Page 81 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke
By the time he reached his uncle’s he had realised the truth. It had hit him like a fist on the chin. He loved Katherine. He had loved her for months. This infatuation, which was far beyond lust or any physical need, it had to be love.
‘Hello, John!’ Mary called from across the hall as he stepped over the threshold. Their youngest sister was balanced on her hip. ‘You are early.’
He nodded without saying a word, feeling too much pain in his chest to speak.
He had pushed his family away too and yet they had hung on because they loved him. He should try and return that love.
‘Mama is upstairs in the nursery, playing spillikins with the little ones. Jemima kept destroying the game so I brought her down.’ Mary crossed the room, and when she reached him she held the little girl out towards him, smiling brightly.
‘Here, take her. I will fetch Mama.’
Unwilling to refuse and show his discomfort with the younger ones, John took his youngest half-sister, bracing her weight in his hands as he lifted the child to his chest.
‘I will not be long,’ Mary breathed. ‘Take her up to the drawing room. I will be there in a moment.’ Mary turned away, and lifting her skirt with one hand, ran upstairs.
John followed, cradling the little girl on one forearm, his hand bracing her leg, while his other palm splayed over her back.
He had held Mary just like this, when he had been eleven, or twelve. He climbed the stairs with care while Jemima played with the knot of his cravat.
More memories of Mary, and Robbie, stirred. Although by the time Robbie had come along John had tired of the novelty of having young siblings and had lost interest in them soon after. He had preferred Phillip’s company and so Phillip had been invited to stay for most of the holidays and in general they had ignored John’s siblings. Only Katherine had been allowed to intrude on their camaraderie, if they were at Pembroke Place.
The possibility of Phillip replacing Harvey occurred to John again. If Katherine would let him have nothing to do with her, he could at least favour her family. He would hire Phillip.
As John neared the drawing room Jemima stretched out her legs and her chubby little fingers gripped at the shoulders of his morning coat. It was a silent request to be put on her feet. He remembered Mary doing the same.
He leaned down, obeying, but she could not walk unaided yet and so she gripped his forefingers and stumbled along on unsteady legs.
What would it be like to sire a child with Katherine?
His little sister led him to the window seat, and there she let him go and grasped the cushion instead. He sat down, then lifted her up. She pressed her nose to the windowpane, looking down at his curricle in the street below.
He withdrew a shiny sixpence from his pocket and steadying her with one hand, began spinning the coin through his fingers. His Uncle Robert had taught him the trick when John was a child.
Jemima watched and then squealed and tried to catch it just at the moment his mother, Mary and his Aunt Jane arrived.
John caught hold of Jemima before she fell and slipped the coin into his pocket.
He noticed that his Aunt Jane’s figure was expanding again. No one could question his family’s ability to breed. It would have irritated him a couple of months ago, today, he felt jealous.
‘Are you well, John?’
His gaze lifted and met Mary’s questioning look.
‘I am well, Mary,’ he said, rising. ‘And you?’
She nodded, smiling broadly. ‘I am ridiculously excited, I cannot sleep.’ John kissed her cheek. ‘You are still coming tonight, to Aunt Jane’s supper party?’ she asked.
He nodded then smiled, deliberately letting his guard down. ‘Come, then, tell me all your plans and my role in them.’ It would distract him from his own troubles.
27
‘Are you ready, Katherine?’
Katherine turned as Richard entered the chapel. She nodded, doing her best to smile as she joined him.
When he handed her up to the seat of his trap a few moments later, she was unable to look him in the eye, and she knew she blushed. He smiled. ‘Here, put this blanket over your lap, it is cold today.’
She accepted the blanket and spread it over her legs.
