Was he mad? His hot touch fueled the dreams of him, and their future, a future where those kisses were not mere kisses, where he showed her the truth behind every last secret she’d wondered of between a man and woman.
She cupped his cheek, and leaned up. “There isn’t another man I’d rather wed.”
His gaze seared her, bore through hers with a staggering intensity, and with a foolishness more reserved for a naïve debutante, Katherine waited with suspended breath for him to utter like words.
The words however, did not come.
Instead…
He nodded curtly. “Very well. We shall wed within the week.”
Jasper stepped away from her, sketched a hasty bow, and stormed from the door as though a fire had been set to the parlor.
Katherine stared at the empty doorway long after he’d left. She folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself tight. Jasper could not be clearer than if he’d committed the words to paper, that his interest in her was of a practical nature. There were no intoxicating feelings and desperate longings where he was concerned—not for her. Perhaps all those volatile emotions had been buried with his Lydia.
Her nails dug into the exposed skin of her forearms.
Only…his kiss, his touch made her dare to dream, dare to believe that he would eventually come to care for her, as she cared for him.
A knock sounded at the door, and Katherine looked blankly at the entrance as her sister peeked her head in. A wide smile wreathed Anne’s porcelain fine cheeks. “Hullo.” She peered around the room as if to ascertain Katherine was alone. “May I come in?”
Katherine nodded, grateful for her twin’s presence.
Anne entered, and closed the door behind her. “Mother is livid.”
Katherine considered Mother’s vile charges when Jasper had arrived earlier. Mother should be ashamed, more than anything else.
Anne tugged Katherine over to the plush, powder-blue velvet upholstered sofa. “Sit,” she commanded as if speaking to a small child.
Katherine smiled weakly up at her sister. Though a handful of minutes older, Anne had never really seemed the older of the two. Always ready with a smile, Anne always landed them, in any number of troublesome situations. In this moment, however, with her serious expression and calm demeanor, she was very certainly the elder sister. “Well, when I proposed we find you a husband to save you from that horrid Mr. Ekstrom, I never once imagined you’d find someone who could be far worse.”
Katherine shook her head. “No, Anne. He’s…he’s…”
Anne’s brow wrinkled. “He’s what?”
Brave. Hurting. Strong. “He’s a good man,” she finished lamely.
Anne sat back in the folds of the sofa. “He’s a very severe gentleman. I should like my gentleman to smile a good deal and not be so serious like the duke.” A long sigh slipped past Anne’s bow-shaped lips. “I could never despise anyone who would save you in such a heroic manner as the duke did. But beyond that, there seems little to recommend him.” She wrinkled her nose. “Though that is a very high recommendation.”#p#分页标题#e#
One time when Katherine and Anne had been girls of just seven or eight years, they’d been traipsing through the woods of their father’s estate. They’d come upon a red fox; its front leg had been caught in a snare, and hopelessly broken and bloodied. The creature’s lip had pulled back as it snapped and snarled.
Katherine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from explaining that Jasper was that scared, hurt fox. She loved her sister and trusted her implicitly but still could not betray Jasper’s privacy in telling of his past.
“You mustn’t wed him unless you wish to,” Anne continued. “It shan’t be easy with the holiday nearly upon us, but we must find someone to rescue you from both Mr. Ekstrom and the Duke of…”
“I asked him to marry me, Anne.”
Her quietly spoken words brought her sister up short. Anne’s eyes widened in her face, giving her the look of a night owl. She opened her mouth, but Katherine interrupted her.
“I could not wed Mr. Ekstrom, and the duke, he will be good to me. He will allow me my freedoms and…” Her words trailed off, because beyond that, she wasn’t altogether certain what type of marriage they would have. There certainly would be none of the grand love he’d known with his last wife.
Anne drummed her finger over the arm of the sofa. “I must say when I dreamed of the heart of a duke for the both of us, I had a far different vision than you married to that beas…er, gentleman,” she amended when Katherine shot her a reproachful look.