For Love of the Duke(97)
In the time she’d known Jasper, she’d found him to be a surly, obstinate bear of a man. Surely Guilford’s claims that Jasper had become even more so, had nothing to do with her departure from his life. Why, he’d surely resumed the normal cadence of the comfortable, solitary existence he’d carried on since Lydia’s death, four…now four years and four months ago.
But what if he does miss you? A voice whispered at the edge of her mind. What if he harbors the same regret in your going, as you do in leaving?
Katherine picked up Wordsworth’s volume, and fanned the now all too-familiar pages. She paused upon a familiar verse.
Full often wished he that the winds might rage… She continued reading.
When they were silent: far more fondly now
Than in his earlier season did he love
Tempestuous nights--the conflict and the sounds
That live in darkness. From his intellect
And from the stillness of abstracted thought
He asked repose; and, failing oft to win
The peace required, he scanned the laws of light
Amid the roar of torrents, where they send
From hollow clefts up to the clearer air
A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun,
Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus,
And vainly by all other means, he strove
To mitigate the fever of his heart.
She’d been a coward of the worst kind to leave him as she had. It had seemed at the time, her self-preservation was dependent upon distance between her and Jasper’s apathy.
Katherine had learned all too quickly, no matter the distance, no matter the time separating them, self-preservation would be futile. Whether Jasper wished it or not…she belonged to him.
~30~
Jasper stared unblinking at an all-too-familiar white sheet draped across the door. He folded his hands behind his back and continued to study the thick, crisp white linen, obscuring the wood panel and delicate handle.
Every day he rose and passed this bloody door and tortured himself with the evenly hung, thick white sheet.
With a curse, he ripped it viciously from the wall and it toppled to the floor in a noisy puddle of pooling fabric. He pressed the handle and tossed the door open hard enough it bounced back against the plaster of the walls.#p#分页标题#e#
An eerie quiet filled the chambers.
Jasper hesitated a moment, and then after the four months five days and a handful of hours since Katherine had climbed into Michael Knightly’s carriage, he entered his wife’s chambers.
I love you, Jasper. The ghost of her whisper lingered in the walls of this room, so very real, he glanced around expecting to see her smiling visage and warm brown eyes.
Empty silence mocked his foolish yearnings.
With a curse he pivoted on his heel and took a step toward the door, but then the faintest hint of honeysuckle wafted in this dark space and filled his senses with a heady remembrance of how very close to perfect his life had been.
Jasper clenched his eyes tight and willed memories of her aside. Katherine with terror in her eyes as he’d plucked her from the river. Katherine’s cheeky smile as she’d taken the last copy of Wordsworth’s book. Katherine as she’d cradled the girl Lizzie close to her chest.
Oh, God, I cannot bear this. Jasper forced his eyes open, rubbing the spot in his chest where his heart had rested.
After he’d lost Lydia and his son, Jasper had imagined he would never recover from the abyss of despair. He’d thought his heart dead within his chest.
A hollow, mirthless laugh burst from his chest and bounced off the walls. How fitting he should discover himself capable of loving, only after Katherine’s departure. Nay, not merely loving anyone…but his impossibly headstrong, passionate wife.
Jasper wandered deeper into the room. He’d ordered it closed off by the servants, barring all from entry. Beckoned by the wide, canopied bed where they’d first made love, he sank onto the edge of the mattress, his gaze fixed on the mound of ivory and white ruffled skirts.
Well, I hate ringlets. And gowns made of too much ivory and lace. Mother insists I wear them because it is the ladylike thing to do. It would be such good fun to wear vibrant shades…
Jasper reached for one of the gowns and drew it to his chest. And closing his eyes, he buried his face into the satiny smoothness of the modest, lace creation. The sweet, delicate scent of her, he’d so craved these months filled his senses more heady than the most potent aphrodisiac. It drugged him like an opiate, filling him with an insatiable need for her.
Jasper released the gown so quickly it slid from his fingers and fell to the floor.
What in hell was wrong with him? Mooning over her like a lovesick swain. She’d left him. She had made the decision that a life without him was preferable to a life with him.