And yet, it did.
“Katherine?”
She looked out at the river. “Well, you would of course be condescending and mocking, which you of course were.” He stiffened, not at all liking her unfavorable opinion of him. It mattered not that he’d spent four years purposefully crafting the image of an unfeeling bastard. He didn’t like that Katherine saw him in that light. Katherine carried on. “You would have of course, asked the benefits of a marriage to me.”
Again, he imagined her sprawled out upon his bed. “Oh, and what would be the benefits of a marriage to you?” he asked, voice garbled.
Katherine’s eyes lit, and the glimmer of sadness faded. She held a finger up, and then shifted the copy of Wordsworth’s work. She reached inside her reticule and pulled out a note. She held it out.
His brow furrowed. “What is this?”
“A list with all the benefits in marrying me.”
Jasper glanced down at it, staring blankly at the title.
All the Reasons to Wed Lady Katherine
“It isn’t a very clever title,” Katherine prattled on. “It isn’t the title of the list that is important, of course, but rather the contents within the list.”
The page shook in Jasper’s hands.
Katherine’s frown returned. “Are you all right?”
Jasper’s shoulders quaked, and the oddest rumble built within his chest, steadily increasing, until something foreign, something exploded from his lips—laughter. Rusty and hoarse from ill-use. It echoed in the quiet of Hyde Park.
She snatched the list out of his hands. “You needn’t laugh at me.”
Jasper continued to shake, as he laughed for the first time in three years. He laughed until tears seeped from the corners of his eyes, the feel and sound of it foreign, and yet, freeing. He’d never thought to laugh again.
As his laughter subsided to a small chuckle, he reached for the list. “If I may?” He took it from her hands.
She grabbed for it but he held the velum beyond her reach. “Obviously you aren’t aware that it is ungentlemanly to grab something from a lady’s hands.”
“Obviously,” he muttered under his breath. He scanned the list.
I am well-versed in poetry. There was that.
I despise London. Well, they were of like opinions, there.
I’ll not require a large wardrobe or fine jewels. He had enough money to shower her daily with diamonds and sapphires if she so wished.
I can provide as many children as desired. His eyes fixed on that item. The images that crept into his mind of Katherine’s satiny smooth skin bared to his gaze shifted, to an image of her abed, staring up with sightless eyes, the bed soaked in a pool of blood as she gave her life for one of those children. Nausea rolled in his gut. He crushed the page in his hands.
“You needn’t wrinkle it,” Katherine groused, pulling it out of his white-knuckled grip, seeming unaware of the hell that ravaged Jasper’s mind. “I’m certain there are other reasons.”
“And what of you, my lady? I don’t imagine the contract be mutually beneficial for you. What desperation would drive a lady to ask a gentleman who is so, how did you phrase it? Condescending and mocking? To be her husband?”
Humiliated pain flashed in Katherine’s eyes, and Jasper, who’d thought himself deadened on the inside, was knifed with guilt.#p#分页标题#e#
She stuffed the list angrily into her reticule. Her jerky movements sent Wordsworth’s work tumbling to the ground. “It was silly of me to ask you.” She spoke so quickly, her words spilled over one another, and blurred together. “I don’t know what manner of madness would ever compel me to do something as foolhardy as to ask you for—”
Jasper kissed her.
He dimly registered the reticule slipping from between her fingers, and landing in the snow with a faint thump. He grasped her hips, and pulled her close, so that his shaft nestled the soft flesh of her belly. His mouth slanted over hers angrily until her lips parted, and he slid his tongue inside to taste her; she tasted of cinnamon and mint leaves, and he wanted to lose himself forever in her.
Katherine reached up and wrapped her arms about his neck; her full breasts crushed against the expanse of his chest. She moaned, and he swallowed that sound. Jasper cupped her buttocks in his hands, and anchored her to him.
The distant echo of screeching kestrel split the silence; more powerful than the blare of a pistol. Jasper wrenched his mouth away. His breathing came in fast, deep pants, and it was all he could do to keep from pulling her into his arms again.
Her thick lashes fluttered open. “Well,” she said, breathlessly. “I believe we might add that to my list, then.”