Free The Scandalous Love of a Duke by Jane Lark Page A

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. John’s 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 of an age with 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