Page 56 of The Scandalous Love of a Duke (The Marlow Family Secrets #6)

Folly , Katherine said to herself, as she had done a dozen times today. Folly, folly, folly, folly.

Folly to love him in the first place, folly to succumb to his seductions and certainly folly to believe she could be his wife. But she had believed him again last night and been enchanted by his attentions.

Catching up her skirt, not hearing him follow, she raced upstairs, her fingers sliding over the warm, silky mahogany.

Seeing his sketches of Egypt had reinforced how different their lives had been.

She wished she had not seen them and yet she knew if she was ever to breach the gap between herself and John she had to understand his world.

So, she had dutifully understood when his mother had excused John’s disappearance this morning and explained how busy his life was.

Of course he had a life beyond their bedchamber but she longed to lock him away and pretend all else did not exist.

She had shopped with his mother and enjoyed her company, and then faced the matrons of elite society. She had hated every moment of that, but she had smiled and borne it, because she knew eventually these women would be gone and John would come home and they could retire to his rooms again.

Phillip greeted her with a hug and she clung to him for a moment, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and holding onto the feeling of familiarity.

‘How are things?’ he asked when they let go of one another.

‘Well.’

Taking his hand, she pulled him to a sofa at one side of the room where they could talk more privately.

She told Phillip about the ball last evening.

When John entered the room a little later, she did not look up.

Nor did she look at him through dinner. He was at the opposite end of the table to her, and Phillip was beside her. She talked endlessly to Phillip, though.

He told her John had offered him work. He told her their father had written back to him and asked him to watch over her and ensure she was happy, and that Jenny had sent congratulations too.

When they finished eating, John’s mother stood, and Katherine realised it should have been her role to notice it was time for the women to leave.

She had so much to learn, and remember. She finally looked at John.

He was rising out of respect because his mother and his elder sisters had done so.

He smiled at her as she stood too, as much as his scabbed lip allowed. She smiled back.

How was she to help him simply be himself when he would be out every day, beyond her reach?

Taking the reins of responsibility from his mother, Katherine led the women from the room, leaving the men to their port and cigars.