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

by Christi Caldwell

  Full often wished he that the winds might rage… She continued reading.

  When they were silent: far more fondly now

  Than in his earlier season did he love

  Tempestuous nights—the conflict and the sounds

  That live in darkness. From his intellect

  And from the stillness of abstracted thought

  He asked repose; and, failing oft to win

  The peace required, he scanned the laws of light

  Amid the roar of torrents, where they send

  From hollow clefts up to the clearer air

  A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun,

  Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus,

  And vainly by all other means, he strove

  To mitigate the fever of his heart.

  She’d been a coward of the worst kind to leave him as she had. It had seemed at the time, her self-preservation was dependent upon distance between her and Jasper’s apathy.

  Katherine had learned all too quickly, no matter the distance, no matter the time separating them, self-preservation would be futile. Whether Jasper wished it or not…she belonged to him.

  Chapter 30

  Jasper stared unblinking at an all-too-familiar white sheet draped across the door. He folded his hands behind his back and continued to study the thick, crisp white linen, obscuring the wood panel and delicate handle.

  Every day he rose and passed this bloody door and tortured himself with the evenly hung, thick white sheet.

  With a curse, he ripped it viciously from the wall and it toppled to the floor in a noisy puddle of pooling fabric. He pressed the handle and tossed the door open hard enough it bounced back against the plaster of the walls.

  An eerie quiet filled the chambers.

  Jasper hesitated a moment, and then after the four months five days and a handful of hours since Katherine had climbed into Michael Knightly’s carriage, he entered his wife’s chambers.

  I love you, Jasper. The ghost of her whisper lingered in the walls of this room, so very real, he glanced around expecting to see her smiling visage and warm brown eyes.

  Empty silence mocked his foolish yearnings.

  With a curse he pivoted on his heel and took a step toward the door, but then the faintest hint of honeysuckle wafted in this dark space and filled his senses with a heady remembrance of how very close to perfect his life had been.

  Jasper clenched his eyes tight and willed memories of her aside. Katherine with terror in her eyes as he’d plucked her from the river. Katherine’s cheeky smile as she’d taken the last copy of Wordsworth’s book. Katherine as she’d cradled the girl Lizzie close to her chest.

  Oh, God, I cannot bear this. Jasper forced his eyes open, rubbing the spot in his chest where his heart had rested.

  After he’d lost Lydia and his son, Jasper had imagined he would never recover from the abyss of despair. He’d thought his heart dead within his chest.

  A hollow, mirthless laugh burst from his chest and bounced off the walls. How fitting he should discover himself capable of loving, only after Katherine’s departure. Nay, not merely loving anyone…but his impossibly headstrong, passionate wife.

  Jasper wandered deeper into the room. He’d ordered it closed off by the servants, barring all from entry. Beckoned by the wide, canopied bed where they’d first made love, he sank onto the edge of the mattress, his gaze fixed on the mound of ivory and white ruffled skirts.

  Well, I hate ringlets. And gowns made of too much ivory and lace. Mother insists I wear them because it is the ladylike thing to do. It would be such good fun to wear vibrant shades…

  Jasper reached for one of the gowns and drew it to his chest. And closing his eyes, he buried his face into the satiny smoothness of the modest, lace creation. The sweet, delicate scent of her, he’d so craved these months filled his senses more heady than the most potent aphrodisiac. It drugged him like an opiate, filling him with an insatiable need for her.

  Jasper released the gown so quickly it slid from his fingers and fell to the floor.

  What in hell was wrong with him? Mooning over her like a lovesick swain. She’d left him. She had made the decision that a life without him was preferable to a life with him.

  With a curse, Jasper surged to his feet. The abruptness of the movement toppled her mountain of white and ivory garments.

  A lone green piece, like the hint of earth poking out from a blanket of snow. Jasper swiped at the reticule. He passed it back and forth between his hands, and with a snarl, brought his arm back to hurl the item across the room.

  Then froze.

  He closed his eyes again and sucked in a breath. Not even his potent fury had shielded him from the depth of love he carried for Katherine. He exhaled on a broken, shuddery hiss.

  Jasper wandered over to the corner of the room, and peered out into the sun-kissed grounds below. The lush green of the rolling hillsides and noisy chatter of birds so vastly different than the frozen world he and Katherine had dwelt within during their short time together.

  He tugged at the drawstring of her reticule, and glanced distractedly down into the small purse. His heart paused a beat.

  She’d taken the small heart pendant he’d slept with since Guilford had brought the items to him a lifetime ago. Pained regret tugged at him. He reached inside and pulled out a lone scrap of paper.

  He knew the contents of her small reticule enough to recognize the folded note a more recent addition.

  With trembling fingers, Jasper unfolded the sheet.

  Dearest Jasper,

  By this point, you have learned the worst kinds of truth of me. I am a coward. You wed a coward. I convinced myself the offer I’d put to you that snowy day in Hyde Park was driven of desperation, an attempt to avoid marriage to Mr. Ekstrom. Now I can be true enough to myself, and now to you, at least on the pages of this sheet, to at last admit, my offer had nothing to do with horrid Mr. Ekstrom, and everything to do with you.

  I love you. Rather desperately, I’m afraid. And I now know you can never love me, which is through no fault of your own. Your Lydia will forever hold your heart, and if I were to remain at Castle Blackwood I would be forced to face the truth of that love, and the depth of my own despair when you could never return the sentiments I carried in my heart. And that I could not bear.

  I wish you happiness.

  I love you.

  Forever Yours,

  Katherine

  Jasper’s throat worked spasmodically. His fingers curled over the lone page until it crumpled noisily in his hands. Panicked, he lightened his hold, and awkwardly smoothed the precious sheet of vellum.

  With his body and mind numb, Jasper wandered from the chambers, through the long corridors, down the stairs, and into the once closed off room.

  He stepped into the Portrait Room, striding past the bitter visages of his parents and younger self, and made his way very deliberately over to one particular canvas.

  Jasper paused and stared up at the smiling couple, not recognizing the youthful gentleman with a carefree glimmer in his eyes.

  “I…” Jasper paused, and looked around, ascertaining he was in fact alone. He returned his attention to Lydia’s golden countenance. “I didn’t mean to forget you, Lydia,” he said at last, into the quiet.

  The couple continued to smile almost benevolently down at him.

  “I thought to honor your memory and the love I carried for you, by shutting myself away from the world.” He drew in a shuddery breath. “I didn’t think I could ever love again.” Jasper held his palms out, Katherine’s letter and reticule an unwitting explanation. “I met a woman. I didn’t intend for it to happen.” And yet, if it hadn’t happened, then Katherine’s lifeless body would forever dwell under the surface of the Thames River. A chill stole through him and iced him over at the sheer horror of the imagined tragedy. “And I love her, Lydia.” Tears blurred his vision. “I cannot carry on without her.” Tears trailed down his cheeks and he let them fall unasham
ed and unchecked. “I need to say goodbye, Lydia. Because if I do not say goodbye, I can never be free. And I need to be free.” He tucked Katherine’s belongings inside his jacket, close to his heart. “So be at peace, Lydia.”

  Jasper didn’t know what he expected. Just then, a ray of sunlight slashed through the clear, glass windowpanes, and cast Lydia’s smile in a sea of shimmering light, a kind of benediction. An absolution of the guilt he carried. In that smile dwelled a woman who’d not have ever wanted him to punish himself for the loss of her life.

  Then the sunlight faded, dimmed by a cloud.

  Jasper blinked, and wiped his tear-dampened cheeks.

  “Your Grace?”

  He froze, his body going taut at the unexpected appearance of Wrinkleton.

  “Yes, Wrinkleton,” he said with his back to the man, unwilling to turn and display his earlier expression of emotion for the servant.

  Wrinkleton cleared his throat. “The Marquess of Guilford arrived a short while ago. I took the liberty of showing him to your office. He said he was here on a matter of import.”

  Jasper frowned, turning quickly on his heel. He nodded and gave a murmured thanks.

  Jasper couldn’t imagine what matter of import should take Guilford away from London during the height of the Season—with the exception of one person.

  Heart racing, Jasper all but sprinted through the castle toward his office.

  Knowing his panicked thoughts surely foolish, Jasper paused outside his office doors and smoothed his palms over the front of his jacket.

  He entered the office.

  Guilford stood over by the sideboard, pouring a glass of brandy. He glanced up, with a half-smile for Jasper. “So good to see you, Bainbridge,” he said over the rim of his glass. “I hope you don’t mind, I availed myself to your spirits.” Pause. “You look like hell.”

  Jasper grinned, and Guilford choked on his brandy. “By God, did you just smile?”

  Jasper’s smile widened, and he crossed over to his desk. He sat, hip propped on the edge, arms folded over his chest. “I did.”

  Guilford shook his head and took another sip. He gestured to Jasper’s decanters. “A drink, friend?”

  Jasper chuckled at his friend’s comfortable show as host in Jasper’s own home. He waved off the offer. My father was a wastrel. He spent his days and nights at the gaming tables, and indulging in spirits, and he squandered everything not entailed.

  Even in the darkest days since Katherine had left when he’d craved the mindlessness of drink, he’d not indulged in spirits—not when he’d be forever tormented with thoughts of all she’d suffered because of her father’s drinking and gambling.

  Jasper motioned for Guilford to sit. “What takes you away from London?” Do you have word of my wife?

  Something in the hesitant way Guilford’s gaze slid from his made Jasper wish he’d not sworn off drink. Jasper straightened and claimed the seat behind his massive desk.

  “I’ve seen your wife,” Guilford said after he’d taken his seat, volunteering information that saved Jasper from asking the question that would expose the depth of his feelings for Katherine.

  Jasper steepled his hands in front of him, atop his chest to still their tremble. “Oh?” His heart raced with a desperate urgency to demand his friend spill every last word he had of Katherine.

  Guilford lifted one shoulder in a far too-nonchalant shrug. “She’s become the toast of the ton.”

  Jasper’s gut clenched. She’d always possessed a beauty that defied the mere physical type, the kind worn deep on the inside, and that emanated out like an ethereal glow that belonged to angels and the like.

  Guilford fished into the front of his jacket and withdrew a neatly folded newspaper. He set it down on the mahogany desktop and took a seat.

  Jasper’s eyes fell to the copy of The Times.

  “They say she’s taken a lover.”

  Jasper’s body jerked at the unexpectedness of Guilford’s statement. The air left him on a swift, noisy exhale. Oh, God, Guilford may as well have taken the medieval broadsword from the wall and hacked at Jasper’s heart. Jasper shook his head.

  Lies. All lies. It couldn’t be true. Katherine was not the kind of creature capable of deceit and treachery. She’d not betray him. She loved him.

  But then, you never reciprocated those feelings of love. She humbled herself before you, and you scoffed and jeered at every turn, until you drove her away.

  Why should she have remained faithful?

  “And what do you say?” His question emerged angry with all the same harsh bitterness he’d harbored deep inside since Lydia’s death. His breath froze as he waited with a kind of dreaded anticipation of Guilford’s response.

  Guilford frowned. “I say if you truly care, you’d get yourself to London.”

  Jasper growled. “Who is he?” He punished himself with the abhorrent images of Katherine’s splendidly naked body stretched out for some nameless, faceless bastard’s worship.

  His gut roiled, until he thought he might cast up the contents of his stomach.

  Guilford shifted in his seat. “The Earl of Stanhope.” He took a sip of his brandy. “You’ve been away from Society for some time.” He waved his hand. “There’s a scandal in the man’s past. He’s something of a rogue. Frowned on by Society’s most polite hostesses, sought after by Society’s most notorious widows.”

  And Stanhope had set his lascivious sights upon Katherine.

  Jasper picked up the pen on his desk and to give his fingers something to do he passed it back and forth between hands. That, or mount his horse, ride to London and use these same hands to bloody the faceless bastard senseless.

  No, you gave her up. You let her go, a jeering voice taunted from deep within.

  She’d given him her love, trusted him with her heart, and he couldn’t have been brave enough to give her the words she deserved, the words that lived inside him.

  “Do you believe she’s taken him as a lover?” He grimaced. Even as he said the words, he dismissed them. Katherine possessed an honor and integrity not found in most gentlemen. She would not be capable of the deceit demonstrated by his parents.

  Guilford lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “I believe Stanhope’s determined. And she’s lonely.”

  How could his friend be so nonchalant when Jasper hung on the edge of true madness?

  That response did little to ease the tumultuous storm raging through Jasper. He wanted to flip his desk, storm from the room, and hunt down the Earl of Stanhope for daring to encroach on that which was Jasper’s.

  “Have you,” he paused. “seen them together?”

  Guilford looked away a moment. “I have,” he said at last.

  The pen in Jasper’s hand snapped in two.

  “I came upon them at Hyde Park,” Guilford went on.

  Hyde Park belonged to Jasper and Katherine. It had been the place they’d gone in the quiet of the snow to share the Wordsworth volume. It had been the place Katherine had asked him to marry her and spoke of them having babes together with a shocking candidness.

  And now, it was the place she visited with the Earl of Stanhope.

  Guilford leaned back in his chair and hooked one ankle over the other. “What do you intend to do?”

  Jasper’s jaw hardened. “I’m going to London.”

  Stanhope and Katherine should be prepared…

  The Mad Duke intended to fight for his wife.

  Chapter 31

  London

  Katherine stood with a glass of champagne between her fingers, enjoying one of the very small luxuries of being a married woman. She’d detested ratafia as much as she detested ivory and white satin.

  “You do know you’ve scandalized Mother with your gown this evening,” a voice whispered close to her ear.

  Katherine spun, to greet her sister Anne. A smile wreathed Anne’s cheeks; the faintest dimple indicated her pleasure. “Anne.”

  Anne eyed her glass of champagne longin
gly. “I’d trade one of my hands to be rid of ratafia and free to indulge in champagne.”

  Katherine snorted and deposited her champagne glass onto the tray of a servant. “Just be sure you don’t go and trade the hand you use for holding glasses, or it would certainly dull your pleasure.”

  Anne sighed and took a final sip of her drink. She deposited the empty glass upon the same servant’s tray. “You do know Mother has been eyeing you with that stern frown upon her lips?”

  Yes, Katherine had detected the signature frown worn by her mother since she’d entered Lord and Lady Harrison’s ball a short while ago.

  Anne glanced around and then leaned close. “I think you look splendid, Kat.”

  Katherine smiled. “As my twin sister, you have to say that.”

  Her sister pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Hardly. Haven’t you learned I don’t do anything I’m supposed to do?” Yes, the years had certainly taught Katherine that very fact about her headstrong, if whimsical sister.

  Anne glanced down forlornly at her ivory satin skirts with a lace, ruffled trim. “I’m entirely too old to be as ruffled as I am.”

  Katherine studied her sister a moment. Whereas ivory and white fabrics had dulled Katherine’s drab brown locks, the colors only served to heighten Anne’s golden beauty. Anne epitomized the perfect English lady. “You’re beautiful,” she said with all sincerity and no trace of resentment. As twins, they shared a unique, unbreakable bond. She could not envy Anne her beauty. Never Anne.

  Anne tugged at her skirts and feigned a short curtsy. “Perfect, proper, English miss, no?” She sighed. “I’d trade even the forbidden champagne for your sapphire skirts.”

  She glanced down momentarily at the gown designed by Madame LeBlanc, the most sought after French modiste in London and smoothed her palms over the front of her sapphire blue satin gown with its crisp plaiting.

  When she had taken her leave of Castle Blackwood, Katherine had arrived at a staggering, if saddening, realization. She would not have her children. And she would not have the husband to sit reading poetry with around the hearthside. But she would have her sapphire blue gown.