Katherine sucked in her breath. She could only imagine the scene that had followed. And Sarah Mallory had undoubtedly encouraged that ugliness.
Dominic nodded at her wordless comment. “I can tell you’ve guessed the rest. Cole believed the worst. Not that I blamed him. His wife was half-naked in his brother’s bed. Worse, she didn’t even seem surprised he discovered us. I immediately realized my instinct about her appearance in my home was correct. She arranged for Cole to find us together.”
“Why?” Katherine said with a shudder. That level of cruelty was hard to fathom.
He shrugged. “I’ve thought about that over the years. At the time, I believed it was some petty act of vengeance. Some jealousy over one of Cole’s own affairs. But now, knowing what we do about their plan to feign her death, I believe it might have been Sarah’s twisted parting shot at my brother. Some final way to enrage him before she was no longer able.”
Looking down at Dominic, Katherine allowed relief to wash over her. A kiss was all he’d shared with Sarah. One he hadn’t even enjoyed. She hadn’t realized just how much the thought of Sarah and Dominic together bothered her.
“You asked about my parents,” she said softly.
He met her stare, nodding slowly.
She drew in a deep breath. She had not told anyone about her parents before. It was her secret. One she’d kept for so long she couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t a part of her.
“It—it was an arranged marriage, but my mother loved my father since she was very young. She truly believed she could make him return that love. Even when he proved himself unworthy.”
She stumbled over her words. The last thing she wanted was to heap some kind of guilt on Dominic.
“He wasn’t able to return her love, I mean,” she corrected herself. “I was their only child and I saw their unhappiness every day.”
He reached up to slide his hand across her cheek. “You must have been lonely.”
She nodded and the friction of his hand against her skin was almost too much for her. “A similarity between us,” she murmured.
He caught her hand and slowly eased her around to sit on his lap. For a moment, they simply locked gazes, but then he caught her face in his hands and pulled her down until they nearly kissed. Her heart fluttered at the gentle play of his breath against her skin and the heat of his body as it cradled her.
“I’m not lonely now,” he whispered before he kissed her.
She softened immediately, surrendering to this man who she had fallen in love with bit by bit each and every day they were together.
“Neither am I.”
For now that statement was true. While she was in his arms, he filled her, body and soul. And she wasn’t alone anymore. If only that joy could last past the dawn.
“Dominic,” she murmured against his lips. He pulled back, eyes glazed with desire.
“Yes?”
“Before we go to bed, I want you to know something.” Her voice broke. “I wish what was done had never happened, but I do understand your motives for lying to me. I also know you never intended to harm me. Cole didn’t care if I was hurt. If it suited his purposes, he brought me pain without a second thought. But you, you were not like that. And I forgive you for your part in that deception.”
His eyes widened and his fingers curled on her jawline. Deep, powerful emotions flashed across his face. Surprise. Relief. Even joy.
“Thank you,” he whispered as he gathered her into his arms and carried her over to the bed where they first made love. The bed where she relinquished that first tiny piece of her love.
“Thank you, Katherine.”
He lay down on the bed beside her and drew her up against him until the entire length of their bodies touched. And then he spent an eternity simply kissing her. She shut her eyes and forgot the world, forgot her past, forgot everything else and lost herself in the moment. She memorized his taste, the feel of him as if this would be the last time they made love.
Because she knew, in the recesses of her heart, that it very well could be. She could give him her love tonight, but tomorrow she would pay the price when reality returned. She couldn’t picture herself doing this every night for the rest of her life. Giving him her heart when he held her, realizing he couldn’t return his heart when morning came.
Loving and losing him every day would be too much.
But that didn’t signify tonight.
Tonight she wanted to experience everything her husband could give. To feel him fill her. To be one with him.
She fiddled with the buttons of his shirt, setting each one free until she was able to bare his chest. Slowly, she kissed his collarbone. Then his throat, and then down to slide her tongue across one flat nipple. He let out a low groan—one of satisfaction and need all at once. Wanting more and yet being perfectly content with what he was given.
Her hands slid lower as she continued to kiss his chest. With a few swift motions, she unbuttoned his fly and slipped her hand inside to touch the long, hard length of him.
“Two can play at that game, you know,” he said with the first laugh she’d heard from him in days. The sound filled her with joy.
As he rolled her on her back and covered her body with the hard, lean weight of his own, she gazed up into eyes as dark as pewter. They locked on hers and held there.
“No, Dominic,” she whispered. “No games tonight.”
He slipped gentle fingers into her hair and pulled her up for a long, hot kiss. When he broke away, he said, “You are mine, Katherine. Mine forever.”
She buried her face in his neck for a kiss, but also to hide the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. She would be his forever. He owned her heart, and no amount of distance would ever change that. But it was an unfair trade. His body for her heart. She needed more.
Then his touch washed away those last fleeting thoughts of the future. All that was left was him. His fingers that pulled her gown down her hips. The mouth that sucked one taut nipple even through the thin fabric of her chemise. The hard thighs that slowly eased her own apart until she was wide open for his touch, his kiss, his body, whatever he wanted.
And he took. Slowly testing her readiness with one thick finger. When he found her wet for him, he whispered, “I want to take my time. Later. But right now, I need you. I need to feel you around me. To know my entire world hasn’t changed. That there’s at least one place that remains the same.”
She nodded breathlessly.
And then he was inside of her, filling her every inch with pleasure and need and fulfillment. He kissed her as he began to stroke, and she felt herself approach a powerful climax almost immediately. He caught her cries with his mouth and offered her no respite from his continued thrusts, bringing her down and up, over and again until she was begging him. To stop. To keep going. To make her forget all the bad things that had happened that day, that would happen someday.
And with one final thrust, he obliged, sending them both careening over one last edge. And as she pulled his sweat-misted, hard body down on hers for an embrace, she reveled in the fleeting moment. She reveled in the feeling that she loved him.
No matter what happened in the future, nothing could take that away.
Katherine let out a long, low sigh, then she opened her eyes and looked a second time at the underthings she’d just removed. Still nothing. This was the seventh day she’d gone without her monthly courses and one thing was becoming alarmingly clear.
She was having a baby.
It was something she suspected from the first day her cycle had been late, but she explained it away by blaming it on the strain of finding out the truth about Dominic’s deception or the hardship of her recent winter travel. Now those little lies caught up with her as she thought of casting up her accounts yet again that morning. Of the slight swelling of her breasts. Of her clean underthings.
Covering her eyes, she struggled to maintain calm. Part of her was deliriously happy at the prospect of a child that
came from the love she felt for Dominic. The other part knew this pregnancy only advanced the inevitable. She would have to leave her husband.
Katherine had lived in a loveless household. She knew the tension a child felt as she watched her mother struggle for her husband’s love. Or the horror when she realized her own father cared very little for his own family.
Dominic wouldn’t be as unkind as her father had been, but he had already admitted he didn’t believe in love. He certainly hadn’t experienced that emotion from his own cold family. And he had told Cole outright before their marriage that he never intended to have children. She couldn’t let her own son or daughter relive what she had experienced.
She couldn’t ask Dominic to turn his life upside down for a family he never desired.
Somehow she gathered the strength to rise from the chair. She had friends a few days’ journey from here. They would help her for a while if she asked. Perhaps she could go to America in the spring. The account Dominic created for her pin money was generous enough to start a new life.
She would have to begin her preparations to depart right away. Dominic had gone to the village for the day on some business. It would be best to leave now rather than after his return. If she didn’t, he would argue with her. He wouldn’t understand her reasons for going. He would feel guilty, compelled to ask her to stay. With a few kisses, he could easily convince her. But if she simply disappeared…
“Excuse me, madam?”
She turned toward Matthews’ voice with what she hoped was a bland, unemotional expression. “Yes?”
“Madam, the servants have begun sorting through the attic as Mr. Mallory requested, but we have a question.”
She’d all but forgotten Dominic had ordered the attic to be sorted and cleaned. It was a signal he was ready to move on, she supposed. Or that he knew the answers he sought wouldn’t be found by searching endlessly through crates of history.
“What is it?”
“The piano, madam,” Matthews replied. “It obviously doesn’t belong in the garret, but it’s far too fine to throw away. Not to mention that it is very heavy. What are your wishes?”
“Let me come up and examine what’s been done so far. Perhaps I can be of some assistance.” She was surprised how easily she was able to answer. As if nothing was amiss while her very world crumbled.
He smiled. “Thank you. We would appreciate that.”
As she followed him through the hallways, Katherine looked around her and took in every detail of Lansing Square. She had fallen in love with the estate the moment she looked up at it in the snowy night. She’d looked forward to building it back up to its former glory. She had fought for that chance. Now it made her sad to know she would never get to follow through.
With a sigh, she said, “You know, I always found it odd that the piano was in the attic in the first place.”
“Yes.” Matthews nodded. “It is very odd.”
“Moving it must have been a terrible, dangerous chore for the poor servants required to do so. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have it repaired or destroyed?” She cocked her head as he opened the attic door and motioned for her to enter first. “Whoever ordered it to be moved must have been very attached to it, indeed. And yet not attached enough to salvage it.”
“The household staff has always found it unusual as well. However, no one is left from that time to give us the answers,” Matthews said.
She looked around with wide eyes. Unlike just days before, the boxes were stacked and neatly labeled. Some were obviously trash, while others had been marked as family heirlooms. Still others had her name on them as items whose fate would be determined by her judgment.
Except, she would no longer be there.
With a shiver, she turned her attention to the piano. It wasn’t a lady’s pianoforte, but a grand piano more fitting a musical master. It was obviously an expensive piece and one that had been much loved until the recent past.
She sat down on the bench and laid her fingers on the keys. After she played a few bars of music, she was surprised the only obvious problem was that the instrument was out of tune. That was to be expected after so many years of neglect. Certainly, it wasn’t a reason for banishment to the drafty attic.
“I’m not sure—” she began, but stopped when she pressed down on several keys and heard no notes in response. “Oh wait, the problem seems to be here.”
She cocked her head. Why hadn’t the person who sent this instrument upstairs simply had the chords repaired?
Her intuition and curiosity piqued, she stood up. “Matthews, could you have the piano lid opened, please?”
He nodded, then motioned to a footman. Between the two, they eased the piano lid open and propped it up. With an apologetic smile for the unladylike action she was about to do, she bent over the opening and looked inside.
She was surprised the piano chords were only dusty, not broken or worn. There was no reason for them not to play except…
She cocked her head in surprise. Letters. There was a yellowed pack of letters hidden in the piano.
“Matthews, press on one of the keys that didn’t work,” she ordered.
“Yes, madam,” he said. She felt the piano quiver slightly as he sat. When he pressed the key, there was no sound and she saw why. The letters prevented it.
“Thank you,” she said as she reached out and barely managed to grasp the grimy packet. She pulled herself back out of the piano and brushed dust from her gown and her hair. She held up the notes with a smile. “An odd hiding place, isn’t it?”
The butler cocked his head. “Very.”
“These must have been awfully important for someone to hide them so well,” she murmured to herself. Then she shook her head. “Try playing the instrument now.”
Matthews returned to the piano bench and fingered out a simple tune.
“Seems you’ve fixed the piano, madam,” he said with a smile. “What should we do with it now?”
She shrugged. “I’m certainly not going to have you all kill yourselves trying to move it downstairs. Let me think about it for a while and mention it to Dominic. In the interim, continue to clean up around it.”
“Yes, madam,” he said to her retreating back.
She took a few steps out of the attic before she paused to lean back against the wall and look at the bundle of letters. Her hands trembled and her blood raced with premonition—feelings that proved wise when she untied the ribbon binding the papers and turned over the first envelope to see that it was addressed to Larissa Mallory.
She hurried to her chamber where she closed and locked the door. Opening the top missive, she began to read out loud.
“My darling Larissa, I wonder if you still play the piano. I sometimes dream of you sitting there, making beautiful music in the world we created. A world where your husband could not interfere or take you away from me.”
Katherine’s heart leapt. She had finally found the truth.
Chapter 18
T he truth would set Dominic free. But that didn’t change the facts of the situation. Katherine had to leave before he returned and discovered her plans. Now. Tonight.
In fact, setting things right for her husband only made her departure that much easier. The information she’d found in the piano would lead him straight to his father. He could be happy.
She sank down next to her half-packed bag and brushed her hand across her womb. Her heart soared with the knowledge that Dominic would finally know his father after all his years of searching. But it also sank at the thought of never seeing him again.
The door behind her flew open and Katherine surged to her feet to greet Julia. The other woman’s dark eyes were bright with happiness and her skin was flushed. She looked as beautiful and young as any debutante.
“Oh, Katherine, I have news!” she burst out as she crossed the room and enveloped Katherine in a hard, fierce hug. “Adrian has asked me to be his wife!”
Katherine fell back in the closest
chair with a thump as she stared up at her friend. For a moment, her own disappointment vanished, replaced with shock and intense joy.
“J-Julia,” she stammered. “That—that’s wonderful! When did he propose?”
“Just now,” her friend gushed as she gave herself a giddy hug and danced around the room on a cloud. “He says he has no interest in waiting, but wants to take me to Gretna Green tonight.”
Katherine’s mouth dropped open. “Tonight? But don’t you want a large wedding? Time for society to celebrate your engagement?”
Julia turned back and pulled a face more befitting a child than a woman in her thirties.
“Heavens, no. I’ve sat on the sidelines labeled an old maid for far too long. I know how the ton will react. I have no interest in accepting their false congratulations or overhearing their loud whispers about wallflowers and spinsters and the kind of reasons they marry.” Her gaze softened. “I want Adrian. I want to be his wife now, to start a life together right away. I’ve known that from the moment our eyes met. He was meant to be my husband. Why wait to fulfill my destiny?”
Katherine blinked in surprise. The woman before her wasn’t the sensible, staid spinster who opened her heart to Katherine and made her a part of the Mallory family no matter which brother she wed. This woman was wildly, passionately, and without apology in love. She had no doubt of the beautiful, romantic life she would have with the man she had chosen and had chosen her.
Katherine’s heart twitched with sudden envy. Why couldn’t her own marriage be so clear and simple? She turned away so Julia wouldn’t see.
“I-I’m very happy for you,” she murmured. “When do you leave?”
“We are only waiting for Dominic’s return to tell him the news and then we’ll be off.”
The laughter in her voice faded and Katherine glanced over her shoulder. Julia looked around the room with a shocked expression.
“Wait. Why are you packing a valise? You and Dominic just returned. He never mentioned a second trip to me.”
Katherine jolted to her feet. “I—I—”
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