He advanced. A hunter stalking its prey.
Katherine picked her way carefully around the snow-covered trail, and tilted her chin up. “Yes. Why, I rather thought we were. You don’t strike me as a gentleman with very many friends, therefore you should accept friendship where you can.” His eyes narrowed further, to dark impenetrable slits. She wet her lips and backed up another step. She was rather certain he’d never harm her, but the dark look in his eyes would have made the most seasoned infantryman uneasy. “As your—”
“Friend?” he supplied, his voice dryer than a crisp autumn leaf.
She nodded emphatically. “Yes, as your friend, I thought I should provide a solution to your dilemma.”
His firm lips twitched. She narrowed her eyes, and studied him more closely. Or she might have imagined the very slight movement. Or mayhap it was mere coincidence…
“I was unaware I had a dilemma.”
Katherine jerked to the moment. She nodded, this time more slowly. “Oh, absolutely you do.”
He folded his arms across the broad expanse of his chest.
Her eyes dipped lower, and she swallowed as her body recalled his hot, strong hands upon her person. Dukes were supposed to be hopelessly old, impossibly wrinkled, and sporting monocles. Yes, they most certainly possessed monocles. Dukes, most certainly were not supposed to be great big, towering bears of men with their muscles straining the black expanse of their breeches.
“Are you warm, madam?”
Katherine blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Jasper gestured to her. “You are fanning yourself, my lady.”
Katherine stopped abruptly, and stared at her hand as though it belonged to another. “Katherine,” she reminded him. She dropped her palm to her side. “After all we are…”#p#分页标题#e#
“Friends,” he finished for her.
Something about the way he delivered that word; a silken caress, warmed in molten lava cascaded over her, it unfurled in her belly, like a small flame, that grew, and spread like a great conflagration. Why, it would seem she was rather warm after all.
“Yes.” Did that breathless response belong to her? It seemed more suited to scandalous ladies with rouged lips and daring décolletage.
His body stiffened, and she suspected he was of a like opinion. “Yes?” he whispered.
Oh goodness, this was not how she’d imagined this very direct, very matter-of-fact conversation to go. Katherine shook her head. “Yes, we are friends,” she said.
His gaze remained fixed upon her, unblinking and unfathomable. “As my friend, perhaps you should enlighten me as to this pressing dilemma I’m unaware of,” he said, wryly.
Katherine’s mouth went dry. She took a deep breath, and pressed on before her courage deserted her. “Your Grace, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
Jasper angled his head, and studied the lovely Lady Katherine, nay…just Katherine, as they were friends. He was just twenty-seven years of age so did not think it likely his hearing was failing him. It would appear he was madder than even Society believed him to be, because Jasper was ever so certain Lady Katherine Adamson had just proposed marriage to him.
He removed his black hat from atop his head, and beat it against his side.
Katherine cleared her throat. “I—er…will you? Marry me, that is, Your Grace?”
He ceased his distracted movement, and jammed his hat back on top his head. It would appear he’d heard her correctly, after all.
Still, it did beg for clarification.
“Did you just propose marriage, my lady?”
“Katherine,” she corrected. She nodded; the abrupt movement dislodged the drab, brown bonnet atop her head. Several strands of brown ringlets slipped down the side of her cheek.
Jasper’s fingers twitched with the sudden desire to brush the silken tresses back, and tuck them behind her ears.
He shook his head. What in hell was wrong with him?
“And yes, I did.” She took a step toward him, seeming unaware of his body’s physical awareness of her lean, lithe frame. “Will you marry me?” she asked for a third time.
He opened his mouth to reply but no words came out. He promptly closed it. Surely she jested?
And because he was at a loss of words, he said nothing.
Katherine caught her lower lip between her teeth, and worried that delectable flesh. She held her gloved palms up. “Of course, it would only be to solve your dilemma,” she said.
Jasper folded his arms across his chest. “Ahh, yes, my dilemma. Do tell me about this dilemma.”
Her eyes lit, and his response seemed to energize her for she began to pace a short path in front of him. Her boots left imprints upon the previously untouched snow. “Well, surely you know as a duke you have a certain ducal responsibility.”