An inelegant snort escaped Katherine. “I know what I am, Aldora. I’m no grand beauty.” It was a fact in which she’d been comfortable since she’d been a small girl not much older than Lizzie. There were Diamonds of the First Water…
And everyone else.
Katherine embraced the category of everyone else.
Aldora’s mouth set in a mutinous line. “Don’t be a ninny hammer, you are perfectly lovely.”
As an adoring older sister, she’d seemed to only see beauty in Katherine—even when the world had not.
Katherine directed her eyes to the ceiling. “I’ve brown hair.”
Her sister folded her arms across her chest and arched a brown eyebrow.
“Set in hopelessly tight ringlets,” Katherine went on. She waved a hand over Aldora. “You’ve not had tight, brown ringlets in a very long while.”
“That’s one of the many benefits of marriage,” Aldora muttered from under her breath. “Being free of Mother’s rather er…questionable fashion dictates.” She gave her head a shake and returned the conversation to the heart of the matter. “I’d have you be happy, Katherine.”
“I am happy.”
Aldora gave her a skeptical look through the thick frames of her lenses.
“Well, mayhap not altogether happy. Not in the same way you and Michael are. Rather in a…a…” Less loving, less bucolic way. “Less predictable way,” she settled for.
“Do you believe he’d ever harm you?”
“No,” the response burst from Katherine’s lips. She shook her head. “He would never hurt me.” She touched a hand to where her heart beat. Then, some pain was far greater than the physical kind.
“You love him,” Aldora said softly.
Katherine’s hand fell to her side. She swallowed hard, and looked away from the pity teeming in the brown irises of her sister’s kind-hearted eyes. “I…I…” Katherine buried her head in her hands and shook it back and forth. “I love him,” she breathed the word into existence. “It is the height of foolishness, and he is oftentimes boorish and rude.” But then there were the Shrewsbury cake and Wordsworth book moments when he showed him to be so very much more than the unyielding figure he presented to her and the world.
“But you love him regardless,” Aldora intoned, as only one who also loves truly can understand.
Katherine managed a jerky nod. She hugged her arms tight to her waist. “He can never love me, though,” she whispered.
“Of course he can,” Aldora said, with all the cocksure arrogance of an eldest sister.
Lydia’s smiling visage danced to the fore, yet again. Sadness filled Katherine’s being. She could not share the darkest, most pained secrets her husband harbored. “He can’t.” There would always be Lydia and the small babe he’d lost.
Aldora must have heard the truth in Katherine’s two-word utterance, for she passed a slow, searching gaze over Katherine’s face. Then, she crossed over and folded Katherine in her arms much the way she’d done when Katherine was a small girl who’d scraped her knee running through the hills of Hertfordshire.
Katherine accepted the warmth and support she’d so desperately missed since the day she’d wed and made the journey to Castle Blackwood.
Her sister raised her hand and stroked the back of her head. “Come, now. It is the eve of Christmas. There is no time for sadness on such a day.”
Katherine mustered her best attempt at a smile. “I should speak to Cook and see how the evening’s dinner plans are progressing.
Aldora bussed her on the cheek and returned to the sofa in which Lizzie still slumbered peacefully.
As Katherine made her way from the room she wondered if she’d ever been so blissfully innocent and untouched by the world’s hurts. She wound her way down the long stone corridors. The thin, red rug lining the hall muted the tread of her footsteps. She continued walking until she reached the recently decorated foyer.
Katherine paused to assess the completed work done by her, Wrinkleton, and the footmen. Lush, green boughs adorned with clusters of red holly berries and ivy sprigs brightened the cheerless space. Her gaze climbed up the high ceiling to the kissing bough she’d arranged with apples, papered flowers, and the small doll.
Before Aldora and her family left and returned to London, Katherine would instruct one of the servants to take down the arraignment and retrieve the small doll. Lizzie would love the tiny, little babe.
“Katherine,” a deep baritone drawled from beyond her shoulder.
She shrieked and spun around. An increasingly familiar heat flooded her cheeks. Her husband stood at the entrance of another corridor. “Forgive me, I didn’t hear you,” she murmured.
Jasper’s gloriously long legs closed the distance between them. He touched her chin. But otherwise remained as silent as the grave.
Her eyes slid closed. What game did he play with her? Could he not see his mere presence alone was destroying her? “What do you want, Jasper?” she asked, wearily. She did not want to carry on as they were, with his harsh outbursts and her fleeing like a naughty pup sent from the kitchens.
Jasper’s hand stilled, but he did not drop his arm back to his side. “It looks beautiful, Katherine.”
“What does?” she blurted.
With a sweeping gesture, he motioned to the holiday décor.
“Oh.” She fiddled with the fabric of her gown. “I didn’t believe you’d noticed, Jasper.”
I notice anything and everything where you’re concerned, Katherine.
Since that not too distant day ago when her high-pitched desperate cry reached his ears across the Thames River, he’d developed a keen sense of awareness of his wife.
Just as he’d known the harshly spoken words he’d hurled at her in the Portrait Room had wounded her.
Now, as she stood before him, with an uncharacteristic wariness in her usually cheer-filled eyes, he confronted the change their short marriage wrought upon his wife. He’d thought himself content to live a solitary life, buried away in his castle. Until Katherine, he’d not realized the truth; he’d not been content, but rather he’d been hiding, embracing his sorrow as a kind of penance.
In just a few days, she’d torn down those protective white coverings throughout the castle and restored a sense of joyfulness to the cold, dank walls of the castle.
Katherine made to step around him. “If you’ll excuse me,” she murmured. “I should speak to Cook regarding dinner for the evening.”
Jasper matched her movement, effectively barring her escape.
She wrinkled her brow, and took an opposite step left. Jasper matched her movement, again.
Katherine looked up at him, imploringly. “Jasper, what do you want of me? You were so very clear in the Portrait Room. You desire nothing from me.”
Oh, how wrong his hopelessly alluring wife was. He desired too much from her. More than he deserved. More than he’d ever believed himself capable of.
“You’re under the bough,” he murmured in a gruff, husky whisper.
Katherine tipped her head.
Jasper raised his hand and curved it around the nape of her neck. Ever so gently, he tipped her head back so she might view the kissing bough above them. “We’re under the kissing bough,” he amended.
Her gaze locked on the piece. Then, her throat worked. She closed her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
Jasper leaned down and placed his lips to her fast-beating pulse there.
Her eyes slid closed. Jasper moved his search upward to the corner of her lip. He placed a kiss upon her siren’s mouth, and continued on, kissing her cheek, the tip of her pert nose, her gloriously long, thick brown lashes.
“What are you doing?” Her voice broke on a breathy moan.
“Tell me to stop, Katherine. Tell me, and I will stop now, and leave.” It will kill me, but I shall do it because I’m helpless to deny you anything.
Katherine raised her fingers to his jaw. She stroked her knuckles across his skin. A m
uscle twitched at the corner of his eye. She met his gaze with a boldness better suited to a woman many years her senior. “I do not want you to stop, Jasper.”
I am lost.
Jasper swept her into his arms and strode up the long, sweeping staircase, down the long corridor, hating the massiveness of the castle. Her quick breaths, blended with his harshly drawn ones, punctuated his steps. He pressed the handle of her bedchamber doors and kicked it closed behind them hard enough to shake the wood panel in its frame.
Jasper strode over to her wide four-poster bed and lowered her onto the green woven coverlet. Katherine edged backwards, into the center of the mattress. Her skirts climbed up around her ankles, ever higher, exposing the muscles of her calf that spoke of a woman who excelled at horseback riding. His body turned to stone as he imagined those legs wrapped about his waist, urging him on.
She angled her head, and a brown ringlet fell over her cheek. “Jasper?” Just that. His name, a breathless moan which bespoke of innocent desire.
A groan rumbled from deep within his chest. He shrugged out of his jacket and then tugged his shirt free. He tossed them both aside.
Katherine’s eyes, the color of the finest French brandy, widened. God help him, he should go slower. She was an innocent, unschooled in the ways of lovemaking.
And he’d never been consumed by this uncontrollable, burning desire to lay claim to a woman.
From the moment he’d held her to him in the confines of his carriage that fated day he’d saved her, he’d battled his hungering, convinced himself his desire stemmed from the many years he’d gone without a woman.
Now, studying her delicate frame upon her bed, elbows propped behind her, and her lips swollen Jasper could no longer deny the truth—he wanted Katherine. Only her. Just her. Forever.
And he’d allow the terror of that reality to seep into his mind after he made her his.
Jasper tugged off his boots, one at a time, all the while his gaze remained fixed on Katherine.
She followed his every movement; a becoming pink blush bathed her cheeks. He threw the gleaming black Hessians atop his now rumpled jacket upon the floor, and hovered at the edge of the bed.
Don’t do this.
Yours is a marriage of convenience.
Your heart is dead.
This is a betrayal of Lydia.
…Only
…It felt like none of those things.
As he lowered himself beside Katherine’s still form, a sense of absolute rightness besieged his senses.
Katherine scrambled up right, and pushed herself to her knees. “Jasper,” she whispered.
He came up beside her. “Yes, Katherine?”
She blinked. Her gaze fell to his chest. The pink hue of her cheeks flamed red. “I d-don’t know,” she stammered. “I don’t know what I’d intended to say. I just—”
Jasper kissed her to silence.
Her body went taut in his arms, and then her slim arms climbed up his neck. Katherine angled her head, allowing him better access to her mouth. He slipped his tongue inside. All the while he worked the long row of buttons down the back of her gown. One popped off. He cursed and wrenched his mouth from hers.
Katherine moaned in protest.
He turned her and kissed the exposed flesh of her neck and continued his efforts with the impossibly small buttons. He cursed when another popped free.
“I never want to see you in another gown of buttons,” he rasped, and then he gave a gentle tug. Tiny, pearl buttons showered the bed and rolled to the floor with a tiny thud. He gently divested her of her gown, baring her chemise-clad frame.
Jasper groaned. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying to a God he’d ceased to believe in, for patience from ripping that flimsy garment apart and mounting her like a wild beast until he found surcease in her tight, moist heat.
“Are you all right, Jasper?” Tentative fingers brushed the muscles of his forearm. They leapt under Katherine’s gentle touch.
Jasper opened his eyes, and with a desperate groan pulled her to him. He lowered Katherine to the mattress, pulling the chemise over her head. He tossed it to the floor where it joined his garments.
Pink.
The tips of her perfectly shaped breasts were a delicate shade of pink. Jasper closed his mouth around one of the buds.
Katherine gasped. He expected she’d pull back in maidenly modesty. Not his Katherine. He should know how very unlike anyone else his Katherine was. She tangled her fingers in his hair and held him close. “Oh, Jasper. That feels delicious,” she moaned.
Her words fueled his ardor. He pulled back and removed his breeches, kicking them to the floor, and then moved his ministrations to the peak of her other breast. Jasper captured the bud between his fingers, and he gently rolled the tender flesh until Katherine’s eyes widened, and she arched and twisted wildly underneath him.
A primitive growl climbed up his throat, and he worked a hand between her legs. His fingers delved into the thatch of brown curls. He parted her folds and explored her center. A groan rumbled up from his chest. She dripped honeyed heat, coating his fingers with her desire.
He slid a finger inside her, and she gasped. “Jasper.” He responded by sliding another deep inside.
His wife clenched her legs about his hand and arched into his caress.
The thin thread he desperately clung to, slipped. Moisture beaded at his brow, as he battled four years’ worth of self-control.
He moved over Katherine’s writhing form and inserted his knee between her thighs. He pressed his hardened shaft against her center, and propped on his elbows, frozen above her.
Oh, God. I’m going to lose control. I’ve wanted you for so long, Katherine.
“Jasper,” she moaned, arching against him.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
He plunged into her hot heat. Wet, warmth closed around him, drawing him in until he wanted to forever lose himself inside her.
Katherine cried out, and a spasm of pain contorted her face.
He froze, forcing himself to stop, when all he wanted with every fiber of his worthless being was to plunge deeper inside her, over and over again until he spilled his seed at long last…
A pained groan ripped from inside him.
“Jasper, are y-you all right?”
He chuckled at Katherine’s breathless concern. His large shaft had her stretched to full, and she should worry after him?
Jasper placed a kiss at her temple. And began to move.
Her eyes widened, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. He fixed his gaze to the sight of it, anything but the alluring draw of her wet core as he moved in and out. In and out.
It’d been too long.
Jasper increased his rhythm. Katherine matched his rapid thrusts, arching up. Her nails scraped along his back, as she encouraged him on.
“I cannot wait, Katherine,” he moaned. “I…” Oh, God. He needed to wait…just…
Katherine’s eyes widened, and her whole body stiffened in his hold. “Oh, God,” she cried, and then her wet sheath throbbed and pulsed under the force of her release. Her body trembled as she came, sucking him deeper.
He didn’t want to…
He couldn’t spill his seed…
Not. Again.
Jasper flexed his hips and poured himself in long, rippling waves inside her. His hot seed flooded her, filled her, and he tossed his head back with a primitive roar.
Jasper collapsed atop Katherine’s still form, bracing himself upon his elbows to avoid crushing her.
As the mindless, sated-state of desire began to recede, and his breathing resumed a normal rhythm, he rolled off of Katherine. The enormity of what he’d done; the mistake he’d made began to seep into the blissful moment, until horror melded with terror replaced the sweet release he’d experienced in Katherine’s tight, virginal heat.
Even now, his seed could be taking root and ultimately destroying her.
Nausea rolled in his
belly.
Katherine curled up next to him, and he recoiled as she brushed a kiss alongside his bicep. “I love you, Jasper,” she whispered.
His heart slowed, slowed, and then thudded to a stop as her words crept around the hopes he’d not known he carried.
No, he couldn’t…she couldn’t…
Love destroyed.
As much as he longed to be selfish and reach out and grasp with his greedy hands all that she offered, he could not be responsible for extinguishing Katherine’s effervescent glow. It would destroy him in ways that even Lydia’s death hadn’t managed to do.
Oh, God, what have I done?
Chapter 26
Katherine dipped her spoon into the small dish of plum pudding and polished off the holiday dessert. She sat back in her seat, deliciously warmed by the roaring fire that blazed within the hearth.
She studied her sister and Michael a long moment. The two of them eyed one another as though there was not another soul present, the way Jasper gazed upon his wife in their blissful portrait. Odd, how such a thought brought her pain just that morning, and now, after Jasper’s loving a short while ago, she should feel nothing but this…this…sense of fulfillment.
She loved him.
And it mattered not that he’d not spoken the words in return. For he’d tossed aside his vow of a marriage of convenience, and made her his wife in all sense of the words.
Heat raced up her neck and flooded her cheeks. She stole a sideways peek at her husband.
Seated at the head of the table in his midnight black evening jacket and expertly folded white cravat, one would never gather from the hard glint in his inscrutable expression that a short while ago he’d been…been…
She fanned her cheeks. Making love to her.
I’m no longer a virgin.
She smiled. With the exception of a slight soreness betwixt her thighs, there remained little evidence of Jasper’s passionate loving.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 33