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 The burdens of duty and expectation were making John more and more withdrawn.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