Page 25 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke (The Marlow Family Secrets #6)

John slid his hands into his trouser pockets and watched Katherine bid farewell to her reverend. At least it was Phillip who was driving her home and not that man. Her parents had already gone on ahead while his stood behind him.

He’d had little opportunity to watch Katherine in the church, with the Pembroke pew packed to the brim with his fidgeting brothers and sisters.

Phillip approached Katherine and took her arm.

Jealousy and longing shot through John. He wished to be able to touch her.

He wanted to hear her voice and feel her touch on him.

But he was doing the right thing. He had to let her go.

Yet it was not only his sacrifice, but hers.

He had seen the sadness in her eyes when he had told her it was over.

What must she think of him?

Had he killed whatever it was in her she called love?

Sometimes he thought some sort of madness had overcome him as far as Katherine was concerned. How had he ever thought it had been the right thing to do, to steal her innocence when he had nothing to offer in return? She is right – I am spoilt and selfish.

He was going to change.

‘Are you coming, John?’ his mother called.

John turned.

‘You are brooding over something,’ she said, walking towards him.

He shook his head. He did not wish her encroaching into his thoughts.

This dinner had been an awful idea. He was tired of his brothers and sisters in the house already, and his father and mother, and his grandmother, all seemed to watch him constantly and question him all the time, without using words.

Consequently, he spent little time with them.

When he walked towards her without answering, she said, ‘We are all proud of you. You know that, don’t you, John?

’ Her hand wrapped about his upper arm. ‘But you are not alone in this. If you need us, people will support you, Edward, your uncles, your grandmother, your aunts and I. You need not isolate yourself.’

‘I am hardly doing that, you are here, Mama.’ His pitch was irritable as they walked on towards the carriages.

His stepfather was watching, waiting for them.

‘That is just it though, John. We are here, but you are not. You spend more time in the library and in your chambers than with us.’ She took a breath.

‘Mary and Robbie would like to know you better. You built up Robbie’s expectations when you took him to Tattersall’s and you have barely spoken to him since, and Mary has missed you for so many years… ’

And?

‘If there is anything I have done,’ she said suddenly.

He looked down and met her gaze but continued walking.

‘Your solitude concerns me, John. It concerns Edward too. I know you deliberately stayed abroad. If I, or we, have done something to upset you, you would tell us?’

Why were you not there before I was ten? The question shot through his mind but he would not ask it. He would not appear such a fragile fool.

‘You need not fret over me, Mama.’

She gave him a tremulous smile. ‘A part of me knows that, and yet another part senses there is something wrong.’

‘I will take Robbie driving this afternoon, if it pleases you.’

‘John, this is not about simply spending more time with your brother, although he will be overjoyed. It is about you. I wish you to be happy, and I do not think you are.’

Happiness? His life had always been about duty.

He had escaped it for a few years in Egypt, but he’d always known even then he was only buying time.

‘I have everything I need, Mama.’ Except the feelings Grandfather beat out of me.

Surely he should feel some compassion towards her, not this annoyance.

‘But you are not happy,’ she said as they neared the carriages. ‘Your life is not all about responsibility, John, happiness outweighs it,’ she whispered finally before they could no longer talk.