Jasper surged to his feet so quickly, his winged back chair tipped backwards. “Where will you go?”
Katherine glanced momentarily at the fallen chair. Then back to him. Her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I imagined I might make my home in your townhouse in London.” A pretty pink color filled her cheeks. “That is, if you’d permit me to make my home there. I’d rather not return to my mother’s…”
“It is yours,” he said hoarsely, coming out from behind his desk. It is all yours, Katherine.
“Thank you.”
He stopped in front of her. So formal. So very polite. How could they be so stoically calm with talk of her walking from the room, and out of his life?
“Is there anything else you require?” Jasper’s distant question may as well have belonged to a stranger.
She shook her head. “No, Jasper.” Katherine studied her hands a moment, and then crossed the small distance between them. She leaned up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.
He closed his eyes in an attempt to forever hold onto the scent of honeysuckle and lemon that clung to her. “I…I…” Love you. Tell me you love me, Katherine, even as undeserving as I am. “Be happy, Jasper,” she whispered, and then stepped away from him.
She dropped a curtsy and walked out of his office. Out of his life.
Jasper’s gaze fixed on the door. His throat moved up and down.
How could he ever be happy again when with her, she’d taken his every last remaining reason for dwelling on this earth?
He wandered over to the front of his office and pulled back the thick brocade curtains covering the windowpanes. He peered down at the snow-covered drive as footmen hurried back and forth with trunks and valises belonging to Katherine’s family.
He stood there, fixed to the spot, waiting for the moment Katherine stepped into that carriage.
He waited so long he convinced himself that he’d imagined the whole, hellish exchange.
Then she appeared. The green muslin cloak a bright flash of color in a stark, white horizon. He’d come to know her so well, he could detect her body’s every nuance. She stiffened, as though she knew he studied her. Her chin ticked up a notch, and then she drew her hood up, and stole from him the vision of her lush brown ringlets and warm brown eyes.
Jasper rested his forehead alongside the wall and shook it slowly back and forth.
Do not leave.
Please do not leave.
The quiet of the cool winter’s day magnified all sound and he detected the moment the carriage door opened and closed.
Jasper’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled back to the edge of the window in time to see the footman hand her up into the carriage.
He devoured the delicate span of her back, the bold tilt of her neck, and cherished his every last glimpse of her, until the door closed, and Michael Knightly’s black lacquer carriage rocked forward.
Jasper pressed his brow against the glass panes and peered after the slow-moving conveyance until it dissolved into nothing more than a faint mark in the horizon.
Once again, left—alone.
The walls he’d constructed around his heart, the ones Katherine had rattled from the moment he’d pulled her from the Thames fell firmly back into place, surrounding the wounded organ that beat within his chest. He embraced the hurt, fueled the bitter resentment tearing through him.
With a steely set to his jaw, he dropped the curtains back into place.
He’d stood mooning like a lovesick swain over his wife long enough.
Katherine had left.
And it was now time to move forward.
Part II
Spring 1815
“How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.”
—William Wordsworth
Chapter 29
“Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant,
Was wanting yet the pure delight of love
By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,
Or by the silent looks of happy things,
Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky…”
Katherine glanced up from the pages of her book and tried to blink back a sneeze. The fragrant cuckoo flowers and bluebells in full bloom of this floral sanctuary of Kensington gardens tickled her nose.
“Achoo!”
A white kerchief appeared over the page of her book.
She accepted the white scrap of linen. “Achoo!” and sneezed into the previously unsullied fabric. “Thank…” Katherine blinked, as the sudden, unexpected appearance of a mysterious kerchief registered.
Katherine spun about the wrought-iron bench.
“Your Grace,” an increasingly familiar Earl of Stanhope drawled.
She pointed her eyes skyward and snapped her volume closed. “Lord Stanhope.”
The tall, impossibly handsome rogue claimed the seat next to her. “Henry,” he corrected.
Katherine grunted and shifted in her seat. “This seat is not designed for two people, Harry.” Katherine handed back the soiled linen.
Harry heedlessly stuffed it back into the front of his jacket. His lips curved up in a partial grin. “You know I detest when you call me Harry.”
She did, which was why she’d taken to calling him Harry.
His smile said he knew as much. “Why do you insist on coming here? You can’t even tolerate the collection of scents in this godforsaken landscape.”
Katherine swatted his arm. “I adore this place.” This floral haven had become a kind of sanctuary in Society’s glittering world of falsity and unkindness.
The other, the reason she could not speak of, even to this man who’d become her only friend, was because it reminded her of those splendorous tapestries hung throughout Castle Blackwood. Even if the poignant beauty served to remind Katherine of Jasper and his love, Lydia, then Katherine would welcome even that fragile remembrance of her time there.
Harry flicked her nose. “Why so melancholy, Kat?”
She shook her head. “It is nothing,” she assured him.
They sat in companionable silence and stared out at the crimson orb as it rose above the horizon, bathing the gardens around them in a soft orange and red glow. Purple and pink clouds floated along the sky, better suited for floating cherubs than the dirty London town.
It was her birthday. She felt vastly older than her mere twenty years. Then, having ones heart so hopelessly and helplessly broken tended to age a lady. Tears blurred her vision.
The kerchief reappeared. “Consider it a birthday gift,” he murmured.
She accepted it with a wan smile and discreetly dabbed at her eyes. The pain of missing Jasper had not lessened in the months since she’d come to London.
He’d not come for her. A small sliver of her had thought perhaps she’d come to mean something to him and he’d not allow her to leave.
How hopelessly naïve she’d been. A person had but one heart to give. Jasper’s belonged to Lydia. And Katherine? Well, hers belonged to Jasper, now and forever.
“How do we intend to celebrate?” Harry murmured. He draped his broad, muscled arm along the back of her seat.
“We don’t,” she muttered.
“Egads, you’re in quite a foul mood today, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “I am.”
From the corner of her eye, she detected the grin on his lips. “Your duke?”
In the months since she’d first met Harry Falston, the 6th Earl of Stanhope, he’d come to know her well enough that they often knew what the other was thinking.
He drummed his fingertips along the back of her seat.
Katherine drew in a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of roses in bloom. “Achoo!”
Harry sighed and extracted another, clean, linen. He handed the monogrammed fabric over to Katherine. “Keep it,” he said. “As long as you insist on coming here, I shall hav
e to continue to carry an endless supply of kerchiefs. My valet is growing quite irate at their mysterious disappearance.”
She managed a smile. “You are too good to me, Harry.”
He snorted, and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Just have a care not to say as much in front of Society, or you’ll surely shatter my well-earned reputation.”
Katherine leaned back in her seat. Her fingers plucked at the corners of Harry’s kerchief. They struck quite the pair. Her, the Duchess of Bainbridge, whose marriage remained shrouded in mystery to the ton, and Harry the unrepentant rogue who’d earned the censure of every polite, Society matron.
Theirs had been a rather ignominious beginning. While attending a soiree, Katherine had stolen a moment outside for air. Harry had followed her and made her a rather indecent proposal. She’d punched him in the nose.
After that, he’d set himself up as a kind of protector from the steady barrage of gentleman who’d incorrectly assumed her absentee husband made Katherine fair game for an illicit affair.
She imagined if Society stumbled upon them at this unfashionable hour, they would have raised more than a few brows.
Harry shattered the quiet. “I suppose if I were truly a good friend I would suggest you return to Bainbridge’s cold, dark castle and make amends with the undeserving bounder.”
Katherine folded her hands on her lap and studied the interlocked digits, silently.
“But I’m not a good friend. I’m a rogue and still hold onto hope that you’ll forget your miserable husband and—”
“Harry,” she said firmly, interrupting him with a scowl. It mattered not that he jested, any and all mention of Jasper still rubbed as raw as vinegar being poured upon an open wound.
Harry shoved himself to his feet and stood over her. “You believe I jest, Kat.”
She shook her head, wanting him to stop, needing him to stop. With the exception of her sister, Harry had become the one friend whose company she enjoyed. Never one to take himself or anything at all seriously, he provided the perfect foil to Jasper’s dark forebodingness and, what’s more, helped her forget, even for just those slips of moments in time, how close she’d been to having everything she’d never known she needed in life.
He reached his hand out. “Kat—”
The whinny of a horse cut across whatever Harry’s intended words were.
Katherine glanced down the gravel riding path, and her heart thudded wildly in her chest at the approaching rider.
She rose. Her rose-colored skirts fluttered about her feet as the Marquess of Guilford drew his mare to a stop a short distance away. He dismounted.
Harry frowned at the sudden intrusion. “Guilford,” Harry drawled. He sketched a short bow.
Jasper’s friend, the lone witness to their nuptials ignored the other man. He directed a serious stare at Katherine.
Her heart wrenched, feeling ever closer to Jasper just by the appearance of his friend. A question as to her husband’s well-being sprung to her lips but Guilford spoke before she could formulate words.
“Your Grace,” he said, in short, clipped tones suggesting his disapproval of Katherine’s companion.
“My lord.” Even as she curtsied, a frown turned her lips. She’d not be made to feel guilty for keeping company with Harry. Nothing untoward had or would happen with the roguish earl. Katherine might be lonely and broken-hearted, but only one man could fill the empty hole left by Jasper’s disinterest—and that man happened to be her stubborn, aloof husband.
Harry looked between them. The uncharacteristic hardness in his eyes indicated he’d detected the undercurrents of tension between Katherine and the marquess.
“I hope you are finding your time in London pleasant, Lady Katherine,” Guilford said dismissing Harry outright.
“Most pleasant,” she lied through her white teeth.
Harry snorted, and then covered a hand to his mouth, feigning a cough. She shot him a sideways look, knowing he detected the untruth in her words.
Guilford’s gaze slid back over toward the other man. His lip pulled at the corner in a disapproving sneer. When he returned his hard stare to Katherine, he gave a curt nod. “I bid thee good day, Lady Katherine.” He turned on his heel and strode back toward his horse.
A frenzied sense of panic filled her breast. Lord Guilford represented the last fragile connection to Jasper.
Katherine hurried after him. Harry’s kerchief fluttered to the ground, forgotten.
“My lord,” she called, just as he grasped the reins of his mount.
He stiffened and turned back to face her. “Your Grace?”
Katherine stumbled to a halt in front of him. She wet her lips and glanced around at the empty park. “My husband,” she whispered.
He furrowed his brow. “Lady Katherine?”
“How is he?” she implored him with her eyes. Jasper occupied every last corner of her thoughts. She yearned for just some word on the man who would forever hold her heart.
Guilford’s’ frown deepened, and his gaze skittered to a point beyond her shoulder. By the icy disdain in his usually affable stare, she suspected Harry hovered in the distance. “He is…much the same,” Guilford finally said, when he’d looked back at Katherine.
A woeful smile tugged at her lips. “That is saying nearly nothing, my lord.”
Guilford folded his arms over his chest. “And what would you have me say, Your Grace? What words do you seek?”
His furious disapproval could not be clearer if he mounted his horse and rode through Hyde Park shouting disparaging words of her.
“I…” she faltered. All of Society erroneously assumed the Mad Duchess had taken Harry as her lover. The gossip columns bandied that tidbit about as though it were more delectable than a Gunter’s ice. After all, with his reputation as unrepentant rogue, how could Society think anything else of Lord Stanhope? “I…” She could not discuss such an intimate matter with Lord Guilford. “If you see him, will you let him know I’ve asked after him?”
Guilford searched her face with his eyes, and then gave a curt nod. “As you wish. Is there anything else you require, Lady Katherine?”
Tell him I love him. I’ve never stopped nor will I ever. My heart is and will always belong to him. Tell him to come to me. Tell him my life is empty without him.
Instead, she said, “No, that will be all, my lord. Thank you.”
Guilford nodded again. He swung his leg over the chestnut mare, and panic built in her breast. She took another step toward him. “My lord, is he…well?”
The marquess shifted the reins to his other hand, and his knees tightened about the flanks, in a clear attempt to soothe the eager to gallop horse. His mount sidled backwards. Lord Guilford lowered his voice. “It is my belief, Your Grace, that Bainbridge has not fared well in your absence.”
Her heart thudded hard. She held up a beseeching hand, though Lord Guilford could not give her that which she needed. Only again seeing Jasper would be the balm upon her aching soul.
Guilford continued, seeming to understand her unspoken question. “He’s been rather…” He paused, as if searching for the appropriate words. “Surly. Angry. Angrier than usual,” he clarified with the pointed look she gave him. A ghost of a smile played about his lips.
Her eyes slid closed a moment. She forced them open. “Thank you.”
He bowed his head and kicked his mount forward.
Katherine dimly registered Harry’s approach.
“What was that about?” Harry murmured, staring off in the distance at the marquess’ swift retreating form.
She shook her head. “It is nothing,” she said, unable to speak of Jasper’s friendship with the marquess, and the marquess’s opinions of Jasper.
Harry held out his arm. “Will you join me for a stroll, Your Grace?”
“Er, I think I care to just sit here, Harry.”
His gaze searched hers. “You’re certain?”
She nodded.
With a
sigh, he extracted a third kerchief. “Then, as you were, madam.”
Katherine caught it in her fingers. “Thank you, Harry,” she said softly, for so much more than just this scrap of fabric.
Harry beat his hand against his side. “You’re desiring your own company, aren’t you, Kat?”
He’d come to know her very well in these past months. Rather, they’d come to know one another. They could finish one another’s sentences. They were of like opinions on matters pertaining to the ton—they both abhorred London’s gossipy Society members.
And they’d come to know and respect one another enough to not delve too deeply into the secret demons that tormented them.
She smiled wanly up at him.
“You know he’s not deser…”
“Hush,” she chided him. No one, not her twin sister, Aldora or Michael, and not Harry knew the kind of man her husband was. Jasper possessed the valor to jeopardize his own life to pluck a stranger from the water. He gave the sole volume of poetry to a teasing young lady even as it happened to be the only enjoyment he took from life. He sang taproom ditties to babies. It was Jasper who’d deserved more—Jasper who’d had more, in his wife, Lydia.
Katherine would never be anything but a pale shadow in the other woman’s otherworldly glow of perfection.
Harry captured her hand and raised it to his mouth. He brushed his lips along the tops of her knuckles.
After he’d taken his leave, Katherine returned to what had become an all-too-familiar wrought-iron bench within the garden, considering Guilford’s appearance. And more, his revelation of Jasper.
In the time she’d known Jasper, she’d found him to be a surly, obstinate bear of a man. Surely Guilford’s claims that Jasper had become even more so, had nothing to do with her departure from his life. Why, he’d surely resumed the normal cadence of the comfortable, solitary existence he’d carried on since Lydia’s death, four…now four years and four months ago.
But what if he does miss you? A voice whispered at the edge of her mind. What if he harbors the same regret in your going, as you do in leaving?
Katherine picked up Wordsworth’s volume, and fanned the now all too-familiar pages. She paused upon a familiar verse.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 36