced the bastard’s name past his suddenly dry mouth.