The Scandalous Love of a Duke by Jane Lark

it, if it was legitimate. Which meant – as Harvey did not – it was not.
    John had reiterated to Wareham during their first meeting, on his arrival, that all business should be done through Harvey, without giving any indication he knew of the deal with Boscombe. There had not even been a flicker in Wareham’s eyelids, but his belligerence had put John out of sorts.
    Since then, he’d evaded duty. He ought to be visiting tenants not racing about the country lanes.
    John sighed.
    He’d focus again tomorrow. Today he’d continue letting the weight slip from his shoulders.
    The woman was yet nearer. He eased up a little, pulling on the reins.
    Half his trouble was the bad memories haunting him here. They hung around him like shadows in the Palladian mansion. He’d already started changing things in town now his grandmother had retired to one of the smaller estates, redecorating the townhouse to dispense with the memories of his childhood. He was going to do the same here, to chase off the bloody desperate child who still lived in his head. He hated the house. He’d felt it the minute he’d returned and known in the same moment it was irrational. But no matter how many years he’d come here with his mother, the memories which pervaded were the dreadful years of longing he’d lived here without her.
    The emotion made him feel weak, and then angry at himself for weakness.
    He should just be getting on with his duty and visiting tenants and sorting out Wareham. What he was doing instead was running from the demons in his head.
    The woman was now a couple of hundred yards away.
    The other half of his trouble was that John was really beginning to understand his grandfather. The burdens of duty and expectation were making John more and more withdrawn. He hated the parasitical nature of people. No matter how much he did not wish to be like the old man, John could see no other way to cope with the barrage of falsehood and make a path through it. The only way was to shut it out.
    The darkness which had always haunted him abroad had set its hood over him again.
    He tightened his grip on the reins as he drew near the woman, slowing the horses to a trot, then realised he’d over-pushed them. The animals’ coats were slick with sweat. It was too hot for them really.
    He was used to Egypt’s desert heat. His animals were not.
    He decided to go back at the same moment he realised who the woman was.
Katherine
. He’d not seen her since the funeral, well not in person, he’d seen her in his dreams. Vivid dreams, which would certainly make her blush if she knew of them.
    Perhaps his guilt over those dreams was why he’d given Phillip the benefit of doubt and used him to develop the contracts for a business deal between John and his Uncle Robert; or rather the guilt John
should
feel, in fact he felt only longing.
    That longing returned now, in full measure.
    He’d asked after her when he’d seen Phillip. Phillip only smiled and said she was the same as ever.
    John had also heard Eleanor say Katherine had declined an invitation to stay. He hadn’t known if he was relieved or angry at the time. It was dangerous this obsession he was developing for her. But obsession it was beginning to be, the amount of times he thought of her. Her image had become a sanctuary from the burden of duty. There was no harm in imagining. But here was the real Kate.
    “Katherine!”
    The girl jumped half out of her skin and spun about. She must have been completely lost in a world of thought.
    God.
He’d been craving air and sky, and nature, in his desire for escape the last couple of days, and here was his quintessential English rose, a woman with modesty who could still blush,
for heaven’s sake
.
    The she-wolves had begun stalking him again in town, and he’d even been moderately tempted, knowing he needed some form of release from his burdens. But his dream was for Katherine, simplicity and innocence, and
they
were not that,
they
would not