With a steely set to his jaw, he dropped the curtains back into place.
He’d stood mooning like a lovesick swain over his wife long enough.
Katherine had left.
And it was now time to move forward.
Part II
Spring 1815
“How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.”
― William Wordsworth
~29~
“Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,
Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,
Or by the silent looks of happy things,
Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky…”
Katherine glanced up from the pages of her book and tried to blink back a sneeze. The fragrant cuckoo flowers and bluebells in full bloom of this floral sanctuary of Kensington gardens tickled her nose.
“Achoo!”
A white kerchief appeared over the page of her book.
She accepted the white scrap of linen. “Achoo!” and sneezed into the previously unsullied fabric. “Thank…” Katherine blinked, as the sudden, unexpected appearance of a mysterious kerchief registered.
Katherine spun about the wrought-iron bench.
“Your Grace,” an increasingly familiar Earl of Stanhope drawled.
She pointed her eyes skyward and snapped her volume closed. “Lord Stanhope.”
The tall, impossibly handsome rogue claimed the seat next to her. “Henry,” he corrected.
Katherine grunted and shifted in her seat. “This seat is not designed for two people, Harry.” Katherine handed back the soiled linen.
Harry heedlessly stuffed it back into the front of his jacket. His lips curved up in a partial grin. “You know I detest when you call me Harry.”#p#分页标题#e#
She did, which was why she’d taken to calling him Harry.
His smile said he knew as much. “Why do you insist on coming here? You can’t even tolerate the collection of scents in this godforsaken landscape.”
Katherine swatted his arm. “I adore this place.” This floral haven had become a kind of sanctuary in Society’s glittering world of falsity and unkindness.
The other, the reason she could not speak of, even to this man who’d become her only friend, was because it reminded her of those splendorous tapestries hung throughout Castle Blackwood. Even if the poignant beauty served to remind Katherine of Jasper and his love, Lydia, then Katherine would welcome even that fragile remembrance of her time there.
Harry flicked her nose. “Why so melancholy, Kat?”
She shook her head. “It is nothing,” she assured him.
They sat in companionable silence and stared out at the crimson orb as it rose above the horizon, bathing the gardens around them in a soft orange and red glow. Purple and pink clouds floated along the sky, better suited for floating cherubs than the dirty London town.
It was her birthday. She felt vastly older than her mere twenty years. Then, having ones heart so hopelessly and helplessly broken tended to age a lady. Tears blurred her vision.
The kerchief reappeared. “Consider it a birthday gift,” he murmured.
She accepted it with a wan smile and discreetly dabbed at her eyes. The pain of missing Jasper had not lessened in the months since she’d come to London.
He’d not come for her. A small sliver of her had thought perhaps she’d come to mean something to him and he’d not allow her to leave.
How hopelessly naïve she’d been. A person had but one heart to give. Jasper’s belonged to Lydia. And Katherine? Well, hers belonged to Jasper, now and forever.
“How do we intend to celebrate?” Harry murmured. He draped his broad, muscled arm along the back of her seat.
“We don’t,” she muttered.
“Egads, you’re in quite a foul mood today, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “I am.”
From the corner of her eye, she detected the grin on his lips. “Your duke?”
In the months since she’d first met Harry Falston, the 6th Earl of Stanhope, he’d come to know her well enough that they often knew what the other was thinking.
He drummed his fingertips along the back of her seat.
Katherine drew in a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of roses in bloom. “Achoo!”
Harry sighed and extracted another, clean, linen. He handed the monogrammed fabric over to Katherine. “Keep it,” he said. “As long as you insist on coming here, I shall have to continue to carry an endless supply of kerchiefs. My valet is growing quite irate at their mysterious disappearance.”
She managed a smile. “You are too good to me, Harry.”
He snorted, and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Just have a care not to say as much in front of Society, or you’ll surely shatter my well-earned reputation.”