Читать книгу The Scandalous Love of a Duke - Jane Lark - Страница 10

Katherine picked up the Bibles the children had been working with and set them aside. Then she turned towards the small altar in the chancel chapel where she’d led the Sunday school.

She was looking for something to do to pass the time while the congregation dispersed and she waited for Reverend Barker to drive her home. Her gaze caught on the open side door. John stood there watching her, his athletic silhouette framed in the arch of sunlight.

She had not forgiven him for kissing her, nor for forcing her to admit she had wished him to do it. Neither was a gentlemanly act. He had changed.

Ignoring him, she turned to the storage cupboard. She felt his presence so keenly she could sense him smiling behind her. She’d heard him singing amidst the congregation as she’d worked with the children. He had a beautiful voice. It rose above that of everyone else with perfect clarity.

How could a man who was now so steely hard and disgracefully arrogant still sing like an angel?

She pressed a palm against the slates to make them straight when they were already perfectly aligned.

“Are you hiding, Katherine?”

Her heart thumped. “Working, John.”

His boot heels rang on the glazed medieval tiles and she spun about when she heard him get too close.

He was two feet away, his pale eyes gleaming yet unfathomable. “I was waiting to speak with you, your parents have left. I thought… You are not hiding from me, are you?”

“No,” she breathed, knowing she coloured.

His gaze swept across her face clearly assessing her as she had not been able to assess him because his features were set like marble.

“There is no need for you to fear me, Katherine.”

She lifted her chin. “I am not afraid of you, John.” I am afraid of myself.

“I would never hurt you.”

Her chin lifted another notch. She hurt for him anyway. She had ached for him for seven years. Hiding was the only way to escape more pain.

He did not move, his pale gaze holding hers as though he could hear the words she did not speak.

“I have thought about you since the funeral.” His voice whispered, bouncing off the cold bare stone. “I know I said sorry to you yesterday, Katherine, but I really do not think I am. I wanted to kiss you, too. Why should either of us feel regret?”

She dragged a deep breath into her lungs. “John, do not do this.” She stepped back and collided with the shelves.

He caught her arm to stop her fall, but did not let go.

“Do what? Admit I am attracted to you. I am, as you are to me.” His head was bowing before he’d even finished speaking.

Their lips touched.

It was different from yesterday, it was gentle, hesitant and reassuring, and without conscious thought her hands slid over his shoulders, one settling behind his neck, half holding his mouth to hers.

When his lips opened and his tongue slid across the seam of hers, she could not help but part hers and kiss him back as he was kissing her.

Their tongues weaved an intricate dance and she felt her body press against his, as the shelves dug into her back.

His hand supported her, slipping to the first curve of her lower back and her shoulder, but then his kiss became more ardent and his tongue pressed deep into her mouth.

“Katherine!”

They flew apart and she knew she must be crimson. The back of her hand pressed to her mouth, wondering how swollen her lips must look and then her palms pressed to her hot cheeks before trying to tuck wisps of her hair back beneath her bonnet.

Reverend Barker’s long, confident footsteps could be heard as he walked briskly up the aisle.

Her hands ran quickly over her gown, smoothing out creases which were not there. She felt dishevelled but it was not an outward turmoil, it was an inward one.

She looked at John. He did not look contrite at all.

Oh John, what are you trying to do to me?

She turned her back on him, presuming he would leave by the side door, and walked into the aisle. Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together.

She felt as though she’d played with fire and been burned. She was left charred and smouldering.

The suddenness of their separation had left John feeling bereft. All his senses were smarting at her loss as his gaze followed her departure.

The Reverend approached. John could see him through the ornate grid separating off the little chapel and his stomach clenched in a sharp spasm.

The vicar no longer wore his robes. He had changed somewhere and come back for her.

“Katherine!” The man’s voice echoed about the church.

Not, Miss Spencer.

John felt icy cold. The reverend was around the same age as himself. John’s grandfather had helped appoint him three years ago. John walked into the church as Katherine had done, a moment before she met the reverend in the aisle.

“Richard, I’m here.”

When John entered the square of four arches beneath the church tower, he felt like a cockerel in a pit, bitter hatred running into his blood. He wished to fight this man whose name she used. Had John walked in on a tryst they had planned?

He forced a smile. “I enjoyed your sermon, Reverend. I was just offering to take Miss Spencer home.”

She looked back, appearing to have not known he’d followed.

She gave him an uncertain look. “Thank you, Your Grace, but Reverend Barker usually drives me home.”

Ah, so she had not been hiding. She had been waiting for the vicar. She was embarrassed, blushing again, and John could feel the awareness running between Katherine and the reverend. But moments ago she had been kissing him.

“Forgive me, I thought Your Grace had gone.” The vicar gave John a deferential bow but John could see the man was prickling. There was a stand-off here. Two men interested in one woman.

The vicar sent Katherine a conciliatory and questioning smile. He obviously did not trust a duke near his prim Sunday-school teacher.

John laughed internally but it was a bitter sound which rung in his head. He felt a desperate need to cling to Katherine, to keep her for himself. He felt so much better in her presence – human.

He’d watched her during the service, moving about beyond the metal screen speaking with the children, sitting beside them and whispering to them.

He’d forgotten Wareham, the account books and the tenants he’d yet to meet. He’d forgotten the two halves of his whole. He was one person in her presence, a man who could feel warmth. He was only John.

Setting a false smile – all the old Duke’s grandson – John met the vicar’s gaze. “I saw Miss Spencer’s parents leave, I had not realised you had an arrangement.” His eyebrows lifted. Was the vicar her beau? Was Katherine inclined towards him?

“If you’ll excuse us then, Your Grace?” The vicar dismissed John and looked at Katherine. “Are you ready?”

She nodded.

John seethed, nobody routed him. Katherine was his and he was going to damn well have her. This bloody nothing of a vicar would have to step aside.

“Your Grace.” She turned to him and dropped a deep curtsy as though he was a stranger and they had not been kissing but moments ago.

I want you.

If she was playing games, well he’d learnt them from the she-wolves abroad, he knew how to play.

“Katherine,” he stated, in a deep warm pitch, reminding her they were not strangers.

She blushed intensely, but John had let her vicar know he was not the only one who had permission to call her by her given name. But then she had never actually given John permission, he had assumed the right based on their childhood friendship.

He turned to the vicar. “Reverend Barker.”

Then he left.

~

It had been three days since John had felt Katherine’s kiss slip into complete abandon in the chancel chapel. Since then his mind had been full of her.

Oh but that was a lie, his mind had been full of her since the funeral, only now it was becoming even more of an obsession.

His whole body ached with need for her and at night she occupied his dreams.

It irritated him immensely whenever he thought of her with her Godly priest.

She had kissed John back in the church and admitted she had wanted him to kiss her in the road. She could not therefore wish for a pious bloody vicar. John strode on along Maidstone’s pavement and shoved his thoughts of Kate aside. He had a job to do. He’d scoured the accounts and found nothing unusual, so now he was resorting to asking Pembroke Place’s suppliers about Wareham’s business practices.

He’d also visited tenants over the last two days and asked them if they’d had any problems with the management of their tenancies. No one had complained.

As John walked, he received bows and curtsies in acknowledgement. He nodded at the people noting his presence, though his now habitual lack of patience was wearing thin. He knew why his grandfather had never walked anywhere. John set his jaw and kept going. But then his gaze alighted on one person he was pleased to see.

Warmth and light suddenly swept into the cold, arid darkness inside him.

Katherine! He shouted her name, though not aloud.

She was on the far side of the street, standing outside a hat shop, looking in through the window. She held a pile of parcels.

A primal hunger roared inside him.

Her profile was perfect and dainty, with her round-tipped nose, and her rose-coloured lips were slightly parted. He imagined her in a black silhouette portrait, as they’d cut images in Naples. He crossed the cobbled street, now entirely ignoring other passers-by.

“Katherine.” He took the last step and touched her elbow.

She started and spun around, her eyes wide. “Y-your Grace.”

“It seems I surprise you every time,” he whispered.

She was blushing again.

“I-I’m sorry.”

He looked to where she had been looking and saw a pretty bonnet dressed with ornamental cherries and a cerise-pink ribbon. Mary thought the mode for fruit on a bonnet absurd. Katherine obviously did not.

“Your Grace?” he queried. “If the vicar is Richard, Katherine, I think I might remain, John, privately? We have known each other years!” Her wide turquoise-blue eyes stared back, but she said nothing. “What is going on between the two of you anyway?” The question had been rattling about in John’s head for days.

“N-nothing, I…” She did not continue.

“Nothing? He drives you home every Sunday? Have you an agreement with him?”

“An agreement?” Her eyes kept glancing beyond him, into the shop.

“Are you promised to him?”

She turned a deeper pink. “No.”

He suddenly remembered she was holding parcels and took them from her.

Where was her groom or maid? Phillip’s family were not high society but nor were they low. Her father was the local squire.

“Who is with you?” The question probably sounded impertinent. He was still angry over the bloody vicar.

“My mother is in the shop.” She looked embarrassed. She had not been embarrassed with her vicar. John wished she’d feel as comfortable with him.

He glanced through the shop window and saw her mother and her younger sister, sifting through a drawer of ribbons. Why was she not in the shop with them?

“You are not shopping?” She flushed bright red, but said nothing. It was obvious she was not. “Where is your groom?” That was who should be carrying her parcels.

“He is in the livery stable—”

“Leaving you playing maid.” John turned back, looking for his own man and waved him forwards. “There’s no need for you to stand here looking to all and sundry like a pack mule, Katherine, I’ll have my groom take these to yours.”

Her fingers hovered at her waist as though she wished to take the parcels back, but he would not allow it.

“Katherine, is something wrong?”

Her eyes widened. “No.”

“And you and the vicar?” he pressed again.

“Please, Your Grace, John, do not…”

Her lack of an answer said there was something. Yet if there was something, why had she let him kiss her, and kissed him back. Her company gave John peace, and peace was a much-vaunted thing in his current life, he was not willing to relinquish it.

“Do not what, Kate?”

Her mother chose that moment to leave the shop, and his question was answered only by a ringing bell. “Your Grace.”

John had never liked Phillip’s mother.

“Your Grace.” Nor his youngest sister.

John’s innards hardened to stone at their fawning pitch. They were money-grabbing, scheming females; he’d never had the same sense from Katherine.

“Katherine, you should have called us.” Her mother, and then her sister, rose from their curtsies.

Conveniently, John’s groom arrived and, ignoring the women, John passed off the parcels. “Take these to the Spencers’ groom at the livery.”

John’s groom bowed and then turned away, but Mrs Spencer stopped him. “There is another here.”

John felt a rush of irritation again. She was taking his assistance for granted, as if it was her given right to have his help. It was not. But then this is what came of showing any preference when you were a duke. He had once favoured her son.

“Your Grace, you will not have met Jennifer since she was young.”

His eyes turned to the youngest sister. Like John’s siblings, Jenny was much younger.

“Your Grace,” Jenny stated again, offering her hand as though he would want to take it.

He accepted it – only because she was Katherine’s and Phillip’s little sister – held it for a moment and then let go.

“Are you in town for long, Your Grace?” the girl asked as if she knew him.

“We were just on our way to the inn for refreshments if you would care to join us?” Mrs Spencer added.

He did not care. Had it been Katherine alone however… But she remained mute, and when he glanced at her she was staring at the pavement, her face largely hidden by the broad rim of her bonnet.

“I’m busy, I’m afraid.”

“That is a shame, Your Grace, but you must come to Jenny’s party. It is her coming-out ball, here, at the assembly rooms. It is two weeks today. You will attend, Your Grace? Shall I send an invitation?”

“Mama, John is still in mourning,” Katherine whispered. She had used his given name.

“I had not forgotten.” The woman thrust at Katherine. “It will do no harm if he does not dance.”

Anger struck him again over Mrs Spencer’s presumption. He did not appreciate being told what he may do.

“Phillip will be there of course.”

Phillip could go hang, but John would attend for Katherine. It would give him a chance to have another hour or so in her company.

“I shall come. Send the invitation. But now I must be getting on.” He bowed slightly to Katherine’s mother. “Mrs Spencer.”

She curtsied.

“Miss Jennifer.” He nodded again as the girl dropped another deep curtsy, trying to please.

Then he looked at Katherine. “Katherine.” She curtsied, but he caught her hand before she dropped too deep and lifted it to his lips. His kiss pressed onto the same pair of kid leather gloves she had worn at the funeral and in the road the other day.

She blushed again.

“Good day ladies.” He let Katherine’s hand go.

“Your Grace,” her mother and sister replied.

But she said, “John.” Before he turned and walked away.

He returned to the shop an hour later, though – frustration niggling after none of his suppliers had expressed any inkling of error in Wareham’s work – and did what he should not do. He had seen the longing in her eyes before she’d turned and he could simply not resist the urge.

~

“Miss, this came an hour ago.” Hetty, the housemaid, bustled into Katherine’s bedchamber, carrying a large round box, excitement in her voice. “Mr Castle put it in the scullery and forgot to bring it up. I said to him, how could you forget it when ‘tis for Miss Katherine, she never gets nothin’, do you Miss?”

Katherine’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you certain it is not for Jenny? She and Mama ordered all sorts in Maidstone yesterday.”

“No, Miss, ‘tis addressed to Miss Katherine Spencer, clear as day.”

Katherine set down the darning she was working on and rose from her chair by the window.

The weather had turned chillier today, although it was still sunny, and several white fluffy clouds flew across the sky on a brisk summer breeze.

Her mother and sister were out calling on those they were inviting to the ball. Katherine had not been asked to join them. Her mother never treated her as part of the family. But that was an ancient fact, and the pain it caused so old now it was dulled.

Yet perhaps there was still tallow to keep her hurt burning, because she had stayed in her room to hide her exclusion from the house servants.

“Leave it on the bed, Hetty, and bring the tea up to my room as no one else is in.”

Katherine’s gaze fell to the box when Hetty put it down. Perhaps Phillip had bought it? Whatever it was.

“I’ll fetch it now, Miss.”

The maid disappeared as Katherine walked over to the parcel.

It was tied with string and she pulled it free, feeling excited despite her current melancholy mood. Hetty had been right, Katherine was rarely given anything new.

When she lifted the lid her heart pounded. It was the bonnet she’d admired in Maidstone the day before. It lay nestled in a bed of tissue paper.

She lifted it out with shaking fingers. It was beautiful, but it could not be from Phillip.

There was a card beneath it.

I saw you staring and wish to give you what you desire.

J

He had not! No! He could not have done. How could he?

John!

Oh he was so arrogant.

Without any care for the fashionable creation, she stuffed it back in its box, furious. She may be provincial, but she knew a woman should not accept gifts from a man.

If her mother had seen it…

If her father had!

Did John think she did not know the connotation? Or did he mean to buy her favour? He’d kissed her twice.

He’d risked her reputation by sending this.

Oh the arrogant, selfish man.

Angry, she turned to her small travelling desk and withdrew a quill and paper.

No thank you, Your Grace. On all accounts, I am afraid I may not accept.

K

~

John stared at the rows of facts and figures in annoyance. There were no anomalies in the ledgers. He could find nothing wrong. Yet something did not make sense. There was the inexplicable loan and then there was the way Wareham behaved.

This morning the man had come to John with a taunting smile on his face, as if he wished to know if anything had been found in the books and then had been gloating over the fact it had not.

He’d asked John if he wished to ride along one of the estate’s boundaries. John had accepted and so he’d had the pleasure of Wareham’s insolent company for three hours.

They had ridden mostly in silence but when they’d met tenants, John had had to correct Wareham’s words on two occasions. It obviously infuriated the man, but John could hardly let things slip when Wareham was deliberately being facetious. Wareham needed ruling with an iron hand. This could be a powder keg if John let any spark be lit. The man had influence in every one of John’s estates.

The morning had merely made John decide to ask Harvey to employ an investigator and track the loan Wareham had made from the other end, to investigate why it had been given.

A light knock hit the sitting room door.

“Come in,” John called, glad of the interruption and sick of the accounts.

“Your Grace,” Finch’s deep tone echoed into the room, as a footman entered bearing a parcel.

John’s brow furrowed and he rose as the footman set it down, then undid the string and lifted the lid.

It was the bonnet he’d sent to Katherine, carelessly thrown atop its wrapping with a scrawled note cast on top of it.

He laughed when he read it. No indeed. God, the girl amused him. She had not said no to his kisses, and he was not inclined to accept it now. She had liked the bonnet. He wished her to have it. He wanted her to favour him over her vicar. Perhaps the cherries ought to be apples and her, Eve, because Katherine Spencer was temptation.

“Finch!” John called.

“Your Grace?” The door opened again.

“I am going out. Have my curricle made ready.”

Half an hour or so later, John drew his curricle to a halt before the Spencers’ small manor house and then looked back at the groom who’d accompanied him.

The man jumped down and ran about the curricle to hold the horses.

John climbed down and then lifted the hatbox from the seat.

His heels crunched on the gravel as he crossed the drive to the door.

He felt light-hearted, glad to be escaping his duty for a brief interlude.

The door opened immediately and Castle, their butler, greeted John with recognition. “Your Grace?” He bowed. “I am afraid Mr and Mrs Spencer are not at home.”

Excellent. John smiled. “I have come to call on Miss Katherine Spencer, Castle, is she home?”

The man’s eyebrows lifted and he glanced at the box John carried. Of course, he’d probably seen it before.

Well, let the man speculate, Katherine was Phillip’s sister, the gift could be explained away.

“Will you wait in the parlour, Your Grace?”

John walked along the hall, glancing up the stairs. If she was not in the parlour, she must be up there. He would much rather be going to her chamber to visit her. A sudden imagined vision of Katherine, hair tussled, half asleep and languid-eyed, came into his mind.

The butler left John in the small receiving room at the back of the house, with a look of disapproval as he went to fetch Katherine.

John set the hatbox down in an armchair, took off his hat and gloves, and then tossed them there too.

The room was decorated in light blue and cream, and was probably the size of Wareham’s office.

A large portrait hung on one wall: Phillip in his wig. John smiled, looking at the miniatures on another wall: Jennifer, Phillip and Katherine’s parents. There was a later miniature of Jennifer too, probably painted recently. There were no images of Katherine.

John walked across the room, his hands settling behind his back, and looked through the French door out into the garden.

A sharp breeze swept at the flower heads.

He felt uncharacteristically nervous.

After a few moments, he heard her footsteps on the stairs and then in the hall.

He turned.

She looked beautiful when she came in. Her cheeks were pink and her bright-blue eyes wide. Her blonde hair was loosely held in a topknot, with wisps of it falling to her shoulders and about her face; a mix of bright-yellow sunshine shades, and duller damp-wheat hues. She wore a faded blue short-sleeved summer dress, which moulded to her figure. His eyes were drawn to her arms. It was the first time he had seen her without a pelisse or a spencer and her bare, slender arms were exquisite pure pale, milk-white skin.

His English rose. His, not her vicar’s.

He crossed the room, took her hand and bore it to his lips.

Thank God those tired kid leather gloves were not on them. Her skin was beautifully cool and soft and he let his thumb run over her palm as he breathed in the scent of her soap.

Clearly uncomfortable and colouring up again, she pulled her hand free.

“I brought your bonnet back,” he whispered, without preamble. “I am afraid I was offended by its return.”

Blue fire flashed in her eyes instantly, as it had done on the road the other day. There was a hidden zeal tucked away within Katherine. He wondered how many others saw it or if it was just him she showed it to. She wanted more from her life, he could tell. He longed to give it to her. He knew she could give him what he wished – release, freedom, moments of escape.

Varying shades of blue warred in her eyes. “What do you think you are doing, John?” It was a harsh, accusing whisper. “You cannot buy me gifts. What if my mother saw it?”

“You are Phillip’s sister, why should I not buy you something you wish for. No one need think it odd!” He smiled. He wanted to laugh. Not because she was funny, but because the passion in her outburst struck him so intensely. She was not the shy quiet person she portrayed herself to be, not in the least.

“Did you wish me to send for tea, Miss Katherine?” Castle asked from the open door, having followed her.

Katherine turned bright pink, but John grasped the opportunity to stay longer. “That would be welcome, Castle, thank you.”

Katherine’s gaze bored into John when the butler turned away.

“You should not be here,” she whispered once the man had gone.

She was right. John only hoped Castle could be discreet, but John did not admit it. “If you are afraid of this being misconstrued, say I brought the gift from Phillip.”

“And when Mama writes to him and asks why he bought me it, and Jenny nothing, what then? Besides Phillip does not have money to waste on bonnets.”

Still disinclined to accept refusal, John picked the box up and held it out.

It was suddenly extremely important to him that she accept it. If she accepted it, she accepted him. She could save him from the darkness. “I shall not take it back, say what you wish. Hide it away, if you will. But I imagine you will look well in it, and if you wear it, I will know you have kept something from me, and you will know it too, but no one else need know a thing.”

Her gaze struck his and then fell to the box. She appeared tempted.

“Take it,” he said more gently.

“But what does it mean, John?” she whispered, her gaze lifting to his again. “What do you want from me?”

He could see there was no anger left in her now, only questions.

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. She deserved honesty from him if nothing else. She had been honest with him on the road and admitted she had wished to be kissed. “I am attracted to you, as you are to me, I can say no more than that. I wish to give you this, Katherine. I wish you to take it. That is all for now.”

“John?”

“You give me ease, Katherine. Let me give you this. Let me think of you wearing it and know you think of me. Perhaps one day I might see you in it.”

Her hands finally reached to accept it and her bare fingers touched his, they melted the feeling of cold ice in his stomach to water, the reaction disturbed him, and suddenly vulnerable, he turned away and crossed to the French door.

“What is going on, John?” she whispered behind him.

He turned back. “Nothing.”

“I don’t understand you.”

Nor do I understand myself. Perhaps that was half his problem! Who was he, his mother’s son or his grandfather’s dark, cold, unfeeling monster? Far more the latter lately. But he didn’t wish to be, and Katherine could make him feel warmth.

He walked back towards her, his gaze holding hers as physical and emotional desire burned inside him like an inferno. “You are beautiful, Katherine.”

“You are beautiful, John. I am not.”

“You are to me. I like your hair, and your eyes. I like you.” —And I want you.

He took the box from her hands then discarded it in the chair, before lifting her chin. She did not turn her head away, her gaze held his, bright with the knowledge that he intended kissing her. “Katherine.” He kissed her gently, unable to comprehend the level of feeling in his chest. How could she have come to mean so much to him in such a short time?

His kiss travelled to brush her cheek, her nose, her temple, as her face tilted towards him like a flower to the sun. “I like your skin too,” he whispered.

She shivered and her fingers clasped his coat at his sides, as though her legs could no longer hold her up.

He liked affecting her like this. She was nothing like the women he’d known before. She was everything he craved.

Castle’s heels rung on the floorboards in the hall.

They pulled apart sharply and John turned and walked back to the window, looking out once more as his heart pounded and his groin ached with the need for fulfilment.

He clasped his hands behind his back, only to stop them shaking.

He wanted to touch her.

Katherine thanked the butler and he heard her take the tea tray and set it down.

It was not tea he was thirsty for.

When she brought him a full cup, he turned and met her gaze again, very aware of the door which still stood open.

She could not shut it. It would be the height of impropriety to do so, but at this moment, it was only that open door which saved her chastity. He wished to do wicked things with her, very wicked things, and he didn’t know if it was his monster roaring or just the boy who desperately longed to be loved.

“Katherine…” John’s pale eyes shone as he looked at her.

She had thought him vulnerable at the funeral months ago, with no evidence to pin the thought against. But today she could see it clearly.

There had been a desperate desire for acceptance in his eyes when he had pressed the bonnet on her, and there was insecurity in them now. She could see nothing of the arrogant man who’d jumped down from his curricle less than a week ago. This was a different person. The boy she had known and the young man who had left for the continent, grown up.

“John,” she said in a low voice, “I do not understand what is happening? I can be no one to you.”

He took the full cup she held out. “You are wrong. You can be everything to me, Katherine.”

She felt the earth shift beneath her feet but she did not know what to do. So she turned away and sought her cup.

“I have never felt this way for anyone before, Katherine,” he said behind her. “I have no idea what it is, or how to progress, all I know is, I wish to be in your company constantly … ”

Her heart pounded. It was John saying this to her.

She was about to turn back, when she heard the front door open. Her cup wobbled in its saucer as she jumped.

“Sir, the Duke of Pembroke is here.”

Her father.

She set her cup aside and moved before the hatbox, her heart thumping even harder.

“The Duke of Pembroke?” Her father’s voice rang along the hall. Then his brisk footsteps could be heard.

She did not look at John.

“Your Grace.” Her father appeared at the open parlour door.

“Papa.” She moved forwards, knowing she must look guilty as she tried to ensure he would not be able to see the box resting in the chair.

There was a question in his eyes.

John set his cup down and crossed the room, offering his hand. “Good day, sir.”

Her father accepted it and shook it briefly, before letting go.

“I called to accept Mrs Spencer’s invitation to your gathering for Jenny, sir,” John progressed. It was a lie of course.

Her father was stiff and silent. He looked at Katherine again. “I am sure your mother will be pleased, Kate.” He did not sound pleased.

Katherine bit her lip. He seemed to have sensed there was something odd going on, but then she was acting as though she had something to hide. Did she? There was the bonnet, but… what else…

Her heart thumped as her father’s gaze passed back to her.

“Katherine?”

“John also brought word from Phillip, father.” Now she had lied too.

Her father’s eyebrows lifted and then he looked back at John. “I was sorry to hear of your grandfather’s passing.”

John nodded. “Your son does well in town, sir.”

“He does…”

Their stilted conversation passed over Katherine’s head as she watched John change back into the Duke – untouchable, unreachable, distant and withheld.

When it ran dry, John turned to her, his eyes cold and direct. “As we still have the sunshine, even though it’s a little blustery, I wondered if you would care to walk in the garden with me.”

She looked at her father. There was still a question in his eyes which said he was unsure what to do. “Shall I leave you two young people to stroll then, Kate, and retire to my study?”

She nodded.

“Your Grace,” he said to John, bowing.

“Sir,” John responded.

Once he’d gone, Katherine turned to John. “You are shameless, the way you manipulate people.”

He merely laughed as she moved to ring the bell for Hetty to collect the hatbox.

She turned back and faced him. “I cannot believe you have persuaded me to accept your gift against my better judgement, and I still do not know what you wish in return for it.”

“A moment of freedom, Katherine, or however many you will give me.”

“Miss Kate?”

Katherine spun about to face Hetty, certain she was entirely pink. “Take this up to my room please, and would you fetch my spencer and bonnet, and my gloves.”

“No,” John interrupted.

Katherine turned.

“Hetty, is it? Your mistress needs none of that, it is cooler today, she need not fear the sun.”

“I have a fair complexion, Your Grace.” His boorishness annoyed her.

“Then a parasol will suffice.” His pale eyes glowed, daring her to challenge him.

She did not, and once the maid had gone, he whispered, “I want to touch your skin.”

Was this the price of her bonnet?

Her heartbeat thundered, as she realised she wished to be touched. She had always known she was base and sinful and weak, John was only proving what she knew, and if any man were to touch her, then let it be John.

Hetty was back in a moment, bearing the promised parasol, and Katherine accepted it with a brief thank you, realising her hands shook when she did so.

John smiled when she turned. His eyes said he needed her.

Her bare arm trembled when he took it.

He opened the French door and together they stepped outside. His grip was gentle. She felt cared for.

There was a little wilderness of wild flowers to the right of the garden, and he led her there as she opened her parasol and rested it on her shoulder. The chill summer breeze caught at her skirt and wrapped it against John’s leg.

He let go of her arm and instead raised his so she could lay her fingers on it. She felt firm muscle beneath the cloth of his morning coat. There was strength, security and support.

“You say you wish for freedom,” she said quietly, “but I still do not understand what you mean, John.” She was being gauche and provincial again.

“Just your company, Katherine, and perhaps your kisses.” His other hand covered hers as it lay on his arm. “We will be discreet.”

Discreet? Was she agreeing to an assignation then? “You make it sound as though you wish for an affair.”

He stopped and looked down at her, vulnerability and need burning in his eyes again. “An affair of sorts, an intrigue. But I shall not take your innocence. I’ll not hurt you.”

His gaze said, please do not deny me.

A rush of yearning swamped her heart.

He began walking again, looking ahead and not at her.

Oh John. John! She remembered that day long ago when she had watched him in the lake and felt desperate to touch him. If she did this, she could touch him and she could kiss him. If she did it, the pain buried in her soul for years would have ease.

John! She ached for him. How could she say no? She had always known he could never offer her marriage, but he could offer her this and she could take it. It was what she’d longed for. Why say no?

As they neared an ancient oak, John’s arm slipped from beneath her hand and then he caught a hold of her arm again and drew her behind the broad trunk, then pressed her back against it.

Her parasol fell and tumbled across the lawn, blown on the wind, as his lips covered hers, gently at first, but then the kiss became more insistent.

His body was barely an inch from hers.

One of his long-fingered hands braced against her cheek.

John!

She kissed him back, her tongue dancing with his, learning from his.

His other hand pressed against her lower back. While hers gripped his morning coat, clinging to him.

The storm of emotion she could feel in him was bitter need.

His mouth left hers and he began nipping beneath her chin in soft little bites. “I want you Katherine.” His breath was hot. “I can show and teach you things you will enjoy, but I swear I shall not take your virginity. I know you want me, too.”

I do!

His hand cupped her breast through her bodice, kneading it gently. It ached for him.

“Say yes, Katherine,” he whispered urgently.

His lips nipped at her neck and his hand rubbed her breast while his hips pressed against hers.

She wanted him, there, between her legs, she wanted to do the indecent things her mother had done to beget her. He was the only thing she had ever really wanted. Why hold back?

Her breath was shallow, and his hard and rasping.

His hand left her breast and moved to the place where she wanted him to be.

John!

He pressed her through the layers of her gown and petticoats, and her arms rose to his neck as he kissed her lips again, more passionately.

“Katherine,” he said into her mouth, sounding as breathless and desperate as her as his fingers rubbed her intimately between her legs through the layers of clothing.

She was so in need. This is what she had spent so many years craving. It was just the two of them in the world. It was wrong, she knew it was, but it felt so right and she did not care. She was like her mother. She had always been told it. This had been inevitable since her birth. The sins of the parent visited on the child.

Her body pressed against his, arching with its need.

It was so perfect what he did, how could it be wrong?

The feelings inside her whirled in a spiral of heated delight, rising up and overwhelming her, and then they seemed to break on a high tide that swept through her body, leaving her panting and weak-limbed.

His fingers braced against her cheek again as he kissed her more urgently for a moment.

She could no longer kiss him back.

Then he ceased, and when she opened her eyes he was looking into them, beautiful and all John.

He sighed, appearing to look right into her soul, the pale blue in his eyes glittering like melting ice.

Her fingers stroked through his soft, dark hair.

“That is what I can give you, Katherine,” he said quietly, as if that was everything. It was his love she wished for. “Will you meet me in my grandfather’s tower tomorrow at two?”

“Yes,” her answer was caught on the breeze and swept away. Yes.