For Love of the Duke (The Heart of a Duke Book 2) (18 page)

The gentleman alongside Jasper coughed into his hand.

Katherine looked at the Marquess of Guilford. He met her gaze and gave a gentle smile. Something in his eyes, a silent encouragement, the promise that she was not wrong in her decision this day, strengthened her resolve.

“I, Katherine Adamson…” She proceeded to recite the remainder of her vows.

Jasper frowned, and she wondered if he’d expected her to cry off. He clearly didn’t know she was a woman with too much honor to ever jilt her respective bridegroom.

Then, in the presence of her mother, sister, and the Marquess of Guilford, and in the absence of her brother, Benedict, sister Aldora and her husband, Michael, Lady Katherine Adamson became the Duchess of Bainbridge. She expected she should feel…something; a new bride’s excitement or jittery nervousness…not this…this…emptiness.

There was a flurry of signing required of her and Jasper, completed in silence. The only occasional utterances were spoken by the Marquess of Guilford to the vicar.

She studied her husband as he bent over a sheet of parchment and scribbled his name in the requisite places. He tossed the pen down atop the desk. “It is done,” he said quietly.

It is done.

No, that wasn’t quite right—it was merely the beginning of the rest of her life.

He held his arm out to Katherine. She studied it, unblinking and then placed her fingers atop his coat sleeves.

Mother scurried to her feet, a brittle smile on her lips. “Cook has prepared a splendid wedding feast—”

“No,” Jasper said his tone harsh.

Mother blinked. “Your Grace.”

“There will be no breakfast. The air is thick with snow, and if we are to reach my estate, we’ll need to leave posthaste.”

Katherine’s hand fell back to her side. She angled her head and tried to make sense of Jasper’s words. When she’d thought of marriage to him, she’d known they would live together, most assuredly in the country, considering his recent revelation about London. “But it is very nearly Christmas,” she blurted. Five pairs of eyes swiveled in Katherine’s direction, and panic began to build within her chest. “I imagined we would spend the holiday with my family,” she said on a rush. “Aldora and…”

Jasper narrowed his eyes. “Aldora?”

Oh God, he is still a stranger to me, as I am to him. He’s not even met my sister.
“And Michael. And then there is Benedict, who will be coming soon.”

The Marquess of Guilford looked at her with such a pitying expression in his warm blue eyes, but the kind gesture only fueled her panic.

“Isn’t that right, Mother?” Katherine swung to face her mother and sister. “Surely Benedict should have arrived already but he will be so disappointed if we do not remain for Christmas.”

“No,” Jasper snapped. “My driver has been instructed to wait. We leave immediately.”

Anne seemed to sense the desperation that bubbled to the surface, and nearly consumed Katherine. She clapped her hands and beamed at Jasper. “I have a splendid idea. What if we join you for the Christmas season and then…”

“No,” Jasper cut in. The vein that ran the length of his neck throbbed. “There will be no company.”

“I don’t understand,” Katherine whispered. She winced as the words tumbled into the quiet of the room, and the interlopers of her private despair stared on.

Jasper dusted his immaculate white gloves together. “We leave now.”

That was it. No gentle answer. No patient explanation.

Her eyes slid closed.
Good God, what have I done
?

When she opened them, Jasper studied her. For the briefest, slightest moment she detected a warmth in the fathomless green depths of his eyes. Only, it must have been a flicker of the fire within the hearth responsible for the slight glimmer, for she blinked, and firmly back in place was that coolly mocking expression she’d come to expect.

Katherine searched the room but there was no one to make him see reason. He was the all-powerful, truculent Duke of Bainbridge; so very clearly accustomed to having his every wish and desire met.

She grunted as Anne hurled herself into Katherine’s arms. She clasped Katherine tight, and stroked a soothing, reassuring circle over her back. “I’ve known since the moment he sent round a note to cancel your meeting in the park that he was for you, Katherine. I just wasn’t certain
you
knew it.”

Katherine drew back, startled.

Her sister must have seen the shock written on Katherine’s face, for she squeezed her shoulders. “I didn’t believe a bit of snow should have stopped your outing.”

Anne kissed her cheek. “Remember, he saved you. There is surely good inside him,” she whispered against her ear.

Yes, Katherine knew that, and yet, the idea of going off with him to his country estate, alone, shut away from her family, filled her with a stony resentment. She hugged her sister back, hard, and then made her goodbyes to Mother.

As they made their way through the house, to the foyer, and out the front doors held open by Ollie. The butler inclined his head and opened his mouth…perhaps to offer congratulatory words to the newly wedded couple? Only Jasper settled his heavy palm along the base of her back and steered her forward. She frowned up at him, but he appeared wholly unaffected by her displeasure.

They trudged through the snow-filled ground, over to the carriage. Jasper waved off the servant and handed her inside. He leapt up behind her.

The driver closed the door behind them. As the carriage lurched forward carrying Katherine off to her new home, she felt much the way Andromeda had surely felt chained to that rock in hope of salvation from a powerful avenger.

She sat pressed against the corner, and stared at Jasper. His gaze remained fixed at a point above her shoulder, his square jaw firm and unmoving. He might as well have been carved of stone for all the emotion expressed.

Husband
.
He is my husband.

Resolved strengthened Katherine’s spine. If he thought to intimidate her with his harsh coldness, he was to be sorely disappointed in her as a wife. She glared at him.

“You are being an absolute brute,” she snapped.

At last, he looked at her.

Jasper stared at this slip of a woman forever bound to him.

His wife.

Oh, good Christ in heaven. He’d pledged to never again wed, promised to never turn himself over to the hands of another who could inflict the mind-numbing pain he’d known upon Lydia’s death.

For the better part of the day, throughout the brief, ceremony he’d detected the faint tremor in Katherine’s hands, the panicked glitter in her brown eyes, and it had struck him that this woman would belong to him.

Until death they do part.

And then as he’d stood there, with those ominous five words flitting through his mind, he’d imagined a hellish existence in which it was no longer Lydia’s lifeless body he held, but Katherine’s. Ice climbed up his spine, and chilled him inside and out. She would not die. He’d not allow it.

“Did you hear me?” she snapped. “I said, you’re an absolute brute.”

She was perfectly correct; he was an absolute brute; a horrid beast, but he’d forgotten long ago how to interact among the living.

“My apologies,” he said, startling himself as much as her by the concession.

Her mouth fell agape.

Jasper leaned across the carriage and gently touched his fingers to her chin.

Katherine snapped her lips closed. “Well,” she said, and shifted on the bench. “Er, well, then. Thank you.”

Jasper settled back in his seat…

“But that still does not pardon you.”

His lips tugged at the corner. “Pardon me?” Katherine possessed more steely strength and courage than the most hardened battlefield warrior.

She nodded. “It is nearly Christmas.”

He knew that. For three years, three-hundred and sixty-four days, he’d well-known the significance of that date. Only, for him it no longer signified birth and a season of hope, but rather the bleak, emptiness of death. “I know that, Katherine. I do not celebrate Christmas.”

“That is silly.” She pointed her eyes to the ceiling of the coach.

The wind howled as if saddened by the reminder of Lydia. Silence echoed his dark musings, punctuated by the rapid churn of the carriage wheels as it turned up snow and gravel in its wake.

The irony did not escape him either; tomorrow would be the anniversary of Lydia’s death, and he should celebrate it married to his new bride.

Katherine continued, seeming unaware of his dark musings. “Christmas is meant to be a time of joy and peace. You’ve been shut away for so very long. Let us return to London, see my family, and celebrate with them.”

A harsh, ugly laugh burst from his chest. “Is this what this is about, Katherine? Is this truly about me? Or is about you having what you desire? Are you merely trying to twist me about your clever finger in order to have your way?”

She slapped him. His head whipped back under the ferocity of her blow.

He flexed his jaw. Christ, she could lay out most gentlemen he’d known in his miserable life.

The color drained from her cheeks. Her skin went a pale shade of white to match the the fresh, fallen snow of the passing scene. “F-forgive m-me,” she stammered.

He blinked under a staggering realization…

She fears me.

Which infuriated him far more than a deserved blow to his person.

His callous words were inexcusable.

He waved off her apology. “I deserved that.”

She wet her lips. “You did deserve it.”

“I know,” he said. “I stated as much.”

“Right.” Katherine fell silent. She shifted her attention to the window. The wind whipped against the carriage. It battered the black lacquer doors. Her long, delicate fingers pulled back the red velvet curtain and she glanced out the window.

Jasper studied her within the reflection of that ice-frosted glass panel.

“Aldora,” she whispered.

He angled his head. “I beg your pardon.”

She fixed her gaze out the window. “It occurred to me how very little we know of one another, Jasper. Aldora. She is my sister.”

He knew that.  Guilford spoke of the eldest sister and the woman’s husband. Jasper would not humble himself by acknowledging he’d discussed her life and family quite freely with his close friend and confidante. “And Michael?” he said, knowing very well the wealthy young lord with a scandal attached to his name.

“Is Aldora’s husband. She intended to wed his brother, the Marquess of St. James because our family…” Her words trailed off.

Jasper told himself not to pry; his marriage to Katherine had been a matter of convenience, nothing more. The details surrounding her life, and that of her family’s should not matter. In delving into those details, her life only became that much more entwined with his. “Because your family…?”

Katherine gripped the fabric of her emerald green muslin cloak. “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.”

Ahh, she’d alluded to as much in her proposal to Jasper. He was filled with the same icy rage as when she’d humbled herself by offering herself to him, a heartless bastard, all to thwart her grasping mother’s intentions for her.

“Nearly four years ago, he died suddenly of an apoplexy.” When his world was coming apart at the proverbial seams, so too had Katherine’s. He tried to imagine her then, a mere girl on the cusp of womanhood watching her every last earthly possession removed and sold to pay for her father’s sins.

Katherine glanced at him. “Then the creditors began coming round.”

His gut churned. He wished he’d known her then; wished he could have silently paid off those creditors and spared her the terror of being turned out, with no monetary security.

“They took Anne’s pianoforte, even her ribbons. They took all the unentailed property. My b…they took everything,” she amended, as though shamed in acknowledging her own material losses.

I will shower you with anything and everything your heart should desire.

“Aldora, she is the eldest and therefore needed to make a match and save us all from ruin.” She troubled the flesh of her lower lip as she was wont to do when agitated. For everything he did not know of her life, he knew the very subtle nuances of her body’s every movement.

“Aldora had been given a pendant by her friends; a simple gold heart given them by an old gypsy, purported to lead them to the heart of a d…” Her blush deepened. “Er, a dear man who would love her.”

Her telling reaction indicated there was more to her sudden discomfort. “Aldora thought with our family’s scandalous circumstances and dire financial straits that a powerful, wealthy, titled lord represented our hope for security.” She untied the strings of her bonnet, and removed the hideous thing. She tossed it across the carriage where it landed with a solid thump at his feet. “I detest that bonnet,” she muttered.

And bonnets. He would commission the finest milliner to design a limitless number of bonnets for her to choose of. One for every day of the year.