For Love of the Duke (The Heart of a Duke Book 2) (23 page)

“I’m taking them down myself, then,” she murmured, and made a swiping grab for the nearest sheet.

The momentary thrill of satisfaction surged through her, as her fingers made purchase with the fabric.

She tugged it back and forth, and then in a fluttering cloud of white, it tumbled to the floor.

Katherine stared at it with satisfaction, ignoring the manner in which the butler closed his eyes and shook his head back and forth.

“I assure you, my husband will voice no complaint.” After all, this seemed a rather small indulgence in the scheme of the cold, practical union Jasper insisted upon.

She would have wagered the nails upon one of her hands that he muttered, “We shall certainly see.”

Katherine mustered her most winning smile and returned her attention to her task. “Will you send round the servants? Or shall I…” Her words ended on a breathless whisper. “Oh, my goodness.”

The meticulously stitched fabrics could rival any embroidery in all the kingdom.  She tiptoed closer to the work of art. She angled her head and studied the piece. Adorned in a cascade of red, fuchsia, and violet rose bushes with a powder blue sky filled with white clouds, the image drove back the cold of winter, and called forth thoughts of spring.

“Her Grace completed them.”

It took a moment for the servant’s words to penetrate her awe. Katherine blinked.

The butler coughed discreetly. “Forgive me, Your Grace.”

Katherine glanced over her shoulder. She spoke with gentle tones. “You’ve nothing to apologize for, Wrinkleton.”  The stunning craftsmanship called her notice once more.

The former duchess had managed this? A pang pulled at her heart, as she imagined a happy woman married to an equally happy man, sitting together. In that vision Jasper sat reading poems to his perfect duchess who completed the embroidery.

Her throat moved up and down in a reflexive manner, and she loathed herself for begrudging them the happiness of even an imagined bucolic moment together.

“Your Grace?” Wrinkleton spoke again, interrupting her melancholy musings.

“Then they need to come down, Wrinkleton. It is unfair to the duchess’ memory.” And if he’d not help her, well, then she’d tear down every last one of the sheets herself.

With an unladylike leap that would have earned her quite the setting down from Mother, Katherine reached for another sheet.  From beyond her shoulder, she registered someone moving close, and then stopping beside her.

She peered over at Wrinkleton.

He cleared his throat. “Then, please allow me to offer my assistance.”

A polite rejection hovered at her lips, at the prospect of burdening the older servant, but instead she nodded. They set to work and a short while later, the tall, imposing foyer had been transformed into a kind of floral heaven forever memorialized upon the fabric by the former duchess. I’ve not much time,” she went on, and moved over to the next sheet, “before the eve of Christmas.”

Katherine stepped back and considered the work she and Wrinkleton had done here. A kind of bittersweet wistfulness filled her heart. How very odd to consider that these masterpieces were done by the woman who’d earned Jasper’s love, and that they should hang here forgotten and forlorn for none to see.

She meandered over to the corner of the explosion of roses and studied the fabric. A chill stole through her as she considered that the other woman’s fingers had handled the piece. It served as a stark reminder that Katherine was nothing more than an interloper on what had been a true marriage between Jasper and Lydia, his true duchess.

Her gaze climbed up the product and settled on the vicious thorns upon the fuchsia rose bush. She angled her head. How very out of place those vicious points were. Mayhap sewn there by the other woman to remind whichever woman who entered these halls of the danger in expecting affection from the duke.

The greenish-black thorn blurred before her eyes, and with a frustrated sense of shock, Katherine realized that tears threatened to spill. She blinked them back. She’d not shed a tear since her father had died and left their lives in utter shambles. Now, since she’d met Jasper Waincourt, the 8
^th
Duke of Bainbridge, he’d turned her into a veritable watering pot.

A white kerchief dangled before her, and she stiffened, accepting the silent offering from Wrinkleton. She discreetly, dabbed at her eyes. Taking a steady, controlled breath, she looked to the butler.

“Now, is there perchance a footman who might assist me?”

Jasper tapped the tip of his pen in a distracted rhythm atop the surface of his mahogany desk. The click-click-click-click of the pen meeting wood uncharacteristically loud in the quiet of his office.

His steward had left him several hours ago.

He paused, mid-movement, the pen suspended above the surface of the desk.

Jasper suspected he’d offended his wife’s sensibilities with his clear articulation of the expectations for their union. She’d not joined him to break her fast, and had remained conspicuously absent.

He tossed his pen down and leaned back in his chair. The leather creaked in protest.

Jasper did not care for what change his actions had wrought upon his wife. The Katherine he knew since he’d first pulled her free from the Thames had a vibrant spirit that could not be quashed, and yet in the matter of her forty-eight hours and handful of minutes since she’d become his duchess, she’d closeted herself away in her chambers and not come out.

And he didn’t like her absence from his life.

Rather, he
detested
it.

His gaze strayed over to the wide floor-length windows along the back wall of his office. The grayish-white sky perfectly suited his mood.

He swiped a hand across his face.

He might not want a marriage in the true sense with his spirited wife, but neither did she deserve his recent callous treatment. With her absence, she made him feel…feel…guilty. And he didn’t like to be made to feel guilty. Or feel
anything
, for that matter. With a growl, Jasper surged to his feet. He’d done a formidable job of separating himself from the thoughts and feelings of those around him.

Then Katherine stumbled into his life, literally stumbled, if one considered their meeting at the Frost Fair and in one fateful meeting, she’d thrown his world into upheaval.

Jasper wrenched the door open, and stormed through the entrance. He marched with deliberate steps toward her chambers.

Well, he’d not allow her to play wounded soul any further. She’d suggested a marriage of convenience. In her discussion, she’d been practical in all matters pertaining to a possible match between them. Now she’d act the injured party for an agreement she’d willingly entered into.

His bootsteps marked a staccato path upon the floor.

Jasper took the stairs to her rooms two at a time. His long stride made short work of the space between them. He reached for the handle of her door, and then paused, remembering himself.

In spite of her bold spirit and fiery eyes, Katherine was still an innocent, proper, young lady. If he were to simply storm her chambers like the lords of old, then she’d only further retreat into this protective indignant state she’d created for herself.

So he knocked.

And knocked again.

And…

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

Jasper jerked at the lapels of his double-breasted jacket. He was the bloody Duke of Bainbridge. He made for the handle yet again, but stopped and forced himself to draw in an even breath.

“Katherine?”

Silence.

Jasper turned the handle and entered.

His gaze scoured the room. The immaculately folded bed indicated she’d risen some time ago.

With a scowl, Jasper turned back around.

He cursed.

“Christ, Wrinkleton, don’t you know one mustn’t sneak up on a man? What is it?”

Wrinkleton inclined his head. “My apologies, Your Grace,” Though in Jasper’s estimation, the butler hardly sounded anything but apologetic. “But Her Grace is not here.”

“Not here?” Jasper repeated, knowing he must sound like a perfect lack-wit.

“She has gone out, Your Grace.”

Gone out.

Gone out?

Surely he’d heard the man wrong. Jasper glanced over to the windows and scowled. The snow continued to fall in earnest. What madness possessed his young wife to go out in such weather?

Then he thought of their first fateful encounter. Should he expect any different in the woman who’d forsaken a chaperone and braved Society’s censure to take part in the festivities of the Frost Fair?

“Yes, that is correct, Your Grace. She’s gone out,” Wrinkleton said in slow, exaggerated tones.

Jasper narrowed his eyes upon the old, family servant. The man had known Jasper since Jasper had been tormenting his tutors, and running the servants ragged with his antics throughout the castle. Otherwise, he’d hardly tolerate such insolence, in anyone…except, Wrinkleton.

The sparkle in the other man’s gaze said he knew as much, too.

“When?” Jasper said in crisp tones.

Wrinkleton scratched at his brow. “I believe an hour or so, Your Grace.”

“An hour?”

Jasper turned on his heel and strode with furious speed through the halls, down the stairs, and…staggered to a halt within the foyer. His gaze collided with the tapestries upon the walls—the exposed embroideries. A flash of blinding fury clouded his vision. He searched around for his butler. “Wrinkleton, what the bloody hell is the meaning of this?”

Jasper’s booming question resounded off the stone walls, and echoed throughout the house.

Wrinkleton continued his slow, very slow descent down the stairs. A footman hurried forward, his gaze directed at the floor. He held out Jasper’s cloak and hat.

Jasper grabbed the items and the young man hurried off. He jammed his hat on his head.

The butler scratched his brow. “What is the meaning of what, Your Grace?”

Jasper closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying to a God he’d ceased to believe in, for a modicum of patience for his servant. He opened his eyes. “The. Tapestries. That. Hang. From. The. Wall.”

“Ahh, those,” Wrinkleton said, and there was that little glimmer of merriment firmly back in his cloudy blue eyes.

“Yes, those,” Jasper snapped, and then remembered himself. He was being a churlish bastard. It was hardly the other man’s fault that…

“Her Grace and I thought to remove them earlier this morn.”

So it would appear it had been the old servant’s fault.

And what was more…

Katherine’s.

“Where is she?” Jasper snarled, feeling like some kind of untamed beast. He tossed his cloak over his shoulders.

“She is nearby, Your Grace.”

Jasper blinked. “Nearby.” Oh, how he wished he was a bigger bastard for he’d gladly sack Wrinkleton in that moment…if he didn’t feel this blasted sense of devotion to the old servant.

“Nearby,” Wrinkleton repeated with an annoying amount of humor in that word. He walked over to the door and pulled it open. A faint gust of wind caught the snow, and sent flakes blowing inside, where they landed in small piles upon the floor. “I venture you should find her somewhere near the end of the drive, atop the hilly knoll with the cluster of evergreens.”

What in hell was she doing out in this godforsaken day? A blast of cold air blew snow into his eyes. He brushed the bothersome flakes back, and set out in search of his wife.

His footsteps ground the untouched blanket of snow into large booted imprints. Here, he’d imagined Katherine with a quivering lip and hopelessly sad eyes as she cowered away in her chambers like a wounded doe.

Jasper snorted. He should have known better. Katherine might have been shocked, even hurt by the great misunderstanding of the terms of their marital arrangement, but not even those momentary injuries would blight her spirit.

His black cloak whipped about his legs.

And she’d taken down the blasted sheets he’d ordered up upon the death of his son. In the span of not even a day as lady of the keep, she’d toppled his carefully ordered world, and somehow managed to sway Wrinkleton's loyalty toward her plans for Castle Blackwood.

He’d expected the sight of Lydia’s work, boldly exposed in the foyer should have ravaged his heart, and yet, instead he’d eyed it with a fond remembrance. None of the gripping pain or bitter resentment for his loss had filled him.

In that moment, standing in the foyer, he’d not thought more beyond the tapestries than that. Instead, he’d thought of Katherine, defying his orders, wreaking havoc upon his household, and more, setting out in such foul weather.

Jasper froze and squinted off into the distance. He made out the ever so faint slightness of a figure; the splash of her green emerald cloak a beacon amidst the pure white snow.

His heart kicked up a funny beat within his chest, and he set out after her. As his legs ate up the distance to the rise, the quiet winter air caught the husky, purity of her tinkling laugh and carried it to his ears.

When last he’d left Katherine, she’d alternated between hurt indignation and wounded sadness, of the like that had robbed him of sleep. It had taken all of his self-control to keep from tearing down the door between their chambers, and taking her into his bloody arms, sending his plans of a marriage of convenience to the devil.