For Love of the Duke(55)
“Well,” she said on a huff.
Jasper reached down, and gently pulled her back up, and settled her on the cushions of the seat opposite him, a safe distance…
His eyes dipped lower as he considered her now-concealed, willowy limbs. Or, a safer distance, anyway.
Jasper rested his neck along the back of his seat and stared up at the ceiling of the carriage. It was going to prove a very long journey with his wife.
~17~
Katherine yawned, and placed her hands along the base of her back. She arched the cramped muscles, knowing Mother would be scandalized should she see her bold display of discomfort, and stared at the sign dusted in snow, that hung alongside the inn’s door.#p#分页标题#e#
Fire and Brimstone
She scrunched up her nose. Well, really, what a rather horrid name for an establishment, and not at all the place a young lady envisioned spending her first day as a married woman.
Jasper touched a hand to her lower back and she jumped.
“Are you all right, wife?”
Wife.
That one word, spoken in a silky, mellifluous baritone warmed her more than a blazing fire on a winter’s day.
Katherine reminded herself that her husband was surely accustomed to more sophisticated, less moon-eyed young ladies, and tossed her curls. “Quite, fine.”
He started forward, and Katherine stared after him.
It appeared to take him a moment to register that she did not follow, and he glanced back, a question in those green eyes that made her yearn for the spring.
“I lied,” she confessed. She pointed at the sign. “Fire and Brimstone, Jasper? It is a horrendous name for an inn. Why, why…one might as well call it, Hell and Damnation.”
Did his lips twitch? With amusement? Oh the lout. “As a learned woman, I would gather you do not judge a volume by its title alone.”
Hmph. Very well. So he was correct, in this regard. She quickened her step, and then looped her arm through his.
The tightly coiled muscles cased within his coat bunched under her touch. A smile played about her lips. Her stoic husband might maintain a cool disinterest where she was concerned, but every so often his body would betray him, and reveal that he was not as indifferent as he appeared.
They entered the inn. Katherine shook out her skirts, and all at once, registered the absolute stillness of the dimly lit establishment.
She froze and glanced up to find a quite full inn…and all sets of eyes were trained upon her and Jasper.
A smallish, older gentleman with a bald pate rushed over. “May I help you….?”
“The Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge. We require rooms.”
Those quietly spoken words still managed to thunder through the still room.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened, and he bowed low at the waist. “Your Grace, it is an honor. How many rooms may I—”
“Two,” Jasper interrupted.
The innkeeper nodded. “I have two rooms available, a fare of roasted beef and potatoes. And a tankard of ale.” He motioned to the lone empty table in the corner of the inn.
Two rooms?
Two.
As in, more than one.
She shook her head. Her husband was merely doing the polite gentlemanly thing in procuring two rooms, so that she might prepare…prepare…
Katherine fanned her cheeks and looked around the crowded taproom floor. Her eyes collided with a buxom serving girl with a pitcher of ale and an empty tankard in her hand. The lush creature trained her eyes on Jasper.
Katherine fisted her hands at her side.
Jasper looked at Katherine. “Are you all right, Katherine?”
Her mouth tightened.
With the exception of the fiery jealousy that ripped through her usually calm sensibilities, she was perfectly fine.
She nodded, and followed Jasper and the innkeeper abovestairs. He led them down a narrow hall and stopped beside one door. “Your Grace,” he murmured to Katherine, and held the door open.
Katherine peeked inside.
Yes, she’d well learned that one should not formulate an opinion of a book on the mere title alone…and yet, in this regard, it would appear Fire and Brimstone was in fact an apt moniker.
A colorful, albeit tattered coverlet was turned down at the corner of the wide-bed at the center of the room. The nightstand with a broken leg and small, deeply scratched vanity were, otherwise, the only pieces of furniture.#p#分页标题#e#
She became aware of Jasper and the innkeeper studying her with intent expressions. “It is lovely,” she said to the proprietor who beamed with her praise.
“Please have a bath readied for Her Grace, and a meal.”
Katherine warmed at the gentle consideration her husband was showing her, and watched as the innkeeper hurried off.
Alone in the confines of the too-small room, she suddenly became aware that this, wintry cold, starless night was in fact, her wedding night. Her mouth went dry, and she peered up at her husband.