Page 18 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
‘He is as rich as Croesus,’ Phillip added. ‘I hardly think we need worry about John.’
Their father nodded, but his posture had stiffened. There was always tension between herself and their mother and likewise between Phillip and their father. They had never been a happy family.
‘Phillip!’ Jennifer erupted from the drawing room. ‘You must tell me all about it, you cannot leave yet…’
‘Kate will tell you,’ he answered. That was the ultimate insult to Jenny, to be reliant on Katherine for anything. She was spoilt and selfish. But Katherine did not blame her sister. Jenny had been brought up by their mother to exclude Katherine.
Jennifer’s nose tipped up. ‘I can live without knowing, if you are going to be so mean. Mama, may we go into Maidstone tomorrow?’
Katherine turned and would have climbed the stairs but Phillip caught her hand and held her back. ‘Say goodbye before you go up.’
He had always been protective. It was why she had the chance to grow so close to John, because Phillip had taken pity on her in the holidays when he was home, and given her the opportunity to escape from their mother and Jenny.
She turned back and hugged him, standing on the first step so she was almost as tall as him and her arms easily reached about his neck.
He hugged her back, as their mother and Jenny looked on with jealousy in their eyes.
She wondered sometimes if it was jealousy that caused her mother to hate her, because Katherine’s father was kinder to her than his wife. But Katherine had never really understood. Why had her mother adopted her if she didn’t want her?
‘If I hear that Eleanor or Margaret have written and you have refused an invitation, be prepared for a scold,’ Phillip whispered.
‘Scold all you like,’ Katherine whispered back. ‘I will still decline.’
He laughed as he let her go. ‘I will see you on Sunday.’
As she climbed the stairs, he said his other goodbyes, and when she reached the landing she heard the door close. He was gone.
‘Katherine!’ Her mother’s voice rose up the stairs. ‘Fetch my shawl would you, and my embroidery. They are on the chair in my chamber. Oh, and fetch Jennifer’s shawl too?’ It immediately began – the behaviour which set Katherine back in her place. She was treated much like a servant when Phillip was not at home and her father did nothing to prevent it. He hid away rather than face the arguments and bitterness.
‘Yes, Mother!’ Katherine called back downstairs.
‘And once you have done that, Katherine, you may help with the tea. You know I prefer it when you make it!’
‘Yes, Mother!’
‘And do not get any silly notions in your head about visiting the Pembrokes. You would only shame yourself in that company!’
‘Yes, Mother!’I know my place, even if Phillip does not know it.
5
KENT, ASHFORD
July
John leaned back in his seat and flicked the reins, stirring his matching pair of chestnut-coloured horses into a gallop and letting the animals run.
The warm air rushed past him. It was one of England’s rare truly summer days. The heat felt good and he liked the sound of the thundering hoof beats, the creaking tack and carriage springs, as the fashionable vehicle raced along the track, jolting over the dry ground.
Mary had told him in her letters that Robbie had spent the last two months bragging about the day they bought this matching pair and curricle. He had bought Robbie a new riding horse too and settled money on each of his brothers. He told Edward it was to ensure his brothers would live in a fashion which would not embarrass a Duke. The truth was it eased John’s conscience, because he had so little to do with any of them. He had not seen them since the day he took Robbie to Tattersall’s. He had enhanced his sisters’ dowries too. To give them greater choice in their partners.
He did not feel a part of his family now. There was too much of a gap in years, and status. So, he had traded genuine affection for his siblings with cold hard coin.
Mary had hugged him when he told her he was boosting her dowry, and John had warned her of fortune hunters.
The thought of marriage turned his mind to Eleanor and Nettleton. They had made an announcement before he left town. Their first child was due next year. A new generation. A generation John would play patriarch to.
It only added to his sense of isolation.
