For Love of the Duke(53)

I will shower you with anything and everything your heart should desire.

“Aldora, she is the eldest and therefore needed to make a match and save us all from ruin.” She troubled the flesh of her lower lip as she was wont to do when agitated. For everything he did not know of her life, he knew the very subtle nuances of her body’s every movement.

“Aldora had been given a pendant by her friends; a simple gold heart given them by an old gypsy, purported to lead them to the heart of a d…” Her blush deepened. “Er, a dear man who would love her.”

Her telling reaction indicated there was more to her sudden discomfort. “Aldora thought with our family’s scandalous circumstances and dire financial straits that a powerful, wealthy, titled lord represented our hope for security.” She untied the strings of her bonnet, and removed the hideous thing. She tossed it across the carriage where it landed with a solid thump at his feet. “I detest that bonnet,” she muttered.

And bonnets. He would commission the finest milliner to design a limitless number of bonnets for her to choose of. One for every day of the year.

“I take it she did not marry the marquess?”

Katherine grinned. “She married his brother.” She waved her hand. “There was some scandal that clung to her husband Michael, but it mattered not. Aldora loved him.”

The red in her cheeks deepened to the hue of summer berries, and suddenly Jasper had a desire for the sweet fruit.

He shifted on the seat “And what of you, Katherine? Surely you must have dreamed of love for yourself?” Or at least more than this cold, practical contract you’ve entered into with me.

She lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. “When I was younger, perhaps. I’m nearly twenty years, and far more logical.”

Jasper had known love and great loss, but the thought of his brave, bold, spirited, Katherine never knowing love herself, scraped at his insides like the edge of a blade being applied to his flesh.

Except…on the heel of that, was the thought of her with some nameless, carefree gentleman capable of laughter and love, and with every fiber of his selfish being, Jasper gave thanks that she belonged to him.

“You’ve not spoken of your family, either, Jasper.” Her quiet murmur interrupted his musings. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Jasper bent down and retrieved her bonnet. He studied the ivory lace trim. “I have no brothers or sisters.” His had been a lonely childhood. There had been no laughter or merriment within the walls of Castle Blackwood.

“What of your mother and father?”
#p#分页标题#e#
“They are d…”

“Dead. I know.” She leaned over and took her bonnet back. “I imagine there is certainly more you can say of the people who gave you life.”

Oh, he could say any manner of things about them, none of which would be appropriate for a lady’s ears. “My parents were cold, selfish individuals. It was a match based on their mutually distinguished positions in Society.” His parents’ had been a scandalous union  ; both his mother and father carrying on with very public affairs.

Katherine set her bonnet upon her lap and toyed with the strings that dangled from the ivory creation. “Surely there was some affection there,” she protested. “Even as my parents’ marriage was carefully arranged by their fathers, my mother very much loved my father.”

A harsh chuckle escaped him. “My parents detested one another. My father had a string of mistresses, my mother a string of lovers. I assure you, Katherine, there was little affection between them.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said faintly, the color deepening on her cheeks.

Sweet, Katherine. She spoke of logic and practicality and the benefits of a marriage based on convenience, but for all of it, she was still hopelessly innocent, and the thought of that raised an unholy terror inside of him.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the intimate direction their conversation had taken, Jasper cleared his throat. “You should rest, Katherine. The snow will slow our travel to Castle Blackwood.”

She peeked out the window. “Will you tell me of it?”

Jasper sighed. He should have expected with her stubborn streak that his words should have the opposite request. “It is cold. Dark. Expansive.” Devoid of cheer. For a too-brief time, however, there had been laughter within those castle walls. Now all that remained were the echoes of Lydia’s agony and his own despair.

Katherine wrinkled her nose. “That hardly sounds like a warm place to call home.”

“I never suggested that it was.”