Page 7 of Kathryn

She might have gone to stay with one of her other sisters, all of whom had invited Katie to live with them. Although as time had passed, their invitations seemed less and less heartfelt.

Katie felt a rush of shame at the thought. All they wanted was for her to be happy, and she could feel their frustration that she only became moodier every year. What on earth would she do next year?

Oh Lord. She could not bear a sixth Season. There was—

“There you are! I have been looking all over for you, my lady.” A massive shape suddenly emerged from the dimly lighted path and loomed over her.

Katie jolted at the hostile voice and did a double take when she saw who it belonged to.

It was the Duke of Dulverton, the elusive ten-point kiss.

Chapter Three

Judging by the way Dulverton was glowering at Katie, she would have more luck challenging him to a duel than getting a kiss out of him.

He was even uglier than she’d thought earlier—mesmerizingly so—and Katie found that she could not look away. He was exceptionally tall, but it wasn’t his height so much as his large-boned build that one noticed first. His jaw looked as if it were carved from granite and his cheekbones were jutting, prominent slabs beneath eyes she now could see were a frosty gray. His bow-shaped lips might have been attractive if they’d not been compressed into a grim frown.

Katie shook herself, realizing how rudely she’d been gawking. Before she could respond to his abrupt greeting, he barked something in another language. It was not French, which Katie spoke indifferently but understood, and not German, which she did not speak but thought she might recognize.

But regardless of the language, his tone was clear: he had asked her a question and was glowering at her as if she were an idiot for not answering.

Katie opened her mouth to tell him that he had mistaken her for somebody else, but then his harsh features shifted into an even haughtier expression—which she’d not believed possible—and he hurled another incomprehensible series of syllables at her, employing a tone she would not use on a dog, all the while regarding her with a towering, obnoxious superiority that immediately got under her skin.

Heat suffused her body as if she had swallowed a live flame and wrath pulsed through her veins. Katie recognized and dreaded the furious, temperamental emotion that seized control of her, but, as was always the case, she seemed powerless to stop her fury from overwhelming her good sense.

Rather than explain that he had mistaken her identity—as the tiny part of her brain that was still rational suggested—Katie gave him a look of intense loathing and then nodded, as if she agreed with whatever he had just said.

His dark blond eyebrows sank even lower, and an expression of befuddlement colored his harsh features.

For some reason, his perplexity worried her more than anger would have done.

Good God. What had she just agreed to?

You are behaving like an idiot.

Katie briefly squeezed her eyes shut. She was acting like a fool.

She opened her mouth to tell him the truth when—without asking Katie’s permission—he sat down beside her, his massive frame filling the bench.

Katie turned to gawk, lightly brushing against him in the process.

He jerked as if he’d just touched something foul and shoved his massive bulk to the farthest edge of the bench while regarding her with such a look of revulsion that it took her breath away.

Any remorse Katie might have felt over her dishonest behavior fled. What a boorish, priggish, insufferable oaf! Even seated on the same bench he loomed over her, but she refused to allow his sheer bulk to intimidate her, instead sneering and crossing her arms, rudely jostling him in the process.

Once again, he reacted as if Katie had jabbed him with a flaming stick rather than her elbow.

Incensed, she openly examined his face, not caring if he thought her rude.

The light from paper lanterns cast a romantic pinkish-red glow over their intimate rose-encircled bower, but there was nothing romantic about the Duke of Dulverton.

Distinct lines webbed the outside corners of his eerily pale eyes and deep grooves bracketed his stern mouth, making her wonder how old he was. She was close enough to see that his icy gray irises had a thick dark ring around the outer edge, which made them all the more striking. In any other face she might have thought them attractive. But in the Duke of Dulverton’s uncompromising visage, they only added to his severity.

The roughhewn angles of his face brought to mind Viking invaders while his high-bridged beaklike nose would not have looked out of place on an ancient Roman coin. His brutally short white-blond hair would probably curl if given half a chance. But Dulverton did not look like the sort of man to tolerate curls.

His posture was taut with tension and his jaw flexed as he eyed her with a mixture of mistrust, impatience, and anger. His bow-shaped lips were pulled down at the corners in a frown that Katie surmised to be his resting expression. One side of the bow, she noticed, was slightly higher than the other. It was a mouth that she could not imagine ever smiling.

Or kissing.