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.
“I take it she did not marry the marquess?”
Katherine grinned. “She married his brother.” She waved her hand. “There was some scandal that clung to her husband Michael, but it mattered not. Aldora loved him.”
The red in her cheeks deepened to the hue of summer berries, and suddenly Jasper had a desire for the sweet fruit.
He shifted on the seat “And what of you, Katherine? Surely you must have dreamed of love for yourself?” Or at least more than this cold, practical contract you’ve entered into with me.
She lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. “When I was younger, perhaps. I’m nearly twenty years, and far more logical.”
Jasper had known love and great loss, but the thought of his brave, bold, spirited, Katherine never knowing love herself, scraped at his insides like the edge of a blade being applied to his flesh.
Except…on the heel of that, was the thought of her with some nameless, carefree gentleman capable of laughter and love, and with every fiber of his selfish being, Jasper gave thanks that she belonged to him.
“You’ve not spoken of your family, either, Jasper.” Her quiet murmur interrupted his musings. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Jasper bent down and retrieved her bonnet. He studied the ivory lace trim. “I have no brothers or sisters.” His had been a lonely childhood. There had been no laughter or merriment within the walls of Castle Blackwood.
“What of your mother and father?”
“They are d…”
“Dead. I know.” She leaned over and took her bonnet back. “I imagine there is certainly more you can say of the people who gave you life.”
Oh, he could say any manner of things about them, none of which would be appropriate for a lady’s ears. “My parents were cold, selfish individuals. It was a match based on their mutually distinguished positions in Society.” His parents’ had been a scandalous union; both his mother and father carrying on with very public affairs.
Katherine set her bonnet upon her lap and toyed with the strings that dangled from the ivory creation. “Surely there was some affection there,” she protested. “Even as my parents’ marriage was carefully arranged by their fathers, my mother very much loved my father.”
A harsh chuckle escaped him. “My parents detested one another. My father had a string of mistresses, my mother a string of lovers. I assure you, Katherine, there was little affection between them.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said faintly, the color deepening on her cheeks.
Sweet, Katherine. She spoke of logic and practicality and the benefits of a marriage based on convenience, but for all of it, she was still hopelessly innocent, and the thought of that raised an unholy terror inside of him.
Suddenly uncomfortable with the intimate direction their conversation had taken, Jasper cleared his throat. “You should rest, Katherine. The snow will slow our travel to Castle Blackwood.”
She peeked out the window. “Will you tell me of it?”
Jasper sighed. He should have expected with her stubborn streak that his words should have the opposite request. “It is cold. Dark. Expansive.” Devoid of cheer. For a too-brief time, however, there had been laughter within those castle walls. Now all that remained were the echoes of Lydia’s agony and his own despair.
Katherine wrinkled her nose. “That hardly sounds like a warm place to call home.”
“I never suggested that it was.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, you have me there.”
And this time, it seemed his laconic responses halted her steady stream of questions.
He desired silence. So why did he feel a pang of regret when she folded her arms, closed her eyes, and shifted away from him—the loss, both physical and not.
He pulled out his watch fob and consulted the time. With their travel slowed by the conditions, they should have to stop at an inn along the way. Meanwhile, he would be shut away in this suddenly too-small carriage with his new wife’s lean, lithe frame and breasts made for sin.
A small sputtering snore slipped past her lips. Jasper tucked his timepiece away.
He sought the steady, slow rise and fall of her breaths. Except…he squinted in the dark…and grinned. “Are you feigning sleep, Katherine?”
She shook her head. “Er…No. That is.” Her lips settled into a mutinous line. She burrowed deeper into her corner.
He reached across the carriage and pulled Katherine onto his lap.
She squeaked. “Wh-what are you doing?” She wiggled back and forth.
Jasper groaned as his shaft leapt in response. “Be still.” Hoarse desire laced his command.
She stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Oh by all the saints, she truly was this innocent. He counted to ten.
Katherine shoved an elbow into his stomach, and he grunted. “Did you hear me, Jasper? I said I was sorry for hurting you.”
He closed his eyes, and again counted to ten. What manner of madness had possessed him to drag her delectably lush body atop his? Where nothing more than the thin threads of their garments separated his flesh from hers?
“Jasper…?”
“Bloody hell, I heard you.” Jasper took a deep breath, and gentled his tone. He opened his eyes, braced for the shocked hurt in her brown eyes. “Oomph.” All the air left him on a hiss, as she planted her fist into his stomach.
In the short span of time they’d been married, she’d delivered an impressive slap to his cheek, elbowed him in the side, and now planted him a jab Gentleman Jackson himself would have been proud of. He’d married quite the bloodthirsty wench.
Katherine squirmed in an apparent attempt to free herself. But her delicious movements only brought the sweet curve of her buttocks closer into contact with his rock-hard shaft. Had it been any other, more mature, more experienced woman, he’d believed her undulating movements intentional.
However, not even the Mad Duke of Bainbridge could mistake the fury flashing in his wife’s eyes as passion. In the event there was even the slightest bit of doubt, her next words killed all wonderings.
She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Let us be clear, Your Grace,” Ahh, so it was, Your Grace, now. “You are the one who denied us the generous wedding breakfast arranged by my mother. It is you who is determined to run off to your,” she held her hands up mockingly and deepened her voice. “Cold, dark, expansive castle.” Katherine pointed her eyes to th
e ceiling of the conveyance. “Cold, dark, and expansive,” she muttered, as if more to herself. “Who describes ones home in those terms?” She jabbed her finger again at his chest. “Furthermore, who would care to live in a home that is cold, dark, and expansive?”
Jasper opened his mouth but was silenced by her black glare. Goodness, with that reproachful stare, his wife could rival the sternest matron at Almack’s.
“And lest you forget, Your Grace, it is you who scooped me up and placed me on your lap.” She wiggled her rounded-buttocks upon his center, and his head fell back as he sent a silent prayer for patience skyward.
Alas, life should have well-taught him that there was no God, not even one to oversee such small favors. Katherine continued to squirm on his lap, and with a startled screech, toppled backwards.
The muslin fabric of her cape, and her satin skirts flew over her head.
“Bloody hell,” she cursed, and struggled on the floor of the carriage.
Jasper swallowed, knowing it was the height of ungentlemanly behavior to not immediately help her up, but he remained frozen at the sight of her flesh exposed to his hungry stare; the trim ankles, the lean, legs, and lush thighs that were meant to wrap around a man’s waist, urging him on…
He groaned.
Katherine batted at her fabric, and shoved it down into place, favoring Jasper with another scowl. “You’re groaning, Your Grace? It is I who is seated here upon the floor of the carriage.”
He leaned over her. “Need I point out, Your Grace,” Katherine’s brows dipped. “That you are the one who squirmed yourself free.”
“Well,” she said on a huff.
Jasper reached down, and gently pulled her back up, and settled her on the cushions of the seat opposite him, a safe distance…
His eyes dipped lower as he considered her now-concealed, willowy limbs. Or, a safer distance, anyway.
Jasper rested his neck along the back of his seat and stared up at the ceiling of the carriage. It was going to prove a very long journey with his wife.
Chapter Seventeen
Katherine yawned, and placed her hands along the base of her back. She arched the cramped muscles, knowing Mother would be scandalized should she see her bold display of discomfort, and stared at the sign dusted in snow, that hung alongside the inn’s door.
Fire and Brimstone
She scrunched up her nose. Well, really, what a rather horrid name for an establishment, and not at all the place a young lady envisioned spending her first day as a married woman.
Jasper touched a hand to her lower back and she jumped.
“Are you all right, wife?”
Wife.
That one word, spoken in a silky, mellifluous baritone warmed her more than a blazing fire on a winter’s day.
Katherine reminded herself that her husband was surely accustomed to more sophisticated, less moon-eyed young ladies, and tossed her curls. “Quite, fine.”
He started forward, and Katherine stared after him.
It appeared to take him a moment to register that she did not follow, and he glanced back, a question in those green eyes that made her yearn for the spring.
“I lied,” she confessed. She pointed at the sign. “Fire and Brimstone, Jasper? It is a horrendous name for an inn. Why, why…one might as well call it, Hell and Damnation.”
Did his lips twitch? With amusement? Oh the lout. “As a learned woman, I would gather you do not judge a volume by its title alone.”
Hmph. Very well. So he was correct, in this regard. She quickened her step, and then looped her arm through his.
The tightly coiled muscles cased within his coat bunched under her touch. A smile played about her lips. Her stoic husband might maintain a cool disinterest where she was concerned, but every so often his body would betray him, and reveal that he was not as indifferent as he appeared.
They entered the inn. Katherine shook out her skirts, and all at once, registered the absolute stillness of the dimly lit establishment.
She froze and glanced up to find a quite full inn…and all sets of eyes were trained upon her and Jasper.
A smallish, older gentleman with a bald pate rushed over. “May I help you….?”
“The Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge. We require rooms.”
Those quietly spoken words still managed to thunder through the still room.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened, and he bowed low at the waist. “Your Grace, it is an honor. How many rooms may I—”
“Two,” Jasper interrupted.
The innkeeper nodded. “I have two rooms available, a fare of roasted beef and potatoes. And a tankard of ale.” He motioned to the lone empty table in the corner of the inn.
Two rooms?
Two.
As in, more than one.
She shook her head. Her husband was merely doing the polite gentlemanly thing in procuring two rooms, so that she might prepare…prepare…
Katherine fanned her cheeks and looked around the crowded taproom floor. Her eyes collided with a buxom serving girl with a pitcher of ale and an empty tankard in her hand. The lush creature trained her eyes on Jasper.
Katherine fisted her hands at her side.
Jasper looked at Katherine. “Are you all right, Katherine?”
Her mouth tightened.
With the exception of the fiery jealousy that ripped through her usually calm sensibilities, she was perfectly fine.
She nodded, and followed Jasper and the innkeeper abovestairs. He led them down a narrow hall and stopped beside one door. “Your Grace,” he murmured to Katherine, and held the door open.
Katherine peeked inside.
Yes, she’d well learned that one should not formulate an opinion of a book on the mere title alone…and yet, in this regard, it would appear Fire and Brimstone was in fact an apt moniker.
A colorful, albeit tattered coverlet was turned down at the corner of the wide-bed at the center of the room. The nightstand with a broken leg and small, deeply scratched vanity were, otherwise, the only pieces of furniture.
She became aware of Jasper and the innkeeper studying her with intent expressions. “It is lovely,” she said to the proprietor who beamed with her praise.
“Please have a bath readied for Her Grace, and a meal.”
Katherine warmed at the gentle consideration her husband was showing her, and watched as the innkeeper hurried off.
Alone in the confines of the too-small room, she suddenly became aware that this, wintry cold, starless night was in fact, her wedding night. Her mouth went dry, and she peered up at her husband.
“Is there anything else you require, Katherine?”
She shook her head. At least she didn’t think she required anything. With the exception of a hurried, heavily veiled conversation with her mother about instruments and matters of wifely duty, Katherine had little idea what to expect in terms of the marriage bed.
Oh, Aldora, whyever did you not come to London earlier? Katherine sighed. Of course her sister and brother-in-law had wee Lizzie, their now two-year-old daughter to consider. Still, it would have been quite helpful if Aldora had been around to have a…a…talk with Katherine about what would unfold this night.
“Katherine?” Jasper said softly.
She jumped. “No. Nothing. I require nothing. At all. Other than the bath, of course, and the meal you arranged, Jasper.” Katherine bit the inside of her cheek and willed herself to silence.
His eyes moved over her face a moment, and then with a clipped bow, he took his leave.
Katherine stared at the closed door behind him. She shrugged out of her cloak and, wandering over toward the bed, tossed the garment at the mattress. The emerald green muslin landed in a noisy, fluttering heap upon the heavily nicked wood floor.
She smoothed her palms over the front of the gown she’d worn during her wedding.
Lady Katherine, the Duchess of Bainbridge.
The title of duchess might mean a good deal to so many, but Katherine rem
ained wholly unimpressed by her new title. She was no different than the woman she’d been prior to speaking those vows in the office of her home. Nay, her former home.
Only, she caught her lower lip between her teeth, perhaps she might feel differently when her husband returned and made their marriage official.
Katherine sank into the mattress, and the old bed creaked in protest.
Jasper had insisted they leave her maid behind, and now Katherine was left to wonder if her husband intended to see to her disrobing himself.
Oh, dear. Katherine fanned herself, as she was filled with a sudden nervous anticipation.
She sat. And waited for her husband to return.
Jasper had spent the better part of two hours drinking the fine ale, and eating the roasted beef at the Fire and Brimstone Inn.
The serving wench stopped beside his table. “Would you care for more, Your Grace?” she murmured in a husky whisper that promised lusty delights. She held up the tankard between the very generous mounds of her enormous breasts that spilled over the blousy white shirt she wore.
Jasper shook his head, and returned his stare to the tabletop.
He’d not had a woman since Lydia, and the overblown, fleshiness of the obvious servant did not inspire any grand desire as he expected it should.
Instead, his mind drifted to the lean, spirited vixen who now occupied a room abovestairs.
Jasper waved the serving girl back over, and motioned for her to refill his glass.
She leaned forward. “Is there anything else I can get you, Your Grace?” she whispered.
He considered her a moment. Most men, especially men who’d been without a woman for more than four years, would have been seduced by her plump form and breathy words.
But some matter of madness had taken him over, where all he wanted, all he desired was his new wife. Jasper shook his head and took a long swallow. She shuffled off.
What had Lady Katherine Adamson done to him? No, not Lady Katherine Adamson. Her Grace, the Duchess of Bainbridge.
He tossed back the remainder of ale, and sat long after the last patron had stumbled out the front door or abovestairs to seek out their rooms. Until only the innkeeper’s heavy footsteps as he shuffled about the space wiping down the tables, filled the quiet.
It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels Page 48
