It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels

by Grace Burrowes

  He snorted, and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Just have a care not to say as much in front of Society, or you’ll surely shatter my well-earned reputation.”

  Katherine leaned back in her seat. Her fingers plucked at the corners of Harry’s kerchief. They struck quite the pair. Her, the Duchess of Bainbridge, whose marriage remained shrouded in mystery to the ton, and Harry the unrepentant rogue who’d earned the censure of every polite, Society matron.

  Theirs had been a rather ignominious beginning. While attending a soiree, Katherine had stolen a moment outside for air. Harry had followed her and made her a rather indecent proposal. She’d punched him in the nose.

  After that, he’d set himself up as a kind of protector from the steady barrage of gentleman who’d incorrectly assumed her absentee husband made Katherine fair game for an illicit affair.

  She imagined if Society stumbled upon them at this unfashionable hour, they would have raised more than a few brows.

  Harry shattered the quiet. “I suppose if I were truly a good friend I would suggest you return to Bainbridge’s cold, dark castle and make amends with the undeserving bounder.”

  Katherine folded her hands on her lap and studied the interlocked digits, silently.

  “But I’m not a good friend. I’m a rogue and still hold onto hope that you’ll forget your miserable husband and—”

  “Harry,” she said firmly, interrupting him with a scowl. It mattered not that he jested, any and all mention of Jasper still rubbed as raw as vinegar being poured upon an open wound.

  Harry shoved himself to his feet and stood over her. “You believe I jest, Kat.”

  She shook her head, wanting him to stop, needing him to stop. With the exception of her sister, Harry had become the one friend whose company she enjoyed. Never one to take himself or anything at all seriously, he provided the perfect foil to Jasper’s dark forebodingness and, what’s more, helped her forget, even for just those slips of moments in time, how close she’d been to having everything she’d never known she needed in life.

  He reached his hand out. “Kat—”

  The whinny of a horse cut across whatever Harry’s intended words were.

  Katherine glanced down the gravel riding path, and her heart thudded wildly in her chest at the approaching rider.

  She rose. Her rose-colored skirts fluttered about her feet as the Marquess of Guilford drew his mare to a stop a short distance away. He dismounted.

  Harry frowned at the sudden intrusion. “Guilford,” Harry drawled. He sketched a short bow.

  Jasper’s friend, the lone witness to their nuptials ignored the other man. He directed a serious stare at Katherine.

  Her heart wrenched, feeling ever closer to Jasper just by the appearance of his friend. A question as to her husband’s well-being sprung to her lips but Guilford spoke before she could formulate words.

  “Your Grace,” he said, in short, clipped tones suggesting his disapproval of Katherine’s companion.

  “My lord.” Even as she curtsied, a frown turned her lips. She’d not be made to feel guilty for keeping company with Harry. Nothing untoward had or would happen with the roguish earl. Katherine might be lonely and broken-hearted, but only one man could fill the empty hole left by Jasper’s disinterest—and that man happened to be her stubborn, aloof husband.

  Harry looked between them. The uncharacteristic hardness in his eyes indicated he’d detected the undercurrents of tension between Katherine and the marquess.

  “I hope you are finding your time in London pleasant, Lady Katherine,” Guilford said dismissing Harry outright.

  “Most pleasant,” she lied through her white teeth.

  Harry snorted, and then covered a hand to his mouth, feigning a cough. She shot him a sideways look, knowing he detected the untruth in her words.

  Guilford’s gaze slid back over toward the other man. His lip pulled at the corner in a disapproving sneer. When he returned his hard stare to Katherine, he gave a curt nod. “I bid thee good day, Lady Katherine.” He turned on his heel and strode back toward his horse.

  A frenzied sense of panic filled her breast. Lord Guilford represented the last fragile connection to Jasper.

  Katherine hurried after him. Harry’s kerchief fluttered to the ground, forgotten.

  “My lord,” she called, just as he grasped the reins of his mount.

  He stiffened and turned back to face her. “Your Grace?”

  Katherine stumbled to a halt in front of him. She wet her lips and glanced around at the empty park. “My husband,” she whispered.

  He furrowed his brow. “Lady Katherine?”

  “How is he?” she implored him with her eyes. Jasper occupied every last corner of her thoughts. She yearned for just some word on the man who would forever hold her heart.

  Guilford’s’ frown deepened, and his gaze skittered to a point beyond her shoulder. By the icy disdain in his usually affable stare, she suspected Harry hovered in the distance. “He is…much the same,” Guilford finally said, when he’d looked back at Katherine.

  A woeful smile tugged at her lips. “That is saying nearly nothing, my lord.”

  Guilford folded his arms over his chest. “And what would you have me say, Your Grace? What words do you seek?”

  His furious disapproval could not be clearer if he mounted his horse and rode through Hyde Park shouting disparaging words of her.

  “I…” she faltered. All of Society erroneously assumed the Mad Duchess had taken Harry as her lover. The gossip columns bandied that tidbit about as though it were more delectable than a Gunter’s ice. After all, with his reputation as unrepentant rogue, how could Society think anything else of Lord Stanhope? “I…” She could not discuss such an intimate matter with Lord Guilford. “If you see him, will you let him know I’ve asked after him?”

  Guilford searched her face with his eyes, and then gave a curt nod. “As you wish. Is there anything else you require, Lady Katherine?”

  Tell him I love him. I’ve never stopped nor will I ever. My heart is and will always belong to him. Tell him to come to me. Tell him my life is empty without him.

  Instead, she said, “No, that will be all, my lord. Thank you.”

  Guilford nodded again. He swung his leg over the chestnut mare, and panic built in her breast. She took another step toward him. “My lord, is he…well?”

  The marquess shifted the reins to his other hand, and his knees tightened about the flanks, in a clear attempt to soothe the eager to gallop horse. His mount sidled backwards. Lord Guilford lowered his voice. “It is my belief, Your Grace, that Bainbridge has not fared well in your absence.”

  Her heart thudded hard. She held up a beseeching hand, though Lord Guilford could not give her that which she needed. Only again seeing Jasper would be the balm upon her aching soul.

  Guilford continued, seeming to understand her unspoken question. “He’s been rather…” He paused, as if searching for the appropriate words. “Surly. Angry. Angrier than usual,” he clarified with the pointed look she gave him. A ghost of a smile played about his lips.

  Her eyes slid closed a moment. She forced them open. “Thank you.”

  He bowed his head and kicked his mount forward.

  Katherine dimly registered Harry’s approach.

  “What was that about?” Harry murmured, staring off in the distance at the marquess’ swift retreating form.

  She shook her head. “It is nothing,” she said, unable to speak of Jasper’s friendship with the marquess, and the marquess’s opinions of Jasper.

  Harry held out his arm. “Will you join me for a stroll, Your Grace?”

  “Er, I think I care to just sit here, Harry.”

  His gaze searched hers. “You’re certain?”

  She nodded.

  With a sigh, he extracted a third kerchief. “Then, as you were, madam.”

  Katherine caught it in her fingers. “Thank you, Harry,” she said softly, for so much more than just this scr
ap of fabric.

  Harry beat his hand against his side. “You’re desiring your own company, aren’t you, Kat?”

  He’d come to know her very well in these past months. Rather, they’d come to know one another. They could finish one another’s sentences. They were of like opinions on matters pertaining to the ton—they both abhorred London’s gossipy Society members.

  And they’d come to know and respect one another enough to not delve too deeply into the secret demons that tormented them.

  She smiled wanly up at him.

  “You know he’s not deser…”

  “Hush,” she chided him. No one, not her twin sister, Aldora or Michael, and not Harry knew the kind of man her husband was. Jasper possessed the valor to jeopardize his own life to pluck a stranger from the water. He gave the sole volume of poetry to a teasing young lady even as it happened to be the only enjoyment he took from life. He sang taproom ditties to babies. It was Jasper who’d deserved more—Jasper who’d had more, in his wife, Lydia.

  Katherine would never be anything but a pale shadow in the other woman’s otherworldly glow of perfection.

  Harry captured her hand and raised it to his mouth. He brushed his lips along the tops of her knuckles.

  After he’d taken his leave, Katherine returned to what had become an all-too-familiar wrought-iron bench within the garden, considering Guilford’s appearance. And more, his revelation of Jasper.

  In the time she’d known Jasper, she’d found him to be a surly, obstinate bear of a man. Surely Guilford’s claims that Jasper had become even more so, had nothing to do with her departure from his life. Why, he’d surely resumed the normal cadence of the comfortable, solitary existence he’d carried on since Lydia’s death, four…now four years and four months ago.

  But what if he does miss you? A voice whispered at the edge of her mind. What if he harbors the same regret in your going, as you do in leaving?

  Katherine picked up Wordsworth’s volume, and fanned the now all too-familiar pages. She paused upon a familiar verse.

  Full often wished he that the winds might rage… She continued reading.

  When they were silent: far more fondly now

  Than in his earlier season did he love

  Tempestuous nights—the conflict and the sounds

  That live in darkness. From his intellect

  And from the stillness of abstracted thought

  He asked repose; and, failing oft to win

  The peace required, he scanned the laws of light

  Amid the roar of torrents, where they send

  From hollow clefts up to the clearer air

  A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun,

  Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus,

  And vainly by all other means, he strove

  To mitigate the fever of his heart.

  She’d been a coward of the worst kind to leave him as she had. It had seemed at the time, her self-preservation was dependent upon distance between her and Jasper’s apathy.

  Katherine had learned all too quickly, no matter the distance, no matter the time separating them, self-preservation would be futile. Whether Jasper wished it or not…she belonged to him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jasper stared unblinking at an all-too-familiar white sheet draped across the door. He folded his hands behind his back and continued to study the thick, crisp white linen, obscuring the wood panel and delicate handle.

  Every day he rose and passed this bloody door and tortured himself with the evenly hung, thick white sheet.

  With a curse, he ripped it viciously from the wall and it toppled to the floor in a noisy puddle of pooling fabric. He pressed the handle and tossed the door open hard enough it bounced back against the plaster of the walls.

  An eerie quiet filled the chambers.

  Jasper hesitated a moment, and then after the four months five days and a handful of hours since Katherine had climbed into Michael Knightly’s carriage, he entered his wife’s chambers.

  I love you, Jasper. The ghost of her whisper lingered in the walls of this room, so very real, he glanced around expecting to see her smiling visage and warm brown eyes.

  Empty silence mocked his foolish yearnings.

  With a curse he pivoted on his heel and took a step toward the door, but then the faintest hint of honeysuckle wafted in this dark space and filled his senses with a heady remembrance of how very close to perfect his life had been.

  Jasper clenched his eyes tight and willed memories of her aside. Katherine with terror in her eyes as he’d plucked her from the river. Katherine’s cheeky smile as she’d taken the last copy of Wordsworth’s book. Katherine as she’d cradled the girl Lizzie close to her chest.

  Oh, God, I cannot bear this. Jasper forced his eyes open, rubbing the spot in his chest where his heart had rested.

  After he’d lost Lydia and his son, Jasper had imagined he would never recover from the abyss of despair. He’d thought his heart dead within his chest.

  A hollow, mirthless laugh burst from his chest and bounced off the walls. How fitting he should discover himself capable of loving, only after Katherine’s departure. Nay, not merely loving anyone…but his impossibly headstrong, passionate wife.

  Jasper wandered deeper into the room. He’d ordered it closed off by the servants, barring all from entry. Beckoned by the wide, canopied bed where they’d first made love, he sank onto the edge of the mattress, his gaze fixed on the mound of ivory and white ruffled skirts.

  Well, I hate ringlets. And gowns made of too much ivory and lace. Mother insists I wear them because it is the ladylike thing to do. It would be such good fun to wear vibrant shades…

  Jasper reached for one of the gowns and drew it to his chest. And closing his eyes, he buried his face into the satiny smoothness of the modest, lace creation. The sweet, delicate scent of her, he’d so craved these months filled his senses more heady than the most potent aphrodisiac. It drugged him like an opiate, filling him with an insatiable need for her.

  Jasper released the gown so quickly it slid from his fingers and fell to the floor.

  What in hell was wrong with him? Mooning over her like a lovesick swain. She’d left him. She had made the decision that a life without him was preferable to a life with him.

  With a curse, Jasper surged to his feet. The abruptness of the movement toppled her mountain of white and ivory garments.

  A lone green piece, like the hint of earth poking out from a blanket of snow. Jasper swiped at the reticule. He passed it back and forth between his hands, and with a snarl, brought his arm back to hurl the item across the room.

  Then froze.

  He closed his eyes again and sucked in a breath. Not even his potent fury had shielded him from the depth of love he carried for Katherine. He exhaled on a broken, shuddery hiss.

  Jasper wandered over to the corner of the room, and peered out into the sun-kissed grounds below. The lush green of the rolling hillsides and noisy chatter of birds so vastly different than the frozen world he and Katherine had dwelt within during their short time together.

  He tugged at the drawstring of her reticule, and glanced distractedly down into the small purse. His heart paused a beat.

  She’d taken the small heart pendant he’d slept with since Guilford had brought the items to him a lifetime ago. Pained regret tugged at him. He reached inside and pulled out a lone scrap of paper.

  He knew the contents of her small reticule enough to recognize the folded note a more recent addition.

  With trembling fingers, Jasper unfolded the sheet.

  Dearest Jasper,

  By this point, you have learned the worst kinds of truth of me. I am a coward. You wed a coward. I convinced myself the offer I’d put to you that snowy day in Hyde Park was driven of desperation, an attempt to avoid marriage to Mr. Ekstrom. Now I can be true enough to myself, and now to you, at least on the pages of this sheet, to at last admit, my offer had nothing to do with horrid Mr. Ekstrom, and everything
to do with you.

  I love you. Rather desperately, I’m afraid. And I now know you can never love me, which is through no fault of your own. Your Lydia will forever hold your heart, and if I were to remain at Castle Blackwood I would be forced to face the truth of that love, and the depth of my own despair when you could never return the sentiments I carried in my heart. And that I could not bear.

  I wish you happiness.

  I love you.

  Forever Yours,

  Katherine

  Jasper’s throat worked spasmodically. His fingers curled over the lone page until it crumpled noisily in his hands. Panicked, he lightened his hold, and awkwardly smoothed the precious sheet of vellum.

  With his body and mind numb, Jasper wandered from the chambers, through the long corridors, down the stairs, and into the once closed off room.

  He stepped into the Portrait Room, striding past the bitter visages of his parents and younger self, and made his way very deliberately over to one particular canvas.

  Jasper paused and stared up at the smiling couple, not recognizing the youthful gentleman with a carefree glimmer in his eyes.

  “I…” Jasper paused, and looked around, ascertaining he was in fact alone. He returned his attention to Lydia’s golden countenance. “I didn’t mean to forget you, Lydia,” he said at last, into the quiet.

  The couple continued to smile almost benevolently down at him.

  “I thought to honor your memory and the love I carried for you, by shutting myself away from the world.” He drew in a shuddery breath. “I didn’t think I could ever love again.” Jasper held his palms out, Katherine’s letter and reticule an unwitting explanation. “I met a woman. I didn’t intend for it to happen.” And yet, if it hadn’t happened, then Katherine’s lifeless body would forever dwell under the surface of the Thames River. A chill stole through him and iced him over at the sheer horror of the imagined tragedy. “And I love her, Lydia.” Tears blurred his vision. “I cannot carry on without her.” Tears trailed down his cheeks and he let them fall unashamed and unchecked. “I need to say goodbye, Lydia. Because if I do not say goodbye, I can never be free. And I need to be free.” He tucked Katherine’s belongings inside his jacket, close to his heart. “So be at peace, Lydia.”