Katherine rocked back on her heels…because, no, she didn’t. She did however, know with great certainty that whatever had happened to Jasper’s wife had been no fault of his. She was sure of it. “I do not. But neither does the ton.”
“You defend him!” Mother rang her hands together, crumpling the parchment in her fingers. “Oh, why, why, why did you go off to that fair? If you hadn’t then he wouldn’t have offered for you, and your uncle wouldn’t have said yes.”#p#分页标题#e#
Anne gasped. Her eyes widened, and she looked to Katherine. There was a hint of shocked hurt there. Katherine’s gaze slid away. As twin sisters they’d shared nearly everything. In this, Katherine had not deigned to mention her meetings with Jasper. It had just seemed too…too…intimate.
“The fiend won’t even allow for the banns to properly wed. He insists on a wedding posthaste. Why, he won’t even allow time for your sister and her husband to be summoned.” She threw her hands into the air.
“Oh,” Katherine said, flummoxed. She’d not given any thoughts to the details surrounding their nuptials. She’d imagined at least a private, intimate gathering with her family. The faintest little pang pierced her heart. What had she expected? Theirs was a match of convenience, nothing more. Yet…the tiniest, most infinitesimal smidgeon of her heart had dreamed of something very different than a hasty wedding without even her siblings present.
Mother sank down into the nearest sofa. Her skirts fluttered about her feet. She buried her head into her hands and shook it back and forth. “Now Anne’s Season will be hopelessly ruined.” Katherine balled her hands into tight little fists at her side. Yes, because that had always been Mother’s primary concern; Anne securing the most advantageous match.
As if she detected the subtle hurt, Anne reached over, and slipped her fingers into Katherine’s. She gave them a slight squeeze, and a smile of support for Katherine.
“Oh, I’m certain the connection to any duke will not hurt our place amongst the haute ton, Mother,” Anne said. She released Katherine’s hand and tugged free the paper in their mother’s hands. She skimmed the sheet. Her eyes widened. “What?” Katherine reached for it, but Anne shifted it away from her grasp, and continued to read.
Mother ignored Anne. “Your uncle considered nothing more than the duke’s title. I’m certain of it.”
“I’d venture he also considered the very, very generous terms of the contract,” Anne muttered.
Katherine grabbed for the parchment, her heart thudding hard in her breast. This time, Anne turned it over.
Katherine began to read, and promptly choked.
He’d settled £1200 upon her annually as pin money? By all the saints in heaven.
“That is a small fortune,” Anne murmured, eyes wide and unblinking.
She was to have a country cottage in Kent.
Anne scratched at her brow. “All money brought by your dowry is to revert over to you if anything should happen to him.” She shook her head. “I dare say this is very generous, Mother.”
Generous? Katherine’s throat worked reflexively. Generous? Through his magnanimous gesture, Jasper had ensured she’d never be dependent upon him as Mother had been dependent on their wastrel father.
“I do not care if the duke gave her the Queen’s Crown,” Mother cried. “The man killed his wife. Surely that matters to one of you?”
A knock sounded at the door.
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to the entrance of the room.
Katherine’s stomach lurched. Oh, goodness. Her toes curled inside her ivory satin slippers.
The butler cleared his throat, his small blue eyes wide in his pale face. “Er, the Duke of Bainbridge to see Lady Katherine.”
Jasper’s imposing figure filled the doorway. An enormous specimen of a man, the smallish butler seemed a mere flicker in his shadow. Jasper glanced at her momentarily; his expression the hard, inscrutable one she’d come to expect.
Humiliation over her mother’s outburst melded with pain for the ugly insults Mother and all of Society leveled at this generous, if cold, gentleman. Society didn’t know him to be a man who’d risked death to rescue her from the frozen depths of the Thames. They didn’t know the man who appreciated the tortured words of Wordsworth. And they most certainly didn’t know he’d sacrificed himself to wed plain, bluestocking Katherine Adamson, saving her from Mr. Ekstrom.#p#分页标题#e#
His gaze slid away from Katherine, and then he pinned Mother to the spot with his flinty, emerald green eyes.