Wrinkleton cleared his throat. “The Marquess of Guilford arrived a short while ago. I took the liberty of showing him to your office. He said he was here on a matter of import.”#p#分页标题#e#
Jasper frowned, turning quickly on his heel. He nodded and gave a murmured thanks.
Jasper couldn’t imagine what matter of import should take Guilford away from London during the height of the Season—with the exception of one person.
Heart racing, Jasper all but sprinted through the castle toward his office.
Knowing his panicked thoughts surely foolish, Jasper paused outside his office doors and smoothed his palms over the front of his jacket.
He entered the office.
Guilford stood over by the sideboard, pouring a glass of brandy. He glanced up, with a half-smile for Jasper. “So good to see you, Bainbridge,” he said over the rim of his glass. “I hope you don’t mind, I availed myself to your spirits.” Pause. “You look like hell.”
Jasper grinned, and Guilford choked on his brandy. “By God, did you just smile?”
Jasper’s smile widened, and he crossed over to his desk. He sat, hip propped on the edge, arms folded over his chest. “I did.”
Guilford shook his head and took another sip. He gestured to Jasper’s decanters. “A drink, friend?”
Jasper chuckled at his friend’s comfortable show as host in Jasper’s own home. He waved off the offer. My father was a wastrel. He spent his days and nights at the gaming tables, and indulging in spirits, and he squandered everything not entailed.
Even in the darkest days since Katherine had left when he’d craved the mindlessness of drink, he’d not indulged in spirits—not when he’d be forever tormented with thoughts of all she’d suffered because of her father’s drinking and gambling.
Jasper motioned for Guilford to sit. “What takes you away from London?” Do you have word of my wife?
Something in the hesitant way Guilford’s gaze slid from his made Jasper wish he’d not sworn off drink. Jasper straightened and claimed the seat behind his massive desk.
“I’ve seen your wife,” Guilford said after he’d taken his seat, volunteering information that saved Jasper from asking the question that would expose the depth of his feelings for Katherine.
Jasper steepled his hands in front of him, atop his chest to still their tremble. “Oh?” His heart raced with a desperate urgency to demand his friend spill every last word he had of Katherine.
Guilford lifted one shoulder in a far too-nonchalant shrug. “She’s become the toast of the ton.”
Jasper’s gut clenched. She’d always possessed a beauty that defied the mere physical type, the kind worn deep on the inside, and that emanated out like an ethereal glow that belonged to angels and the like.
Guilford fished into the front of his jacket and withdrew a neatly folded newspaper. He set it down on the mahogany desktop and took a seat.
Jasper’s eyes fell to the copy of The Times.
“They say she’s taken a lover.”
Jasper’s body jerked at the unexpectedness of Guilford’s statement. The air left him on a swift, noisy exhale. Oh, God, Guilford may as well have taken the medieval broadsword from the wall and hacked at Jasper’s heart. Jasper shook his head.
Lies. All lies. It couldn’t be true. Katherine was not the kind of creature capable of deceit and treachery. She’d not betray him. She loved him.
But then, you never reciprocated those feelings of love. She humbled herself before you, and you scoffed and jeered at every turn, until you drove her away.
Why should she have remained faithful?
“And what do you say?” His question emerged angry with all the same harsh bitterness he’d harbored deep inside since Lydia’s death. His breath froze as he waited with a kind of dreaded anticipation of Guilford’s response.#p#分页标题#e#
Guilford frowned. “I say if you truly care, you’d get yourself to London.”
Jasper growled. “Who is he?” He punished himself with the abhorrent images of Katherine’s splendidly naked body stretched out for some nameless, faceless bastard’s worship.
His gut roiled, until he thought he might cast up the contents of his stomach.
Guilford shifted in his seat. “The Earl of Stanhope.” He took a sip of his brandy. “You’ve been away from Society for some time.” He waved his hand. “There’s a scandal in the man’s past. He’s something of a rogue. Frowned on by Society’s most polite hostesses, sought after by Society’s most notorious widows.”
And Stanhope had set his lascivious sights upon Katherine.