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.Then there had been the gossip as to her appearance in light of her husband’s absence.Then the rogues and their vile intentions had descended.Harry had kept ranks with them for a very brief moment, before becoming her confidante and ultimately, her protector from the lascivious gentlemen desiring a place in her bed.Katherine searched the crowd, beset by an odd disquiet.“Are you looking for someone in particular, sweet Kat?”“Do hush,” she scolded from the side of her mouth.“Don’t be gauche.”He staggered back a step, a hand to his breast.“You insult me, Your Grace.Next, you’ll be leveling the same harsh insults as your sister.”Her lips twitched with a distracted sense of mirth.The orchestra concluded the country reel to a smattering of polite applause from the dancers who’d just concluded the set.They began to pluck the strands of the forbidden waltz.Harry held his arm out.“A waltz, Kat?”An odd hum filled the already noisy crowd of guests.She glanced around disinterestedly at the nobles staring toward the center of the room.Katherine placed her fingers along Harry’s coat sleeve.The hum increased in volume like a million honeybees swarming upon the lavish ballroom.The crowd parted for her and Harry as he escorted her onto the rapidly filling dance floor.All the while, the lords and ladies looked at her, tittering behind their hands, and then off to the entrance of the room.A sense of disquiet filled her, and she glanced around, but with her height, remained unable to see that which had attracted the tons notice.Katherine positioned her hand upon Harry’s shoulder, even as he placed his upon her waist.Harry grinned down at her.“It seems we’ve attracted even more than usual interest from the…” His words died, his smile slipping to a single, indecipherable line.She wrinkled her brow.“What is it, Harry?”His hard, hazel stare remained frozen on the entrance of the room.“Harry?” Katherine shifted in his arms, as she attempted to see what had garnered his attention.“What do you…?” She blinked.Her hands fell uselessly to her side, as she took a staggering step away from Harry.Her heart threatened to beat a painful path right out of her chest.Jasper.She’d dreamed of him for so long.Conjured him at those loneliest nights in her dreams, only to wake and find her bed frigidly cold.And now, with all her most desperate yearnings, had imagined him here.The crowds hushed whispers faintly registered.Mad Duke.…His wife.Earl of Stanhope.Except, if the stoic, fierce-looking midnight devil with a day’s growth upon his strong cheeks were merely an object of her imagining, how did those around her also note his appearance?Katherine swayed.She would have knocked into a waltzing couple, but Harry reached out to steady her.Shocked gasps, delighting in his bold handling of her, filled the room.Katherine ignored them.She walked from the dance floor, Harry forgotten, and froze beside Lady Harrison’s enormous Doric column, attempting to steady her too-fast breaths.She folded her hands behind her back and borrowed support from the pillar.His harsh, angry emerald gaze searched the crowd, and then because for all that had come to pass between them, there would always be that inextricable pull that had drawn them together since the fateful day of the Frost Fair, he found her.Their eyes locked.The graying, plump hostess appeared at Jasper’s side.She opened her mouth to speak, and Jasper started forward, leaving the older woman gaping like a fish tossed ashore.Oh God, he is here.Why is he here?It could not be for her.A hand fluttered about her breast, as she tried to still her fast-beating heart.The crowd parted for Jasper.Lords and ladies melting away to clear his path across the marble ballroom floor, over to Katherine’s pillar.He cut an impressive figure.Several inches past six feet, and all great big muscles, his frame better suited a man who worked the land with his broad hands and not a duke just a smidgeon shy of royalty.At last he reached her.Katherine swallowed hard, and tipped her head back.Her eyes searched the hard, angular planes of his face.Since Michael’s carriage had taken her away from Castle Blackwood, she’d tormented herself with a slip of a dream in which Jasper came for her.In all her grandest dreams, he would come, take her from London, and profess his love.In the cold light of day’s reality, however, she knew it unlikely she’d ever again see her husband—not with his love for Lydia.And because she’d never dared to believe he would come to London, she had no words for him, this man whose life meant more to her than even her own.Her throat moved up and down as his hard, fiery stare slipped over her face, down lower.He paused at her daring décolletage, and then returned his gaze to hers.“Katherine,” he said, in the same, harsh tones he’d used when rescuing her from the Thames.His words transported her back to that hellish day, a day that had brought him into her life, and for which she would have suffered that icy plunge again.“Jasper,” she whispered.Jasper’s neck burned from the bold stares directed upon him and Katherine.He ignored their whisperings of the Mad Duke.All the ton could go hang.They mattered not at all.None of them did.No one…But her.He reacquainted himself with each precious line of her heart-shaped face.He took in her rich brown hair, artfully arranged atop her head, with diamond teardrop-shaped combs holding back deliberately placed strands.Two loose tresses hung over her right shoulder, drawing his attention momentarily to the swell of her bosom.A vise-like pressure tightened about his heart as he mourned the loss of those tight brown ringlets.Gone was the young lady in ivory skirts with too many ruffles.In her place stood this boldly clad siren with her generously curved body and slim waist [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]