Page 5 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke (The Marlow Family Secrets #6)

Standing on the lea beside Westminster Abbey, Katherine watched as the procession neared.

The coffin was displayed in a black hearse pulled by six jet horses, with black-dyed ostrich feathers bobbing on their heads as they trotted with high, precise steps. Their manes and tails were plaited and tied with black ribbon.

Gripping her reticule with both hands and holding it more tightly, Katherine took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding.

As the hearse drew to a halt, she lifted to her toes to see over the crowd.

It seemed as if half of London was in attendance to view the pomp and ceremony of the old Duke of Pembroke’s funeral.

All she could see of John, as he climbed from his open carriage behind the hearse, was his head and shoulders.

Her heart ached.

She watched him move alongside his uncles to release and lift the coffin.

A rush of pain and longing spilled from her heart into her limbs. It had been so long since she had seen him but her reaction was the same as it had been more than half a dozen years before. The rhythm of her heart rang like an ironmonger’s hammer against her ribs.

Her brother, Phillip, braced her elbow, to stop her being knocked off balance by the crowd. He could have gone into the Abbey, but women were not to attend funerals and he had promised to stay with her.

Katherine’s heartbeat thumped even harder as John and his uncles passed them.

The crowd surged forward then, as people moved in a crush to enter the Abbey and stand at the back.

Katherine waited outside with Phillip, acutely aware of the chasm between her life and John’s.

Even so, she had jumped at the chance to see him when Phillip had said he was going to come to the funeral.

Their father had read of the old Duke’s death and John’s return in the paper only days ago.

She could hardly believe John had finally come back.

She was still hopelessly in love with him, or rather with her dreams of him.

She could hardly claim to know him now. She had not seen him in years.

When his family filed back out of the Abbey, she could see John at the front. He looked different. He had matured. He had travelled the world and seen things she would never see, experienced things she could never imagine, and now he was a duke. She was a provincial nobody compared to him.

She was here to mourn, not for the loss of the former Duke, but for the loss of any hope. Her feelings would never be reciprocated. She would never have John. It had been a childish dream she could not shake off. She had always known who he was – and what he was.

He walked past them. The crowd was three or four people deep in front of her, but she briefly had a clear view of his head and shoulders.

He still looked breathtakingly handsome, with his pitch-black hair and pale crystalline gaze, and there was an eye-catching strength in his sculpted features.

Behind her, a dozen female whispers concurred with her view.

Katherine dropped her head and hid beneath the brim of her bonnet when John’s gaze passed across the crowd. Not that he would remember her, or even care that she was here.

Phillip’s fingertips squeezed her arm, holding her steady as men came out from the abbey and the crowd shifted.

He thought she had come because John had been a close friend for a number of years and she wished to support him. It was why Phillip was here.

She had come only to see John.

It was ludicrous of Phillip to think John needed their support. John was surrounded by people of his own class.

We are fools, the pair of us, harping back to a relationship that no longer exists. This was not the boy, nor the young man, who had treated her as an equal. This man was an entirely different beast, influential, dominant and superior. Way beyond her.

She glanced at Phillip. He was watching John’s progress with a slight smile on his face as if he thought John might acknowledge them and smile too.

Katherine had no such expectations.

When her gaze returned to John, he was climbing up into his carriage, lithe and athletic.

Oh God, I love him. I cannot help it. I just do.

When she had planned this day with Phillip, she had wondered if, perhaps even hoped that, when she saw John she would feel nothing, and discover her feelings had been a girlish infatuation.

That it would no longer hurt to think about how out of her reach he was.

But she felt as she had seven years ago.

When he was seated, he looked through the carriage window, at the crowd, and she sensed a moment of vulnerability in him.

She could not justify the feeling, it was just a sixth sense she could not explain. She longed to hold him and tell him all would be well. How absurd. He would probably push her away if she attempted it. Why on earth would he choose plain Katherine Spencer to confide in?

Phillip’s lips brushed her ear, as he leaned down to speak over the noise of the crowd. ‘We will go to John’s house for a little while, before I run you home.’

She looked up. ‘We cannot. We will not be welcome.’

‘We can and we are. We may not be aristocracy but we are gentry. Come, we will be mingling with half of the House of Lords. I am not missing a chance like this. Just think about the tales you will be able to tell at your little Sunday school.’

‘Phillip, we will be turned away.’

‘We will not. John would never throw us out. He will welcome us, you will see.’ Phillip smiled.

‘We will look ridiculous if you are wrong,’ she said as she let him lead her away.

Half an hour later, Katherine rose onto her toes to whisper in her brother’s ear, ‘This is folly.’ A second later they crossed the threshold of John’s opulent town house, as the butler held the door wide.

Her gaze swept the massive hall with its black-and-white chequered floor, and gilded marble pilasters. The grandness of this house was intimidating and it belonged to John.

The butler bowed, slightly, plainly waiting on their names. He was the gatekeeper, and this was the moment of dignity or humiliation.

The hall was crowded. Katherine could barely breathe.

‘Master Phillip Spencer and Miss Katherine Spencer,’ Phillip stated.

The butler’s eyes widened. ‘Master Spencer…’ he repeated, looking hard at Phillip.

Katherine let her breath out. This man remembered Phillip. She had forgotten Phillip stayed in this house with John, during some school breaks.

She wished she had paid more attention to John’s life when she was young.

She would not have fallen in love if she had realised how different they were.

She had been deceived. She had played with him in the grounds of his grandfather’s estate, as though they were equal.

But they were not equal. She had never even been in the house there.

Only Phillip had been welcome inside the houses, the walls, of John’s life.

‘Refreshment is being served in the dining room, sir.’

‘Where is the Duke, Finch?’

‘I cannot say for sure, sir. I believe His Grace is in the state drawing room, yet I may be wrong.’

Phillip nodded his thanks, and then his grip on Katherine’s arm steered her on again.

They were absorbed in the crowd of elite society.

‘I told you so,’ he bent sideward to whisper.

As Phillip looked for John, Katherine felt her throat dry with a nervous fear.

The drawing room was as ostentatious as the hall. The high ceiling boasted plaques of painted images, scenes of the Greek Gods sprawled on clouds and semi-clad. She had never seen anything so beautiful and so opulent.

John should have been easy to spot, he was so tall, but she could not see him. ‘Where is he?’ she asked Phillip, who was tall enough to look over people’s heads, her heart racing at the prospect of actually speaking to him.

‘He is not in here, but the girls are. We will wait. He will come back this way. You can catch up with Margaret and Eleanor.’

The pounding of her heart became a deafening rhythm as Phillip led her across the room towards John’s family.

John’s eldest sister, Mary Rose, spotted them first. She was dressed in black, as they all were, but unlike many, with her dark hair, pale eyes and skin, even black made her look beautiful.

Katherine pinned a smile on her face. She felt more certain of a welcome from the girls, but she did not wish to appear gauche.

‘I cannot believe it!’ Mary exclaimed as they neared. ‘Phillip! Katherine!’ Her exclamation drew the attention of the others.

Mary had been a young girl when Katherine saw her last.

‘I have not seen you for an age.’ Mary hugged Katherine.

They had never been friends. Mary had been too young and yet as the younger one she had admired her brother’s playmate, with a desire to join their games.

Mary had shouted at John as a child over why Kate was allowed to play the boys’ games, when Mary was not.

Now, as a young woman, her exuberance was expressed fondly as Mary held Phillip’s offered hand.

Of course, again, Katherine had forgotten how much better Phillip knew John and his family. She had been welcomed into their circle for an hour here or there in the grounds of Pembroke Place. Phillip had lived with John in the way of a brother, both at school and during the holidays.

Phillip gallantly kissed the back of Mary’s hand.

‘John will be beside himself to know you have come. I am sure he did not expect to see you. I shall find him.’ Lifting to her toes, she looked across the room. ‘Oh, I cannot see him, I will go and look.’

‘No,’ Katherine said, as she felt a sudden panic. ‘Please, do not disturb him. I am sure he has more important people to speak with than us.’

Mary’s pale blue eyes, the image of John’s, met Katherine’s. ‘Well, if he has time later I am sure he will come over and speak.’