A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  Wordsworth.

  “Wordsworth,” she said.

  “Byron and all those other romantic poets seemed so very silly, but Wordsworth, he seemed real. His words are not always joyous and hopeful.”

  He understood, because it had been what had drawn Jasper to the poet’s works.

  With that one story, Jasper now understood her desire for the lone copy of Wordsworth’s volume at the bookshop. His heart thumped hard in his chest, as he silently acknowledged her great sacrifice—she’d given the lone book to him.

  Jasper stood there, appreciating her delicate profile.

  As though she felt his gaze upon her, Katherine turned around to face him. “I hated my father for losing everything that I’d at one time valued. I resented the loss of all those material possessions, but you see, Jasper, if none of those great sadnesses had befallen me, I would have never discovered Wordsworth.” She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Perhaps it seems a very small consolation, after all, Wordsworth can never rival Byron in terms of greatness but happiness can still be found—just on a different page.”

  Somewhere along the way, they’d ceased to speak of poets. Rather, a more significant meaning was buried within his wife’s words.

  Jasper trailed his eyes over her pert nose, her full lips, and the cat-like slant to her brown eyes. Oh, Katherine is that what you believe you are? A mere consolation? A lesser work?

  Nothing could be further than the truth.

  Katherine cleared her throat, and walked back over to the forgotten pile of branches. She bent down and proceeded to collect the thick, evergreen branches. Unbidden, Jasper strode over to her. He hesitated.

  She paused in her efforts, and from where she knelt in the thick blanket of snow glanced up.

  Jasper lowered himself to a knee. “Here,” he murmured. He relieved Katherine of her burden and then made short order of picking up the other displaced branches. He stood.

  Katherine caught his gaze with hers, and then smiled up at him. “I imagined you would leave them here, considering my intended use for them.”

  He frowned and glowered at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m not an ogre, Katherine.” Is that what his new wife believed? That he’d show his displeasure by abandoning her to her own efforts.

  “Well, sometimes you are.” A mischievous glimmer sparkled in her eyes.

  Jasper’s lips twitched in response. “Yes, yes I am,” he concurred.

  It struck him then, how very much he’d like to remain here atop this snowy knoll, just the two of them and the quiet peace of the winter sky. The snow continued to fall down at an increasingly, heavy rate, and it wouldn’t do for them to remain in the cold this far from the castle. “We should return,” he said, the words dragged reluctantly from him.

  Katherine placed her fingertips along his forearm. His body went taut at her delicate touch. She seemed unaware of his body’s physical reaction to her nearness; the mad rush of desire that coursed through him, his racing heart, the quick, rise and fall of his chest. He wanted her. He wanted her with an aching desperation that dared him to spit in the face of the pledge he’d taken, all to claim her as his own.

  “You do realize I intend to use these to decorate for Christmas?”

  “I do,” he drawled. He’d come to know Katherine enough to know nothing would deter her from whatever she endeavored to do.

  “And you’ll not issue any further complaint on the matter?” She eyed him with the skepticism of one who expected she was being tricked in some way or another.

  “Katherine, would any complaints on my part yield a different outcome?”

  She chewed at her lower lip. The wind caught a brown ringlet. It fell across her eye. She blew it back. “No.”

  He gave a curt nod, and shifted his bundle.

  “I should also inform you now, husband,” he’d noted she seemed to use the term husband when she was upset with him. “I intend to celebrate with a great Yule log and a magnificent feast,” she said as they stomped through the snow.

  The British would be wise to turn his relentless wife upon the French to halt Boney’s mad efforts of domination. The bloody French would be powerless when faced with Katherine’s steely resolve.

  Lost to his own ponderings, it took a moment for Jasper to realize Katherine no longer walked beside him. He paused, and turned back around.

  Katherine stood frozen in the winter landscape.

  “What is it?” The quiet of the winter storm carried his words with a false loudness.

  “I don’t even know what you eat.” Her warm breath blended with the cold, and sent little puffs of white air past those plump lips.

  “What I eat?” A branch fell from his arm, and Jasper cursed. He bent down to pick it up. With her abrupt shifts in conversation, Katherine would drive him madder than a Bedlamite.

  She gestured with her hands. “Well, that is to say, I do not know what your favorite meals are. It just seems like the thing a woman should know about her husband.” Red color slapped her cheeks. Katherine glanced down at the snow, and scuffed the tip of her black boot along an undisturbed patch of earth. “Not that we have a true marriage, of course.”

  An overwhelming desire to take her in his arms and explore each corner of her body, filled him. With her clever and courageous spirit, Katherine was so vastly different than any young lady he’d ever known.

  A snowflake landed on the tip of her nose. She stared at it until her eyes crossed in the middle.

  He shifted his branches and brushed away the moisture.

  Katherine widened her eyes, seeming as startled as he himself was by his touch.

  Jasper turned around and resumed walking.

  He knew the moment she’d reached his side, not simply because of the crunch of snow under the heels of her serviceable boots but because his body seemed to have developed an innate sense of awareness. Perhaps it came of a bond shared from saving a person from certain death, or perhaps it was something more, something he could not allow himself to think of.

  “I prefer roast chicken,” she continued, “and croquettes of sweetbread. I adore them served hot with a slice of lemon.” She wrinkled her nose. “Mother detests lemons and is always insisting Cook finish the sweetbread with parsley, but sometimes Cook will set aside a dish served with lemon just for me, and I’ll sneak down to the kitchens late at night. Of course, the sweetbread is no longer hot at that point, but the gesture is a lovely one, don’t you think?”

  He believed his wife talked—a lot.

  “If you’ve not given a consideration for the Christmas meal,” she went on.

  “I have not,” he said curtly.

  “Then, perhaps you’ll allow me to see to the preparations with Cook,” she said, as though he’d not even spoken.

  They reached the base of the hill, and started down the path Jasper had followed when he’d first set out in search of Katherine. Only now, a fresh cover of snow had covered all trace of his boot steps.

  “And of course, no feast would be complete without a splendid dessert.”

  “Of course.”

  At his dry response, Katherine shot him a sideways glance. She pressed her lips tight together, and jerked her chin up a notch in clear displeasure.

  The swirling wind, and the freshly-fallen snow turned up by their steps the only sounds in the silence, it struck him then, how just the sound of her voice filled him with a lighthearted enjoyment he’d thought forever lost. He mourned the absence of her words, spoken with such enthusiasm.

  They continued on. By the stiff set to his wife’s shoulders and the swiftness of her step, he deduced he’d earned his wife’s displeasure. And why shouldn’t she be annoyed? Always smiling and merry, she’d bound herself to him, a miserable, cold, unfeeling blighter.

  The long drive came into focus. Jasper paused at the edge, even as Katherine marched ahead. “Turtle soup.” His voice echoed around them.

  Katherine’s steps slowed, but she remained with her eyes fixe
d ahead, toward the castle.

  “And roast quail. I detest orange pudding, but love Shrewsbury cakes,” Jasper said. He adjusted the pile of branches in his arms so they were more precisely arranged, and tucked them under his arm. He resumed walking.

  Katherine once again fell into step beside him. From the corner of his eye, he detected her stare directed upward at him. He expected her to fill the silence.

  The time he’d come to know Katherine, however, should have taught him Katherine wasn’t one to do the expected.

  She remained silent.

  They reached the middle of the drive and Katherine placed her fingertips upon his arm.

  Chapter 22

  He’d not pulled away. That should mean something. Of course, it could also very well mean nothing, which was entirely more likely, but still, Katherine had placed her hand on Jasper’s arm and though he’d stiffened, he’d not shaken free of her touch.

  “Your Grace, will this do?”

  The butler Wrinkleton pulled her from her silly musings.

  Katherine gave her head a clearing shake, and returned her attention to the efforts in the hall. She followed the direction of the butler’s slightly bent finger up toward the collection of ivy woven along the tops of the floral embroideries. Katherine smiled. “I would say so, Wrinkleton, and you?”

  He angled his head and studied them a moment, and then nodded slowly.

  Katherine reached for an apple and carefully secured it to the evergreen. And she wanted to consider which should be added next to the bough—the paper flowers she’d made last evening or the tiny child’s doll, but could not for all the Wordsworth sonnets, roast chicken, and croquettes of sweetbread, combined, cease thinking of her husband.

  She’d entered into their marriage under the illusion that it was a matter of convenience for the both of them; she would escape Mother’s plans to wed her off to horrid Mr. Ekstrom, and Jasper would find in her his duchess and she’d do…she furrowed her brow, whatever it was that duchesses did.

  Katherine supposed she should have considered that part beyond the whole heir and a spare bit. Because when he’d informed her that he had no intentions of consummating their union, well then she would have had some idea of what that meant for her future.

  She picked up the small baby doll and turned it over in her hands. A pang jabbed at her heart like a tiny needle prick being touched to the hopeless organ. As it was, all she now knew was that it was not for her future. No sweet-faced ringlet-less daughters or troublesome little boys.

  With a sigh, Katherine set aside the child’s toy and reached for the paper rose. She secured it to the evergreen.

  But now she knew he enjoyed turtle soup, and detested orange pudding but loved Shrewsbury cakes…and he hadn’t withdrawn his hand. He’d held hers back, which had only forced Katherine to confront the truth.

  She’d not merely wed Jasper Waincourt, the 8th Duke of Bainbridge as a matter of convenience.

  She’d wed him because somewhere between the Frost Fair, the Wordsworth volume, and the talk of dinners and desserts, she’d come to care for him. With his gruff directness and the unexpected kindnesses he’d shown her at every score, his happiness had come to mean a very good deal to her. Her eyes closed a moment as she thought of the suffering she’d seen in his usually hard eyes, and she realized, his happiness had come to mean more to her than her own.

  Katherine would not allow herself to consider the whys of that. Her mind screeched at the edge of anything more than that.

  “Your Grace?”

  She looked up again from her work, as Wrinkleton gestured to the boughs of evergreen along the staircase rail.

  “It looks splendid,” she assured them.

  The footman hanging the evergreen paused to smile at her, and then moved on to hang the next.

  Katherine fixed another smallish red apple to the thick green branch and forced herself to confront the truth of her situation. She cared for a gentleman whose heart had been buried four years ago upon the death of his true wife. It mattered not that he’d gripped her fingers in his, because the moment they’d arrived at the castle, he’d stormed off as though she’d bore the plague, and she’d not seen him in the days since.

  Which only indicated their intertwined hands had been altogether insignificant, merely an attempt to warm his frozen fingers, surely.

  A small sigh escaped her, and she lifted the kissing bough. She turned and handed it off to Wrinkleton who waited just at her shoulder.

  He handled it with a manner of reverence reserved for his employer’s family jewels, turning it cautiously over to another footman who rushed over.

  “If you could just place it there,” she murmured, gesturing to the corridor that spilled from the foyer to the main living quarters.

  As the young servant climbed the tall ladder to position the arrangement in its respective place, Katherine studied it with her head tilted.

  The only kissing to be done under the kissing bough would be servants stealing secret moments; there’d be no kisses for the lady of the manor.

  She shoved aside her melancholy, and reached for a cluster of hollies.

  A loud knock sounded on the front door, and the red berries slipped from her fingers onto the green bough she’d moved onto.

  Katherine furrowed her brow and looked to the front entrance, and then over to Wrinkleton.

  The old butler scratched his thinning white hair, head cocked at an odd angle, clearly accustomed to a shocking lack of visitors through the years.

  The pounding ceased so that Katherine suspected she might have imagined it, but then that could not account for Wrinkleton hearing the very same…

  Another knock.

  That sprung Wrinkleton from his shock, and the butler hurried with a step better suited to a man many years his junior. He pulled the door open. The tall, commanding figure in the entranceway froze, hand mid-knock. The gentleman shifted the bundle in his arms.

  Katherine stared at the entranceway. Her eyes widened, her heart suspended in a breath at the precious trim frame in the doorway.

  She cried out and sprinted across the stone floor. “Aldora!” Her sister just made her way into the foyer when Katherine flung her arms around her sister.

  Aldora wrapped her arms around Katherine, and because she was so very lonely, and in need of a lovingly familiar face, she promptly burst into tears. “Wh-what are you d-doing here?” She blubbered like a babe who’d taken its first fall.

  Aldora leaned away from her. Through the thick frames of her spectacles, she peered at Katherine, a dark frown on her lips. “How could we not come? We arrived in London only to discover you wed and were whisked off for the holiday?” She pursed her lips, and glanced around with guarded caution in her eyes.

  Katherine stepped away from her sister’s comforting embrace, and turned to greet her brother-in-law, Michael.

  He stood, with a resolute set to his jaw, and a hard glint in his eyes. He perused the room, and then focused on Katherine. “Congratulations are in order. I’d like to meet your husband,” the clipped words more a command than a congratulations.

  Katherine shivered, imagining the steely edge in her brother-in-laws words would drive most men to terror.

  “Papa, snow, more snow. I see Papa. I see more.”

  Then the veneer of ice melted as Michael’s attention shifted to his and Aldora’s just two-year-old daughter.

  He dropped a kiss atop her crown of brown curls. “It’s too cold, Lizzie. We’ll rest, and eat, and then I’m sure your Aunt Katherine would dearly love to play with you.”

  Katherine’s heart flipped within her breast as a yearning unfolded in her belly with a life-like force as Lizzie looked to her with impossibly wide brown eyes.

  A big smile filled the babe’s chubby, dimpled cheeks, and Katherine’s throat worked up and down.

  As if of their own volition, her arms opened. Lizzie struggled against her father’s embrace a moment, until Michael turned her over into Ka
therine’s arms.

  Katherine held her cradled to her heart. She pressed her cheek along the top of Lizzie’s brown curls, and inhaled the unmistakable scent of the child’s innocence. “Oh, sweet Lizzie, how I’ve missed you. Have you come to visit me for Christmas?”

  Lizzie nodded against her. “Papa say cakes and tarts.”

  Katherine leaned back and nodded solemnly. “Oh, absolutely, cakes and tarts for the Christmas feast. There could be no more perfect treat.”

  Lizzie’s grin widened.

  From over the top of girl’s head, Katherine noted Wrinkleton. The servant shifted back and forth, with tentative glances stolen about the wide-foyer, as though he feared the castle were on the cusp of being stormed.

  “Wrinkleton, will you inform the housekeeper to have the finest guest chambers prepared. My family will be spending Christmas with us.”

  Jasper stared down at the neat columns upon the opened ledger. He inked the far right column, and tossed his pen down onto the otherwise immaculate surface of his desk.

  Embers from the blazing fire within the hearth cracked and popped in the quiet. Jasper leaned back in the folds of his winged back chair, and stared into the dancing reddish-orange flames.

  He was a bloody coward.

  Since the moment he and Katherine had returned from their outing in the snow, and she’d slipped her small, fragile hand into his larger one, she’d unleashed an inexplicable panic within him. Jasper had fled her side that day, and avoided his wife.

  He took his meals within the confines of his own rooms, he tended to the affairs of his estate, and he tried with a desperateness to put thoughts of Katherine and her delicate hands and winsome smile from his mind.

  Jasper swiped the back of his hand over his face. To no avail.

  In the privacy of his own thoughts, he could at least be honest with himself—he’d come to care for Katherine.

  He who’d resolved to never again care for another, and open himself to the pain and suffering that inevitably came from caring too deeply.