For Love of the Duke(90)
And he’d made love to her, again.
In all her nineteen years, she’d not known joy such as this.
I love him.
Her smile fell. Jasper hadn’t returned those very important words. There would always be Lydia. His heart would forever belong to his first, beautiful, paragon of a wife who’d masterfully completed tapestries that still adorned the walls of the castle.
But perhaps…she rolled back to her side, and examined him—perhaps just a small sliver of his heart remained alive, and that tiny sliver could one day belong to her.
Jasper shifted on the pillow. His smooth, even breaths indicated he still slept.
Her gaze snagged upon the faintest scrap of fabric concealed beneath his pillow. Pale green like mint leaves, the cloth had a familiar look to it. Katherine hesitated. Her gaze moved between Jasper’s closed lids and the hint of green.
Mother had despaired of Katherine’s unrelenting inquisitiveness. The whole ‘curiosity killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough to kill curiosity’, business.
Katherine inched closer to the head of Jasper’s enormous four-poster bed. Breath held to make sure he still slept, she lifted the edge of his pillow.
And froze.
Her heart pounded loud in her own ears. She shoved the corner of the pillow up and reached for the familiar, long-forgotten reticule she’d thought to never again see. Katherine held it in tremulous fingers, as her heart beat with a greater sense of urgency within her breast, the steady thumpthumpthumpthump filled her ears, confused her thoughts.
Why…?
What…?
How could this be?
She opened the small reticule and her breath caught.
The heart pendant glimmered back up at her.
The heart of a duke.
He’d rescued her reticule.
Katherine angled her head, wrinkling her brow.
…And he’d kept the small article.
Why would he—?
“What are you doing?”
The bag slipped from her fingers at the harsh growl.
Her head snapped up and she met her husband’s furious gaze.
Katherine swallowed hard at the burning hot fury detected in the blacks of his eyes.
“J-jasper,” she stammered.
Jasper stared with something akin to horror at the blasted green reticule given to him by Guilford a lifetime ago.
Heat climbed up his neck.
“J-jasper, you have my reticule.”
Yes, he’d kept her bloody reticule. He despised the weakness within him that made him hold onto the frippery, and, he cringed… sleep with it beneath his pillow.
“Why do you have my reticule?” Katherine angled her head, moving her gaze from Jasper to the rumpled green fabric.
He swung his legs over the bed, feeling like an untamed beast.
“Jasper, I asked—”#p#分页标题#e#
Jasper whipped back. “I heard you,” he barked and bent down to retrieve his breeches. He should have never taken her to his chambers. He should have never made love to her. Or poured his seed into her. Or…
With another growl, he jammed his leg into one of the holes of his breeches and yanked it up.
He no longer recognized this…this…weak-creature Katherine had turned him into.
Jasper stuffed his other leg in, and pulled his breeches up.
His life had been fine until her. He’d been content to wallow in the misery of his own creation. He’d been safe and protected, and then with one crack of a thin sheet of ice, she’d tumbled into the surface and toppled his world.
“Are you going somewhere, Jasper?” A quizzical note threaded her question.
Jasper stooped to rescue his white cambric shirt. He pulled it overhead.
In that moment, he hated Katherine for forcing him to live again and opening him up to the perils of caring. Not when living was so bloody hard and uncertain.
He reached for his jacket.
Katherine scrambled over the edge of the bed, glorious in all her naked splendor. “I don’t understand why you’ll not speak to me.” Brown curls hung over her cream white shoulders and draped across her breasts. The pink tip of one perfect mound of flesh, peeked from between the strands, the tempting image she presented mocked his steely resolve.
Jasper spun toward the door, but Katherine rushed around to plant herself in front of him. She planted her hands upon her delicately flared hips. She narrowed her eyes. “Is this about the reticule?”
This was about everything.
“Because I don’t know why you held onto it, Jasper.” Her soft, gentled words washed over him until his fingers itched to reach the short distance between them, take her into his arms again, and make love to her. “But I have to believe it means something, Jasper.”
Her supposition killed his desire swifter than a plunge in an icy lake.