Page 119 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
Her fingers laced at his nape as the torrent of emotions washed over her, and she bit her lip, holding back the cries of pleasure and sighs which ached to be free of her throat, while he drove her senses mad. Pleasure, joy, sang, humming, through every nerve.
There was an aggressiveness to his claiming, as there had been in the tower room the second time. His love was violent and desperate, but it was love. She really did not doubt it, not at all any more.
She broke again and he fell with her, his muscle locking as his seed spilled into her. He kissed her hair, her brow. She stroked his head and neck.
He did not move but she heard his breath suddenly crack. Her hand braced his cheek and she felt the damp line of a tear. ‘John…’
Instantly he withdrew and turned away, securing his flap, and then his shirt sleeve swiped across his face.
When he turned back there was no sign of emotion. He had shut her out again and set up his armour between his feelings and her.
She sensed he wished to let her in, but did not know how.
She felt as though they were drifting alone in a small boat, on a desolate sea.
‘Shall we go to bed?’
She nodded, then found herself caught up in his arms, her clothing left strewn about the sitting room for the servants to find and pick up.
Once he’d set her on the bed he undressed in silence, intermittently glancing at her as she moved beneath the covers.He loves me, she thought, watching him.He does love me.Alone in his rooms everything felt right.
He slid beneath the covers, then reached for something on his side of the bed. ‘I thought we could look at this.’ It was his sketchbook. ‘I will explain my drawings to you. Perhaps one day I will take you there. But not via Europe, that continent holds too many ghosts for me.’
Had it been such ghosts haunting him last night and this evening? His grandfather had been a hurricane force in Ashford. She supposed growing up as his heir must have been difficult.
She moved closer, not asking any questions, but letting him speak.
43
John jogged downstairs thinking of Katherine, whom he had left dressing in the care of a maid. She had seemed happy, she had been smiling.
They had been married almost a week now and he had not let her down in any way for three days. Things were settling into a normal way of life he had never thought himself capable of.
In the day he went about his business, be it personal, parliamentary or state, and in the evening when he returned home Katherine was here.
After their first ill-fated attempt at socialising, John had prescribed a thorough dose of their own company until Katherine had chance to settle into her new life.
He had told her the stories of his sketchbooks and one evening he had taken up pencil and paper and drawn her in several poses. But the honeymoon period had to end sometime. Tonight they were venturing out again.
He had an invitation to the influential Devonshire ball.
She had endured a week of acerbic observations, now, as the women of his society had called here to pry and prise information from her. They wanted to know her past. The question seemed to be on the lips of every man who sat in the House of Lords, as well as that of their wives and daughters, and beyond. He had been asked countless times for her family name and urged to say where he had found her. He had given no answers. He did not intend to. Let them salivate over the mystery and never know.
John strolled into the breakfast room, smiling, but as soon as he entered John’s smile fell. Edward stood. His father’s face was grim.What now?
Edward picked up the folded newspaper and held it out. ‘John. You may want to read this in the library. Come.’ Edward caught John’s arm and turned him about. As they walked from the room, he handed John the newspaper. ‘Page four.’
Frowning, John opened it as they walked across the hall.
‘This paragraph,’ Edward clarified, pointing to a published letter as they stepped into the library. Edward closed the door behind them.
The letter was from an anonymous writer, denouncing the new Duchess of P as a commoner, an illegitimate dairymaid’s daughter. The author claimed to know both parties intimately and could attest to the truth of this statement.
John knew the author. ‘Wareham. The bastard.’
The man had been as silent as the grave since his disappearance but now this. Why had he struck at Katherine?
John folded the newspaper and looked at his father. There was nothing John could do. It was the truth.
