Married to the Marquess (20 page)

Time froze as the mood immediately shifted, and Derek, so near to his goal he could taste it, stilled. Her words, so soft and uncertain, and seemingly called up from her very soul, held him back.

Did he?

He scrambled for an answer, but too late. She pulled back and he heard the slight gasping that escaped from her as she became aware of their position, of how close they had almost been. “I’m sorry,” she stammered, stepping away and holding her wrap around her more closely. “I will go to bed now, good night.”

She turned to enter her room, as if determined not to look back. He couldn’t blame her. He was hardly capable of movement, let alone thought. But as her hair slipped from his fingers, he knew he couldn’t let it end this way. He stepped forward and braced the door open just as it was about to close. “Kate,” he said in a low voice, his heart still pounding.

She peeked around the door, and again his breath caught. Her wide dark eyes were so entrancing, so luminous in the dark night that he almost forgot what he wanted to tell her. The slightly tumbling state of her rich, dark hair was so alluring that he was more than half tempted to sweep her into his arms. And that skin of hers, the very skin she had scrubbed so often to be a duchess, looked so like porcelain that he wanted to touch it. His wife was a transfixing beauty; he was the world’s greatest fool to have ever forgotten.

He cleared his throat, seeing the uncertainty that was almost fear in her eyes. “The next time you go off to the kitchens in the middle of the night, come and get me. I would like to do this again. Very much.”

For a long moment, she only stared at him, her eyes searching his, as if seeking the joke in his words. When she found none, the secret smile he so adored appeared on her lips, and she nodded once. “Good night,” she murmured, closing the door softly.

When at last he heard the latch click, Derek released the breath he had not realized he had been holding. He ran a hand through his hair and turned to go back to his own rooms. What in the world was happening to him? Not only was he losing the ability to control himself, but he was also getting lost in the rush of thoughts and emotions that were raging within him.

About his
wife.

He paused and looked back at Kate’s door, wondering what she was feeling, if she had felt it too; that inexorable need to be closer, the tug in the heart that drew him in so completely, in spite of confusion or hesitation.

Surely she had.                                    

Surely it had not been all on his side.

He said she would like being Kate. Did he like her, she had asked.
Did
he like her?

Shocking as it was, he finally found himself answering in the affirmative. Yes, he did like her. A lot more than he ever expected to.

And it absolutely terrified him.

C
hapter
E
leven

K
atherine… no, Kate, she reminded herself. She was Kate now… woke feeling somehow both energized and drained at the same time. Nightly excursions with her husband to the kitchen might have to become a regular occurrence, if he enjoyed it as much as she did.

And if last night were any indication, he did.

Do you?
she had asked when he’d said she would like Kate. What had prompted her to ask such an impertinent question at that moment? She could have kicked herself for her lack of tact. Did
he
like her? She couldn’t even say if
she
liked her!

What foolishness.

The way Derek had frozen in place, the stunned look on his face had been more than enough to cool any feelings she might have had.

And what feelings she’d had! The heat had been unbearable, and she found herself torn between two extremes; flee and surrender. She was proud she had done the former, but the idea of the latter was… tempting.  But how could she give in to a man who did not even know if he liked her?

His words to her after, the way he had held her door ajar and asked her to come and get him if she ever ventured out at night, those words had rekindled the tiny spark of hope within her.

Hope for what? She could not have admitted, even to herself.

She made her way downstairs to breakfast, knowing that the early moments of seeing Derek today would be very telling. Perhaps he would be waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, or in the breakfast room, at the very least. But to her surprise, he was nowhere to be found.

Her heart sank just a little. So that was how it was to be, then. A hasty retreat from anything more than a light friendship. Well, she supposed she could hardly complain, given what they had been in the past.

She sat down at the table, a little grumpily. How could she decide how to act around her husband if her husband was not around to be acted upon?

“Pardon me, Lady Whitlock,” came the gravelly voice of Harville from her right side, “but his lordship asked me to give you this.”

Suddenly into her vision came a silver tray with a note on it, written in her husband’s bold handwriting.

Unable to help herself, she smiled up at the butler and took the note swiftly. “Thank you, Harville. That will be all.”

“Yes, your ladyship,” he said with a perfunctory bow, his lips quirked on one side.

Blatantly ignoring the food that had also just been placed before her, she tore open the note with more eagerness than was probably appropriate, but she could not find the affront enough to care. She scanned the lines quickly, praying they would allow her some insight.

Dear Kate,

I am so dreadfully sorry that I will not be able to have breakfast with you this morning. I woke with every intention of enjoying your company as soon as possible, but a note from my father greeted me first. David has upset him once more, and I must console him as best as I can. I do not know how long I will be gone, but I refuse to miss dinner with my wife, so you may look forward to my riveting company then. And I think you had best reserve the music room for a private concert tonight. I will need the soothing sound of your music to revive me after he has done with me.

Until this evening,

                                                     Derek

She could not restrain a smile at his words. She could imagine the grin that lit his face as he penned these words, wondering how she would react to them. Did he think she would smile, as she was? She hoped so.

Unfortunately, if Derek were going to be out of the house for the whole day, it meant that Kate would have nothing to do. She had stopped attempting to plan out her days, as nothing surrounding Derek ever went according to plan, and since she was supposed to be in mourning, she could hardly be expected to take on her usual schedule.

Katherine would have done so.

Kate would not.

She grinned at the distinction, and began to eat her breakfast, feeling rather liberated at having an entire day with no schedule at all.

“I will not stand for it, David. Do you hear me?”

“Of course I hear you, Father. I think the whole street can hear you, and perhaps even more, if we would only open the windows a bit.”

“Insolence, sir? I will not accept this. I expect better than that from you! What have you to say for yourself?”

“I have been insolent since the day I was born, sir, which you would know if you had paid any attention at all.”

“How dare you! Whatever happened to honoring your parents?”

“Oh, Rule Three? Hmm, don’t believe that is a Thomas Chambers original. Fairly certain it came from somebody a bit more important, if you can believe it.”

Derek groaned and put his head into his hands. The entire day had been a waste of time, words, and breath. His father stood on one side of his desk, his brother on the other, and though they were of a height, they could not, and simply refused to, see eye to eye. The towering rage of their father could not cow David, nor remove the cheeky grin that was fixed on his scruffy face, which was another one of his father’s more specific aggravations. It was Rule Twenty-Four, actually.
Always be clean-shaven
.

For most of the morning, and now stretching into the afternoon, the two men had bickered back and forth about various topics, and neither would be moved from their standpoint. Each had tried to bring Derek over to their side, but had not stopped to hear his opinion long enough to get a verdict on whose side he was on. For the life of him, Derek didn’t know either. He had lost track of the current thread, but he suspected that while his father had a point, his brother was mostly blameless.

Mostly.

He was certainly doing a fair job of enflaming the situation, and Derek had a sneaking suspicion that it was purely for the sport of it.

He hated when David did that.

“I refuse to be treated in this manner!” his father roared as he brought down his fist on his desk again. That made about twenty times in the last three hours. “Whitlock!”

Derek jerked in his seat, and looked up at his father. “Sir?”

“Fix this.”

Derek’s brows shot up as his mouth fell open. Was he serious? Fix what? Their non-existent relationship? David’s very personality, which seemed to be the thing that their father had the most difficulty with? There was not enough money in the world, nor time enough in existence to fix everything about whatever this was.

“Don’t turn to Derek for a resolution,” David said, sounding actually angry for the first time today. “Just because he is your favorite son does not make him any more able to fix what you cannot.”

“Favorite?” the duke hissed, looking truly malevolent. “How dare you presume to think…”

“I’ll presume all I like!” David shouted back, overriding their father, which was something that had never been done in the history of the family. “It is my life that you have problems with, and Derek, being the obedient son that he is, tries to be of some help, but ultimately the trouble, as you see it, lies with me. So deal with me. Not Derek, me.” He sneered at his father, and Derek actually feared for his brother’s life. “If you can bear to. I know how you view us.” He gestured sharply to Derek with one hand. “The heir.” He jerked a thumb at his own chest. “The spare.” Then he waved his hand in the general direction of Diana’s home. “And the surprise brood mare in between.”

Derek clamped his lips together, and closed his eyes.

“Spare?” the duke bellowed, placing his fists on the desk as if he were going to spring on top of it. “Did I ever treat you like a spare?”

“No,
sir
,” David replied, full of sarcasm. “But you never exactly made me feel like anything else.”

The silence in the room spoke volumes and for what seemed ages, the men glared at each other. Derek half expected one of them to toss the desk aside and begin pummeling the other. And he knew who would instigate the scuffle. His father would never lower himself to begin such a display, but he would do his best to finish it. David, however, would start any fight he could and then escape before it got to be too much.

“I think you had better leave,” the duke whispered in such a tone that the hair on Derek’s neck began to stand up. “You may return when you have gained some decency.”