Page 11 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
Katherine’s heartbeat thumped even harder as John and his uncles passed them.
The crowd surged forward then, as people moved in a crush to enter the Abbey and stand at the back.
Katherine waited outside with Phillip, acutely aware of the chasm between her life and John’s. Even so, she had jumped at the chance to see him when Phillip had said he was going to come to the funeral. Their father had read of the old Duke’s death and John’s return in the paper only days ago. She could hardly believe John had finally come back. She was still hopelessly in love with him, or rather with her dreams of him. She could hardly claim to know him now. She had not seen him in years.
When his family filed back out of the Abbey, she could see John at the front. He looked different. He had matured. He had travelled the world and seen things she would never see, experienced things she could never imagine, and now he was a duke. She was a provincial nobody compared to him.
She was here to mourn, not for the loss of the former Duke, but for the loss of any hope. Her feelings would never be reciprocated. She would never have John. It had been a childish dream she could not shake off. She had always known who he was – and what he was.
He walked past them. The crowd was three or four people deep in front of her, but she briefly had a clear view of his head and shoulders. He still looked breathtakingly handsome, with his pitch-black hair and pale crystalline gaze, and there was an eye-catching strength in his sculpted features. Behind her, a dozen female whispers concurred with her view.
Katherine dropped her head and hid beneath the brim of her bonnet when John’s gaze passed across the crowd. Not that he would remember her, or even care that she was here.
Phillip’s fingertips squeezed her arm, holding her steady as men came out from the abbey and the crowd shifted.
He thought she had come because John had been a close friend for a number of years and she wished to support him. It was why Phillip was here.
She had come only to see John.
It was ludicrous of Phillip to think John needed their support. John was surrounded by people of his own class.
We are fools, the pair of us, harping back to a relationship that no longer exists.This was not the boy, nor the young man, who had treated her as an equal. This man was an entirely different beast, influential, dominant and superior. Way beyond her.
She glanced at Phillip. He was watching John’s progress with a slight smile on his face as if he thought John might acknowledge them and smile too.
Katherine had no such expectations.
When her gaze returned to John, he was climbing up into his carriage, lithe and athletic.
Oh God, I love him. I cannot help it. I just do.
When she had planned this day with Phillip, she had wondered if, perhaps even hoped that, when she saw John she would feel nothing, and discover her feelings had been a girlish infatuation. That it would no longer hurt to think about how out of her reach he was. But she felt as she had seven years ago.
When he was seated, he looked through the carriage window, at the crowd, and she sensed a moment of vulnerability in him.
She could not justify the feeling, it was just a sixth sense she could not explain. She longed to hold him and tell him all would be well. How absurd. He would probably push her away if she attempted it. Why on earth would he choose plain Katherine Spencer to confide in?
Phillip’s lips brushed her ear, as he leaned down to speak over the noise of the crowd. ‘We will go to John’s house for a little while, before I run you home.’
She looked up. ‘We cannot. We will not be welcome.’
‘We can and we are. We may not be aristocracy but we are gentry. Come, we will be mingling with half of the House of Lords. I am not missing a chance like this. Just think about the tales you will be able to tell at your little Sunday school.’
‘Phillip, we will be turned away.’
‘We will not. John would never throw us out. He will welcome us, you will see.’ Phillip smiled.
‘We will look ridiculous if you are wrong,’ she said as she let him lead her away.
Half an hour later, Katherine rose onto her toes to whisper in her brother’s ear, ‘This is folly.’ A second later they crossed the threshold of John’s opulent town house, as the butler held the door wide.
Her gaze swept the massive hall with its black-and-white chequered floor, and gilded marble pilasters. The grandness of this house was intimidating and it belonged to John.
The butler bowed, slightly, plainly waiting on their names. He was the gatekeeper, and this was the moment of dignity or humiliation.
The hall was crowded. Katherine could barely breathe.
‘Master Phillip Spencer and Miss Katherine Spencer,’ Phillip stated.
