Page 135 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
‘You need not sit with her alone, John.’
‘I would prefer it. She probably cannot hear me but there are things I want to say.’
His mother nodded then, and leaned to press a kiss on his forehead, her fingers brushing his cheek. ‘She will get well.’ He was not convinced.
He looked at Katherine as the door clicked shut.
John gripped Katherine’s fingers which had been resting on the covers. His thumb stroking across her palm, he pictured the colour of her eyes, fiery with anger and then bright with need in the light of the tower room. ‘I am sorry. I will not hold you away again. I am going to change. Live and help me change…’
He closed his eyes and leaned on the bed, pressing her cold fingers against his brow as he prayed, making a deal with God. He would give up everything, anything, for her.
* * *
‘John, you have to eat. Katherine would tell you the same,’ his mother pressed.
‘I am not hungry.’ John’s eyes stayed on Katherine. He had spent hours during the night pleading and begging with God to let her wake, to let her live. Nothing had changed.
There was a knock.
‘Enter,’ his mother called.
‘I brought you some plum cake, and coffee, John.’ It was Mary. ‘I knew you would refuse to come down.’ She set the tray on a chest at the bedside. ‘Has she woken?’
He glanced up, but only for an instant. ‘No. But her colour is better.’
‘Phillip is downstairs, he only just received Papa’s note. He asked to see her.’
‘Send him up.’
As Mary left, John squeezed Katherine’s fingers gently, then let go and stood. He moved to pour some coffee.
Phillip looked shocked and ashen when he walked into the room. ‘How did it happen?’ He took the chair John had vacated, lifting Katherine’s fingers.’
‘I will leave you alone,’ John’s mother said.
John looked at Phillip. ‘Do you want anything…’ he said, nodding towards the tray.
Phillip shook his head. ‘Just tell me how this happened?’
John explained Wareham’s past and then told Phillip about the note, and where and how he had found Katherine.
‘Why was she there?’
‘My mother and aunt left her at an orphanage she had decided to sponsor. The groom accompanying her was tricked into leaving her alone. Wareham must have been following her. I should have realised he might go after Katherine. I cannot bear the thought of losing her.’
‘She is a fighter,’ Phillip responded. ‘She will survive, if only to make your life hell for putting her through this.’
A laugh cracked from John’s throat, a broken sound of pain. Instantly Katherine groaned and moved to sit up, her hand slipping from Phillip’s.
Within a moment John was beside the bed, leaning past Phillip and resting his fingers on her clavicle, gently pressing her back. ‘Katherine, stay still, you have been hurt.’
When she lay back on the pillow his hand dropped to take hers. Her fingers tightened about his grip and his heart beat harder with relief, and hope, and love, as his thumb brushed her hand.
Her eyelids flickered open.
‘Katherine.’ He smiled, but then it slipped as he remembered the last time they had spoken and all that had happened since.
‘My shoulder hurts.’
