Page 11 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke (The Marlow Family Secrets #6)

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 had taught 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 ignored him; 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.

She turned to the storage cupboard. She felt his presence so keenly she could sense him smiling behind her.

‘Are you hiding in here, Katherine?’

Her heart thumped. ‘Working, John.’

His boot heels rang on the glazed medieval tiles as he approached. She spun about as he neared.

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. ‘There is no need for you to fear me.’

She lifted her chin. ‘I am not afraid of you.’ I am afraid of myself.

‘I would never hurt you.’

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

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

‘I have thought about you since the funeral,’ he whispered. ‘I know I said sorry to you yesterday, but I really do not think I am. I wanted to kiss you, too. I have thought about doing so since I saw you in London. Why should either of us feel regret?’

She dragged a deep breath into her lungs. ‘John, do not do this.’ She stepped back and bumped into the shelves.

He caught her arm to stop her falling.

‘Do what? Admit I am attracted to you? I am, as you are to me.’ His head bowed before he had even finished speaking.

His lips touched hers.

It was different than yesterday. It was gentle, reassuring, and without conscious thought her hands rose to his shoulders.

When his lips opened and his tongue slid across the seam of her mouth, she could not help but part her lips and kiss him back.

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

His hand slipped to the first curve of her lower back as his other arm came about her shoulders, then his kiss became more ardent and his tongue pressed deep into her mouth.

‘Katherine!’ Reverend Barker called.

They flew apart and she knew she must be crimson.

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

The back of her hand pressed to her mouth, then her palms touched to her hot cheeks before her fingers tried to tuck wisps of her hair back beneath her bonnet.

She felt dishevelled but it was not an outward turmoil, it was an inward one.

Her hands ran quickly over her gown, smoothing out creases which were not there.

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

Oh, John, what are you doing to me?

She turned her back on him, presuming he would leave by the side door, and walked into the aisle, her hands clasping together to stop them from shaking.

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

* * *

John saw the reverend through the ornate screen separating off the little chapel. John’s stomach clenched in a sharp spasm.

The reverend was not in his robes. He had changed and come back for her.

‘Katherine!’ Not Miss Spencer. The man’s voice echoed about the church, calling her name for the second time.

The reverend was of an age with himself. John’s grandfather had appointed him three years ago.

‘I am here, Richard.’

An icy cold sensation crept across John’s skin. Jealousy. John walked into the aisle as Katherine had done a moment before. He stood in the middle of the square of four arches beneath the church tower, feeling like a cockerel in a pit, ready to fight this man whose first name she had used.

Perhaps John had 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 at him, she was embarrassed, blushing again, her expression displaying her surprise that he had followed. ‘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. Now, John felt awkward. But moments ago she had been kissing him.

‘Forgive me, I thought Your Grace had left.’ The reverend 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 reverend sent Katherine a conciliatory and questioning smile. He obviously did not trust the duke near his prim Sunday school teacher.

John laughed internally. It was not bitter. But he felt a desperate need to keep Katherine for himself. He felt so much better in her presence – he felt alive, human, with her.

Setting a false smile, every bit the old Duke’s grandson, John met the reverend’s gaze. ‘I saw Miss Spencer’s parents leave, I had not realised you had an arrangement.’ Was the reverend her beau? Was Katherine inclined towards him?

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

She nodded.

Now he was bitter, seething. Nobody dismissed him. Katherine was his and this bloody nobody was going to damn well have to step aside.

‘Your Grace.’ She turned to him and dropped a deep curtsy as though he were a stranger.

I want you.

If she was playing games, well, he had learned them from the she-wolves abroad, he knew how to play.

‘Katherine,’ he stated, in a deeper, warmer pitch, reminding her they were not strangers.

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

He faced the vicar. ‘Reverend Barker,’ he said, then left them.

* * *

It had been three days since John felt Katherine slip into complete abandon in the church’s chancel chapel. Since then thoughts of kissing her had filled his mind. His whole body ached with need for her, and at night she occupied his every dream.

It irritated him immensely whenever he thought of her with the reverend.

But she had kissed John, she could not therefore wish for a pious man of the cloth.

John strode on along Maidstone’s pavement and shoved all thoughts of Kate aside.

He had a job to do. He had scoured the accounts and found nothing unusual.

So now he was resorting to asking Pembroke Place’s suppliers about Wareham’s business practices.

He had also visited some of his tenants and asked if they 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, his now habitual lack of patience wearing thin.

He knew now 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. Katherine.

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

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

Her profile was perfect, with her round-tipped nose, and her slightly parted rose-coloured lips.

He crossed the cobbled street, ignoring other passers-by as a primal hunger roared.

‘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 said quietly. 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 said. ‘If the reverend is Richard, Katherine, I think I might remain John. We have known each other for 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…’

‘Nothing? You said he drives you home every Sunday. Have you an agreement with him?’

‘An agreement?’ Her eyes kept glancing into the shop.

‘Are you promised to him?’

She turned a deeper pink as she looked back at him. ‘No.’ She had not shown any embarrassment with the reverend.

He suddenly remembered she was holding parcels. ‘Allow me.’ He lifted them out of her arms. Where was her groom or maid? Phillip’s family were not high society but nor were they low. Her father was the local squire; he employed servants.

‘Who is with you?’

‘My mother is in the shop.’

He looked through the shop window and saw her mother and younger sister sifting through a drawer of ribbons. Why was she not in the shop with them? ‘Have you finished shopping…’ he posed aloud.

Her skin flushed a scarlet red, but she said nothing.

‘Where is your groom?’ That was who should be carrying the parcels.

‘He is waiting in the livery stable.’

‘Leaving you to play maid. There is no need for you to stand here looking to all and sundry like a pack mule, Katherine, I will have my groom take these to yours.’ John looked across his shoulder, looking for his own groom who walked a few paces further back. He waved him forward.