“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