Somewhere along the way, since their fateful meeting at the Frost Fair, Katherine’s warmth had slipped inside his cold and empty being, and gradually spread throughout him. She’d taught him how to once again smile, and tease, and be teased, and it terrified the bloody hell out of him.
Jasper shoved back his seat, and he stood. Clasping his hands behind his back, he wandered over to the edge of the hearth and stared contemplatively down into the roaring blaze.
He could not account for the manner of madness that had allowed him to accept the offer she’d proposed—an offer of marriage, a marriage of convenience. At the time he’d thought himself driven by an almost sense of pity, an altruism to help the forlorn young woman avoid a match with that bastard Bertrand Ekstrom. He would give Katherine his name, his protection, and that would be the extent of their union.
He’d not let himself imagine sharing the same home as man and wife, he’d not thought of the one wall separating his bed from hers, or the unholy desire to tear down the door and at last lay claim to her heart, body, and soul.
So now he cravenly stood, closeted away from the lure of Katherine’s charm.
A pounding echoed around his mind.
Jasper blinked, and with a frown glanced around his office.
No, no that was not in his mind.
Then it stopped, and his attentions returned to the warm fire.
The pounding resumed.
Followed by a muffled cry that carried through the stone walls of the castle. Katherine! Jasper’s heart stopped.
With a speed born of terror, Jasper sprinted across the room. He pulled the old door open hard enough to nearly tear it from its hinges. He raced down the long hall, toward the foyer toward his wife’s sharp cry. Jasper didn’t pause to consider what manner of harm could have befallen her. What…
Jasper staggered to a halt, and the air left him as though Gentleman Jackson had dealt a swift punch to his solar plexus.
He stood, and with a horrified fascination stared at Katherine cradling a child close to her heart.
Jasper’s eyes slid closed as the terror of his past, of a breathless, lifeless babe merged with a dream of this pink-cheeked, grinning babe held against her breast.
For a brief, infinitesimal moment Jasper allowed himself to cling to that wispy dream for more with Katherine. He clung to the image of Katherine heavy with their child, and a smile on her cheeks as they discussed names for a precious girl who would have Katherine’s shining brown eyes.
A crimson stain splashed over the alluring image, and swallowed Katherine. A hideous grimace contorted the generous smile, and Jasper’s body jerked.
His eyes flew open, and he stared at the strangers in his foyer.
“What is the meaning of this?” Jasper barked.
Wrinkleton and several footmen scurried off, as the unfamiliar young woman and tall gentleman looked to him with like disapproving expressions.
“Jasper,” Katherine greeted with a smile. She turned the babe over to the tall, glowering gentleman, and hurried over to Jasper’s side. “I have the most wonderful news.” She gestured to the small trio. “My sister Aldora, has come to spend the holiday.”
A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth.
The bespectacled Aldora smiled and dipped a curtsy. “Your Grace, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“And this is her husband, Lord Michael Knightly, and their lovely daughter Lizzie,” Katherine went on. “They will stay through—”
“No.”
Katherine blinked. She scratched at her forehead. “Through Epiphany,” she went on. “I’ve instructed Mrs. Marshall to have the finest chambers readied, and—”
He cleared his throat. “May I speak to you, Katherine? In private.” He could not have this cold castle filled with people and merriment. He’d been alone too long. Katherine’s presence here alone terrified him.
Katherine touched her fingers to his sleeve her soulful brown eyes beseeched him. Ah God, I cannot deny you anything.
He turned to Knightly and held out his hand.
The other man eyed him a moment. He shifted the baby in his arms and then with his free hand, accepted the other man’s offering. “Bainbridge.”
Jasper clenched and unclenched his jaw, wanting nothing more than to toss Katherine’s family from the castle. He didn’t need the tableau of the bucolic family they represented.
Only…
Katherine’s smile glowed brighter than a blue moon in a summers night, and damn if his chest didn’t tighten in the oddest way for it. She clapped her hands together. “This is just splendid,” she said, her eyes meeting Jasper’s.
Mrs. Marshall, the Housekeeper appeared. The older, plump woman with grey hair and wrinkled cheeks curtsied. “Your Grace, rooms have been readied for your guests. Their trunks have been brought to their chambers. If I may show them above stairs?”
Katherine removed her hand from Jasper’s arm and his skin immediately cooled from the loss of her touch. She rushed over to her sister, Aldora, and hugged her arm. “Mrs. Marshall shall have the servants ready a steaming bath for you, and you can rest. I’ll have a dinner prepared, and—”
Aldora laughed. “Thank you, Kat. It is ever so good to see you.”
Katherine bussed her on the cheek.
Mrs. Marshall led the trio abovestairs. They’d reached the top of the landing when the brown-haired angel peeked out from behind her father’s shoulder and smiled at Jasper.
Jasper recoiled as though he’d been gutted with the edge of a dull blade. His vision turned to black, and his breath came fast. He’d not allowed himself to think of any child since the death of his son. Closeted away as he’d been at Castle Blackwood, he’d not confronted the reality of smiling, innocent babes with full, dimpled cheeks, and glimmering wide-eyes. And he’d not allowed himself to imagine his son beyond that blue, lifeless creature he’d held as he’d drawn his last, pained breath.
Until now.
His son would have been four.
Oh, God. The echo of a child’s laughter ricocheted around his mind. He gripped the fabric of his jacket to keep from clamping his hands over his ears and drowning out the torturous sound.
Now he saw that lifeless babe as a boy of four years, atop a pony, waving at a proud Jasper who stood off to the side, coaching his son, guiding him.
He nearly doubled over from the pain of his imagining.
He dimly registered Katherine’s long fingers closing about his hand. “Jasper?”
Jasper jerked. One wrong move would shatter him into a million shards of nothingness.
He counted to ten. Once his breathing resumed his normal cadence, Jasper pulled back. He swiped his palms along the front of his jacket.
“Jasper…?”
“In my office, madam,” Jasper bit out.
He spun on his heel, and stormed toward the corridor, when it registered that his wife remained rooted to her spot in the foyer. With a growl, Jasper looked to his wife.
Katherine seemed unaware of the very thin thread of control he clung to. She stood, hands planted upon her sweetly curved hips. “I’ll not be ordered about like a child, Jasper. I am not ‘madam’. My name is Katherine. If you wish to speak to me, then…” Her words ended on a squeak and she staggered back a step as he strode back toward her.
His rage deepened. “Do you believe I’d hurt you?” he asked, his tone harsh. He might be a miserable, foul-mouthed, uncouth bastard, but surely she knew he’d sooner chop off his own arm than allow harm to befall her?
She shook her head once.
He leaned down so close their breaths mingled as one. “Are you afraid of me?”
Those familiar lines appeared in her brow. “Afraid?” she repeated. Her lips twitched. “Of you?”
“You took a step backwards.”
“Because you startled me.”
Some of the tightness in his chest eased at her plainspoken admission. He forced himself to take another breath. “Will you follow me to m
y office, Katherine?”
She nodded, and slipped her arm through his.
He made to pull away, but she placed her other hand upon the one looped under his arm, and locked him into place.
As he guided her to his office, his skin burned through the fabric of his jacket at the absolute rightness of her fingers on his person.
What have you done to me, Katherine?
Chapter 23
As Katherine entered her husband’s office, she peered at the purely masculine, massive space resplendent in deep sapphire and black colorings and Chippendale furnishings. She stared about bemused at the size of the one room that could have housed the entire first floor of her family’s former Hertfordshire cottage.
Katherine took in the elaborate Renaissance works of art upon the walls, the long-case clock, and gold-trim throughout the border of the room. She’d lain awake more times than she could remember, from fear as her worldly possessions were stripped away from her family, fearing they’d be destitute, hating Father as each property was taken, until barely anything remained. They could have paid all of father’s debts surely with the wealth to be found in this one room. And yet, when everything had been taken from her family, she’d refused to surrender to the despair.
How could she show Jasper that his past needn’t define his future? Show him there were new days and different smiles and unfamiliar laughter. He could love the time he’d known with Lydia and yet appreciate that he lived.
She turned to look at him.
Jasper met her gaze square on and then he stalked over to the sideboard and picked up a decanter.
He sloshed several fingerfuls of brandy into the glass, and her stomach tightened. She’d never before seen him drink.
Then again, when would she have?
She hadn’t even considered the fact that he might partake in spirits. Or that he might do it frequently or infrequently.
As if he noted her stare, Jasper’s broad, muscle-hewn frame stiffened. “What?” he growled. He took a long swallow of his drink.
“You w-wanted to see me.” She detested the faint tremor in her words, and prayed her husband did not note the quiver there.
Katherine should have well-learned by now that her husband possessed a heightened sense of awareness.
His frown deepened. He set his drink down, and folded his arms across his chest. “Katherine, I would speak to you of your—”
“I don’t want you to drink,” she blurted. An immediate rush of heat filled her cheeks. His brows dipped. She hurried on. “I know it is not my affair whether you drink or not, particularly as ours is a marriage of convenience, but drink makes one unpredictable and unreliable, and,” stop talking, Katherine. Stop talking, “and I would feel vastly better,” not that you’ll necessarily care if I feel vastly better if you don’t drink spirits, “and if it is just the same to you, I’d rather you abstain from drink.”
He said nothing for so very long, Katherine thought mayhap he’d not heard her spoken words.
Jasper walked over to her, and stopped. He reached up and brushed the back of his knuckles along her jaw. “Is that what your father did, Katherine? Did he indulge in spirits?”
Her skin burned from the butterfly soft caress. She swallowed, and managed a jerky nod.
“And then he lost your family’s wealth and property,” he said with a gentleness she’d not come to expect from him.
Katherine wet her lips. Jasper’s gaze dropped to her mouth, and fixed there. “He drank heavily and gambled even more heavily. Mother did not voice any disapproval. She said it was not the place of a wife, but when they took my last book of poetry, I lay abed wondering if her words might have made some difference in our circumstances.”
His eyes moved somberly over her face. “And you’d ask that I not indulge in spirits?”
The heat in her cheeks spread, and spilled down her neck, and coursed lower. She had no right putting requests to a man who’d wed her on a matter of convenience. Yet… Katherine nodded. “I would.”
He said nothing. The steady beat of the long-case clock marked the stretch of silence.
Her gaze slid away, and then Jasper dropped his brow to hers. “Very well, Katherine.”
She tilted her neck back to look at him. “Very well?”
“Very well,” he repeated.
She gave him a tremulous smile. “Thank you, Jasper.” She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. She spun on her heel to leave him to his work.
Strangers had stormed his castle. Boughs of holly and ivy now hung throughout his home. A babe occupied his guest chambers.
With all that, it appeared his wife intended to walk out of his office.
Katherine grasped the door handle.
Yes, yes, she did intend to walk away from him.
“Katherine,” Jasper’s voice boomed off the walls.
She turned back to face him. “Yes, Jasper?”
“I brought you here to speak to you.”
Katherine held up a finger. “Asked me here.”
He lowered his brows.
“You asked me here,” she clarified. “Remember, I’ll not be ordered about.”
“I wouldn’t imagine it,” he drawled. King George himself couldn’t order this one about.
Her full, kissable lips pursed in a way that made him want to cross over to her and lay claim to the sweet nectar of her mouth.
His gaze moved beyond the lush pout of her red lips, lower to the graceful curve of her neck, downward, and pausing upon breasts sized perfectly for the palms of his hands.
Katherine cleared her throat. “Are you all right, Jasper?”
No, you’ve driven me to distraction with unquenched desire you spirited minx.
Jasper folded his arms across his chest. “I wanted to speak to you of your family.”
Katherine opened and closed her mouth several times. “My family?”
He nodded once.
Her fingers smoothed over the sides of her floral patterned day gown, the only tell-tale gesture of her nervousness at their current exchange. “Oh.” Katherine glanced momentarily over at the door, as though considering escape, and then returned her attention to Jasper. “It is ever so wonderful they have come, isn’t it?”
At his silence, she trailed the tip of her tongue over the seam of her lips. He’d trade all the money in his coffers to lay her down here in his office and worship her mouth with his own, to learn the secrets of her body that made her cry and moan with breathless desire.
“Jasper?”
Jasper started, and tugged at his immaculately folded cravat. “I do not have company at Castle Blackwood.”
She nodded in a way that suggested she understood as much. Then, “Is that all, Jasper?”
He angled his head, flummoxed by Katherine’s agreeability. He’d expected there to be all manner of foot stamping and fiery shouts from his spirited wife’s delectable lips. “It is clear then?” Because in the time he’d come to know Katherine, he’d come to realize that nothing was ever truly clear.
Katherine nodded, this time more emphatically. The sudden gesture sent a brown curl falling across her brow. “You are perfectly clear, Jasper. There are to be no guests.” She brushed the strand back. “If you’ll excuse me.” She started for the door.
A mere ten more steps and she’d be out the door, away from his office, and he’d be alone with his dark musings and deepest yearnings. An odd panic filled his chest. “You will speak to them, then?” he called out, as her fingers pressed the handle.
Katherine spun back around, her lips screwed up. “Speak to whom?”
Jasper closed his eyes and counted to ten, and because counting to ten didn’t seem to have any calming effect on him where his wife was concerned, he instead sent a prayer skyward for patience. “Your sister and her family,” he said, when he opened his eyes.
Katherine raised a hand to the panel of the door, and drummed her fingertips in a distracted, staccato rhythm. “Whatever for?”
Oh, Christ. “About leaving,” he snapped. Enough with this blasted discussion, already.
Katherine’s hand froze mid-beat and then fell by her side. She took a step toward him. Then another. And another. Until the tips of their feet met. She looked at him through eyes of impenetrable slits that would have raised holy terror in any other man. “You’d have me send my sister out for the holiday?”
Jasper frowned, and glanced over at the heavily curtained windows. “It is not snow-…Oomph” His words ended as Katherine jabbed him hard in the chest.
“You would have me send her and sweet Lizzie—”
“Lizzie?”
“Her and Michael’s babe,” she didn’t so much as pause. “You would send them away in this cold, forsaken weather for the holiday?”
“Not now,” he amended. “But after they’ve rested a day or so.” He lowered his voice. “I believed I was clear when I said there are to be no guests.”
Katherine’s brows shot to her hairline.
Jasper tugged at his collar. He’d imagined himself incapable of being shamed.
Katherine proved that thought wrong with the next jab of her finger. “And they are not guests, Your Grace.” They appeared to be back to the whole Your Grace business, “They. Are. Family.” She jabbed him again. “And they are staying. All of them. Are there any other matters you cared to discuss?”
Jasper shook his head.
She gave a flounce of her curls. “Very well. Then if you’ll excuse me.” And with all the grace and aplomb of Helen of Troy, Katherine strode from the room with a determined step. She slammed the door in her wake.
The abrupt movement displaced a log within the hearth, and the fire snapped and hissed with a fury to match Katherine’s rage.
Jasper shook his head. “Well, then, I am very glad we had this discussion, Your Grace,” he murmured into the quiet.
He grinned.
Chapter 24
Katherine stomped through the castle, wishing she hadn’t donned her ivory satin slippers, instead wishing she’d opted for the thick, black serviceable boots she wore in her jaunts through the snow. Because the soft pad of her slippered feet served as no suitable match for the outrage thrumming through her.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 31