For Love of the Duke (The Heart of a Duke Book 2) (32 page)

Why…?

What…?

How could this be?

She opened the small reticule and her breath caught.

The heart pendant glimmered back up at her.

The heart of a duke.

He’d rescued her reticule.

Katherine angled her head, wrinkling her brow.

…And he’d kept the small article.

Why would he—?

“What are you doing?”

The bag slipped from her fingers at the harsh growl.

Her head snapped up and she met her husband’s furious gaze.

Katherine swallowed hard at the burning hot fury detected in the blacks of his eyes.

“J-jasper,” she stammered.

Jasper stared with something akin to horror at the blasted green reticule given to him by Guilford a lifetime ago.

Heat climbed up his neck.

“J-jasper, you have my reticule.”

Yes, he’d kept her bloody reticule. He despised the weakness within him that made him hold onto the frippery, and, he cringed… sleep with it beneath his pillow.

“Why do you have my reticule?” Katherine angled her head, moving her gaze from Jasper to the rumpled green fabric.

He swung his legs over the bed, feeling like an untamed beast.

“Jasper, I asked—”

Jasper whipped back. “I heard you,” he barked and bent down to retrieve his breeches. He should have never taken her to his chambers. He should have never made love to her. Or poured his seed into her. Or…

With another growl, he jammed his leg into one of the holes of his breeches and yanked it up.

He no longer recognized this…this…weak-creature Katherine had turned him into.

Jasper stuffed his other leg in, and pulled his breeches up.

His life had been fine until her. He’d been content to wallow in the misery of his own creation. He’d been safe and protected, and then with one crack of a thin sheet of ice, she’d tumbled into the surface and toppled his world.

“Are you going somewhere, Jasper?” A quizzical note threaded her question.

Jasper stooped to rescue his white cambric shirt. He pulled it overhead.

In that moment, he hated Katherine for forcing him to live again and opening him up to the perils of caring. Not when living was so bloody hard and uncertain.

He reached for his jacket.

Katherine scrambled over the edge of the bed, glorious in all her naked splendor. “I don’t understand why you’ll not speak to me.” Brown curls hung over her cream white shoulders and draped across her breasts. The pink tip of one perfect mound of flesh, peeked from between the strands, the tempting image she presented mocked his steely resolve.

Jasper spun toward the door, but Katherine rushed around to plant herself in front of him. She planted her hands upon her delicately flared hips. She narrowed her eyes. “Is this about the reticule?”

This was about everything.

“Because I don’t know why you held onto it, Jasper.” Her soft, gentled words washed over him until his fingers itched to reach the short distance between them, take her into his arms again, and make love to her. “But I have to believe it means something, Jasper.”

Her supposition killed his desire swifter than a plunge in an icy lake.

He shook his head. “You incorrectly assume, madam. It means nothing.” Jasper made to step around her.

She matched his movement. “Then why did you keep it?” she challenged. “Why if…?” Her question ended on a gasp as he pulled her close.

Jasper lowered his head, so their noses brushed. “It means nothing. Do you hear me, Katherine? Nothing.”

Most ladies would have recoiled at his icy fury. Katherine tossed her head back like a Spartan princess. “If it meant nothing you’d have returned it to me, Jasper. Or you would have left it that day at the—”

“I didn’t find your bloody reticule. Guilford did,” he cursed, and released her with such alacrity she stumbled back a step.

Katherine righted herself. Red color slapped her cheeks. “Oh.” Her gaze slid away for a moment.

And Jasper despised himself for the uncertainty he detected in her usually spirited, warm brown eyes. Because the truth of it was Guilford had rescued the item, but Jasper had retained it for reasons he didn’t, couldn’t force himself to consider.

Her eyes, they returned to his. “You needn’t push me away, Jasper,” she said softly. “I love you.”

Jasper’s body jerked. Oh, God.

This he couldn’t stand. He could not crave her love. Could not want it. She would destroy him in ways Lydia hadn’t managed to.

Taking a steadying breath, Jasper squared his shoulders. “Katherine, ours is a marriage of convenience. I’ve told you before. I loved my wife and she is dead. I’ve nothing left to offer you, and I certainly don’t want your love.”

Katherine blanched and her whole body jerked as if he’d struck her a physical blow. The sight of her suffering struck him worse than a lash across the back.

Wind beat hard and cruel against the glass window panes, the spirits railing at him.

Katherine gave a jerky nod. “You needn’t leave your chambers, Jasper,” she said with a shocking strength to her words. She fetched a sheet and draped it about her slender frame. “I’ll l-leave.” This time her words broke, and his gut clenched.

Katherine marched back toward the door, more regal than any queen.

He wanted to reach for her. Halt her forward movement. Beg her forgiveness.

Katherine opened the door. It closed behind her with a soft, decisive click.

And he did none of those things.

He was a bloody bastard.

~28~

Katherine studied the familiar copy of Wordsworth’s latest works she and Jasper had sparred over. She fanned the now well-read pages, swallowing past the silly lump in her throat.

She didn’t have another drop to shed for Jasper. A knock sounded at the door, jerking Katherine from her reverie. “Enter,” she called quietly.

The door opened. Aldora hovered at the entrance. Her gaze went from Katherine, and then over to the small valise at the food of Katherine’s bed.

Katherine handed the book over to the maid Mary, who’d been so good as to serve as her de facto lady’s maid.

Mary placed it in the valise and looked around. “Is that all, Your…Lady Katherine?”

The unspoken question pertained to the mound of ivory and white satin gowns heaped upon the center of her bed. Katherine never wanted to see another white gown for the remainder of her days. “I do not require anything else, Mary. Please, do with them as you would.”

Mary nodded, and bobbed a curtsy.

Aldora advanced deeper into the room.

“That will be all, Mary,” Katherine said, dismissing the young servant.

The maid dropped her gaze to the wood floor and sketched another curtsy. She hurried from the room.

“Are you certain you want to leave?” Aldora asked when the door clicked shut.  “He is your
husband
, Katherine.”

The gentle reminder brought tears to Katherine’s eyes. She swatted at them. “Bah, silly tears,” she muttered.

Aldora handed over a handkerchief.

Katherine accepted it and blew her nose noisily into the white fabric etched in Michael’s initials. She remembered the cruel words Jasper had hurled at her last evening, made all the more cruel for the truth to them. “Ours is a marriage of convenience, Aldora. I wed him to be free of Mr. Ekstrom and he wed me for…” For reasons she still didn’t fully understand. “I’m a bother to him. He’ll be grateful for my departure.” Her heart wrenched. She loved him. Would always love him.

Aldora took her hands. “I believe he must care for you in some way.” She gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “The duke does not strike me as a gentleman to do something because he doesn’t want to. He wed you for a reason.”

Katherine shifted the conversation to a far safer topic. “If you’re too tired from your journeys and you’d rather wait until tomorrow to leave…”

Aldora sighed. “Michael has seen the carriage readied. Though I’d not imagined we’d spend Christmas traveling back to London.”

Nor had Katherine.

Tears blurred her vision yet again. She blew her nose noisily into the soiled linen.

“Does he know?” Aldora asked gently.

Katherine shook her head. “I will speak to him. He’ll be relieved, I’m sure of it.”

“No gentleman cares to be abandoned by his wife,” Aldora said with a wry twist to her words.

A frisson of guilt spiraled through Katherine, but she brushed it aside. Jasper couldn’t have been clearer in his feelings regarding their marriage.

And Katherine? Well, she found herself a bigger coward than she’d ever believed, because she could no longer share the same walls with Jasper and the ghost who would forever hold his heart. The pain of unrequited love would slowly destroy Katherine until she became the same empty shell of a person Jasper had become after his wife’s death.

Her eyes shifted to the reticule atop the pile of white and ivory gowns. She reached for the delicate purse, and made to place it inside the valise. Something gave her pause. She set it back down on the mountain of white.

“Michael said if you’re determined to journey with us to London, then we’d be wise to leave within the hour.”

Katherine nodded.

Her sister opened her mouth, as though prepared to say more, but then gave her head a sad little shake, and took her leave.

Katherine stared at the closed door a long moment.

She would leave within the hour. She’d resided within the walls of the castle not even a full week, and yet it felt as much a home as her childhood cottage in Hertfordshire.

Within the hour, she’d leave and Jasper would remain, and continue on the solitary existence he’d dwelt within for the past four years since Lydia’s death.

She rubbed a hand over her chest to ease the dull ache where her heart beat.

With a sigh, Katherine started toward the door.

The sooner she made her goodbyes, the sooner she could attempt to put back the small pieces of her broken heart and resume living.

A knock sounded on Jasper’s office door.

He frowned, and picked his head up from the ledgers. “Enter,” he barked. Jasper returned his focus to the neat column of numbers. “What is it, Wrinkleton?” he snapped. His servant knew not to enter the private sanctuary of Jasper’s office without good cause.

And Jasper had made it abundantly clear through the years—there were no good causes.

The delicate clearing of a throat, jerked his head up. Katherine stood with her arms folded behind her. She leaned against the door. “Jasper,” she said quietly.

Ink spilled from his pen, and he glanced down distractedly at the now mussed row of numbers, then back to his wife. Jasper dropped the pen down, and rose. “Katherine.”

His stomach twisted. He’d not seen her since last evening when she’d marched from his chambers draped in nothing but a white sheet. He’d tortured himself by sitting with his back against the walls separating them, the bitter sound of her tears reached to him through the plaster walls, until they’d faded from great, gasping sobs to small, shuddery gasps, and then nothing, indicating she’d at last slept.

Not Jasper.

In the end, though, his own fear of loving her had frozen him to the spot outside her chamber doors.

Rooted as he’d been to the door, he’d focused on the ormolu clock atop his fireplace as it had ticked away the minutes of the late morning hours, ushering in a new day.

Katherine caught her lower lip between her teeth as she was wont to do. She shifted on her heels but remained fixed at the entrance of the door, as though one wrong word from him and she’d take flight.

“What is—?”

“I’m leaving,” she blurted.

He blinked, certain he’d heard her wrong.

“I’m leaving,” she said again, this time stronger. Her gaze slid to a point past his shoulder. “Michael has seen the carriage readied. I…we, leave within the hour.”

Jasper’s whole body froze. He feared if he moved in the slightest, he’d splinter into a million tiny pieces of fragmented nothingness. “Leaving,” he repeated, the one word utterance hollow to his own ears.

Katherine stepped away from the door and glided toward him. “I am so very grateful to you for everything, Jasper,” she said softly. “You wed me when you didn’t need to, or want to.”