The sparkle in the other man’s gaze said he knew as much, too.
“When?” Jasper said in crisp tones.
Wrinkleton scratched at his brow. “I believe an hour or so, Your Grace.”
“An hour?”
Jasper turned on his heel and strode with furious speed through the halls, down the stairs, and…staggered to a halt within the foyer. His gaze collided with the tapestries upon the walls—the exposed embroideries. A flash of blinding fury clouded his vision. He searched around for his butler. “Wrinkleton, what the bloody hell is the meaning of this?”
Jasper’s booming question resounded off the stone walls, and echoed throughout the house.
Wrinkleton continued his slow, very slow descent down the stairs. A footman hurried forward, his gaze directed at the floor. He held out Jasper’s cloak and hat.
Jasper grabbed the items and the young man hurried off. He jammed his hat on his head.
The butler scratched his brow. “What is the meaning of what, Your Grace?”
Jasper closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying to a God he’d ceased to believe in, for a modicum of patience for his servant. He opened his eyes. “The. Tapestries. That. Hang. From. The. Wall.”
“Ahh, those,” Wrinkleton said, and there was that little glimmer of merriment firmly back in his cloudy blue eyes.
“Yes, those,” Jasper snapped, and then remembered himself. He was being a churlish bastard. It was hardly the other man’s fault that…
“Her Grace and I thought to remove them earlier this morn.”
So it would appear it had been the old servant’s fault.
And what was more…
Katherine’s.
“Where is she?” Jasper snarled, feeling like some kind of untamed beast. He tossed his cloak over his shoulders.
“She is nearby, Your Grace.”
Jasper blinked. “Nearby.” Oh, how he wished he was a bigger bastard for he’d gladly sack Wrinkleton in that moment…if he didn’t feel this blasted sense of devotion to the old servant.
“Nearby,” Wrinkleton repeated with an annoying amount of humor in that word. He walked over to the door and pulled it open. A faint gust of wind caught the snow, and sent flakes blowing inside, where they landed in small piles upon the floor. “I venture you should find her somewhere near the end of the drive, atop the hilly knoll with the cluster of evergreens.”
What in hell was she doing out in this godforsaken day? A blast of cold air blew snow into his eyes. He brushed the bothersome flakes back, and set out in search of his wife.
His footsteps ground the untouched blanket of snow into large booted imprints. Here, he’d imagined Katherine with a quivering lip and hopelessly sad eyes as she cowered away in her chambers like a wounded doe.
Jasper snorted. He should have known better. Katherine might have been shocked, even hurt by the great misunderstanding of the terms of their marital arrangement, but not even those momentary injuries would blight her spirit.
His black cloak whipped about his legs.
And she’d taken down the blasted sheets he’d ordered up upon the death of his son. In the span of not even a day as lady of the keep, she’d toppled his carefully ordered world, and somehow managed to sway Wrinkleton’s loyalty toward her plans for Castle Blackwood.
He’d expected the sight of Lydia’s work, boldly exposed in the foyer should have ravaged his heart, and yet, instead he’d eyed it with a fond remembrance. None of the gripping pain or bitter resentment for his loss had filled him.
In that moment, standing in the foyer, he’d not thought more beyond the tapestries than that. Instead, he’d thought of Katherine, defying his orders, wreaking havoc upon his household, and more, setting out in such foul weather.
Jasper froze and squinted off into the distance. He made out the ever so faint slightness of a figure; the splash of her green emerald cloak a beacon amidst the pure white snow.
His heart kicked up a funny beat within his chest, and he set out after her. As his legs ate up the distance to the rise, the quiet winter air caught the husky, purity of her tinkling laugh and carried it to his ears.
When last he’d left Katherine, she’d alternated between hurt indignation and wounded sadness, of the like that had robbed him of sleep. It had taken all of his self-control to keep from tearing down the door between their chambers, and taking her into his bloody arms, sending his plans of a marriage of convenience to the devil.
Jasper quickened his step, filled with a sudden desire to know just what had accounted for her joy.
He marched up the rise, and froze, mid-step.
A young footman, a bloody handsome footman grinned down at Katherine.
Jasper narrowed his eyes into impenetrable slits as the servant said something to her, and a red blush stained her cheeks.
By Christ, he’d kill him. Enlivened by an unholy rage at the sight of the appreciative glimmer in the man’s expression, Jasper tramped the remaining way.
The servant looked up and caught sight of Jasper. The color leeched from his olive-hue cheeks, leaving him the color of the snow. He shifted the burden of evergreen branches in his hands, and sketched an awkward bow. “Your Grace.”
Jasper’s scowl darkened.
The young man gulped.
Good. He should be afraid. Very afraid.
Katherine belonged to him.
Katherine stiffened and slowly turned to face him. “You.” So much bored resignation filled that single utterance, that Jasper had to resist the urge to gnash his teeth like the foul beast that reigned within him: the beast who wanted to gnash his teeth and toss down the knoll the handsome servant who’d dared to look at Katherine.
Jasper shook his head. What manner of madness was this? He was not one given to fits of jealousy. He never had been. Until Katherine. What was she doing to him?
Without removing his gaze from Katherine’s, Jasper said to the young man. “You may return to the castle.”
The servant bowed, and at Jasper’s low, commanding tone hurried off with the load in his arms. Jasper looked at him from the corner of his eye until he’d disappeared from his periphery.
And, unlike the pale blush and smile she’d worn for the servant, she had nothing but a frown for Jasper. “What is that about, Jasper?” As though she intended to start off after too-handsome-footman, she took a step around him.
Jasper stepped into her path.
She took a step in the other direction.
Jasper matched her movement.
Katherine tipped her head back and glared up at him. “Hmph.”
All the rage he’d carried at the sight of her alone with too-handsome-footman faded, replaced with a sudden, overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and reacquaint himself with the moist heat of her mint scented breath.
She bent down and retrieved a large evergreen branch, which only served to remind him that it was late in the afternoon and they were out in a storm, doing…doing…
Whatever it is she was doing.
“What are those?” he asked, as she bent down to pick up another.
“They are branches.”
Jasper began to count…only she continued to fill her arms with the greenery. With a curse, Jasper bent and rescued the burden from her arms. “I see that they are branches, Katherine. What exactly are your intentions for them?”
She pointed her eyes toward the snowy sky. “Why, I intend to arrange them into a festive coverlet for my chambers.”
He furrowed his brow. “What…?”
“I am being facetious, Your Grace,” she said on a beleaguered sigh. Then, “Hold those. Carlisle was so good as to leave a small pile over by the base of the tree.”
Jasper studied the delicious sway of her hips as she hurried off to a nearby tree. He reminded himself to follow after her. “Who the hell is Carlisle?”
“The footman.” She didn’t break her stride, but continued moving forward. Katherine stooped down, and shoved another handful of bran
ches into his arms.
That growingly familiar haze of red clouded his vision, at his wife’s casualness over too-handsome footman. Jasper had learned the perils of employing young footman early on. His mother had quite scandalously, unashamedly taken any number of them as lovers.
“I’ll not be made a cuckold.”
Katherine stumbled to a halt, to peer up at him. She cocked her head at an appealing little angle. “I beg your pardon? Did you just say…?” She shook her head. “I’m not even going to deign to reply to that,” she muttered from beneath her breath.
Something about her casual dismissal of his words eased the tension in his chest.
She stopped suddenly and turned around. “Here.”
“Oomph.”
She slammed another branch into his chest. “You carry these, and I shall collect this pile here,” she said, stooping down to pick up the last shorn pile of evergreen branches.
Jasper stared after his wife’s retreating frame, as she picked her way gingerly down the snowy rise. “Where are you going now?”
Katherine didn’t even break her stride as she continued down the hill. “I’m returning to the castle. I’ve much to do to prepare for the eve of Christmas.”
He sucked in a deep breath, and counted to ten.
If anyone had told him even a fortnight ago that he’d be wed to a saucy minx with a stubborn spirit, he would have laughed in their outrageous face. He had been so very determined to maintain the isolated existence he’d dwelt within for the past four years. More than that, he’d embraced the life he’d made for himself. If he didn’t accept people into his life, he could not risk being hurt as he had upon Lydia’s death.
Only now, with these stirrings of vexing annoyance, and wry amusement, he’d come to realize he missed feeling…alive.
Jasper set out down the hill. His long legged stride quickly ate up the slight progress Katherine’s much smaller legs had made.
“I told you I do not celebrate Christmas.”
“And I told you I intend to celebrate anyway, Jasper. So it would seem we are at an impasse,” she said, her gaze trained in the distance.
Her tone suggested she had little inclination of abandoning her efforts.
“My wife died three days before Christmas.”
Chapter 21
Katherine drew to a slow halt as Jasper’s words saturated the air around them.
My wife died three days before Christmas.
Which made so very little sense, because she was Jasper’s wife. His words slammed into her with all the force of the blustery winter wind.
He spoke not of Katherine but of another; a woman who held his heart and consumed his thoughts and for whose memory was still so strong, he left white sheets draped upon the furnishings to blot out reminders of the real duchess.
Suddenly his avowal to not celebrate Christmas made sense. Katherine’s arms fell by her side, and branches tumbled with a soft thump into the thick blanket of snow. And because she really knew not what to say to fill this strange disquiet, she said. “Oh.”
Just that…oh. Not for the first time in her life, Katherine wished she possessed Anne’s effortless ability to fill awkward voids of silence. Then, Katherine would know just what to say to ease her husband’s jagged hurt.
Instead, she forced herself to look up at him.
Jasper’s curiously empty stare remained fixed at a point beyond her shoulder. Her chest tightened at his suffering, more tangible than a physical wound.
Katherine might represent a formal contract, based on not even the slightest hint of affection on his part, but in the days she’d come to know Jasper, she cared about him, and could not bear the sight of his suffering.
“I am so sorry,” she said quietly.
His shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. She thought he might speak but words did not come.
Then it registered…three days before Christmas.
Her mind turned quickly.
Oh God. The day they’d left the inn had marked the anniversary of his wife’s passing. The day Katherine had lamented over her still virginal state, Jasper had been mourning the wife of his heart. She gave her head a slight, sad little shake, as so much of Jasper’s surly coldness became clearer.
“I swore to never again celebrate, not just the Christmastide season, Katherine, but anything. It seemed an insignificant sacrifice to make in terms of what I’d done.”
Katherine suspected she might look upon the holiday season with such seething resentment if she were to experience the kind of loss known by Jasper. If she were to lose her own husband…her throat worked reflexively at the tortured imaginings of a world without Jasper. In a short span of time, he’d come to mean so very much to her. Her eyes worked a path across his face. She detected the faint muscle that twitched at the corner of his eye. “You didn’t do anything, Jasper. Lydia’s death, it was not your fault.”
He dropped the branches. They fell with a soft thump into the snow. His mouth twisted in an empty smile. “I killed her because of my desires to continue the Bainbridge line.”
Katherine moved close and took his hands in hers. His body stiffened, and even through the fabric of their gloves, her skin warmed at the contact of his touch. She squeezed his hands. “It is illogical for you to blame yourself. Of course you would have had a family with Lydia.” A pained ache tugged at Katherine’s heart as the momentary dream of a babe flitted across her consciousness. She looked at their connected fingers. “You blame yourself because you love her.” Even now. “And would do anything to bring her back, but living a life devoid of all happiness will not do that, Jasper. It will only remind you of that horrid day of her death, and the dark days to follow. It doesn’t allow you to celebrate the years of joy you knew as her husband, and the love you carry in your heart, for her.”
Jasper pulled his hand free and flexed his fingers as though he’d been repulsed by her touch. “If I hadn’t gotten my child upon her, then…” His words ended on a harsh whisper.
Katherine tilted her head back and studied the thick grayish-white winter sky. Snowflakes danced and fluttered down, and she raised a finger to capture one of those elusive flakes. A fat snowflake landed upon her glove and quickly dissolved into a small bead of water. Here a moment, gone the next. So very delicate and fragile.
Katherine folded her arms and burrowed into the folds of her cloak. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Jasper.”
For years, Jasper had been besieged by nothing but despair at this time of year as it marked another passage in time of Lydia’s absence from this earth. Now, guilt of an altogether different kind filled him. At some point since he’d pulled Katherine from the Thames, the ache in his heart for the loss of Lydia had dulled, and lifted.
Katherine spoke and her words pulled him from the thick, quagmire of guilt he slogged through. “Do you know, I hate London,” she said.
Jasper hated London, but it hadn’t always been that way. There’d been a time when he’d been more comfortable in London at the height of a Season, than anywhere else.
“My family had a property in Hertfordshire. Mother found it too provincial and quite detested our visits there. Father enjoyed the hunting. And I,” she glanced over at him, “I enjoyed every aspect of it. Lush green, rolling hills. Magnificently tall trees made for great big swings. I would sit upon this wide, wooden swing and read Byron’s poems. They were so very romantic and beautiful and I loved them with an innocent heart.” She painted such a beautiful, bucolic image, Jasper wanted to join in her memory of simpler times.
He said nothing in response, instead trying to follow along with her disjointed thoughts.
“As I told you before, Father gambled away everything.”
The muscles in Jasper’s stomach tightened at the reminder of her wastrel father’s ill-regard for a young Katherine and her family.
“He lost the cottage in Hertfordshire,” she said quietly. “The last night we lived in that cottage, I took one of Cook’s knives and etched
my initials into the wood frame of my bedroom door.” A woeful smile curved her lips. “I wept from the moment I learned we would be forced to surrender the property in Hertfordshire until the day we departed, never to return.”
Jasper imagined his strong, beautiful Katherine, with a knife, carving away at her bedroom door as her shoulders shook from the force of her sobbing. His eyes slid closed. There was a special place in hell reserved for cowardly bastards who left their families destitute. And when Jasper joined Katherine’s father in the bowels of hell, he’d punish him for having ever reduced her to tears.
Jasper reached out and brushed the back of his knuckles across the satiny smoothness of her cheek.
His touch seemed to draw her from the pained remembrance of that moment. “Then the creditors collected my books.”
His hand paused mid-stroke. Oh, God, he didn’t want to hear another blasted bit of this bloody story.
“They took every single volume, and I swore I’d never, ever again pick up another book of Byron’s sonnets,” she said. “With the loss of nearly all our personal belongings and estates, the silly sonnets of love and purity and innocence all seemed so very puerile.”
Katherine leaned into his touch the way a kitten stole warmth from its master. “I swore I’d never read another book of poetry again,” she said.
Jasper understood that, all too well.
“But then, I began to miss the words. Those sonnets had carried me away to beautiful places of love and even loss. No matter how much I pledge to never touch a volume, my heart craved it as much as my mind.” Katherine stepped away from him, and wandered ahead several steps, until he was filled with a sudden fear that she intended to leave and he’d never know the remainder of her story.
Except, she only paused at the peak of the hill, and stared out at the smallish-looking landscape below. “I felt that in picking up another book, it made me weak, and it reminded me of all my hurt and anger and resentment. But the heart knows what it needs, Jasper. I could no sooner refrain from opening the pages of another book than I could give up food. I allowed myself just one poet.” Katherine reached for another flake. She caught one effortlessly between her gloved fingers.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 29