When at last he heard the latch click, Derek released the breath he had not realized he had been holding. He ran a hand through his hair and turned to go back to his own rooms. What in the world was happening to him? Not only was he losing the ability to control himself, but he was also getting lost in the rush of thoughts and emotions that were raging within him.
About his wife.
He paused and looked back at Kate’s door, wondering what she was feeling, if she had felt it too; that inexorable need to be closer, the tug in the heart that drew him in so completely, in spite of confusion or hesitation.
Surely she had.
Surely it had not been all on his side.
He said she would like being Kate. Did he like her, she had asked. Did he like her?
Shocking as it was, he finally found himself answering in the affirmative. Yes, he did like her. A lot more than he ever expected to.
And it absolutely terrified him.
Chapter Eleven
Katherine… no, Kate, she reminded herself. She was Kate now… woke feeling somehow both energized and drained at the same time. Nightly excursions with her husband to the kitchen might have to become a regular occurrence, if he enjoyed it as much as she did.
And if last night were any indication, he did.
Do you? she had asked when he’d said she would like Kate. What had prompted her to ask such an impertinent question at that moment? She could have kicked herself for her lack of tact. Did he like her? She couldn’t even say if she liked her!
What foolishness.
The way Derek had frozen in place, the stunned look on his face had been more than enough to cool any feelings she might have had.
And what feelings she’d had! The heat had been unbearable, and she found herself torn between two extremes; flee and surrender. She was proud she had done the former, but the idea of the latter was… tempting. But how could she give in to a man who did not even know if he liked her?
His words to her after, the way he had held her door ajar and asked her to come and get him if she ever ventured out at night, those words had rekindled the tiny spark of hope within her.
Hope for what? She could not have admitted, even to herself.
She made her way downstairs to breakfast, knowing that the early moments of seeing Derek today would be very telling. Perhaps he would be waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, or in the breakfast room, at the very least. But to her surprise, he was nowhere to be found.
Her heart sank just a little. So that was how it was to be, then. A hasty retreat from anything more than a light friendship. Well, she supposed she could hardly complain, given what they had been in the past.
She sat down at the table, a little grumpily. How could she decide how to act around her husband if her husband was not around to be acted upon?
“Pardon me, Lady Whitlock,” came the gravelly voice of Harville from her right side, “but his lordship asked me to give you this.”
Suddenly into her vision came a silver tray with a note on it, written in her husband’s bold handwriting.
Unable to help herself, she smiled up at the butler and took the note swiftly. “Thank you, Harville. That will be all.”
“Yes, your ladyship,” he said with a perfunctory bow, his lips quirked on one side.
Blatantly ignoring the food that had also just been placed before her, she tore open the note with more eagerness than was probably appropriate, but she could not find the affront enough to care. She scanned the lines quickly, praying they would allow her some insight.
Dear Kate,
I am so dreadfully sorry that I will not be able to have breakfast with you this morning. I woke with every intention of enjoying your company as soon as possible, but a note from my father greeted me first. David has upset him once more, and I must console him as best as I can. I do not know how long I will be gone, but I refuse to miss dinner with my wife, so you may look forward to my riveting company then. And I think you had best reserve the music room for a private concert tonight. I will need the soothing sound of your music to revive me after he has done with me.
Until this evening,
Derek
She could not restrain a smile at his words. She could imagine the grin that lit his face as he penned these words, wondering how she would react to them. Did he think she would smile, as she was? She hoped so.
Unfortunately, if Derek were going to be out of the house for the whole day, it meant that Kate would have nothing to do. She had stopped attempting to plan out her days, as nothing surrounding Derek ever went according to plan, and since she was supposed to be in mourning, she could hardly be expected to take on her usual schedule.
Katherine would have done so.
Kate would not.
She grinned at the distinction, and began to eat her breakfast, feeling rather liberated at having an entire day with no schedule at all.
“I will not stand for it, David. Do you hear me?”
“Of course I hear you, Father. I think the whole street can hear you, and perhaps even more, if we would only open the windows a bit.”
“Insolence, sir? I will not accept this. I expect better than that from you! What have you to say for yourself?”
“I have been insolent since the day I was born, sir, which you would know if you had paid any attention at all.”
“How dare you! Whatever happened to honoring your parents?”
“Oh, Rule Three? Hmm, don’t believe that is a Thomas Chambers original. Fairly certain it came from somebody a bit more important, if you can believe it.”
Derek groaned and put his head into his hands. The entire day had been a waste of time, words, and breath. His father stood on one side of his desk, his brother on the other, and though they were of a height, they could not, and simply refused to, see eye to eye. The towering rage of their father could not cow David, nor remove the cheeky grin that was fixed on his scruffy face, which was another one of his father’s more specific aggravations. It was Rule Twenty-Four, actually. Always be clean-shaven.
For most of the morning, and now stretching into the afternoon, the two men had bickered back and forth about various topics, and neither would be moved from their standpoint. Each had tried to bring Derek over to their side, but had not stopped to hear his opinion long enough to get a verdict on whose side he was on. For the life of him, Derek didn’t know either. He had lost track of the current thread, but he suspected that while his father had a point, his brother was mostly blameless.
Mostly.
He was certainly doing a fair job of enflaming the situation, and Derek had a sneaking suspicion that it was purely for the sport of it.
He hated when David did that.
“I refuse to be treated in this manner!” his father roared as he brought down his fist on his desk again. That made about twenty times in the last three hours. “Whitlock!”
Derek jerked in his seat, and looked up at his father. “Sir?”
“Fix this.”
Derek’s brows shot up as his mouth fell open. Was he serious? Fix what? Their non-existent relationship? David’s very personality, which seemed to be the thing that their father had the most difficulty with? There was not enough money in the world, nor time enough in existence to fix everything about whatever this was.
“Don’t turn to Derek for a resolution,” David said, sounding actually angry for the first time today. “Just because he is your favorite son does not make him any more able to fix what you cannot.”
“Favorite?” the duke hissed, looking truly malevolent. “How dare you presume to think…”
“I’ll presume all I like!” David shouted back, overriding their father, which was something that had never been done in the history of the family. “It is my life that you have problems with, and Derek, being the obedient son that he is, tries to be of some help, but ultimately the trouble, as you see it, lies with me. So deal with me. Not Derek, me.” He sneered at his father, and Derek actually fear
ed for his brother’s life. “If you can bear to. I know how you view us.” He gestured sharply to Derek with one hand. “The heir.” He jerked a thumb at his own chest. “The spare.” Then he waved his hand in the general direction of Diana’s home. “And the surprise brood mare in between.”
Derek clamped his lips together, and closed his eyes.
“Spare?” the duke bellowed, placing his fists on the desk as if he were going to spring on top of it. “Did I ever treat you like a spare?”
“No, sir,” David replied, full of sarcasm. “But you never exactly made me feel like anything else.”
The silence in the room spoke volumes and for what seemed ages, the men glared at each other. Derek half expected one of them to toss the desk aside and begin pummeling the other. And he knew who would instigate the scuffle. His father would never lower himself to begin such a display, but he would do his best to finish it. David, however, would start any fight he could and then escape before it got to be too much.
“I think you had better leave,” the duke whispered in such a tone that the hair on Derek’s neck began to stand up. “You may return when you have gained some decency.”
“Then I hope you are prepared to wait for a while,” David returned, his drawling tone back in place, though Derek could see the anger burning in him, “because what you call decency is a far cry from what I do, sir. Good day.” He spun on his heel, completely turning his back to their father, then came over to Derek, who rose instantly, and took his hand. “Sorry, mate,” he whispered.
“Just another day with the family, right?” Derek replied in a low voice that his father had not a hope of hearing.
They shared brief, tense smiles, and Derek clapped him on the back as David stormed out of the room. The smile faded instantly as his father looked at him.
“Well?” the duke asked in a rough voice, his chest rising and falling at an alarming rate.
Derek moved to a closer chair and took a measured breath, hoping his father would do the same. “I think that he needs some time, sir.”
“We do not have time, Whitlock!” he cried as he threw his hands out. “Do you think that is a luxury our family can afford? People are already talking about the disappointment that he is to the rest of the family, and how he will never measure up to the rest of us.”
Derek had no doubt that the only people saying those things were the ones his father deemed worthy of his association, which was a rather short list of the most contemptible members of nobility that Derek had ever met, but that was a moot point here. The rest of Society, who adored David and thought he walked on golden soil, would be of little consequence to the duke.
“I did not even have this much trouble with your sister,” his father sighed as he sank into his chair, putting one hand to his brow, “and she was the most headstrong girl I had ever encountered.”
And she passed it all down to her younger brother. Derek found it ironic that his father was comparing his siblings, when he had not even flinched at Diana’s being called a brood mare by David only moments before. It was very, very telling.
Because it was true.
“You must convince him to change, Whitlock,” his father entreated, leaning across the desk. “You must preserve our family’s reputation. You are my only hope.”
Derek swallowed back the bitter taste forming in his mouth, and nodded slowly. There was no choice but to agree, else he would be on the receiving end of the wrath, same as his brother. And no one would be left to manage the pieces that would fall from their father’s ire.
What was he going to do? He had no idea. But one way or another, something had to be if he wanted his family to remain as one.
Or as close as they ever got to the category, at any rate.
Much later that night, after the painfully silent dinner they had shared, Kate found herself playing in the music room while her husband slept on the sofa near her.
She did not mind. It seemed to calm him, which was all she had intended. The lines on his face had worried her, and the disgruntled downturn of his lip had given her cause to think that his day had been a difficult one. With his family, it always seemed to be.
And to think that she had once thought him lazy.
She glanced over at him as she played. He was so still, with his arms folded across his chest, his head resting on a pillow, his lips ever so slightly parted as he breathed silently in his sleep. He finally looked at peace, the tension she had seen in him gone for the time being.
If only his father did not expect so much of him. If only David would attempt to be contrite about anything. If only Derek were not so devoted as to accept whatever responsibilities that were thrust upon him.
But he would not be Derek if he were otherwise.
She smiled softly as he shifted his long legs, stretched out as far as they could be, though still booted. He should have removed them, it would have been far more comfortable. But it seemed he did not care about that.
She was feeling rather keen towards him at the moment. How could she not? He was the chief instigator for the change in her. She was Kate now, in every respect. She was wearing her hair down, she was playing music all the time, she smiled more, she laughed, and she sang.
What had come over her?
What had he done to her?
As she finished the final notes of the song she was playing, she sighed just a touch, letting the notes fade away gently, until only the crackling of the fire could be heard.
“That was a particularly lovely piece, Kate.”
She turned on the bench to see Derek staring at her, eyes clear and lucid, a gentle smile on his face. She blushed a bit and offered a smile of her own. “Thank you.”
“Was that something I should know or something new?”
Her heart started pounding, and she fought to keep from biting her lip. “It’s a new piece.”
He gave her an odd look. “How new?”
Her cheeks flamed even further, and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Very.” When he continued to look at her in that manner, she confessed, in a small voice, “I wrote it.”
His brows shot up to his hairline. “You wrote that?”
She nodded just once.
He got up from his sofa and went to her side, his eyes wide. “Kate, that was spectacular! I had no idea you could compose!”
“Thank you,” she said softly, “but it is really just a hobby, and I’m not very good.”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “You are very good, Kate, believe me.”
She blushed yet again under the power of his gaze and tried to take her hand away, but he held tight. “Derek, you are still affected from sleep, it really was not...”
“I wasn’t asleep,” he interrupted.
She stopped and looked up at him in confusion. “But I thought…”
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “I could never sleep while you are playing, Kate. Never.”
She wasn’t sure whether she ought to smile and accept the extraordinary compliment or protest and be demure again. When he looked at her like that, she could barely think at all.
Derek must have sensed her turmoil, for he only laughed softly and tugged on her hand. “Come on, it is long past bed for both of us. Allow me to escort you to your room.”
Relieved that he spoke first so she would not have to, she nodded and stood up. But Derek must not have backed up far enough, and suddenly Kate was so close to him that all of the breath was swept from her lungs in one swift second.
He still held her hand in his, and therein seemed to be the source of the heat now coursing through her. It was the only thing she could feel at the moment.
Derek could feel the change in Kate’s breathing, and the shallow puffs of air touched his skin as gently as a breeze. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and luminous in the candlelight, and he saw in them the same confusion that radiated through him. Slowly, he brought his other hand up and touched a ringlet dangling near
her ear. Then his fingers brushed her cheek, that beautiful, fragile porcelain that was her skin, and he could not stop himself from stroking it.
She did not breathe, and neither did he. For his part, he could not. His fingers faintly traced a line from her cheek to her chin, just below her lips. “Have I ever kissed you, Kate?” he whispered, unable to find any strength for his voice.
She finally took in a shaky breath, and he felt it down to his toes. “Yes.”
“When?” he asked, still stroking her cheek, his thumb tantalizingly close to her bottom lip.
“On… on our wedding day.”
“But never since,” he murmured, his eyes now following his fingers.
“No,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering a bit at his touch.
“I should have kissed you more,” he said, finally touching her bottom lip with his thumb. “I should have kissed you every day.”
She trembled and shuddered a gasp. “Why… why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted in the barest hint of a whisper. Then, before his brain could catch up with him, he closed the distance between them and softly pressed his lips to hers.
In an instant, Kate’s trembling stopped, and so did Derek’s heart. So did all other sensation he had ever previously known. All he could feel was the gentle pressure of her lips on his, his on hers, the two of them together. Where he stopped and she started, he did not know and nor did he care. He had never imagined she would be so sweet, that he had ever gone without kissing her after having done so once. He could not have kissed her at their wedding; he would never have been able to stop. He did not know how he would now.
Once, twice, three times he kissed her, though it all blurred together as one long, gentle, searching exploration of his wife’s lips. They molded to his so perfectly it was like something out of a dream, only his dreams could not compare. His hand gently touched the skin of her delicate throat, then he ran his fingers back to the luscious mane of thick, black hair that she blessedly wore down, brought the tips of his fingers back to graze the firm line of her jaw, and finally took the tip of her chin back in hand. He broke off at last, not even able to find the shame he ought for the gasp that escaped him.
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