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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 (#ucb57aeeb-b2b1-5405-a5a6-1667894ed489)
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 nothiding 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.
