The Scandalous Love of a Duke by Jane Lark

Author:Jane Lark
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2014-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

John was bored in town, despite being constantly busy, and the issue with Wareham still irritated him. No new evidence had come to light and Wareham had left Ashford within hours of John. It seemed Wareham was following John, while John still had men following him.

John had former soldiers on Wareham’s heels now, arranged by Harvey, because he feared Wareham might be more dangerous than anticipated. The man had made no further blackmail threats though, not yet. But why would Wareham publish whatever secret he held? The instant he did, it would lose its value. It was only valuable unsaid.

He’d taken rooms in the Oxford Hotel in Park Lane. No doubt spending John’s stolen inheritance. John was impatient to trap him, yet he was not ready to move. He refused to be blackmailed, but he wanted to trace this damned invisible account before he confronted Wareham.

There was another thing John was impatient for, too – to know Wareham’s secret. Harvey had sent scouts out to trace John’s mother’s absent history, but again, so far, there was no news.

John sighed.

While he waited for it, and for Harvey to discover Wareham’s bank account, his thoughts kept turning to something else. Katherine. She was always in his mind. She would not be forgotten. Often, even at the oddest moments, when he was speaking in the House of Lords, dining with his peers at White’s, or attending some formal dinner or dance, she would spring into his thoughts. A single image or a sudden memory; Kate smiling or dancing at her sister’s assembly; her touch on him; the sound of her voice; her sigh of impatience or her cry of pleasure – her eyes.

There were so many memories of her he would rather savour than forget. At night in bed, alone, he could feel her, visualise her. He would relive every moment of the night they’d spent together. She haunted his waking and his sleeping thoughts. He could barely manage more than ten minutes without thinking of her. He could concentrate on nothing but her. He wanted and needed Katherine Spencer with a physical and mental obsession that dulled his appetite and caused insomnia.

But with their impasse it was impossible. He had to conquer this craving. Yet that was easier said than done. It was as though Katherine had infected him. He felt empty inside, hollow, like she’d taken something from him, and it hurt like hell.

I miss her. He was standing at the edge of Lady De Clare’s long ballroom, watching the dancers, without watching them at all, after all Katherine was not among them. His world seemed so damned meaningless without her company to look forward to, no matter that he had power and circumstance to wield like a God, and hundreds of people reliant on him.

“The Duke of Pembroke, how novel…”

The feminine purr had John’s head turning in recognition.

He’d not noticed Lady Ponsonby was here. If he had noticed, he would have left.

He could of course cut her, but the woman’s hand intimately touched his arm before he had the chance.

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