The Scandalous Love of a Duke

Jane Lark

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Contents

Jane Lark

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

About HarperImpulse

Copyright

About the Publisher

Jane Lark

I love writing authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

I began my first novel, a historical, when I was sixteen, but life derailed me a bit when I started suffering with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I didn’t complete a novel until after I was thirty when I put it on my to do before I’m forty list.

Now I love getting caught up in the lives and traumas of my characters, and I’m so thrilled to be giving my characters life in others’ imaginations, especially when readers tell me they’ve read the characters just as I’ve tried to portray them.

The Marlow Intrigues Series is gathering followers, and the story of Ellen’s son, John, is my first step into the next generation. There is still more to come, including the prequel to The Illicit Love of a Courtesan, but for now I hope you enjoy the tale of my moody, arrogant, fractured, golden-hearted, young Duke.

If you wonder who, or what inspired John’s story––it was written at the time that Prince William asked Catherine Middleton to marry him. His apparent reluctance to accept his royal status, his reliance on Catherine, and the way he is so much more relaxed with her, gave me the inspiration for John’s circumstances and his own Catherine, though John’s story does not follow theirs.

Prologue

Katherine’s fingers grasped the pale, uneven trunk of the beech tree. Laughing, she braced her body to stop her descent down the grassy slope, her grip slipping on the thin strips of peeling bark.

She turned back to catch her friend’s hand.

In fits of giggles, Margaret fell against the tree too.

“Shhh … ” Eleanor whispered, her fingers pressing to her lips as she struggled to tame her own intemperate humour. “They will hear us.” Eleanor was Margaret’s younger cousin.

More giggles erupted from the large group of younger girls behind them. Eleanor was the most boisterous of them, though.

Looking across her shoulder, Katherine smiled.

Katherine was the outsider here. The odd one out. A Spencer. All the other girls were the Duke of Pembroke’s grandchildren. Katherine was nothing compared to them. Her adopted father was a mere lowly squire. But Katherine had grown up amongst this family. These girls were more sisterly to her than her own sister. Her brother Phillip was John Harding’s friend and John was another of the Duke’s grandchildren, the eldest, and his heir.

One day John would own the land they stood on, and a dozen other estates. He’d be rich.

John. His name stilled Katherine’s heart and slowed her breathing as a secret longing welled inside her.

She no longer felt like laughing, she clung to the tree, her palms pressing against the trunk as her gaze reached through the veil of branches and leaves that stirred gently on a warm summer breeze.

“Can you see them?” Caroline, one of Margaret’s younger sisters, whispered.

“What are they doing?” Margaret leant forwards, looking over Katherine’s shoulder.

“Swimming,” Eleanor gasped with another giggle. “They’re naked.”

The girls about Katherine broke into fits of laughter again, their fingers pressing over their mouths.

“Hush,” Heather, Margaret’s older sister, who was the eldest of the girls, urged them to be silent. She was eight and ten. She had already curtsied to the Queen. Her father was an heir to a duke too. All the other girls were the daughters of dukes or earls. Katherine loved them all, but even so she wore the weight of her lower birth as prominently as her second-hand scarlet cloak. She stood out.

“We should not have followed,” Heather said

“Papa, will kill me,” Eleanor laughed, breathlessly pressing her fingers against her chest.

“And Grandfather will kill John,” Margaret whispered.

The girls looked at one another as Katherine looked about them all. John was their pattern card. All his younger cousins followed him like shadows, emulating everything he did. They were all mesmerised by him. But Katherine’s feelings were much more than just awe. She loved John, secretly, but without hope or expectation. When she was with him her heart ached and raced, and well… She did not know how to explain it.

The others whispered and giggled.

Katherine focused on the boys cavorting in the lake. They seemed oblivious to the girls obscured by the curtain of leaves.

They were splashing water at each other, shouting and baiting one another, laughing. John, pale-skinned, lean and athletic, lunged at Katherine’s brother, gripped his shoulders and pushed him under water. The game grew more aggressive. Phillip thrust up and retaliated, lunging back at John, and when John dodged him, Phillip dived beneath the water and pulled John under.

All the boys, a dozen or more of John’s friends from Oxford, broke into an uproar then, as the game became a mêlée.

They were not boys, though, not anymore, no more than she was a girl. They were young men, and she was on the brink of womanhood. She could be married now if she wished. The problem was the only person she wished to marry was unattainable. John.

“We should go,” Heather breathed beside her. “We shouldn’t be here.”

Katherine turned.

Eleanor made a mischievous face at her older cousin. “Killjoy.”

“Give them their privacy,” Heather pressed.

Eleanor pouted, she was only thirteen. “We didn’t know they were going to swim—”

“And that is precisely why we should go back before we are missed,” Heather caught hold of Eleanor’s arm. “Come on, they will start the celebrations soon.”

The other girls began peeling away.

Katherine would have to go back too, but she would rather be in the water. Her gaze returned to the lake. The day was hot, and the heat was heavy, clinging and oppressive. She understood why they’d shed their clothes and dived in.

“Kate!” Eleanor called, in an are-you-coming voice.

Katherine glanced back and nodded before taking an irresistible final look at the boys.

John was standing in the shallow water, near where the lake dropped over a weir into a cascade, taunting her brother.

The lake rose to the indent of muscle at his hip.

Katherine’s breath caught, trapped in her lungs.

He’d lost the coltish look he’d had a few years ago when she’d first met him, he was physically magnificent now. He was over six feet tall, sinuous and muscular. She longed to touch him and her heart raced as warmth flooded her veins.

“Kate!” Eleanor called again.

John’s head turned and his ice-blue eyes spun in the direction of the trees where she was hiding. His gaze reached between the leaves as they stirred into motion on the warm breeze sweeping up from the ornamental lake. Katherine felt the intensity in his eyes.

There was an aura about John, an attraction which drew everyone in.

His looks were striking and he had a presence which captured people’s attention when he was in a room.

He was born to lead people, or perhaps bred to do so.

His fingers lifted and swept his damp jet-black hair off his brow, but his gaze didn’t leave the trees.

He had an inherent grace too.

He was calm and silent in nature, though strong-willed. He won most arguments with her brother. But he had an instinctive awareness of others, and he’d been kind to her. John had acted like a brother to her. He was always considerate. He’d included her even when Phillip forgot to, and John had never grown tired of her dogged company as Phillip sometimes did.

At what point her feelings had changed from sisterly to something else, she couldn’t say. Perhaps she’d always felt differently about John. But now it was obsession.

His gaze seemed to strike hers, though surely he had not seen her. She smiled. All the girls in his family were stunningly beautiful, it carried from their mothers. In John that beauty was breathtakingly masculine. She could not take her eyes off him when she was near him.

“John!” her brother called.

John’s gaze ripped away, his awareness disengaging from the trees and returning to the lake.

“Kate!”

Katherine caught her breath, dragging air into her lungs, and turned back.

Eleanor and the others were already at the top of the slope looking down.

Katherine lifted her hand to say she was coming, and then began to climb.

~

Egypt, December, Seven years later

John let the handle of the spade rest against his midriff, set one hand on his lean waist and wiped his brow with his forearm. Then he lifted the wide-brimmed leather hat from his head and tipped his gaze to the endlessly clear, blue sky.

God, it was hot here, but it was the middle of a bloody desert.

“Water, please.” He looked at one of the native men in his train. Almost instantly the water skin was in John’s hand.

The warm fluid slid down his throat, relieving the dryness.

He handed the skin back.

They’d found a new tomb but it was buried beneath centuries of sand.

Dropping his hat back on his head, John then bent and began digging again. His blade slipped easily into the sand, but half of each shovel load slid back into the hole. He cursed and increased his pace.

“My Lord, I have it!” Yassah, the man who’d been John’s right hand for years, called. John let his spade fall and moved to where Yassah worked, dropping to his knees to scoop sand out with his bare hands.

“It is the entrance.” There was a flare of excitement in John’s chest. The hours of hunting and digging were worth it for this moment of success.

Before Egypt, John had drifted, despondent. This was why he had come and this was why he stayed.

“It is open, robbed,” Yassah stated. He was on his knees too.

Empty. Damn. But there would still be the paintings. John leant back, resting his buttocks on his heels. “Hand me the spade.”

Later, John sat beneath the canopy before his tent, in a canvas chair, his feet resting on the sand. The sky was red, and the sun glowed on the horizon, about to fall. Then suddenly it literally dropped over the edge of the world, leaving only the blue-black darkness and a million glinting stars, the stars he’d seen painted on the ceiling of every temple.

The sun had never set like this in England.

He drew on the tip of a thin cigar and then let his hand fall when he exhaled.

The tomb they’d discovered today had been an official’s. It was empty, but it wasn’t treasure which excited John anyway. What thrilled him was the emotion of the search and the find.

John took another draw on his cigar.

He was in a thoughtful mood, brooding.

His gaze reached up to the darkness and the stars. The black of night was like polished jet here, not the dull pitch it was at home.

When his grandfather had packed John off on the grand tour to sow his wild oats abroad, the intention had been that John would return with his youthful dissipated fire burnt out. The only problem was that nothing in England drew John back.

The images from the dream he’d had last night crowded into his head. It was a dream he’d had a thousand times. This was the root of his melancholy mood. He always felt like this when he’d dreamt it.

In the dream, he was a child, looking from the window of his grandfather’s grand black coach. He saw his mother, with her dress clutched in one hand as she ran behind them, reaching towards him. His stepfather was there too, behind her, his expression violent with anger. But it wasn’t only a dream, it was a memory. A memory John had never asked to be explained. A memory he’d never admitted he had.

His grandfather had taken him from them, he’d never understood why.

His childhood had been lonely before that.

Perhaps that was why he felt so comfortable in a desert.

He’d been given back to his mother a few weeks later. But the memory his head constantly echoed in a dream was the defining moment of his life. The point he had been torn in two, by his grandfather’s will and his mother’s love. One was hard, cold and aggressive, the other warm, welcoming and enchanting. But the second had been a childish need. What abided in him now was the barren land his grandfather had cultivated.

John’s earliest memory was of his grandfather saying he had no mother, when John knew he did. He’d not been allowed to speak of her. He’d never known why. She’d written to him for years, and then she’d come. She’d taught him kindness and consideration, empathy and understanding, while his grandfather had encouraged restraint and harsh judgement.

Now, John was just constantly angry at the world. This was the reason he’d stayed abroad. He was his grandfather’s monster. The years spent in Europe had taught John that.

He took another drag on his cigar, and then exhaled.

Good God he’d been his mother’s child, naïve and foolish, when he’d arrived in Paris. Obvious prey for the she-wolves hunting those grounds. He’d been seduced by their world and fleeced. It had taken months to learn the art of disengagement. It had left him bitter. His grandfather had achieved his wish: John did not trust a soul.

The choice he’d made after that was the only one open to him – not to go back. Not going back was his defiance. The only way he could win the battle against his grandfather.

Then he’d found Egypt and a purpose, something beyond himself. Something which made him feel again. The only problem was this loneliness at night.

When it was dark, the isolation became stark and these memories flooded in. In his youth he’d covered them with friendships. In his dissipated years he’d smothered them with sex. He’d had nothing to do with women since he’d come to Egypt. There was no hiding from recollections here.

He tilted his lips in a mock smile. He thought of his stepfather, and his brothers and sisters, who kept increasing in number. It was Christmas in four days. He imagined all his family together. Occasionally he wrote home to tell them he was still alive.

He took another drag on his cigar, clearing his thoughts.

He didn’t wish to think of them, nor England. He thought of the tomb he’d found.

~

A brush in his hand, John lay on his stomach, cautiously sweeping sand away from the painted wall-plaster of the tomb they’d discovered four days before. The colours were so bright they could have been painted days ago not hundreds of years before.

“My Lord!” John looked back. Mustafa, his manservant, who usually stayed in camp, was at the entrance, looking in past the couple of feet of sand still filling the opening

“My Lord! This letter came from England.”

Mustafa waved the thin paper as though it were something wonderful.

John glanced at Yassah. “Carry on without me.” Then crawled backwards out of the tomb.

The midday sun blazed down.

John stood.

He took the letter and saw it had passed through Alexandria a month ago. He recognised the writing as his stepfather’s. In England it was winter. Today was Christmas Day. His family would be on his stepfather’s small estate. Sometimes he had spent it with them there. Sometimes he had been forced to spend it at his grandfather’s. Either way, Christmas did not bring forward many fond memories. Perhaps a couple before his brothers and sisters had become so numerous, but after…

John wiped a hand on his trousers then broke the seal.

His grandfather would be horrified if he saw the calluses on John’s hands.

Glancing up, John thanked Mustafa and then began walking towards the canopy his men used at prayer times.

He stopped in its shade and opened the letter. A second, separate folded sheet fell out. He held that aside and read.

The letter was dated months ago, in August.

His father’s words were carefully couched, but the meaning was clear, the Duke of Pembroke, John’s grandfather, was dying.

He could be dead.

Lord!

John’s fingers covered his mouth. His lips were dry, but inside he felt like ice, even in the heat. His hand swept back his hair.

He had to go back. He’d been bred to take over his grandfather’s estates. The choice was no longer his.

Then it struck him, he should feel grief. He did not. He cared nothing for the old tyrant. But he did feel strangely suspended, as though time had stopped. As though it would never start again.

John looked at the other letter and saw Mary’s effervescent writing. She was his eldest sister, the first child of his mother’s second marriage. She was just sixteen, approaching her first season.

She’d clearly rushed to write, scribbling a note to include in her father’s letter. She told John she needed her big brother home to lead her in her first waltz. She vowed she wouldn’t dance a single one unless he came.

Their grandfather’s death would postpone her debut, she obviously did not know he was ill, and so perhaps the Duke had not been at death’s door.

Whatever, John had to go back.

“Mustafa!” John turned.

Chapter One

London, April, four months later

John’s ship docked in London just as twilight darkened into night. A light drizzle was falling as he descended from the gangplank.

England.

It was over seven years since he’d stood on English soil. It felt odd stepping onto the dock; like travelling back in time.

He remembered the callow youth who’d left here. He wasn’t that child anymore.

One of the crew had called a hackney carriage. It waited before him, its oil lamp glowing into the now full darkness. He gave the address to the driver then climbed in. A few moments after he’d clicked the door shut, the carriage jarred into movement, rocking over the cobbles.

He’d not sent word ahead. There’d seemed little point when he’d arrive just as fast.

He lifted the curtain and looked at the passing streets.

They’d left the narrow backstreets of the slums near the docks and now they were progressing into the more affluent areas of London.

He’d had months to get used to the idea of coming home. He had accepted it. But it did not mean he was looking forward to it. He would be weighed down by duty here.

John’s heart drummed steadily in his chest. Was his grandfather alive or dead?

The carriage turned a sharp corner and John caught hold of the leather strap.

The streets were quiet, virtually dead. Early evening in Mayfair was not a social hour. People would be dining now, before they went out. All John could hear was the sound of the carriage horses and iron-rimmed wheels on cobble.

He didn’t even know if his family were here, but he was heading for his grandfather’s townhouse. It seemed the best place to start.

A few minutes later, the hired carriage drew to a halt and John looked from the window at his grandfather’s palatial town residence. It was set back from the road and guarded by iron railings, taking up one entire side of the square.

John had found it oppressive as a child. As a youth he’d been more impressed. As a man it simply seemed ostentatious.

John climbed out onto the pavement.

He’d left his luggage at the docks to be sent on.

The light drizzle had not eased.

He paid the driver.

The man tipped his hat.

John looked up at the house as the hackney pulled away. The knocker was in place, someone was home.

He took a deep breath and then jogged up the pale stone steps. When he reached the top he lifted the lion-head brass knocker and struck it down thrice, then stepped back a little and waited.

It was several moments before it opened.

Finch, the man who’d been his grandfather’s butler for as long as John could remember, stood in the hall. John watched recognition, and then shock, dawn on the butler’s face. He’d never seen Finch’s upper lip show any expression before.

“Good Lord – I mean come in, my Lord. You were not expected?”

“No, I travelled at the same speed as any message; I saw no point in sending word. My luggage will follow. Tell me, who is currently at home?” He already knew his grandfather yet survived, otherwise Finch would have said Your Grace.

“Their Graces, the Duke and Duchess, my Lord, and the Duke and Duchess of Arundel.” His grandparents then, and his uncle and aunt. John’s heart pounded. Finch then nodded to a footman, obviously sending him somewhere to announce John’s arrival. But even as he did so there was a shout from above.

“John.”

He looked up as his name echoed off the black and white marble beneath his feet and the decorative plaster all about him, and saw his Uncle Richard, the Duke of Arundel, descending the wide curving stone steps briskly. This man had been like a father to John before John’s mother had come back. But he had aged. His hair was peppered with grey and his face more lined.

“Thank God. We had no idea if you had even received Edward’s letter.” John saw relief in his uncle’s eyes as he neared and then he smiled. “It is good to have you home, John.”

John met Richard at the bottom of the stairs, and took his hand to shake it, but Richard also gripped John’s shoulder. An uncomfortable feeling tingled through John’s nerves. He was unused to being touched. No one had touched him in four years.

“You have changed, John. Grown up, I suppose.”

“Uncle—” John began, only to have his speech halted by a wave of his uncle’s hand.

“No uncle, just Richard now we are both men.”

John smiled, “Richard, it is good to see a familiar face. The journey was long and I’ve no idea of how things stand.” How is the Duke? He didn’t say the last, he didn’t know how to.

“Things stand not well, John.” Richard slung an arm about John’s shoulders and drew him to the stairs. “I’ll take you up. The family will be pleased to see you, your mother particularly.”

“And my grandfather?” John had to ask.

“He is near the end,” Richard answered, his arm falling as they began climbing the stairs. “He has been holding on for your return, I think. He will want to speak to you at once. I’ll tell him you are here. He is much changed, John. He’s been ill for many months.”

John nodded sharply, angry at the emptiness in his chest and the anxiety stirring in his stomach. For God’s sake, I am a man full-grown now. I need not fear him.

“Why not wait with your grandmother and Penny. They will be overjoyed you’re home. I’ll come and fetch you.” His uncle must have seen something of John’s feelings.

John felt like the child he’d been when he’d left. The child his uncle had always seemed to pity. He nodded, though, and walked on along the familiar hall as Richard turned the other way.

John’s head was suddenly full of pictures from the past. The most acute being the day his mother and his stepfather had come here to fetch him during that troubled tenth year of his life. The day he’d been returned to her after the scene which haunted him.

She’d taken John from school previously, in the middle of the night. John’s stepfather had been with her then, but he’d been a stranger to John at the time. They’d travelled north for miles and then she’d married that stranger.

It was only a couple of weeks after that John’s grandfather had come to take him back.

The day his mother had collected John here, his grandfather had acknowledged her for the first time.

The drawing room door was ajar. John could hear the women talking.

“I have no idea what else to do. He will see no other physician but he is so obviously in considerable pain and yet he will not take laudanum,” John’s grandmother was saying. Her voice sounded weak and worried.

Both she and his aunt Penny had been mothers to him until he’d been ten. His grandfather’s monster wanted to roar even now, and yell at them when he entered; why had they needed to be? Why had his mother not been here? He’d never understood who to blame for his loss.

He thrust his maudlin childish thoughts aside and pushed the door wider to enter. “Grandmamma. Aunt Penny.”

Both women stood, exclaiming at the sight of him then crossing the room, their eyes wide. He had shocked them.

“Grandmother,” he kissed the back of her fingers, bowing, but when he rose he saw tears in her eyes, and then he hugged her gently and pressed a kiss on her temple before letting her go.

“Oh John, your grandfather will be glad. I am glad. It is good to have you home. You look well. Your journey was not too difficult?”

“My journey was long, and difficult, but that is travelling, and particularly in winter. It is good to see you too, Grandmother. You have not aged a day.”

She smiled. “Flatterer.”

“You have an air of mystery about you now, John, and I think it suits you,” his aunt said.

John turned to her, smiled and opened his arms.

She hugged him. “Ellen must be overjoyed.” She was crying too when she pulled away and she reached for a handkerchief.

“I have not seen Mama yet. I thought it best to come here first. Is she in town?”

“Oh John, yes, she is in town, and she will never forgive me for seeing you first.”

“I shall have Finch send word,” his grandmother said. “The whole family are in London…” Because of my grandfather’s illness? “I shall have him contact them all.”

“John.”

John turned to face Richard, who stood at the open door.

“His Grace wishes to see you.”

A moment later, John was walking back along the statue-lined hall beside his uncle.

“How long is he likely to live?”

His uncle glanced sideways. “It could be hours or days or weeks, John. There is no certainty. He has defied a hundred predictions already.”

John nodded, feeling his anxiety rise again.

“You have nothing to fear,” his uncle stated more quietly.

John was thrown back into the position of a ten-year-old child.

Richard rested a palm on his shoulder.

John shrugged it off. He was not that child anymore, and if his grandfather was so close to death, he needed to earn respect not pity. “I am half his age and in my prime. He is on his deathbed. He can hardly dominate me now.”

“I was not challenging you, John,” his uncle answered with a smile. “I know you are capable, but I also know how cutting his words can be, pay no mind to them. I have never done so.”

John tried to recognise Richard’s good intent but only felt discomfort. He felt emotionally naked here. He was not used to the feeling. He was no longer used to people who knew him so well. He did not like it.

Richard knocked on the door of the state bedchamber and waited to be called in.

John’s heart raced when Richard turned the handle.

The red and gold decoration in the room was subdued by the low light. Just two candles were burning: one on either side of the bed, casting shadows. The canopy towered above them, and long curtains fell to the floor at either side, screening his grandfather from view. But John could hear his laboured breathing, and the chamber had the putrid smell of sickness.

His grandfather’s valet stood across the room and another man was beside the bed. The physician?

“Your Grace, I have brought John.” Richard moved forwards.

John followed.

The Duke of Pembroke was propped up on pillows and his head lay back, as though he could not lift it. He was extremely thin, a ghost compared to the statuesque giant who’d intimidated John as a child. He was unrecognisable. His skin was grey and his cheeks sunken. His hands, which rested on the red cover, were skeletal.

The old man took a breath, which looked painful, and lifted his hand an inch from the bed. He breathed John’s name and then it fell.

John passed his uncle, moving to take his grandfather’s hand. He pressed a kiss upon the bony knuckles. “Your Grace.”

“My… boy.” The words were barely audible as he fought for breath.

“John.”

John turned to see Richard had brought a chair for him. He sat, still holding his grandfather’s hand, and rested an elbow on the bed, leaning forwards.

“Grandfather, I was sorry to hear your situation.”

A condemnatory sound escaped the old man’s lips “Because… it… meant… you… must… come… home… Sayle.” The Duke was the only one who called him by his token title, the Marquess of Sayle.

“Because it meant you were dying,” John corrected. “I do not relish that, Your Grace. True, I do not hunger for the reins of the dukedom, but nor do I wish to see you gone; you are my grandfather.” It was probably the most honest statement he’d ever made to the old man. It was about bloody time he spoke truthfully.

“Unlikely… But… now… you… are… back… I… may… go… in… peace.”

“And that is equally unlikely.” John smiled as he met his grandfather’s gaze. The old man’s body may have been weakened, but his direct gaze and the mind behind it had not.

“Enough… of… your… cheek.”

John smiled more broadly. “So do you wish to know what I have been up to in my absence?”

“I-know… your… mother… has… read… your… letters… to… me—” the Duke’s words were cut off by a painful-sounding cough.

John rose and pressed a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. “Perhaps I ought not disturb you.”

The Duke’s fingers lifted from the bed. “Stay,” he breathed.

John sat again.

“I… have… waited… for-you. You-must… speak-to… Harvey… about… business—”

“I am sure I shall manage, Grandfather.”

“I… know… you… shall.”

John smiled again. That was possibly the only compliment he’d ever heard from this man.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Richard said. The Duke’s gaze reached across John’s shoulder, then John heard the door open and shut.

As soon as it did, the Duke’s hand moved and touched John’s forearm, which rested on the bed. “But… you… must… promise-me… one… thing. You… will… not… wed… beneath… you. You… must… choose… a… wife… to… preserve… the… bloodline.”

John felt his face twist in disgust. Even now, even on his deathbed, the old man sought to cast orders and manipulate John’s life. Still, when the time came to set up a nursery, John would have plenty of choice from those in his own class. With a self-deprecating smile, he nodded. What did he care, it would not matter who he picked.

“You swear,” his grandfather pressed on a single breath.

“I swear,” John answered, his smile falling. He knew the old man’s game but chose to play.

“Now… talk … to… me… of… what… you… have… done. I… will… listen.”

John smiled again and leant back in the chair, folding his arms over his chest and stretching out his legs.

He spoke of Europe, of what he’d made of it, the things he’d seen and done, and he made his stories humorous and even caused the old man to express a muted laugh. It ended in another visibly painful coughing fit, at which point the old man’s valet stepped forward to plump the pillows and make the Duke more comfortable. John would have left, but his grandfather once more bid him stay.

John changed his subject to his true passion, to Egypt, and began talking about the place and people, about the amazing artefacts and architecture of that ancient world. He talked of the finds he was shipping home.

While John spoke, the old man smiled and shut his eyes, his chest rising and falling with each rasping breath.

It was strange watching him thus – this ogre who’d dominated John’s life – as a man and not a child. His grandfather was just a man too, with human frailty.

John felt a heavy sense of regret as he continued recounting a pointless search he’d set out upon once.

A sound of humour escaped the Duke’s lips.

If John had returned in better circumstances, he wondered if they’d had more time, man to man, whether the past could be put straight between them.

His grandsire’s physician stepped forward a while later, advising His Grace to rest.

John rose and laid a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. The old man opened his eyes.

“I… do-not… want… your… pity… Sayle.”

John laughed. “You’ll not have it, Grandfather. But you will have my admiration.” He bowed, slightly. “Your Grace, I’ll leave you to recoup.” He had never spoken so openly to the old man in his younger days.

John’s hands slid into his pockets as he walked back along the hall, his head was full of drifting thoughts. He wondered now if the perceptions he’d held as a child would have changed with an adult’s view. Possibly? Probably. But it was too late to know now.

“John!”

Looking forward, he saw a slender, strikingly beautiful young woman. She had ebony hair and pale-blue eyes, like his own. A beam of joy lit her face, and then she caught up her skirt and ran at him.

Good God, was this Mary-Rose, his sister, all grown up?

She hugged him fiercely, her arms about his neck, and he held her loosely. “John! Oh John! I am so glad you’re back.” His baby sister was not even a child anymore. She’d been about ten years old and not much taller than his midriff when he’d left. Now she was as tall as his shoulder.

He lifted her off her feet and twirled her once, smiling, before pressing a kiss against her temple. “Mary-Rose, my not-so-little-anymore sister.”

Her fingers gripped his coat sleeves and she leant back, grinning as she looked him over. “You are no different, other than a little older, and no one calls me Mary-Rose anymore, it is just Mary now. That is a childish name.”

“And more worldly,” another female voice reached along the hall.

John looked beyond Mary and saw his mother had stepped out from the drawing room. She was also still strikingly beautiful, their colouring was hers. But there were now two wings of grey in her hair at her temples. His smile softened. “Mama.”

“John.” She swept towards him as Mary moved aside, and she was in his arms in a moment and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “You have been away too long. I’ve missed you.” There were tears in her eyes.

“And I have missed you too, Mama.”

“Liar,” she whispered before she drew away, low enough so Mary could not hear. It was not a malicious word, just the truth, and they both knew she was right.

Tapping her beneath the chin, he made a face. “I am home now, anyway.”

“And I am glad. Come and meet everyone else.” She slipped her arm through his as she turned back towards the drawing room. Mary occupied his other arm, and both women questioned him eagerly as they walked.

He felt very strange and disorientated to be so besieged.

When they reached the drawing room, though, all hell broke loose. He was mobbed by his various aunts and elder female cousins.

Once they finally pulled away, hankies in their hands, John was then greeted by the men, his uncle’s by marriage first, and then his male cousins. His stepfather, Edward, held back.

When the pandemonium ceased, John looked at his stepfather. He stood across the room with a youth beside him. Robbie, John’s eldest brother, he looked so like his father it was unmistakable. Robbie was fifteen; the age when awkwardness set in. He seemed to deliberately not look at John. That must be why Edward stayed back, torn between welcoming his stepson and supporting his own son.

John smiled and approached them. He greeted his brother first. Robbie was already over shoulder height when compared with his father. “Robbie.”

The boy coloured up with palpable self-consciousness. John’s smile broadened. Robbie had idolised John as a child, but he’d only been eight when John had left. The gap between them was too wide for any real relationship.

“John.” Robbie took the hand John had offered and shook it limply. But John used the grip to draw his brother into a brief embrace and patted his shoulder.

“You’ve grown,” John stated the obvious as he let Robbie go. “Would you like me to take you to Tats with me when I look for a carriage and horses?”

“Yes.” The enthusiasm thrust into that one word was completely at odds to the demeanour of his welcome and the boy’s face lit up as Mary’s had done earlier. “God, John. Will you really take me?”

“If you’re good.” He lifted a closed fist to press to his brother’s jaw, in a masculine gesture of affection, but the lad ducked away laughing.

“I’m always good. You’ve just not been here to know it,” the cocky brat responded, and John laughed. Then his stepfather interrupted.

“Perhaps you ought to ask me if he’s been good. I think his masters at Eton may have some tales to tell if they were asked.”

John turned.

“John.” His name was spoken with warmth and layered with hidden emotion.

John smiled again. Edward’s hair was still a dark brown, untainted by age. He was younger than John’s mother and yet there were definitely more lines about his eyes, marking John’s absent years. “Father.”

A twinkle in his eye, Edward said, “Son,” and gripped John’s shoulders firmly. The man had always treated John as a real son, no different to Mary or Robbie or the rest. “I’m glad you are back.” Edward’s grip fell away.

Robbie then began urging his father for agreement on their outing to Tats.

~

John was woken by a sharp rap on his bedchamber door. He sat up and threw the sheet aside from where it had lain across his hips.

“My Lord,” a low voice called.

“Yes, what is it?” John was already swinging his legs from the bed and rising.

“His Grace, my Lord. The physician believes there is not much time. He sent me to fetch you.”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” John called back, instantly shifting to search for his clothes in the dark room.

It felt bizarre to be here. It had felt odd to see his grandfather ill, and now… It was like a dream, not a nightmare though. He only felt emptiness inside, not fear.

Finding his trousers, he slid them on now his eyes had adjusted to the dark.

The family had taken supper together before they’d left, sitting at the long dining table en masse in an impromptu, informal meal. It had felt like a celebration. The only quiet person was his grandmother, who’d sat at the far end of the table as John was encouraged to take his grandfather’s place.

Perhaps it was wrong to have held such a gathering while his grandfather lay on his deathbed, but John had appreciated the gesture and the jovial conversation, even though at times he kept feeling the axis within him shift as though he was poorly balanced.

He pulled his shirt over his head.

He’d said goodnight to his grandfather, as had the others before they’d left, one by one, and he’d wondered then, how long.

Hours.

He sat and pulled on his stockings.

God, this world felt strange to him – strange and a little surreal.

When John left his room, the hall was morbidly silent and the statues seemed like sombre mourners.

John gently knocked on the door of his grandfather’s chambers. “It is the Marquess of Sayle.”

The door opened and a footman bowed. “My Lord.”

His grandmother sat in the chair John had occupied earlier, her hand resting over his grandfather’s. She looked across her shoulder at John. “John.” Her voice was heavy with emotion, though he knew their marriage had never been a love match. For her it had been more like endurance.

John stood behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders.

There were three footmen in the room, his grandfather’s valet and the physician.

“His Grace’s heartbeat is very weak,” the physician said quietly. “He is unconscious.”

John nodded acceptance and then his eyes fell to the bed – to the man who’d always been a significant figure in John’s life. Even during the years he’d hidden from that influence abroad, he’d still been the Duke’s heir. He’d never been able to escape that.

The old man was barely breathing, weak and wraith-like.

John took a deep breath, stepped about his grandmother, leant forwards and rested a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder, then pressed a kiss on his cold brow.

“Goodbye. I never thought I would miss you, but I shall,” John whispered, before rising.

The Duke had probably not been able to hear it, there was no sign that he did, yet John felt better for saying those words. They were true.

The old man passed away in moments, as John stood with his grandmother, watching.

The room fell completely silent when the Duke of Pembroke took his last breath.

John’s grandmother rose and leant to kiss the Duke’s cheek, tears slipping from her eyes.

John felt only emptiness, oddness, a lacking…

When she drew back, the physician walked past them both and lifted John’s grandfather’s wrist, checking for a pulse. Then he bent and listened for breath, before finally rising and drawing the sheet up and over the old man’s face.

John’s grandmother turned sharply and John opened his arms to her.

While he held her, the men about the room bowed and his grandfather’s valet said, “Your Grace.”

John felt the ground shift sideways beneath his feet. He’d known this day would come. But God, it was strange now it was here. I am the Duke of Pembroke. This house, everything in it, and several more like it, acres and acres of land and the tenants living and working upon that land were all his to manage and care for.

Chapter Two

Standing on the lea beside Westminster Abbey, Katherine watched as the procession neared.

The coffin was displayed in a black hearse pulled by six jet horses, with black dyed ostrich feathers bobbing on their heads as they trotted with high, precise, perfect steps. Their manes and tails were plaited and tied with black ribbon.

Gripping her reticule with both hands and holding it more tightly, Katherine took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding.

As the hearse drew to a halt, she lifted to her toes to see over the gathered crowd. She would swear half of London was in attendance to view the pomp and ceremony of the old Duke of Pembroke’s funeral. All she could see of John, as he climbed from his open carriage behind the hearse, was his head and shoulders.

Her heart ached.

She watched him move alongside his uncles to release and lift the coffin.

A rush of pain and longing spilled from her heart into her limbs. It was so long since she’d seen him but her reaction was the same as it had been more than half a dozen years before. The rhythm of her heart rang like a hammer against her ribs.

Her brother, Phillip, gripped her elbow, to stop her being knocked off balance by the crowd. He could have gone into the Abbey, but women were not to attend funerals and he’d promised to stay with her.

Katherine’s heart continued to thump hard as John and his uncle’s passed them.

The crowd swelled then as people moved in a crush to enter the Abbey and stand at the back.

Katherine waited outside with Phillip, her heart racing, so very aware of the chasm which stood between her and John. Yet she’d snatched at the chance to see him when Phillip had said he was going to come to the funeral. She’d read of the old Duke’s death and John’s return in the paper only days ago and 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 hadn’t seen him in years.

When his family filed back out of the Abbey, John was at the front and she could see his face as many of the crowd were still inside. He looked different. He’d matured. He’d travelled the world and seen things she would never see, experienced things she could never imagine. She was an inane, provincial nobody compared to him.

She felt as though she stood in a tragedy, and she mourned. But it was not for the loss of the former Duke, it was for the loss of any hope. Her feelings would never be reciprocated. She would never have John. It had just been a childish dream she couldn’t shake off. She had always known who he was – and what he was.

He walked past them. Though there were three or four people standing in front of her, she still had a clear view.

He looked unbearably, breathtakingly handsome, with his pitch-black hair and pale crystalline gaze, and there was strength in his sculpted features which drew the eye. 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 gripped her arm.

He thought she’d 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’d come only to put flesh back on the bones of her foolish dreams.

It had been 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’d 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 expectation.

She looked at John again. He was climbing back up into his carriage, lithe and athletic.

Oh God, I love him, I cannot help it. I just do.

She’d hoped to end her silly infatuation by coming here. She’d hoped she would feel nothing when she saw him. But she did, she still did.

When he was seated, he glanced out at the crowd once more, 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 would he choose plain Katherine Spencer to confide in?

Phillip’s fingers squeezed her arm.

“We will go to John’s for a little while, before I run you home.”

She looked up. “Phillip? We cannot. We will not be welcome.”

“We can and we are. We may not be aristocracy but we are gentry. Come, we’ll be mingling with half of the House of Lords. I’m not missing a chance like this. Just think about the tales you’ll 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’ll remember us and we’ll be welcome, you’ll see.” Phillip smiled.

“We’ll look ridiculous if you are wrong,” she said as she let him lead her on.

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 townhouse.

Her gaze swept the massive hall with its black and white chequered floor and gilded marble pilasters. It was intimidating, and it all belonged to John. It only underscored how many miles he was beyond her reach.

The butler bowed slightly, plainly waiting on their names. He was the gatekeeper and this was the moment of success or failure.

The hall was crowded. Katherine could barely breathe.

“Master Phillip Spencer and Miss Katherine Spencer,” Phillip stated.

The butler’s eyes widened. “Master Spencer?” The stately butler looked hard at Phillip.

Katherine let her breath out. She’d forgotten Phillip had stayed in town at John’s grandfather’s house. This man remembered Phillip.

Oh, she wished she’d paid more attention to John’s life when she was young. She would not have fallen in love if she’d truly realised how different they were. She’d been deceived. She had played with him in the grounds of his grandfather’s estate, as though it was nothing, forgetting all the areas she was excluded from, she had never even been in the house there, only Phillip had been welcome.

“Refreshment is being served in the library, sir.”

“Where is the Duke, Finch?”

“I cannot say for sure, sir. I believe His Grace is in the state drawing room, yet I may be wrong.”

Phillip nodded his thanks, and then his grip on Katherine’s arm steered her on again.

They were absorbed in the crowd of elite society.

“I told you so,” he bent sideways to whisper.

As Phillip looked for John, Katherine felt her hands trembling and her throat dry.

The drawing room was as ostentatious as the hall. The high ceiling had plaques of painted images, scenes of the Greek gods sprawled on clouds and semi-clad. She had never seen anything so beautiful and so opulent.

John should have been easy to spot, he was so tall, but she could not see him. “Where is he?” she asked Phillip, her heart racing at the prospect of actually speaking to John.

“He’s not in here, but the girls are. We’ll wait. He’ll come back this way. You can catch up with Margaret and Eleanor.”

Her heart was pounding a deafening rhythm as Phillip led her across the room towards John’s family.

John’s eldest sister, Mary-Rose, spotted them first. She was dressed in black, as they all were, but with her colouring the black only made her look more beautiful. All John’s family were beautiful. Katherine had never compared.

She pinned a smile on her face. She felt more certain of a welcome from the girls, but she did not wish to appear gauche.

“I cannot believe it!” Mary exclaimed as they neared. “Phillip! Katherine!” Her exclamation drew the attention of the others.

Mary had been a young girl when Katherine had seen her last; she was grown up now.

“I have not seen you for an age,” Mary hugged Katherine.

They had never been friends, Mary had been too young, and yet the younger girl had admired her brother’s playmate and had a desire to join in. Katherine knew Mary had challenged John as a child over why Kate was allowed to play the boys’ games, when Mary was not. But the young woman’s exuberance was open and honest as Mary gripped Phillip’s offered hand.

Of course, again, Katherine had forgotten how much better Phillip had known John. She had been welcomed into their circle for an hour here or there in the grounds of Pembroke Place. Phillip had lived with John in the way of a brother, both at school and during the holidays.

Phillip gallantly kissed the back of Mary’s fingers.

“John will be beside himself to know you have come. I’m sure he never expected to see you. I shall find him.” Lifting to her toes, she looked across the room. “Oh I cannot see him, I’ll go and look.”

“No,” Katherine stated firmly, as she felt a sudden panic. “Please, do not disturb him. I’m sure he has more important people to speak with than us.”

Mary’s pale-blue eyes, the image of John’s, met Katherine’s. “Well, if he has time later I’m sure he will come over and speak.”

Katherine gave Mary a grateful smile and then looked at Eleanor and Margaret, who stepped forward. “You are both married. I saw the announcements. Are you happy?” It was probably an impertinent question but she could think of nothing else to say.

They looked at one another and then their eyes looked beyond Katherine.

“They are together, across the room, there,” Eleanor said, pointing, suddenly a smile in her eyes.

Katherine turned.

“Harry is the blonde-haired gentleman, my dashing heir to an Earl,” Eleanor stated. “Is he not handsome? And Margaret’s husband, George, is the brown-haired man. He is a little older than Harry—”

“But distinguished, don’t you think?” Margaret interjected. “It is lovely to see you.”

When Katherine turned to face Margaret, she was hugged again, but this time with restraint.

Then Eleanor hugged Katherine too, but that was not superficial. “It is wonderful to see you. What do you think of them?” Her fingers gripped Katherine’s arm as Katherine looked back at their husbands.

“They are both exceedingly handsome.”

“We know.” Eleanor laughed. “We’ll introduce you later. Oh I cannot believe you are here. Now tell us what you have been up to?”

“Nothing exciting.”

“She is being modest,” Phillip cut in. “She will not sing her own praises. Kate has set up a Sunday School at home, for the local children who can neither read nor write.”

It was hardly comparable. They would not be interested. These were glamorous women who fitted in here. Katherine did not.

“I always said she was too virtuous. You are a saint, Kate,” Eleanor stated.

Katherine felt her colour rise. “Hardly.” She felt both false and fragile, and tried to hide it.

“Phillip is right,” Margaret smiled. “You should not feel embarrassed to admit good deeds.”

Katherine felt ashamed. She was not what they were portraying her as. “Well, I have good reason to give something back, do I not?” They all, possibly bar Mary, knew of her birth, but perhaps she had raised it a little too bluntly. The conversation dried.

Phillip’s hand rested on Katherine’s waist and the grip gently pulled her closer for a moment, then he let go. Even he did not usually broach the subject.

“I do it because I enjoy it,” she said to clear the air.

“That is true,” Phillip stated. “They adore her, every last one of them.”

The conversation then slipped into questions and answers as they all explored the years of each other’s lives that had been missed.

~

When John entered the state drawing room he felt exhausted. The days since his grandfather’s death had slipped past in a whirl of activity. First there had been the wider family to inform and the state acknowledgements to manage, then the funeral to prepare, and, on top of it, getting to grips with all his grandfather’s business affairs. The mantle of a duke was lying heavy on his shoulders.

He sighed.

Richard had said several times that it would feel normal after a while. John could not imagine it. Even though the house was straining at the seams with people today, he felt as isolated as he had been in Egypt, and incapable of relaxing. That was not due to the responsibility, though. It was just who he was – a buzzard among peacocks.

John doubted any of them had really cared for the old man. He had returned to a world of farce.

A glass of red wine balanced in one hand, the stem dangling between his fingers, he joined another group of guests, fulfilling his duty. He trusted no one here.

God, this was his life now: duty and falsehood. He missed Egypt, he missed adventure and peace and simplicity. He was already bored by people’s endless supplication. Everyone seemed to want something from him. They sought to attach themselves to either his wealth or his power.

His grandfather had warned of this.

John had had enough. He was seeking his family to escape it for a little while, and he was looking for Mary particularly. He knew his vibrant sister would bring him back from the cold darkness crowding in on him.

He’d passed his mother and Edward in the hall, they’d been speaking with Richard and Penny and they’d directed him in here.

His gaze swept about the room then stopped.

There was a young woman standing amidst his family, like a blonde beacon of light amongst his dark-haired black-clad cousins. She was an angel in her pale-mauve dress.

Lust gripped hard and firm in his stomach, an intense physical attraction. He’d never experienced anything so instant before. But it was a long time since he’d bedded a woman – far too long.

Her figure was a sublime balance of curves and narrow waist. Her spine had a beautiful arch as it curved into the point where her dress opened onto a full skirt.

Wheat-blonde hair escaped a dull dove-grey bonnet, caressing her neck and drawing his eyes to a place he’d like to kiss.

She was speaking with animation, her hands moving.

He moved closer, and as if she sensed his gaze, the stranger turned and looked at him. In answer, a lightening need struck his groin; a sharp sudden pain. She was an English rose among orchids, the sort of woman he had seen nothing of abroad. Her skin was pale, with roses blooming in her cheeks, and her eyes were a vivid beautiful blue, like the bluebells which bloomed in spring, in the woods at Pembroke Place.

She was what he had longed for abroad and not even known he’d been lacking.

His attention wholly captured, he felt desire slip into his blood as his groin grew heavy with hunger.

This was what came from abstinence he supposed. He’d never had a fancy for fair, fey women before. He did now.

She did not look the sort for a fling though, certainly not the she-wolf type who stalked the foreign fields. His mind began rattling through his guest list, but no name fit her, and her dull grey bonnet and shawl did not speak of affluence. Who was she?

He smiled as he grew nearer, then realised he was staring and shifted his gaze to the others in the group. It was then he noticed Phillip as they turned to towards him. “My God.”

“Your Grace.”

“Phillip.” Lord, John hoped Phillip had not come here with a motive. John did not wish to hear oily grovelling from an old friend. His heart thumped in cold anger, not gladness. Then he looked at the blonde and his breath caught as recognition whispered in his head. Kate.

Her gaze soaked him up, wide and bright, and then her eyelids fell and red roses coloured her cheeks.

Katherine Spencer, Phillip’s shy little sister, full grown. Good God, she had blossomed. John felt his heartbeat stutter into warm longing again. Wanting Phillip’s little sister was not a good thing.

John gritted his teeth, forced a smile and lifted his hand to shake Phillip’s. He was not looking at Katherine but he was thinking of her, trying to remember how old she would be now. She must be married. Shame.

Or perhaps it was better she was, maybe she had tired of her husband already and she’d be tempted by a little dalliance after all. Better to play with a woman who had no need to be grasping, there would be no ties. “I did not expect to see you here,” John said to Phillip.

“Our condolences, Your Grace.”

John shrugged. Phillip knew the true nature of John’s volatile relationship with his grandfather; there was hardly any point in pretending to be sad. But the word “our” gave John the opportunity to turn to Katherine.

A sharp pain pierced his chest like a stitch when he saw those blue eyes up close. Her turquoise gaze was framed by pale-brown lashes. Her beauty was delicate – subtle. He was unused to that, compared to his family.

He had an urge to touch her face. He did not, but he did take her hand and lift it to his lips as she dropped a low curtsy.

Her kid-leather gloves were warm from the heat of her skin beneath.

He brushed a finger across her wrist accidentally and felt her shiver. She smelt of rosewater.

She was blushing deeply when she straightened.

When had he last known a woman who could blush?

“Your Grace.”

“Katherine.” He’d more often called her Kate when they’d been young but Katherine seemed to suit her so much more now. “You look well.” Her husband, whoever he was, was a lucky man. John doubted she was the sort to stray. A pity.

With a gentle tug, she pulled her fingers free of his.

“H… how are you?” she stuttered, her gaze descending to his cravat pin.

“Well enough.” He could not take his eyes off her and it clearly made her feel uncomfortable. “A little dumbfounded by the speed of things, I suppose. I only returned to England a fortnight ago, my grandfather died that night.”

Her gaze lifted momentarily and compassion burned there before it fell away again. “I’m sorry, Your Grace.”

“Don’t be, he was old, he had to die eventually and I doubt he shall be much missed.”

“Hear, hear,” Eleanor stated. “He was a bully, Mama always says so, and John shall make a far better duke.”

“Tell me what you have been up to then,” John asked, only wishing to know if she was wed, but he threw a look at Phillip, extending the question to hide his interest.

“Studying,” Phillip answered. “I’m a qualified barrister now.”

John’s attention turned. He was so well trained to play ducal host it was instinctual. “Congratulations.” He met Phillip’s gaze. This must be Phillip’s reason for attending, to use their old friendship to increase his clientele. Everyone here had a reason. God, I have become a cynic.

“My firm is Boscombe and Parkin.”

And you hope I’ll use them so you’ll progress… Aloud John said, “Parkin? I have heard of them.”

John had been close to Phillip long ago. Their friendship had made life bearable in John’s later childhood and youth, Phillip’s company had been the one concession allowed when John had visited his grandfather. Beyond their friendship, life had been all about learning discipline and developing the mind. “Do you live in town?”

Phillip nodded. “Perhaps we could meet? I’ll give Finch my address.”

John was not inclined to socialise with men who thought to gain something by it. He was tired to the bones of this ingratiating behaviour already and he had a lifetime of it to live. “Perhaps … ” John echoed with no commitment.

“I’d like to hear your travelling tales,” Phillip continued, chatting as though their friendship had not ended seven years before.

“I have thousands but I would not wish to bore you.” John’s gaze strayed to Kate again. “And you Katherine?”

She reddened and opened her mouth as if to reply but said nothing.

John felt like laughing, she looked so unsettled by him. Yet her discomfort gave him hope that his attraction might be reciprocated?

“She’s been busy. Katherine has started a Sunday School in Ashford,” Mary answered for her.

Katherine’s blush deepened.

He was certain it was his presence which was making her colour up so beautifully. “That is noble of you, Katherine. Is there a husband who supports this venture?”

Her cheeks flushed with even brighter colour. Then she said in a low voice, “I am not wed.” Her pitch said the idea was absurd.

John felt a flare light inside him. Hope. But that was ridiculous, what it meant was she was innocent and untouchable. Hands off you villain. He felt like laughing again, at his own arrogant desire.

Playing the gallant, he took her hand once more and pressed another kiss upon it. “More fool the men who have passed you by.”

“She has had numerous offers. She turns them all away,” Phillip interjected, apparently oblivious to John’s flirtation.

John did not think Katherine was so blind. Her eyes held his as he let her hand fall, full of questions.

The girl was a mile beneath his rank. She would know there was nothing serious in it, which meant she was wondering why. “There is nothing wrong with being choosy, Katherine. I commend you.” He smiled, telling her without words she need not fear him.

She smiled suddenly, in reply, and it glimmered in her azure-blue eyes.

“Are you staying in town?” Mary asked.

Katherine’s gaze swung to his sister and John realised he had forgotten the others were even there for a moment.

“No. Phillip brought me into town. And we should be going. Phillip?” She glanced at her brother, who nodded agreement.

“But you have not met Harry and George,” Eleanor cried. “You must meet them … ” In barely a moment all the women were gone, and John was left alone with Phillip.

John felt as though the world had grown colder, but instinctively he filled the quietness with words, setting his glass down on a side table. “How come she is not wed?”

He and Phillip both looked at Katherine.

John could see her awkwardness again.

She was out of place amongst his guests and she felt it. But her self-awareness was refreshing.

It seemed his taste had not only turned to blonde, but timid too. He was interested despite himself, even though he really should not be, yet there was nothing wrong with indulging curiosity.

“The right offer has never come along, or rather the right man, I think. My mother’s patience is wearing thin, and my father wishes her settled, after all there is Jennifer waiting in the wings. I believe Kate does not know what to do with herself. She does not wish to simply take anyone.”

John looked at Phillip. Jennifer was Phillip’s youngest sister. She was six years younger than Katherine. But Katherine was adopted. She was no blood relation to Phillip.

“Katherine is not happy then?” As children, Katherine had invariably seemed insecure, while Jennifer was simply spoilt.

Phillip glanced at John. “The schooling brings her happiness, but I do not think she is content. You knew Kate as well as I did. She has not changed.”

John’s gaze returned to her and he sensed untapped depths trapped within that timid shell. Depths it would be a pleasure exploring.

“There is something I’d hoped to ask you… if we…” Phillip’s pitch had dropped and the tone implied begging.

John felt his body stiffen in denial as he looked across. “Go on, ask me now?” Devil take it, he would have preferred to be proven wrong about Phillip’s intentions. Was there no one in London who did not want something from him?

Phillip turned fully and his gaze ran over John’s expression, showing uncertainty. “This is a bit distasteful to discuss at a funeral…”

John felt himself scowl. “Nevertheless…” His voice was hard and deep. Just have out with it and let’s be done.

“Boscombe did some business for the old Duke a while ago and, well, it was unsuccessful, but the thing is Boscombe was never paid.”

“So you have come here to chase me for it?” John’s voice turned gruff.

“No, no. I decided to come and told Boscombe I would need the time. He asked if I would mention it…”

John swallowed, fighting impatience. What he wished to do was toss his former friend out for this audacity. “Why not simply contact Harvey?” Harvey was the Duke of Pembroke’s man of business, everything was done through him.

“The business did not come from Harvey. It came from Mr Wareham, from Pembroke Place.”

“Wareham?” John’s surprise sounded in his voice. “Why would Wareham … ?” Wareham was the Estate manager at Pembroke Place. “But he should refer everything through Harvey…” And Harvey had managed John’s grandfather’s affairs for decades?

“I thought it strange too. I haven’t a clue. Even more odd is that the job was reclaiming a loan. Boscombe couldn’t get it back. That’s the only reason I agreed to ask you. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t really wish to talk of this today. I’ll send the details to Harvey. He can look at it and advise you.”

“Yes,” John searched Phillip’s gaze for ill-intent but could see nothing false.

“I’ve put you out of sorts by asking.” He had. “I really did not come to ask you that, John, I only came to see you…”

John shrugged, his judgement was still undecided, but the fact that Phillip had read that expression only aggravated further.

Too many people here knew John too well. He really ought to learn his grandfather’s lessons and cease showing any emotion at all. “Let Harvey have the details and your address.”

“Yes,” Phillip held John’s gaze as though he might say more, like making another foolish suggestion they meet, but he did not. “I ought to take Kate home.”

John merely nodded and then Phillip walked away.

John’s eyes returned to Katherine.

She must have felt his gaze as she’d done earlier, because she looked back.

He smiled.

She coloured up, smiling uncertainly, and then looked away.

~

Katherine clung to the edge of Phillip’s curricle with one hand, as her other held the warm rug over her lap while he drove like a madman to get her home before dark.

The first thing he’d said to her after leaving John’s was, “I told you we’d be welcome.” The second was, “And he was pleased to see you”. She’d conceded the first, but she’d made no comment on the second point.

Her heart still hammered.

John had kissed her hand, twice, and she could still feel those kisses burning through her glove. But he had changed. She was certain he’d felt the chasm between them as much as she had, there was no easy camaraderie now. There had been an edge of steel instead, one that warned, do not come too close.

Her heart ached as she remembered his gaze boring into her.

Seven years had not changed her. She was still fool enough to crave a man who could never be hers. She was frail, as her adoptive mother said. It was in Katherine’s blood, inherited from her natural mother. Katherine was flawed, wicked and full of sin. It was true. She had an unnatural need for John.

When they arrived home, Phillip walked about the carriage to help Katherine down with a broad smile.

She accepted his hand and made a decision never to see John again. If she never saw him she could forget this human desire.

Phillip gripped her arm and guided her towards the house.

“If you want to come up to Town, to pay a visit on Eleanor or Margaret, write.”

She shook her head. “I am sure the last thing they would want is for me to actually call. I know they made the offer and their husbands were charming, but it was just politeness, Phillip.”

“You are too self-deprecating, Kate. They meant it.”

She looked up at him, “They were merely being charitable, Phillip. I am happy as I am.”

Phillip’s gaze held hers. “Are you?”

“Yes.” She pulled her arm free from his grip as they reached the door.

“You do not convince me of it, Kate, you hardly ever smile, and I cannot remember the last time I heard you laugh.”

He was speaking out of concern, she knew that, but she had no intention of talking to him about how things stood for her, it would not be fair, and she would never speak to anyone of her redundant feelings for John.

The door opened, “Castle,” Phillip acknowledged the middle-aged butler.

Katherine untied the ribbons of her bonnet as Phillip encouraged her to enter first.

“Phillip! You are back!” Their mother’s voice came from the drawing room, and then she was in the hall, holding her hands out to Phillip. “You must stay for tea.”

“I need to get back to town, Mama.”

Katherine clung on to her bonnet and gloves.

“But, Phillip, I barely see you.”

He gave their mother an understanding smile, and took her hands. “I’ll come on Sunday next, Mama”

All eyes for Phillip, their mother nodded. “I shall look forward to seeing you then.”

“We spoke to John,” Katherine stated, feeling uncomfortable.

Ignoring Katherine, their mother said to Phillip, “Is he in good health?”

“Well enough. Eleanor and Margaret were pleased to see Kate. They have asked her to call.” Phillip was trying to push their mother’s attention to Katherine; it was pointless.

“Well, one can understand why they would be polite.”

Katherine threw Phillip a look to say, see, she agrees. He smiled. Katherine poked out her tongue, without her mother seeing, and then turned to take her bonnet and gloves upstairs.

“I will see you next Sunday, Mama,” Phillip began to take his leave.

“Kate. Phillip.”

Her father.

Her hand on the newel post, Katherine looked back and smiled.

He was standing in the doorway of his study, smiling too, his affection genuine.

“And how does John fare?” he asked of Katherine.

“Like he was born to it,” Katherine quipped, smiling more openly. Her father’s eyes glowed, catching a hold of her humour.

“He’s 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 her mother, and the same 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 go yet…”

Phillip looked back. “Kate will tell you.” That was the height of 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…?”

Phillip sighed.

Katherine turned and began climbing the stairs, but Phillip caught her hand and held her back. “Say goodbye before you go up.”

He’d always been protective. It was why she’d 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 opportunity to escape from their mother and Jenny.

She turned back and hugged him, standing on the first step so that she was taller and her arms more easily reached about his neck.

He hugged her too, as their mother and Jenny looked on with jealousy in their eyes.

He would say goodbye to them also. It was just that they wanted Katherine to have no love. Yet Phillip loved her, and her father did too.

She wondered sometimes if jealousy caused her mother’s hatred, because her father was kinder to Katherine 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’ll still say, no.”

He laughed as he let her go. “I’ll see you soon.”

As she climbed the stairs, he said his other goodbyes, and then, when she reached the landing, she heard the door close. He was gone.

“Katherine, fetch my shawl would you, and my embroidery, they are on the chair in my chamber, oh and fetch Jennifer’s shawl also?” It immediately began – the behaviour which set Katherine back in her place. She was little higher than a servant when Phillip was not at home and her father did nothing to prevent it. He hid away and avoided the arguments and bitterness. It was only different when Phillip called because their mother doted on Phillip and did not wish to upset him.

“Yes, Mother,” Katherine called back downstairs.

“And once you have done that Kate, you may help with the tea. You know I prefer it when you make it.”

“Yes, Mother,” she called again.

“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.

Chapter Three

Kent, Ashford, July

John leant 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 air rushed past him. It was hot. One of England’s rare truly summer days. It felt good, and he liked the sound of thundering hoof beats, tack and creaking springs, and the jolting of the carriage as it raced along the track.

Robbie had spent the last two months bragging about the day they’d bought this matching pair and curricle.

Thinking of Robbie made John remember the money he’d settled on his brothers. He’d 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’d had little to do with any of them since the day he’d taken Robbie to Tattersalls.

He did not feel a part of his family anymore. There was too much of a gap in years, and status. So he’d traded genuine affection for cold hard coin. He’d agreed to enhance his sisters’ dowries too.

Mary had hugged him when he’d told her and John had warned her of fortune hunters.

As he thought of marriage, his mind turned to Eleanor and Nettleton. They’d made an announcement before he’d 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.

Life was busy setting him on a pedestal so others might not reach him. His grandfather had warned him it would be so, now he understood.

He sighed. He’d been too busy for family or friendships the last few months anyway. He’d spent them sorting out the old man’s estate and making his name in the House of Lords, fulfilling his duty as he’d been bred to do.

Yet, since leaving London and coming out to Pembroke Place, he’d been avoiding duty.

John saw a woman walking along the road in the distance. He did not slow his horses.

He’d come here to meet the estate manager, Mr Wareham, who not only managed Pembroke Place but also oversaw the stewards at all John’s properties. None of which explained why Wareham had approached an external lawyer, as Phillip had advised at the funeral.

The carriage drew nearer the lone woman.

Wareham was supposed to refer any legal issue to Harvey, who’d sworn he knew nothing of this. John believed him.

If there was one thing the old Duke had done well, it was manage his estate, and he’d have said something to Harvey if he’d known of this loan. So Harvey should know of it, if it was legitimate. Which meant – as Harvey did not – it was not.

John had reiterated to Wareham during their first meeting, on his arrival, that all business should be done through Harvey, without giving any indication he knew of the deal with Boscombe. There had not even been a flicker in Wareham’s eyelids, but his belligerence had put John out of sorts.

Since then, he’d evaded duty. He ought to be visiting tenants not racing about the country lanes.

John sighed.

He’d focus again tomorrow. Today he’d continue letting the weight slip from his shoulders.

The woman was yet nearer. He eased up a little, pulling on the reins.

Half his trouble was the bad memories haunting him here. They hung around him like shadows in the Palladian mansion. He’d already started changing things in town now his grandmother had retired to one of the smaller estates, redecorating the townhouse to dispense with the memories of his childhood. He was going to do the same here, to chase off the bloody desperate child who still lived in his head. He hated the house. He’d felt it the minute he’d returned and known in the same moment it was irrational. But no matter how many years he’d come here with his mother, the memories which pervaded were the dreadful years of longing he’d lived here without her.

The emotion made him feel weak, and then angry at himself for weakness.

He should just be getting on with his duty and visiting tenants and sorting out Wareham. What he was doing instead was running from the demons in his head.

The woman was now a couple of hundred yards away.

The other half of his trouble was that John was really beginning to understand his grandfather. The burdens of duty and expectation were making John more and more withdrawn. He hated the parasitical nature of people. No matter how much he did not wish to be like the old man, John could see no other way to cope with the barrage of falsehood and make a path through it. The only way was to shut it out.

The darkness which had always haunted him abroad had set its hood over him again.

He tightened his grip on the reins as he drew near the woman, slowing the horses to a trot, then realised he’d over-pushed them. The animals’ coats were slick with sweat. It was too hot for them really.

He was used to Egypt’s desert heat. His animals were not.

He decided to go back at the same moment he realised who the woman was. Katherine. He’d not seen her since the funeral, at least not in person; he’d seen her in his dreams. Vivid dreams, which would certainly make her blush if she knew of them.

Perhaps his guilt over those dreams was why he’d given Phillip the benefit of doubt and used him to develop the contracts for a business deal between John and his Uncle Robert; or rather the guilt John should feel. In fact, he felt only longing.

That longing returned now, in full measure.

He’d asked after her when he’d seen Phillip. Phillip only smiled and said she was the same as ever.

John had also heard Eleanor say Katherine had declined an invitation to stay. He hadn’t known if he was relieved or angry at the time. It was dangerous this obsession he was developing for her. But obsession it was beginning to be, the number of times he thought of her. Her image had become a sanctuary from the burden of duty. There was no harm in imagining. But here was the real Kate.

“Katherine!”

The girl jumped half out of her skin and spun about. She must have been completely lost in a world of thought.

God. He’d been craving air and sky, and nature, in his desire for escape the last couple of days, and here was his quintessential English rose, a woman with modesty who could still blush, for heaven’s sake.

The she-wolves had begun stalking him again in town, and he’d even been moderately tempted, knowing he needed some form of release from his burdens. But his dream was for Katherine, simplicity and innocence, and they were not that, they would not assuage his hunger. Katherine would.

His gaze clung to her, sweeping over her figure. She wore a thin muslin dress beneath a faded light-blue spencer. Her arms were slender. His gaze trailed upwards from her narrow waist to see her bosom lift and fall as though she was short of breath.

Her face was in the shadow of a broad-rimmed poke straw-bonnet, while her hands were covered by the same kid leather gloves she’d worn in London, which must feel excruciatingly hot in this heat.

He halted the animals, set the brake, looped the ribbons across the rail and jumped down.

He had come out in unseemly dress; he’d not intended speaking to anyone. His black waistcoat hung open and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He probably looked like a labourer, but he had wished to be the man from Egypt again today and not a duke.

“Katherine?” he said again, approaching her.

She hadn’t said a thing, or even moved since she’d turned, but as he neared, she took a step back.

She looked as though any minute she might turn and run.

He reached out and caught her forearm to stop her.

“What on earth were you wool-gathering over?”

Those wide blue eyes, which did not show their true colour when hidden in the shadow of her bonnet, questioned his existence.

His hand slid down her slender arm and felt her muscle judder from the intimacy. Then he gripped her fingers and lifted them to his lips.

He would rather have kissed her skin than her worn leather glove.

He let her hand fall.

“You should have heard the horses yards back.”

She was blushing again, and her eyes glittered with a starry look, as though she was shocked, or…

The air left his lungs.

Or…

He knew that look of want. He’d seen it in a hundred women’s eyes.

Without thought, one hand released the bow securing the ribbons of her bonnet, while the other cupped her nape. Then as her bonnet tumbled down her back and fell into the dust, he kissed her mouth.

He burned for her, and the uncertain pressure of her fingers gripping his shoulders was sublime as she opened her mouth under the pressure of his lips. His tongue invaded, taking as she gave, claiming what he suddenly desperately wanted to be his.

She arched against him and his other arm came about her waist to pull her body nearer.

A tender, desperate and shocked sound came from her mouth and then she was pulling away, and pushing him back. An instant later she gave him a stinging slap across the cheek.

Damn!

His hand covered his cheek, but instead of feeling regret or guilt it was laughter which rose inside him and a feeling of relief, as though a cork had just blown from an effervescent bottle and let emotion spew out.

She was clearly not amused by his laughter and her cheeks flamed red, while her eyes burned a bright turquoise. It was a look of insulted pride.

Yet, a moment ago, her eyes had said quite clearly “kiss me”, and far more, and she’d been pliant and willing when he’d accepted that unspoken offer.

His heart thumped steadily. He had been too long without a woman.

He dragged in a deep breath and smiled, genuinely. He could not remember the last time he had smiled from emotion and not merely made the correct face.

The horses whickered behind him.

Both his hands gripped her waist.

She stepped back, out of his reach, almost treading on her bonnet.

He bent and picked it up.

Katherine’s heart raced. What had she done? What had she let him do? Why had he done it?

She had not even known John was there. She had not even known he was in the county. His only greeting had been her name.

She took another step back, longing to distance herself from the tug she felt towards him as he stood straight again, gripping her bonnet in his hand.

Why had he kissed her? She was mute with anger and embarrassment. She felt appalled. Why would he do that? Why had she let him?

“John!” she said as his hand reached out towards her again, while his other gripped her bonnet. She stepped back once more, avoiding him, but at the same time lifted her hand to claim her bonnet.

He pulled it out of reach.

“What did you think you were you doing?” she thrust accusingly at him.

“Saying hello.” He laughed again, as though kissing her on a public highway was a joke.

There was warmth in his eyes, though, which had not been there on the day of the funeral, and her heart ached to see it, no matter that she was angry. She saw a glimpse of the old John there.

“Let me have my bonnet!”

He lifted his arm so she would never be able to reach it, and merely smiled.

“John! Do not be a brute!” She didn’t understand what was going on, and she lifted her hand to slap him again, but his free hand caught her wrist. “The weather has touched you in the head, John!”

“Not the weather, Katherine.” He grinned. But then his smile slipped away and an austere look came over him.

Her heartbeat rang like a hammer on an anvil. Did he think it was acceptable to kiss a woman like that?

A dark light suddenly glowed at the heart of his pale eyes.

Her hand shook as she reached out for her bonnet again. She felt sick.

When he lifted it away once more, she said, “Let me have it, John,” feeling suddenly desperate and a little afraid of him.

“So you can cover up that pretty face. These things are a crime. Someone ought to make a law against poke bonnets. Perhaps I shall propose it in the house – every woman’s bonnet must let a man see her face.”

He was being ridiculous. “John!”

“Katherine,” he mocked.

She could not believe he was doing this. Nor that he had kissed her so crudely.

She had done nothing but worship him for nearly a decade and he was busy ridiculing her. She hated him suddenly. “Give me back my bonnet, John, and let me go, and you are not to come near me again. I am not something for you to play with, Your Grace.” Fool. You fool, Katherine.

His manor changed almost instantly and his hand let her arm go, as his other fell to offer her bonnet.

“It was not an insult, Katherine,” he said as she gripped it.

“Then you kiss every woman you see walking alone on a road, I suppose?” Of course he would not. Only the ones who were foolish enough to love him, and only the ones who had no family to protect them.

His fingers tightened on her bonnet again, crushing it, before she could free it from his hand.

“Not every woman, Katherine, just the ones who look at me with azure-blue eyes that say they long for it – just you, Kate.”

She felt herself turn pink but refused to play tug of war for her bonnet and let it go again.

“Give it to me,” she stated gruffly.

“No, not until you admit you wished it so.”

“No!”

“I’ll not beg your forgiveness,” he answered in a hard pitch. “You wished for it.”

“And you’ve grown arrogant, John Harding.”

“Perhaps so,” he said in a low harsh voice. “But you wished for it. You did. I know.”

“You cannot know.” There was anguish in her voice and, in answer, his eyes softened again and he held forth her bonnet once more.

“Katherine, you held me and kissed me back, you cannot deny it.” The words were gentle but they cut into her heart. She still craved him. It was almost desperation which she felt.

Tears rushed into her eyes. She had longed for it. But not like this.

His pitch softened further. “Your eyes expressed desire before I even kissed you.”

She lifted her hand to slap him again, but he caught it once more and raised his eyebrows.

She felt ashamed. They both knew what he’d said was true. She had turned and faced him, and her heart had leapt into her throat. His attraction was fierce today. He was half undressed, unshaven and he wore no hat, and he was simply, essentially, masculine – tall, strong, agile and assertive.

Was this what her natural mother had felt for her father, this desperation?

Katherine had wanted to be kissed, and if that desire was to be fulfilled, how else might it be done if not like this? He would hardly choose to marry her. There was a world between them, not simply miles. If she wanted kisses from him, they would have to be kisses like this.

She did not try to pull either her arm free, or her bonnet from his hand, she felt calm suddenly. “Give me back my bonnet, Your Grace. Please?”

“Say that you wished for it?” There was a cold hard look back in his eyes.

“No.”

“Say it.”

When she did not, his grip firmed on her arm, though it was not painful. “Say it!”

His voice rang with determination.

“No, John.”

His hand suddenly left her arm and then it was back at her nape bracing her neck and holding her firm as he pulled her mouth to his.

His kiss was a hard pressure against her lips. She had not imagined kissing to be like this. Her heart raced, and her fingers clawed into the muscle of his arms to steady herself. She felt faint and hot and liquid-boned.

It was brief, barely an instant long, but when he pulled away his pale eyes shone like glass with triumph. “You wished for it,” he whispered over her lips. “Say it.”

“Yes,” she answered, knowing she turned crimson as she did so. She felt the provincial idiot she was; gauche, weak and base-born.

He said nothing, his eyes boring deep into her soul.

What must he think of her?

“Here,” he said, letting go of her nape and her bonnet at the same moment. “I’ll give you a lift home.”

She felt disorientated and dizzy. She shook her bonnet, trying to get it to recover its shape, while she also tried to recall who and where she was.

Her hands trembled as she tied the ribbons and her legs felt weak, too weak to walk home.

She hadn’t looked at him since he’d let her take her bonnet. She looked at him now and saw questions in his eyes as he lifted his hand to take hers.

She accepted it, to climb up into his curricle, and said nothing. He climbed up beside her once she had slid across the seat.

Her throat was dry.

He released the brake and flicked the reins, setting his fashionable, expensive horses into a trot.

She hated herself.

His gaze turned to her.

She looked at him.

“I’m sorry, Katherine, I should not have kissed you, no matter that you wished for it.”

She felt like crying. Had he not even really wished to do it? Had he only done it because he’d realised he could?

A dark humour suddenly shone in his eyes once more. “But, then again, maybe I am not really sorry.” He looked back at the road.

“You have changed,” she answered, staring at him, not understanding him at all, and yet loving him.

His eyes turned back to her, a look of granite in them. “Life has changed me, Katherine. But you are not changed. Perhaps you can make me remember who I was?”

What did she say to that? What did she say to this stranger?

He looked back at the road ahead and flicked the reins again.

She gripped the side of his curricle and hung on.

Chapter Four

John steered his chestnut thoroughbreds through the gates of the courtyard leading into the stables.

His blood was still boiling with a mix of desire and anger.

He had made Katherine admit she had wanted to kiss him but, nevertheless, she’d accused him of arrogance and being changed.

She was right, of course.

He had not spoken to her for the rest of the drive as bitter thoughts had bounced about his head. It had been wrong to kiss her. But he did not regret it. She made him remember the past, she made him remember what it was like to be warm-blooded and feel. He wanted to feel with her.

His heart thumped as he set the brake. God, he felt better even for having had that one kiss. It had been the way she’d pressed so innocently against him, with tenderness, not with a grabbing, greedy lust. She could wash his soul clean; that was how he felt.

A weight had lifted from his shoulders when he dropped to the ground.

His grooms rushed forwards to free the horses and put away the carriage.

John strode towards the servants’ entrance to the house. He had something he ought to do. He had put it off long enough.

The flagstone-floored hall was busy with numerous maids and footmen scurrying through it. The house bells lined one wall of the passage, the side the women occupied, while the men walked along the opposite side.

They carried a variety of items: linen, copper pans, silver, candles, coal scuttles…

One of the young maids jumped when she saw him and dropped an armful of linen. When she bent to pick it up, others began noticing his presence. It swept along the hall like a wave as they dropped into curtsies or bowed. He was invading their territory and making them feel uncomfortable – the arrogant duke.

Well he had not been arrogant abroad, he had laboured with his men in Egypt and he would go wherever he wished in his own home.

He carried on.

“Your Grace?” Finch appeared from a doorway a little ahead of John and bowed.

“Is Wareham somewhere, Finch?” John heard the maids and footmen shifting back into movement behind him.

“He is in his rooms I believe, Your Grace.”

“Then send for him. Have him come to his office. I shall wait there.”

“Your Grace,” Finch bowed again then disappeared.

The estate manager’s office was at the end of the hall, away from the main thoroughfare.

The door was shut and when John tried the handle, he discovered it locked.

“Does someone have the key?” he asked, looking back along the busy hall.

One of the footmen stopped and bowed. “Mr Wareham keeps it on his person, Your Grace, but there’s a copy of every key in Mrs East’s office. Shall I fetch it?”

“Please, do.”

The young footman bowed again and then rushed off to the housekeeper’s room. A moment later he was running back with the key.

John took it and thanked him, remembering that his grandfather had never said thank you to a soul. John felt the tug of war inside him pull. This was an instant of the old John, his mother’s child, but these instants were getting rarer. He had changed, and he was changing even more.

When John unlocked the door, he felt a cold shiver grip him.

This was another room brimful of ill memories. The whitewashed walls and flagstone floor made it feel cold despite the sun pouring through the windows on two sides, which looked out across the park.

Shelves full of ledgers lined the other walls, while the middle of the room was dominated by Wareham’s large oak desk.

John had spent numerous hours sitting at it as a child, learning the art of bookkeeping.

He crossed to the shelves and scanned the dates on the spines of the ledgers. Wareham began a new one each year and recorded every expenditure and income for the house and the tenancies in these books.

Finding the current year’s, John slid it off the shelf and carried it to the desk.

He sat and opened the broad record book.

Columns of transactions ran down each page, all totalled at the bottom.

His memories turned to his childhood, when he’d sat here beside Wareham scanning these books. The old Duke had schooled John to manage the estates from the age of thirteen. John had spent hours studying such things, to learn how to achieve profit, when to take risks and when to be prudent. Wareham had been the man who’d explained it all.

If Wareham is fleecing me, he’s fleeced the old man. What did that mean?

The old Duke had trusted Wareham implicitly; he was one of few the old man had. Wareham had been here years; like many of his grandfather’s staff. People who’d earned his trust had been kept. If Phillip had not raised this situation, John would never have considered doubting Wareham.

John’s index finger followed lines of figures on the first page. There was nothing abnormal listed, no unusual purchases or amounts.

Remembering the date of the loan Phillip had queried, John rose to find last year’s ledger.

He pulled it from the shelf and then, at the desk, began flicking through the pages, searching for the date.

There were no unexpected sums. Nothing was recorded which would suggest the reason for giving out a loan.

“Your Grace?”

John looked up.

Wareham was standing in the doorway, his fingers on the handle of the open door.

John smiled the smile he’d taught himself in London in the last few weeks, the one which screened out all other expression, his grandfather’s smile, and straightened but did not stand.

There was an insolent, angry glint in Wareham’s light blue-grey eyes. He did not defer. He neither bowed nor even nodded his head. It had been the same on John’s arrival.

The old man’s monster roared to life as John waited, imparting the cold condemning glare he had also learned from his grandfather. Silence stretched across the room while Wareham stared back.

“Your Grace.” Wareham finally allowed, nodding slightly and showing more defiance than deference.

The bastard. What is this?

John wished to make him do it over, but that would be churlish. It was far better to let it pass. Wareham must surely realise his days were numbered if he continued this. He must know John would not be lenient or soft. He ought to know the old man had drilled this detachment into John. Sentimentality had been thrashed out of him as a child, and Wareham had watched.

“Is there something I may help you with?” Wareham closed the door, his whole demeanour challenging John’s presence in the room.

John felt anger burn deep. He was entirely his grandfather’s monster now.

“Take a seat.” John deliberately indicated the chair on the far side, refusing to vacate Wareham’s. John owned this house, this office and the money passing through these ledgers – let Wareham remember that.

When Wareham sat, John held every muscle in his face steady. Thank God he’d learned how easily read he’d been in town and mastered that. Now he expressed only a mask of indifference.

“I would have thought, if Your Grace wished to view the ledgers, you would have asked me to bring them to you?” Wareham’s tone was tipped with steel.

You? It was an unforgivable insult not to use John’s title. You!

“Who owns the estates you manage, Wareham?” John felt as though a sandstorm had swept over him, his vision blurred and his skin prickled with anger.

“You do, Your Grace.”

Even when Wareham did use John’s title, he made it offensive.

“And please tell me then, Wareham, therefore, who owns this office and these ledgers?”

The man’s eyes momentarily showed a questioning thought, but then he stated, “Your Grace,” the challenge slipping from his voice.

“And pray, who employs you?”

“Your Grace.” There was darkness at the heart of Wareham’s eyes. A darkness which said this would not be the last of this conversation.

John smiled his grandfather’s vicious smile. “We have that straight then. Let us move on.”

John did not mention the loan after that minor mutiny. He did not wish to give Wareham any chance to cover his tracks.

“I have decided to review every aspect of my estate. I shall take these accounts now to help me do so and I wish to see all the supporting receipts and invoices. You may begin a new ledger.”

Wareham finally showed an element of emotion as his eyebrows lifted.

He’d clearly not anticipated John’s direct interference, and that meant, hopefully, the reason for the loan was still hidden somewhere in these books.

The older man’s icy gaze met John’s across the desk.

When John had sat here with him as a boy, the man had been brash, intolerant and rude. John had thought it a lack of patience for a youth. Now he presumed it was more. Wareham had never acted this way with his grandfather.

John did not move…

“Now, Your Grace?” The man finally understood.

“I am here, am I not Wareham, so now would be a good time.”

“But…”

“I shall begin reading these ledgers, while you find everything out.” Of course Wareham would wish for more time if he wanted to hide evidence.

He stood.

John looked down at the ledgers.

A few minutes later, Wareham set two thick leather pouches tied with string and stuffed with papers on the desk. “Your Grace.”

“Everything is here?” John asked, rising, ignoring the subtle insult in Wareham’s voice. “All I need to review these two years?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Any omissions I may assume errors on your part then?”

Wareham’s jaw set and a muscle flickered in his cheek. “Your Grace.”

“Call a footman to carry them up.” John could have shouted himself, but he did not, to remind Wareham of his place.

Another ten minutes and the ledgers and packets of receipts and papers were all secured in John’s personal safe, in his rooms.

Chapter Five

Katherine picked up the Bibles the children had been working with and set them aside. Then she turned towards the small altar in the chancel chapel where she’d led the Sunday school.

She was looking for something to do to pass the time while the congregation dispersed and she waited for Reverend Barker to drive her home. Her gaze caught on the open side door. John stood there watching her, his athletic silhouette framed in the arch of sunlight.

She had not forgiven him for kissing her, nor for forcing her to admit she had wished him to do it. Neither was a gentlemanly act. He had changed.

Ignoring him, she turned to the storage cupboard. She felt his presence so keenly she could sense him smiling behind her. She’d heard him singing amidst the congregation as she’d worked with the children. He had a beautiful voice. It rose above that of everyone else with perfect clarity.

How could a man who was now so steely hard and disgracefully arrogant still sing like an angel?

She pressed a palm against the slates to make them straight when they were already perfectly aligned.

“Are you hiding, Katherine?”

Her heart thumped. “Working, John.”

His boot heels rang on the glazed medieval tiles and she spun about when she heard him get too close.

He was two feet away, his pale eyes gleaming yet unfathomable. “I was waiting to speak with you, your parents have left. I thought… You are not hiding from me, are you?”

“No,” she breathed, knowing she coloured.

His gaze swept across her face clearly assessing her as she had not been able to assess him because his features were set like marble.

“There is no need for you to fear me, Katherine.”

She lifted her chin. “I am not afraid of you, John.” I am afraid of myself.

“I would never hurt you.”

Her chin lifted another notch. She hurt for him anyway. She had ached for him for seven years. Hiding was the only way to escape more pain.

He did not move, his pale gaze holding hers as though he could hear the words she did not speak.

“I have thought about you since the funeral.” His voice whispered, bouncing off the cold bare stone. “I know I said sorry to you yesterday, Katherine, but I really do not think I am. I wanted to kiss you, too. Why should either of us feel regret?”

She dragged a deep breath into her lungs. “John, do not do this.” She stepped back and collided with the shelves.

He caught her arm to stop her fall, but did not let go.

“Do what? Admit I am attracted to you. I am, as you are to me.” His head was bowing before he’d even finished speaking.

Their lips touched.

It was different from yesterday, it was gentle, hesitant and reassuring, and without conscious thought her hands slid over his shoulders, one settling behind his neck, half holding his mouth to hers.

When his lips opened and his tongue slid across the seam of hers, she could not help but part hers and kiss him back as he was kissing her.

Their tongues weaved an intricate dance and she felt her body press against his, as the shelves dug into her back.

His hand supported her, slipping to the first curve of her lower back and her shoulder, but then his kiss became more ardent and his tongue pressed deep into her mouth.

“Katherine!”

They flew apart and she knew she must be crimson. The back of her hand pressed to her mouth, wondering how swollen her lips must look and then her palms pressed to her hot cheeks before trying to tuck wisps of her hair back beneath her bonnet.

Reverend Barker’s long, confident footsteps could be heard as he walked briskly up the aisle.

Her hands ran quickly over her gown, smoothing out creases which were not there. She felt dishevelled but it was not an outward turmoil, it was an inward one.

She looked at John. He did not look contrite at all.

Oh John, what are you trying to do to me?

She turned her back on him, presuming he would leave by the side door, and walked into the aisle. Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together.

She felt as though she’d played with fire and been burned. She was left charred and smouldering.

The suddenness of their separation had left John feeling bereft. All his senses were smarting at her loss as his gaze followed her departure.

The Reverend approached. John could see him through the ornate grid separating off the little chapel and his stomach clenched in a sharp spasm.

The vicar no longer wore his robes. He had changed somewhere and come back for her.

“Katherine!” The man’s voice echoed about the church.

Not, Miss Spencer.

John felt icy cold. The reverend was around the same age as himself. John’s grandfather had helped appoint him three years ago. John walked into the church as Katherine had done, a moment before she met the reverend in the aisle.

“Richard, I’m here.”

When John entered the square of four arches beneath the church tower, he felt like a cockerel in a pit, bitter hatred running into his blood. He wished to fight this man whose name she used. Had John walked in on a tryst they had planned?

He forced a smile. “I enjoyed your sermon, Reverend. I was just offering to take Miss Spencer home.”

She looked back, appearing to have not known he’d followed.

She gave him an uncertain look. “Thank you, Your Grace, but Reverend Barker usually drives me home.”

Ah, so she had not been hiding. She had been waiting for the vicar. She was embarrassed, blushing again, and John could feel the awareness running between Katherine and the reverend. But moments ago she had been kissing him.

“Forgive me, I thought Your Grace had gone.” The vicar gave John a deferential bow but John could see the man was prickling. There was a stand-off here. Two men interested in one woman.

The vicar sent Katherine a conciliatory and questioning smile. He obviously did not trust a duke near his prim Sunday-school teacher.

John laughed internally but it was a bitter sound which rung in his head. He felt a desperate need to cling to Katherine, to keep her for himself. He felt so much better in her presence – human.

He’d watched her during the service, moving about beyond the metal screen speaking with the children, sitting beside them and whispering to them.

He’d forgotten Wareham, the account books and the tenants he’d yet to meet. He’d forgotten the two halves of his whole. He was one person in her presence, a man who could feel warmth. He was only John.

Setting a false smile – all the old Duke’s grandson – John met the vicar’s gaze. “I saw Miss Spencer’s parents leave, I had not realised you had an arrangement.” His eyebrows lifted. Was the vicar her beau? Was Katherine inclined towards him?

“If you’ll excuse us then, Your Grace?” The vicar dismissed John and looked at Katherine. “Are you ready?”

She nodded.

John seethed, nobody routed him. Katherine was his and he was going to damn well have her. This bloody nothing of a vicar would have to step aside.

“Your Grace.” She turned to him and dropped a deep curtsy as though he was a stranger and they had not been kissing but moments ago.

I want you.

If she was playing games, well he’d learnt them from the she-wolves abroad, he knew how to play.

“Katherine,” he stated, in a deep warm pitch, reminding her they were not strangers.

She blushed intensely, but John had let her vicar know he was not the only one who had permission to call her by her given name. But then she had never actually given John permission, he had assumed the right based on their childhood friendship.

He turned to the vicar. “Reverend Barker.”

Then he left.

~

It had been three days since John had felt Katherine’s kiss slip into complete abandon in the chancel chapel. Since then his mind had been full of her.

Oh but that was a lie, his mind had been full of her since the funeral, only now it was becoming even more of an obsession.

His whole body ached with need for her and at night she occupied his dreams.

It irritated him immensely whenever he thought of her with her Godly priest.

She had kissed John back in the church and admitted she had wanted him to kiss her in the road. She could not therefore wish for a pious bloody vicar. John strode on along Maidstone’s pavement and shoved his thoughts of Kate aside. He had a job to do. He’d scoured the accounts and found nothing unusual, so now he was resorting to asking Pembroke Place’s suppliers about Wareham’s business practices.

He’d also visited tenants over the last two days and asked them if they’d had any problems with the management of their tenancies. No one had complained.

As John walked, he received bows and curtsies in acknowledgement. He nodded at the people noting his presence, though his now habitual lack of patience was wearing thin. He knew why his grandfather had never walked anywhere. John set his jaw and kept going. But then his gaze alighted on one person he was pleased to see.

Warmth and light suddenly swept into the cold, arid darkness inside him.

Katherine! He shouted her name, though not aloud.

She was on the far side of the street, standing outside a hat shop, looking in through the window. She held a pile of parcels.

A primal hunger roared inside him.

Her profile was perfect and dainty, with her round-tipped nose, and her rose-coloured lips were slightly parted. He imagined her in a black silhouette portrait, as they’d cut images in Naples. He crossed the cobbled street, now entirely ignoring other passers-by.

“Katherine.” He took the last step and touched her elbow.

She started and spun around, her eyes wide. “Y-your Grace.”

“It seems I surprise you every time,” he whispered.

She was blushing again.

“I-I’m sorry.”

He looked to where she had been looking and saw a pretty bonnet dressed with ornamental cherries and a cerise-pink ribbon. Mary thought the mode for fruit on a bonnet absurd. Katherine obviously did not.

“Your Grace?” he queried. “If the vicar is Richard, Katherine, I think I might remain, John, privately? We have known each other years!” Her wide turquoise-blue eyes stared back, but she said nothing. “What is going on between the two of you anyway?” The question had been rattling about in John’s head for days.

“N-nothing, I…” She did not continue.

“Nothing? He drives you home every Sunday? Have you an agreement with him?”

“An agreement?” Her eyes kept glancing beyond him, into the shop.

“Are you promised to him?”

She turned a deeper pink. “No.”

He suddenly remembered she was holding parcels and took them from her.

Where was her groom or maid? Phillip’s family were not high society but nor were they low. Her father was the local squire.

“Who is with you?” The question probably sounded impertinent. He was still angry over the bloody vicar.

“My mother is in the shop.” She looked embarrassed. She had not been embarrassed with her vicar. John wished she’d feel as comfortable with him.

He glanced through the shop window and saw her mother and her younger sister, sifting through a drawer of ribbons. Why was she not in the shop with them?

“You are not shopping?” She flushed bright red, but said nothing. It was obvious she was not. “Where is your groom?” That was who should be carrying her parcels.

“He is in the livery stable—”

“Leaving you playing maid.” John turned back, looking for his own man and waved him forwards. “There’s no need for you to stand here looking to all and sundry like a pack mule, Katherine, I’ll have my groom take these to yours.”

Her fingers hovered at her waist as though she wished to take the parcels back, but he would not allow it.

“Katherine, is something wrong?”

Her eyes widened. “No.”

“And you and the vicar?” he pressed again.

“Please, Your Grace, John, do not…”

Her lack of an answer said there was something. Yet if there was something, why had she let him kiss her, and kissed him back. Her company gave John peace, and peace was a much-vaunted thing in his current life, he was not willing to relinquish it.

“Do not what, Kate?”

Her mother chose that moment to leave the shop, and his question was answered only by a ringing bell. “Your Grace.”

John had never liked Phillip’s mother.

“Your Grace.” Nor his youngest sister.

John’s innards hardened to stone at their fawning pitch. They were money-grabbing, scheming females; he’d never had the same sense from Katherine.

“Katherine, you should have called us.” Her mother, and then her sister, rose from their curtsies.

Conveniently, John’s groom arrived and, ignoring the women, John passed off the parcels. “Take these to the Spencers’ groom at the livery.”

John’s groom bowed and then turned away, but Mrs Spencer stopped him. “There is another here.”

John felt a rush of irritation again. She was taking his assistance for granted, as if it was her given right to have his help. It was not. But then this is what came of showing any preference when you were a duke. He had once favoured her son.

“Your Grace, you will not have met Jennifer since she was young.”

His eyes turned to the youngest sister. Like John’s siblings, Jenny was much younger.

“Your Grace,” Jenny stated again, offering her hand as though he would want to take it.

He accepted it – only because she was Katherine’s and Phillip’s little sister – held it for a moment and then let go.

“Are you in town for long, Your Grace?” the girl asked as if she knew him.

“We were just on our way to the inn for refreshments if you would care to join us?” Mrs Spencer added.

He did not care. Had it been Katherine alone however… But she remained mute, and when he glanced at her she was staring at the pavement, her face largely hidden by the broad rim of her bonnet.

“I’m busy, I’m afraid.”

“That is a shame, Your Grace, but you must come to Jenny’s party. It is her coming-out ball, here, at the assembly rooms. It is two weeks today. You will attend, Your Grace? Shall I send an invitation?”

“Mama, John is still in mourning,” Katherine whispered. She had used his given name.

“I had not forgotten.” The woman thrust at Katherine. “It will do no harm if he does not dance.”

Anger struck him again over Mrs Spencer’s presumption. He did not appreciate being told what he may do.

“Phillip will be there of course.”

Phillip could go hang, but John would attend for Katherine. It would give him a chance to have another hour or so in her company.

“I shall come. Send the invitation. But now I must be getting on.” He bowed slightly to Katherine’s mother. “Mrs Spencer.”

She curtsied.

“Miss Jennifer.” He nodded again as the girl dropped another deep curtsy, trying to please.

Then he looked at Katherine. “Katherine.” She curtsied, but he caught her hand before she dropped too deep and lifted it to his lips. His kiss pressed onto the same pair of kid leather gloves she had worn at the funeral and in the road the other day.

She blushed again.

“Good day ladies.” He let Katherine’s hand go.

“Your Grace,” her mother and sister replied.

But she said, “John.” Before he turned and walked away.

He returned to the shop an hour later, though – frustration niggling after none of his suppliers had expressed any inkling of error in Wareham’s work – and did what he should not do. He had seen the longing in her eyes before she’d turned and he could simply not resist the urge.

~

“Miss, this came an hour ago.” Hetty, the housemaid, bustled into Katherine’s bedchamber, carrying a large round box, excitement in her voice. “Mr Castle put it in the scullery and forgot to bring it up. I said to him, how could you forget it when ‘tis for Miss Katherine, she never gets nothin’, do you Miss?”

Katherine’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you certain it is not for Jenny? She and Mama ordered all sorts in Maidstone yesterday.”

“No, Miss, ‘tis addressed to Miss Katherine Spencer, clear as day.”

Katherine set down the darning she was working on and rose from her chair by the window.

The weather had turned chillier today, although it was still sunny, and several white fluffy clouds flew across the sky on a brisk summer breeze.

Her mother and sister were out calling on those they were inviting to the ball. Katherine had not been asked to join them. Her mother never treated her as part of the family. But that was an ancient fact, and the pain it caused so old now it was dulled.

Yet perhaps there was still tallow to keep her hurt burning, because she had stayed in her room to hide her exclusion from the house servants.

“Leave it on the bed, Hetty, and bring the tea up to my room as no one else is in.”

Katherine’s gaze fell to the box when Hetty put it down. Perhaps Phillip had bought it? Whatever it was.

“I’ll fetch it now, Miss.”

The maid disappeared as Katherine walked over to the parcel.

It was tied with string and she pulled it free, feeling excited despite her current melancholy mood. Hetty had been right, Katherine was rarely given anything new.

When she lifted the lid her heart pounded. It was the bonnet she’d admired in Maidstone the day before. It lay nestled in a bed of tissue paper.

She lifted it out with shaking fingers. It was beautiful, but it could not be from Phillip.

There was a card beneath it.

I saw you staring and wish to give you what you desire.

J

He had not! No! He could not have done. How could he?

John!

Oh he was so arrogant.

Without any care for the fashionable creation, she stuffed it back in its box, furious. She may be provincial, but she knew a woman should not accept gifts from a man.

If her mother had seen it…

If her father had!

Did John think she did not know the connotation? Or did he mean to buy her favour? He’d kissed her twice.

He’d risked her reputation by sending this.

Oh the arrogant, selfish man.

Angry, she turned to her small travelling desk and withdrew a quill and paper.

No thank you, Your Grace. On all accounts, I am afraid I may not accept.

K

~

John stared at the rows of facts and figures in annoyance. There were no anomalies in the ledgers. He could find nothing wrong. Yet something did not make sense. There was the inexplicable loan and then there was the way Wareham behaved.

This morning the man had come to John with a taunting smile on his face, as if he wished to know if anything had been found in the books and then had been gloating over the fact it had not.

He’d asked John if he wished to ride along one of the estate’s boundaries. John had accepted and so he’d had the pleasure of Wareham’s insolent company for three hours.

They had ridden mostly in silence but when they’d met tenants, John had had to correct Wareham’s words on two occasions. It obviously infuriated the man, but John could hardly let things slip when Wareham was deliberately being facetious. Wareham needed ruling with an iron hand. This could be a powder keg if John let any spark be lit. The man had influence in every one of John’s estates.

The morning had merely made John decide to ask Harvey to employ an investigator and track the loan Wareham had made from the other end, to investigate why it had been given.

A light knock hit the sitting room door.

“Come in,” John called, glad of the interruption and sick of the accounts.

“Your Grace,” Finch’s deep tone echoed into the room, as a footman entered bearing a parcel.

John’s brow furrowed and he rose as the footman set it down, then undid the string and lifted the lid.

It was the bonnet he’d sent to Katherine, carelessly thrown atop its wrapping with a scrawled note cast on top of it.

He laughed when he read it. No indeed. God, the girl amused him. She had not said no to his kisses, and he was not inclined to accept it now. She had liked the bonnet. He wished her to have it. He wanted her to favour him over her vicar. Perhaps the cherries ought to be apples and her, Eve, because Katherine Spencer was temptation.

“Finch!” John called.

“Your Grace?” The door opened again.

“I am going out. Have my curricle made ready.”

Half an hour or so later, John drew his curricle to a halt before the Spencers’ small manor house and then looked back at the groom who’d accompanied him.

The man jumped down and ran about the curricle to hold the horses.

John climbed down and then lifted the hatbox from the seat.

His heels crunched on the gravel as he crossed the drive to the door.

He felt light-hearted, glad to be escaping his duty for a brief interlude.

The door opened immediately and Castle, their butler, greeted John with recognition. “Your Grace?” He bowed. “I am afraid Mr and Mrs Spencer are not at home.”

Excellent. John smiled. “I have come to call on Miss Katherine Spencer, Castle, is she home?”

The man’s eyebrows lifted and he glanced at the box John carried. Of course, he’d probably seen it before.

Well, let the man speculate, Katherine was Phillip’s sister, the gift could be explained away.

“Will you wait in the parlour, Your Grace?”

John walked along the hall, glancing up the stairs. If she was not in the parlour, she must be up there. He would much rather be going to her chamber to visit her. A sudden imagined vision of Katherine, hair tussled, half asleep and languid-eyed, came into his mind.

The butler left John in the small receiving room at the back of the house, with a look of disapproval as he went to fetch Katherine.

John set the hatbox down in an armchair, took off his hat and gloves, and then tossed them there too.

The room was decorated in light blue and cream, and was probably the size of Wareham’s office.

A large portrait hung on one wall: Phillip in his wig. John smiled, looking at the miniatures on another wall: Jennifer, Phillip and Katherine’s parents. There was a later miniature of Jennifer too, probably painted recently. There were no images of Katherine.

John walked across the room, his hands settling behind his back, and looked through the French door out into the garden.

A sharp breeze swept at the flower heads.

He felt uncharacteristically nervous.

After a few moments, he heard her footsteps on the stairs and then in the hall.

He turned.

She looked beautiful when she came in. Her cheeks were pink and her bright-blue eyes wide. Her blonde hair was loosely held in a topknot, with wisps of it falling to her shoulders and about her face; a mix of bright-yellow sunshine shades, and duller damp-wheat hues. She wore a faded blue short-sleeved summer dress, which moulded to her figure. His eyes were drawn to her arms. It was the first time he had seen her without a pelisse or a spencer and her bare, slender arms were exquisite pure pale, milk-white skin.

His English rose. His, not her vicar’s.

He crossed the room, took her hand and bore it to his lips.

Thank God those tired kid leather gloves were not on them. Her skin was beautifully cool and soft and he let his thumb run over her palm as he breathed in the scent of her soap.

Clearly uncomfortable and colouring up again, she pulled her hand free.

“I brought your bonnet back,” he whispered, without preamble. “I am afraid I was offended by its return.”

Blue fire flashed in her eyes instantly, as it had done on the road the other day. There was a hidden zeal tucked away within Katherine. He wondered how many others saw it or if it was just him she showed it to. She wanted more from her life, he could tell. He longed to give it to her. He knew she could give him what he wished – release, freedom, moments of escape.

Varying shades of blue warred in her eyes. “What do you think you are doing, John?” It was a harsh, accusing whisper. “You cannot buy me gifts. What if my mother saw it?”

“You are Phillip’s sister, why should I not buy you something you wish for. No one need think it odd!” He smiled. He wanted to laugh. Not because she was funny, but because the passion in her outburst struck him so intensely. She was not the shy quiet person she portrayed herself to be, not in the least.

“Did you wish me to send for tea, Miss Katherine?” Castle asked from the open door, having followed her.

Katherine turned bright pink, but John grasped the opportunity to stay longer. “That would be welcome, Castle, thank you.”

Katherine’s gaze bored into John when the butler turned away.

“You should not be here,” she whispered once the man had gone.

She was right. John only hoped Castle could be discreet, but John did not admit it. “If you are afraid of this being misconstrued, say I brought the gift from Phillip.”

“And when Mama writes to him and asks why he bought me it, and Jenny nothing, what then? Besides Phillip does not have money to waste on bonnets.”

Still disinclined to accept refusal, John picked the box up and held it out.

It was suddenly extremely important to him that she accept it. If she accepted it, she accepted him. She could save him from the darkness. “I shall not take it back, say what you wish. Hide it away, if you will. But I imagine you will look well in it, and if you wear it, I will know you have kept something from me, and you will know it too, but no one else need know a thing.”

Her gaze struck his and then fell to the box. She appeared tempted.

“Take it,” he said more gently.

“But what does it mean, John?” she whispered, her gaze lifting to his again. “What do you want from me?”

He could see there was no anger left in her now, only questions.

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. She deserved honesty from him if nothing else. She had been honest with him on the road and admitted she had wished to be kissed. “I am attracted to you, as you are to me, I can say no more than that. I wish to give you this, Katherine. I wish you to take it. That is all for now.”

“John?”

“You give me ease, Katherine. Let me give you this. Let me think of you wearing it and know you think of me. Perhaps one day I might see you in it.”

Her hands finally reached to accept it and her bare fingers touched his, they melted the feeling of cold ice in his stomach to water, the reaction disturbed him, and suddenly vulnerable, he turned away and crossed to the French door.

“What is going on, John?” she whispered behind him.

He turned back. “Nothing.”

“I don’t understand you.”

Nor do I understand myself. Perhaps that was half his problem! Who was he, his mother’s son or his grandfather’s dark, cold, unfeeling monster? Far more the latter lately. But he didn’t wish to be, and Katherine could make him feel warmth.

He walked back towards her, his gaze holding hers as physical and emotional desire burned inside him like an inferno. “You are beautiful, Katherine.”

“You are beautiful, John. I am not.”

“You are to me. I like your hair, and your eyes. I like you.” —And I want you.

He took the box from her hands then discarded it in the chair, before lifting her chin. She did not turn her head away, her gaze held his, bright with the knowledge that he intended kissing her. “Katherine.” He kissed her gently, unable to comprehend the level of feeling in his chest. How could she have come to mean so much to him in such a short time?

His kiss travelled to brush her cheek, her nose, her temple, as her face tilted towards him like a flower to the sun. “I like your skin too,” he whispered.

She shivered and her fingers clasped his coat at his sides, as though her legs could no longer hold her up.

He liked affecting her like this. She was nothing like the women he’d known before. She was everything he craved.

Castle’s heels rung on the floorboards in the hall.

They pulled apart sharply and John turned and walked back to the window, looking out once more as his heart pounded and his groin ached with the need for fulfilment.

He clasped his hands behind his back, only to stop them shaking.

He wanted to touch her.

Katherine thanked the butler and he heard her take the tea tray and set it down.

It was not tea he was thirsty for.

When she brought him a full cup, he turned and met her gaze again, very aware of the door which still stood open.

She could not shut it. It would be the height of impropriety to do so, but at this moment, it was only that open door which saved her chastity. He wished to do wicked things with her, very wicked things, and he didn’t know if it was his monster roaring or just the boy who desperately longed to be loved.

“Katherine…” John’s pale eyes shone as he looked at her.

She had thought him vulnerable at the funeral months ago, with no evidence to pin the thought against. But today she could see it clearly.

There had been a desperate desire for acceptance in his eyes when he had pressed the bonnet on her, and there was insecurity in them now. She could see nothing of the arrogant man who’d jumped down from his curricle less than a week ago. This was a different person. The boy she had known and the young man who had left for the continent, grown up.

“John,” she said in a low voice, “I do not understand what is happening? I can be no one to you.”

He took the full cup she held out. “You are wrong. You can be everything to me, Katherine.”

She felt the earth shift beneath her feet but she did not know what to do. So she turned away and sought her cup.

“I have never felt this way for anyone before, Katherine,” he said behind her. “I have no idea what it is, or how to progress, all I know is, I wish to be in your company constantly … ”

Her heart pounded. It was John saying this to her.

She was about to turn back, when she heard the front door open. Her cup wobbled in its saucer as she jumped.

“Sir, the Duke of Pembroke is here.”

Her father.

She set her cup aside and moved before the hatbox, her heart thumping even harder.

“The Duke of Pembroke?” Her father’s voice rang along the hall. Then his brisk footsteps could be heard.

She did not look at John.

“Your Grace.” Her father appeared at the open parlour door.

“Papa.” She moved forwards, knowing she must look guilty as she tried to ensure he would not be able to see the box resting in the chair.

There was a question in his eyes.

John set his cup down and crossed the room, offering his hand. “Good day, sir.”

Her father accepted it and shook it briefly, before letting go.

“I called to accept Mrs Spencer’s invitation to your gathering for Jenny, sir,” John progressed. It was a lie of course.

Her father was stiff and silent. He looked at Katherine again. “I am sure your mother will be pleased, Kate.” He did not sound pleased.

Katherine bit her lip. He seemed to have sensed there was something odd going on, but then she was acting as though she had something to hide. Did she? There was the bonnet, but… what else…

Her heart thumped as her father’s gaze passed back to her.

“Katherine?”

“John also brought word from Phillip, father.” Now she had lied too.

Her father’s eyebrows lifted and then he looked back at John. “I was sorry to hear of your grandfather’s passing.”

John nodded. “Your son does well in town, sir.”

“He does…”

Their stilted conversation passed over Katherine’s head as she watched John change back into the Duke – untouchable, unreachable, distant and withheld.

When it ran dry, John turned to her, his eyes cold and direct. “As we still have the sunshine, even though it’s a little blustery, I wondered if you would care to walk in the garden with me.”

She looked at her father. There was still a question in his eyes which said he was unsure what to do. “Shall I leave you two young people to stroll then, Kate, and retire to my study?”

She nodded.

“Your Grace,” he said to John, bowing.

“Sir,” John responded.

Once he’d gone, Katherine turned to John. “You are shameless, the way you manipulate people.”

He merely laughed as she moved to ring the bell for Hetty to collect the hatbox.

She turned back and faced him. “I cannot believe you have persuaded me to accept your gift against my better judgement, and I still do not know what you wish in return for it.”

“A moment of freedom, Katherine, or however many you will give me.”

“Miss Kate?”

Katherine spun about to face Hetty, certain she was entirely pink. “Take this up to my room please, and would you fetch my spencer and bonnet, and my gloves.”

“No,” John interrupted.

Katherine turned.

“Hetty, is it? Your mistress needs none of that, it is cooler today, she need not fear the sun.”

“I have a fair complexion, Your Grace.” His boorishness annoyed her.

“Then a parasol will suffice.” His pale eyes glowed, daring her to challenge him.

She did not, and once the maid had gone, he whispered, “I want to touch your skin.”

Was this the price of her bonnet?

Her heartbeat thundered, as she realised she wished to be touched. She had always known she was base and sinful and weak, John was only proving what she knew, and if any man were to touch her, then let it be John.

Hetty was back in a moment, bearing the promised parasol, and Katherine accepted it with a brief thank you, realising her hands shook when she did so.

John smiled when she turned. His eyes said he needed her.

Her bare arm trembled when he took it.

He opened the French door and together they stepped outside. His grip was gentle. She felt cared for.

There was a little wilderness of wild flowers to the right of the garden, and he led her there as she opened her parasol and rested it on her shoulder. The chill summer breeze caught at her skirt and wrapped it against John’s leg.

He let go of her arm and instead raised his so she could lay her fingers on it. She felt firm muscle beneath the cloth of his morning coat. There was strength, security and support.

“You say you wish for freedom,” she said quietly, “but I still do not understand what you mean, John.” She was being gauche and provincial again.

“Just your company, Katherine, and perhaps your kisses.” His other hand covered hers as it lay on his arm. “We will be discreet.”

Discreet? Was she agreeing to an assignation then? “You make it sound as though you wish for an affair.”

He stopped and looked down at her, vulnerability and need burning in his eyes again. “An affair of sorts, an intrigue. But I shall not take your innocence. I’ll not hurt you.”

His gaze said, please do not deny me.

A rush of yearning swamped her heart.

He began walking again, looking ahead and not at her.

Oh John. John! She remembered that day long ago when she had watched him in the lake and felt desperate to touch him. If she did this, she could touch him and she could kiss him. If she did it, the pain buried in her soul for years would have ease.

John! She ached for him. How could she say no? She had always known he could never offer her marriage, but he could offer her this and she could take it. It was what she’d longed for. Why say no?

As they neared an ancient oak, John’s arm slipped from beneath her hand and then he caught a hold of her arm again and drew her behind the broad trunk, then pressed her back against it.

Her parasol fell and tumbled across the lawn, blown on the wind, as his lips covered hers, gently at first, but then the kiss became more insistent.

His body was barely an inch from hers.

One of his long-fingered hands braced against her cheek.

John!

She kissed him back, her tongue dancing with his, learning from his.

His other hand pressed against her lower back. While hers gripped his morning coat, clinging to him.

The storm of emotion she could feel in him was bitter need.

His mouth left hers and he began nipping beneath her chin in soft little bites. “I want you Katherine.” His breath was hot. “I can show and teach you things you will enjoy, but I swear I shall not take your virginity. I know you want me, too.”

I do!

His hand cupped her breast through her bodice, kneading it gently. It ached for him.

“Say yes, Katherine,” he whispered urgently.

His lips nipped at her neck and his hand rubbed her breast while his hips pressed against hers.

She wanted him, there, between her legs, she wanted to do the indecent things her mother had done to beget her. He was the only thing she had ever really wanted. Why hold back?

Her breath was shallow, and his hard and rasping.

His hand left her breast and moved to the place where she wanted him to be.

John!

He pressed her through the layers of her gown and petticoats, and her arms rose to his neck as he kissed her lips again, more passionately.

“Katherine,” he said into her mouth, sounding as breathless and desperate as her as his fingers rubbed her intimately between her legs through the layers of clothing.

She was so in need. This is what she had spent so many years craving. It was just the two of them in the world. It was wrong, she knew it was, but it felt so right and she did not care. She was like her mother. She had always been told it. This had been inevitable since her birth. The sins of the parent visited on the child.

Her body pressed against his, arching with its need.

It was so perfect what he did, how could it be wrong?

The feelings inside her whirled in a spiral of heated delight, rising up and overwhelming her, and then they seemed to break on a high tide that swept through her body, leaving her panting and weak-limbed.

His fingers braced against her cheek again as he kissed her more urgently for a moment.

She could no longer kiss him back.

Then he ceased, and when she opened her eyes he was looking into them, beautiful and all John.

He sighed, appearing to look right into her soul, the pale blue in his eyes glittering like melting ice.

Her fingers stroked through his soft, dark hair.

“That is what I can give you, Katherine,” he said quietly, as if that was everything. It was his love she wished for. “Will you meet me in my grandfather’s tower tomorrow at two?”

“Yes,” her answer was caught on the breeze and swept away. Yes.

Chapter Six

Thoughts of Katherine hovering in his mind, John strode along the bare flagstone of the servants’ hall, ready to ride out to meet her. The image of her had hung in his mind since yesterday, along with a subconscious feeling of companionship.

The beauty of her submission had been a revelation.

She’d ceased fighting her desire yesterday, giving him her trust, and a hundred times last night he’d vowed to honour it.

He was so hungry for her he’d hardly slept, burning with restless frustration. He itched to have her, but he had made her a promise. He would temper his lust. Yet there were many things a man could do without taking a woman’s virginity and his mind had dwelled on all of them last night. He was impatient to see her.

He’d visited tenants earlier, alone, and then returned to look at the ledgers again over luncheon. There was still nothing there. Now he was searching for Wareham, who apparently kept the key to the folly. John had come himself because it gave him another opportunity to try and discover what Wareham was up to.

The office door was shut. John gripped the handle and turned it without knocking. It was locked.

Ill temper flared. John was too tired and impatient. He rapped on the door harshly, angry at being excluded from a room in his own property.

A chair scraped within, and a moment later the lock turned. Then the door opened.

Wareham’s expression was insolent – antagonising. Like the other day, there was no deference.

John had an urge to grip the man by the throat and shove him up against a wall. “Must I remind you of your place again…”

Wareham turned his back and crossed the room, returning to his desk. “You need not remind me. I am well aware of it.”

John wished to hold him with one fist and punch him with the other. He’d not used John’s title, again.

Wareham looked at John and barely bent his head, as though that would suffice. “Your Grace, pray, to what do I owe this honour?” Then he sat.

It was insupportable for him to do so. John’s servants should always be standing in his presence. Wareham was deliberately insulting. His entire manner expressed rebellion, and his expression said he wished to make John angry. He had. Was John a damned bull to be pulled by a nose ring?

“I have come for the key to the tower.” John held out his hand. Let the man bring it to him.

“And why would you want that, Your Grace?”

“That is none of your business. The key, Wareham.”

The man rose again and moved to fetch it from a tall narrow cupboard.

John waited, but when Wareham held the large iron key out and came towards John, when John reached for it, Wareham pulled it back.

John’s façade of calm evaporated. “Give me the key and stop these games!” His loss of control made him even angrier.

“Games, Your Grace?” Wareham taunted with a gleam in eyes. “I am a bit old for games. It is not a game I am playing.”

“The key, Wareham.” John’s voice was bitterly hard, his patience having fled. Blast the missing money, he wasn’t short of that. Let Wareham have it. He would rather be rid of this problem and rid of Wareham.

Wareham lifted the key and John snatched it from his hand.

“Did you truly think I would tolerate these insults?” John was calmer now, back under control. His voice was no longer angry. This would be an end to it. “You are dismissed. You will leave immediately. I will have you escorted.”

For a moment, Wareham just stared at John. There was not a single flicker of emotion which showed in his eyes or on his face. He was far better at holding his emotion in than John.

“Now,” John pressed.

“Do you think I wish to serve you?”

“You need not. Go.”

“While you have idled abroad, I have built up these estates.” Wareham sounded as though he thought he had a right over John.

John glanced back towards the hall and yelled. “Finch!” He had seen the butler a moment ago.

“Your Grace?” He was there in an instant.

“Mr Wareham is leaving. Immediately. I wish him escorted from the grounds. You may pack his things and send them on, but he is to take nothing which belongs to my estates. Have some of the grooms escort him.”

John looked at Wareham. “You may send Finch your address when you have found somewhere to stay.” Then John turned away and left the room.

The key cut into his palm as his fist clenched, while the maids and footmen bowed and curtsied as he walked along the corridor. John would be known as a tyrant now, for dismissing his steward simply because it took too long to find a key. John felt his prison cell slam shut. He was trapped in this life, he had not chosen it. Darkness and isolation engulfed him as he stepped into the courtyard and felt sunshine on his skin.

I want Katherine.

At least he could have her, and she was his choice.

~

John was breathless with exhilaration when he reached the tower, having ridden hard to get there.

It was a square, red-bricked building, which stood in a clearing, on the brow of a shallow hill, and it reached fifty feet upwards, stretching towards the sky like the tower of Babel.

He’d come here often as a child, though he was sworn never to play in it. He’d stolen the key to come in secret and be alone. He would climb up to the square room at the very top and look down onto the world like God, imagining what he would do if he could rule and order it as he wished: he’d turn back time and know his mother from his birth, he’d long to change fate and stop his father dying. No one had known he’d come here, not even Phillip; he’d never shared this space.

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