What was it about him that held her fixed to the spot?
As he stood on the frozen path alongside the Serpentine, amidst the increasing snowfall, with the biting wind whipping about him, Jasper came to a most unwanted, unwelcome, and staggering realization.
He wanted to kiss Lady Katherine Adamson.
His gaze took in the delicate lines of her heart-shaped face; the almost cat-like quality of her brown eyes. And suddenly, eyes that were once merely brown, put him in mind of the choicest brandy; warm and fathomless.
Jasper’s body blazed to life with a heated awareness of her.
He told himself that his reaction was merely physical.
He told himself it was a betrayal of Lydia and her memory.
Bastard that he was, Jasper couldn’t find the resolve to turn around and leave Lady Katherine’s side.
“Your Grace?” she whispered.
“Jasper,” he said, his voice harsh. God help him, he needed to hear his name upon her lips, to remind himself that, even in just that moment, he lived.
Her soulful brown eyes widened. “Your Grace?”
“My name is Jasper.”
She tilted her head at an endearing little angle, and the tiniest fragment of his battered stone heart reassembled into the configuration of what it once had been. “Jasper,” she whispered, as though tasting it upon her lips.
A primitive growl worked its way up from his chest, past his lips, and he took her mouth in a hard, unrelenting kiss.
Her body stiffened against his, and he thought she might pull away from the volatility of his embrace.
He should have expected more of the vixen who’d survived an icy plunge into the Thames.
Katherine leaned up on tiptoes and angled her head, allowing him a better vantage of her mouth. She moaned, and he slipped his tongue inside, exploring the hot cavern.
She tasted of tea and mint leaves, and he wanted to drown in the sweetness of her. She tangled her hands in the strands of his hair and gave a faint tug. He groaned, his shaft hardened. He’d been too long without a woman. His body merely sought the surcease to be found only in the honeyed depths of a woman’s hot center.
He told himself that.
Over and over.
The words a chant. A litany.
Liar.
His hand worked its way inside the front of her emerald green cloak, and he sought out the lush curve of her generous breast. Through the fabric of her wool gown he teased the sensitive flesh of her nipple. His body ached to lay her down upon the blanket of snow, like the Ice Princess he’d once believed her to be, tug the cloak free, and expose the bountiful breasts to his worshipful gaze.
She moaned and leaned into his touch.
Encouraged, Jasper’s mouth left hers. She cried out, in protest, her strong fingers made a desperate bid to guide him back to her.
But Jasper craved the satiny smoothness of her long neck. He placed his lips to the rapidly fluttering pulse there. She cried out, her legs buckled out from under her.
Jasper caught her to him, and continued his ministrations.
“Jasper,” she whimpered into his mouth.
Oh God, the sound of his name, a breathy entreaty threatened to drive him beyond the point of control.
His lips nipped at the sensitive flesh of her neck, and her whimper turned into a husky, primitive moan. He worked his hands down her back, to the gentle swell of her hips, and then tugged her against him. His shaft surged against the softness of her belly.
Her head fell back.
A blast of cool winter air whipped around them. It tugged several long strands of dark brown locks free of the bonnet atop her head. The locks tumbled down past her shoulders. He took the lock and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, inhaling the spring lavender scent of the strand, so at odds with the Christmastide season.
Passion blazed within her eyes…and jerked him from the moment.
Jasper released the strand of hair, and took a step backwards. The horror of his actions, his absolute betrayal of Lydia’s memory, stole through him; it sucked the breath from his lungs.
Katherine closed her eyes a moment, snow swirled and danced about her flushed cheeks.
He spun away and battled the urge to pull her into his arms once again and continue exploring the warm, moist cavern of her mouth until she shook with desire.
Jasper raked his gloved hand through his hair. The abrupt movement sent snowflakes falling from his head. He stared out at the river. Since Lydia’s death, he’d lived the past three years, three-hundred and…his mind spun…
Was it fifty-three days?
Or fifty-four?
Panic built in his chest; it pounded away at his insides as he confronted the nauseating truth—he’d lost count of the days since Lydia had been gone.
His gut clenched. How, in a matter of days, had this happened?
Gentle fingers touched his shoulder. “Jasper?”
He closed his eyes. What had possessed him to give her leave to use his name? Nay, not leave…he’d all but commanded it of her. Sheer madness. His lips twisted. Then, he was the Mad Duke.
The sound of his name on her lips; spoken in her husky timbre served as a punishing lash upon his conscience.
Jasper opened his eyes, and stared blankly across the river. “My wife is dead.”
Katherine moved ever closer. She stepped in front of him, silent. The fabric of her cloak brushed against his legs.
He stared past the top of her velvet-trimmed bonnet, which was still askew from their embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly. A gust of wind caught those words and carried them to his ears.
“I do not want your pity.” His words sounded hollow to his own ears. He no longer knew what he wanted.
“I don’t pity you, Jasper.”
He glanced down. A faint smile played about her lips.
“You are not the kind of man that one pities.”
His jaw tightened, and he glanced away. No, he was a heartless, soulless bastard.
What was it about this small, yet spirited woman that unearthed the parts of himself he’d tried desperately to bury?
“I hate water.”
Jasper blinked. His gaze moved back to hers.
“I hate water,” she said again. “As a child, we’d spend most of our days in my family’s cottage in Leeds. When I was a girl of seven years, my sister and I would often go off on our own. We traipsed all over the countryside. It exasperated my mother to no end.”
His lip tugged up at the corner as he considered his first meeting with Katherine. It would appear the young lady had not changed much since her earlier years.
She continued, and Jasper tried to follow the odd direction her thoughts had taken. “I am the younger twin.” Yes, Guilford had mentioned as much. Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “I’ve always felt more like an older sister. Anne has always been the fanciful, whimsical sister. I’ve always sought to protect her.”
He remembered the panicked, unholy light in her eyes as he’d pulled her from the river, considered her outing this day in Hyde Park in the midst of a winter storm. “And who protects you, Katherine?”
She opened her mouth. Then closed it. Her brow wrinkled. “Since my father died, my sister Aldora fashioned herself as something of a protector of my family.” A sad little smile played about her lips. “Though, she wed three years ago, and now spends most of her time in the country.” She shook her head. “That is neither here nor there.”
He bit back a smile. “Your hatred of water,” he guided her back to her earlier statement.
“Ah, yes. I hate water. One day, Anne and I were playing alongside a river that bordered my father’s property. Anne’s favorite bonnet, a pretty pink one with satin ivory ribbons, fell into the water. She was desperately crying, and so I climbed upon a long tree trunk that had fallen across the river.”
The muscles in Jasper’s stomach tightened. He knew intuitively where her story was going.
He would rather not think about a small Katherine Adamson pulled beneath the surface of a river. Not when he’d rescued her from the Thames, and knew the blood-terror that had gripped her in that moment.
“I fell in,” she said. “The current was fast-moving, and so very strong. It pulled at my skirts and dragged me under.”
The image she painted roused the protective instincts he’d thought long dead inside him.
“I was certain I was going to die.” Her words took on a faraway quality, as though she were speaking, but to no one in particular. “My sister managed to toss a long branch out, and I grasped onto it. She pulled me to safety.”
How very strong she’d been, even then as a small child to have battled past the terror to ultimately save herself.
Jasper would have been a boy of fifteen years or so; he wished he’d been there, just as he’d been those five days ago. He wished he’d been there to pluck her from the river so she could have turned her fear over to him.
“My point is this, Jasper,” she went on. “I detest water. It’s unpredictable and dangerous, and it terrifies me.” She held her palms up. “But I cannot live the rest of my life avoiding water.”
“You nearly drowned at the Frost Fair.” He felt inclined to point out.
She took his hand in hers and turned it over. He stiffened.
“But I didn’t, Jasper. Life is horrible and unfair and terrifying. But those are not reasons to stop living.” Katherine touched her fingers to his gloved hand. “You didn’t die, Jasper. You lived.”
His hand tightened reflexively around hers. He’d lived, when Lydia had perished. With his desire for his wife, and the need for an heir, Jasper had killed her with his selfish needs and ducal obligations. For more than three years, he’d punished himself for that great crime.
Only now, with Katherine’s quietly spoken words did he confront the truth…Lydia was gone and no amount of self-flagellation would bring her back.
And he hated Katherine, in that moment, for opening his eyes to the reality of his miserable circumstances. “You need to leave,” he ordered harshly.
She cocked her head.
“I said, go,” he forced out past tight lips. He needed her to leave. He wanted this woman who’d tossed his life into an upheaval to go, and let him go back to the emotionally-deadened man he’d been these past three, nearly four years.
Katherine nodded. Twin splotches of color stained her cheeks. She dipped a curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured.
He loathed the aching need to hear his name upon her lips yet again.
Katherine made to go.
“Your chaperone,” he called out.
She frowned, her face calm and serene, brown eyes cool and removed—the Ice Princess returned. “You needn’t worry about me, Your Grace.”
No, he needn’t.
And yet, he did.
Katherine dipped another curtsy, and then hurried off. He stared after her swiftly retreating figure, until she was nothing more than a small mark upon the snowy horizon.
He thought of the story she’d shared, of the small, unprotected girl fighting the fast-moving river waters. With a sigh, he set out to follow the now headstrong, young lady still in desperate need of protection.
Chapter 10
After a long carriage ride through the snow-laden streets of London, Katherine at last arrived home. She climbed the steps with dreaded anticipation. Perhaps she’d not see her mother just yet…perhaps…
Ollie opened the door. She took a hopeful breath and stepped inside with a murmur of thanks for the old servant.
She freed the hook that held her cloak together and handed the sopping wet garment over. “Thank you,” she said as he took her cloak. She shook out her snow-dampened skirts, the flakes dissolved into small droplets of water atop the marble floor. “I…” Her words faded, as she met her mother’s scowling countenance.
Mother stood in the foyer, arms planted atop her hips. Anne hovered at a point beyond her shoulder. Her sister stood shaking her head in a commiserative way.
Katherine sighed. “Mother…”
“Where have you been?” Mother launched into a stinging tirade. “First you take yourself off to the Frost Fair, unchaperoned, and nearly find yourself drowned.”
Sorry, Anne silently mouthed.
“Then you arrive with the Mad Duke…”
Katherine clenched her hands into tight fists. “He is not mad.” He was hurting and scarred and forever changed by the loss of his wife. The pain he carried did not make him mad.
“Bah.” Mother slashed the air with her hand. “You have run wild for the last time, Katherine.” There was a hard edge, an unspoken order to those words.
Katherine’s stomach tightened. “Mother…”
“I’m speaking to your uncle. You need a husband who will bring you in line.”
Anne gasped. “Mother, no.”
Mother carried on as though Anne hadn’t interjected, as though Katherine’s heart was not beating hard with panic. “You’re actions will jeopardize your sister’s ability to make a most advantageous match.”
Her sister’s ability.
Not Katherine’s.
It was expected by all that beautiful, vibrant, accomplished Anne would secure a well-titled husband. The expectations, however, for Katherine were not so very great. They were rather bleak, in comparison to her sister’s.
“Where were you off to in this storm?”
Katherine’s mind went blank under the weight of the truth. She could not very well explain that she’d gone to meet the duke. Her gaze met Anne’s, and the flash of something that looked very nearly like guilt, lit the blue irises of her sister’s eyes.
So Anne was behind Jasper’s missing second missive. Of course.
She offered her sister a gentle smile.
Anne had dragged Katherine along on any number of madcap schemes; of the latest, which was their unchaperoned trip to the Frost Fair. The decision to brave the storm, and Mother’s wrath had been Katherine’s alone.
“Get to your chambers,” her mother snapped, jerking Katherine back to the moment. “I’ll speak to you in private.”
Katherine managed a tight nod, and with head held high marched past her mother, up the stairs, down the hall, to the security of her own rooms. Once inside, she closed the door, and leaned against the wood paneling, borrowing the support of the hard surface.
He kissed me.
Her eyes slid closed. And she’d kissed him with a desperate longing she’d never known existed within herself.
Katherine’s childlike dreams of fanciful love had faded over the years, to be replaced with a woman’s logic. The only dream she’d carried for so long was of a secure life, married to a gentleman who’d not squander their every last possession, but instead would care for her, give her children, and perhaps enjoy a quiet read beside a warm hearth.
Until his kiss.
Jasper Waincourt, 8th Duke of Bainbridge’s one kiss and fevered caress had thrown into question everything she believed she’d wanted for herself. He’d awakened her to a burning passion that Katherine hadn’t believed herself capable of. His heated touch had scorched her skin, and somehow, irrevocably altered her, in ways that terrified her—ways she could not consider.
Because she could not, would not ever wed a pitiless, cold man like the duke. His kiss might liquefy her, but he’d been clear, all gentleness within him had died with his wife.
Jasper could never be that gentleman to sit beside her, quietly reading, with a gaggle of children at their feet.
A knock sounded at the door.
Katherine jumped as the reverberations shook her back. She should have not spent her time ruminating about Jasper, but instead formulating a response for her mother’s impending tirade. She took a deep breath, and turned around.
Her mother opened the door and sailed into the room. She ran a hard stare over Katherine’s damp frame, a pinched set to her mouth.
But she said nothing.
Which was all the more terrifying for it. Mother was never short of words.
“Mother,” Katherine began. “I’m sorry I was out in such weather. I desired a walk and fresh air is good for one’s constitution.”
Silence.
Katherine fisted the fabric of her skirts in her hands, and shifted on her feet. It would appear her situation was a good deal more dire than she’d even believed.
“You need to wed, Katherine.”
A small pit formed in the bottom of Katherine’s stomach. She trailed the tip of her tongue around the seam of her lips. Mother was tenacious, and when she’d settled her mind upon something, she could not be deterred from her course.
Mother would have her wed Bertrand Ekstrom.
It spoke to how little faith her mother had in Katherine’s ability to make a match.
“I will,” Katherine said softly.
“Wed Mr. Ekstrom,” her mother finished for her.
Katherine shook her head, hard. “I’ve had but one Season.” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out that Anne would also have her second Season. She could never resent Anne for the special place she held in their mother’s heart, even if it caused Katherine the greatest pain. “I’ll not wed him.”
“You’re nineteen—”
“Nearly twenty,” Katherine pointed out.
“And not free to make decisions until you reach your twenty-fifth year.”
Katherine’s jaw hardened. “He’s an odious man, Mother.” With a paunch waist, and cruel set to his mouth, Bertrand Ekstrom, her distant cousin, possessed a cruel glint in his beady eyes.
Jasper slipped into her mind. Harsh and commanding, there was nothing soft about the young duke, and yet, she knew with a woman’s intuition that he’d never be capable of harming her. Her body tingled in remembrance of his hot, but gentle caress.
“He is next in line behind Benedict. Surely you learned with your father’s unexpected death that life is tenuous for females. We have to do everything within our power to maintain our security. Your brother is only thirteen. He has a great many years before he can marry and what if he doesn’t have a male child?”
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 19