by Lauren Smith
“Oh, no reason,” she said quickly, trying to sound nonchalant.
James grabbed her hand. “Did you expect me to come and see you?”
“Well, in your last letter you said you would, you even sent this...” She retrieved the black and silver star embroidered cloth and held it out to him. He took it from her, sliding the cloth over his fingers, a scowl etched into his full lips. Lips she hadn’t kissed last night.
Oh, Lord, this cannot be happening. I couldn’t have kissed Jasper.
“I did not send this…who gave you this?” he demanded sharply, his face flushing and his fists clenching “Another man has been sending you letters and gifts? I’ll kill him.”
“I…” How stupid could she be? She’d let him see it and now the whole incident had turned into her fault. His almost violent response made her take a hasty step back.
“Did you meet with someone last night?” he asked, his lip curling in a soft snarl.
Her heart dropped clear down to her toes with dread.
“No, I—”
James thrust the cloth back at her. “I see the lie in your eyes, Miss Haverford. I cannot attach myself to someone who has clearly been with another man and lied about it. It makes me wonder what else you have lied about.” James leaned in close, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“But I haven’t lied! I came here to ask you the truth, the letter was signed with your name! How was I to know it wasn’t from you?” She wanted to hit him, hit the arrogant man right between the eyes, for assuming she would betray him and their love, a love she had built her dreams and future around. Her heart splintered, each fracture pinching her chest with pain.
“Lies or not, you have granted your attentions to another man, I have little interest in marrying a deceitful creature like you…however.” His cold eyes heated up again when he reached to tug a curl of her hair before letting his fingers drop to her throat. “I would be more than willing to offer companionship whenever you tire of this other man.”
His words hit her like Lady Greenley’s parasol, right in the stomach, her breath knocked completely out of her lungs. She slapped his hand away and took a step back. He wanted to sleep with her, but not marry her? Who was this man? This was not the man she’d written love letters to for eleven years…James Randolph was a coldhearted ruthless stranger.
“I am an honorable woman, and you dishonor me with your accusations and your… offers,” she added for lack of a better word. She hated herself for the way her voice shook when she took another step back from him. She was going to toss her accounts if she had to spend another minute around this man.
“Suit yourself, Miss Haverford,” he replied almost sulkily and stalked off, leaving her alone.
“James, wait!” she called, but he was already gone. Should she run after him? What could she say to erase that accusing glare in his eyes, or remove her own damning desires for the man she’d kissed in her garden? Nothing…and what’s more…she didn’t really want to. There was nothing left to say to him, not after he’d revealed his true nature. Rather than listen to her explain what had happened, he’d made a scandalous and frankly disgusting offer to take her as a mistress. The man she’d loved for so long was a cruel, insensitive brute of a man.
Gemma’s eyes filled with tears, she hadn’t known, she hadn’t meant to disgrace herself or him. How could he just walk away from her, after all these years…it wasn’t fair. That awful cloudiness seemed to fill her head again and she couldn’t quite get enough breath…
“Gemma?” A concerned male voice, one she recognized all too well, jerked her out of the fainting spell and filled her with cold fury.
She slowly turned around to see Jasper still leaning against the gazebo but he looked ready to come straight to her if she fell. His handsome face was dark with an emotion she couldn’t read; it was something between anger, lust, and concern if she could interpret the fire in his eyes and the pursed line of his lips. He straightened up and started walking toward her.
“Bad luck, Gemma,” he breathed in soft apology and started to leave.
Oh no, he was not going to just walk away after shattering her so wonderfully planned dreams. No man should ever be allowed to walk away after such a crime.
“You! It was you!” she hissed, grabbing his arm, forcing him to spin around and face her. The muscles of his arm, covered by his jacket, still felt warm beneath her gloved hand. His touch shocked her and she let go immediately.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jasper said, but his caramel brown eyes were sharp.
Gemma, normally restrained and reserved in her manner, could not contain herself any longer. What was it about this rake in particular that turned her mild-tempered self into a raving heathen full of anger and desire?
“Don’t lie to me, Jasper Holland!” She shook him by the shoulders rather violently, not caring that she breached propriety by breathing his first name. Her show of violence did not affect him at all, rather he seemed impassive, a sea of ice compared to the hellish inferno that raged within her. Yet there was no coldness in his eyes, they were hot like melted honey and they revealed his precarious grip on his self-control.
“Calm down, Gemma, there’s a good girl. Don’t make a scene,” Jasper warned.
When he moved to grab her, Gemma stepped back, away from him. At that moment if he had succeeded in touching her she would have slapped him.
“Gemma, come now, you must get control.”
“Control? Where was your control last night in the garden? How could you!”
She couldn’t stand the sight of him, so she tore away, and started running blindly. The sound of him coming after her, the crashing of the bushes, made her run that much faster. Gemma collided with a prickly bush and briars dug into her stockings at the ankles. A half-strangled cry of pain escaped her lips but there was no time to stop and pull them out because in that brief hesitation she heard his booted feet thundering after her.
Hoisting her gown up past her knees she jumped over the offending bush that had snagged at her gown and kept running.
Jasper’s muffled curse came moments later when he ran into that same bush. Her heart beat frantically, and her ragged breathing gave this moment a thrill, one reminiscent of the garden when he’d caught her about her waist and pulled her to him. Gemma had no desire to be caught, least of all by that devil Jasper. She needed to be pursued, to feel wanted, desired, after the heartache she’d just suffered at James’s condemning hands. She needed this. And yet, needing it made her feel terrible. She should be weeping and wilting, not running away from the man she’d kissed the night before, the man she wasn’t going to marry.
After a mad dash, leaping over flower beds and ducking around hedges, Gemma skidded to a stop in a small clearing. A garden shed sat at the farthest end of the garden away from the party. She ducked inside the dusty tool filled shed, trying to find something with which to secure the door behind her so she might be left alone. The little shed appeared to have been abandoned. Dust coated every surface and the windows were thick with years of grime. A trapped bee buzzed against the window, trying to escape back into the garden. A little pang of sympathy moved through her and she wished she could open the window to free the insect, but from the looks of the window, it was the kind that did not open.
“We’re both trapped aren’t we,” she muttered to the bee as it continued to collide with the glass.
Outside the window Jasper strode into view, panting slightly, his large chest rising and falling. That impossibly dark hair, the hair she remembered touching last night, was wild and windblown with his chase. She ducked behind the wooded shed walls while he scanned the various other garden entries and exits from his location. When his head slowly turned in the direction of the shed, she held her breath, praying he could not see her hiding in the shadows inside. His eyes narrowed and he started toward the shed with purpose.
“Blast!” she hissed and frantically glanced about the little room.
A rusted, wood handled garden hoe rested against the wall in one corner. She snatched it, raising it defensively when Jasper burst in after her. She swung the hoe at his chest, he lunged back, and the shed door slammed shut beneath the force of his body smashing into it as he evaded the hoe’s path.
“Gemma! What in God’s name are you doing? Put that bloody thing down, before you hurt yourself,” he admonished, facing her and lifting his palms, attempting to show her he wouldn’t come after her. She lunged for him again, but he leapt aside, barely out of reach.
“Who would care if I did hurt myself? Certainly not James, you made sure of that!” She was losing that fire of hate against him and in its place was despair. Thick, cloying, choking despair for everything she’d lost.
His warm eyes pleaded with her to calm down, but all she wanted was to erase what had happened last night. To take away every kiss, every caress Jasper had given her. Why couldn’t she forget the unspeakable pleasures he’d given her with his hands and his mouth? Those were memories she shouldn’t have, shouldn’t long for… Everything she dared to remember, it was a betrayal of her heart, a betrayal of the man who’d written to her for eleven years. James should have been the man meeting her in the garden last night.
Jasper ducked from another swing of her garden hoe and then expertly wrenched it from her shaking hands. He set it down, well out of her reach by the door of the shed. Then he turned to watch her, drawing his brows together. Gemma inhaled in a slow shuddering breath, feeling the slow press of tears in her eyes.
Everything is falling apart. I can’t even escape the man who ruined my life.
“Don’t cry, Gemma darling. I can’t bear to see a woman cry,” Jasper said, his voice strangely rough, as though something was caught in his throat. He took a step toward her, his black boots made a soft scraping sound over the gray stone floor of the small shed.
She fell back against the wall farthest from him, using her hands to support her behind her back when she bent over a little, sucking in aching breaths. She tried to find the right words to respond.
“How can I not weep for what I’ve lost? All my dreams, my hopes…you’ve ruined me. Could you not tell James the truth, convince him to take me back?” she pleaded softly. His dark hair gleamed in the dim light of the shed and he shook his head slowly.
James take Gemma back? That was the last thing Jasper wanted. It was also the last thing James wanted. He had his sights on Arabella now and would be announcing their engagement soon.
“No, he would not hear of any excuse, no matter whose lips did the begging. He’s not the man for you anyway, there are better men out there. Men who would love you to distraction, who would want to spend every night in a garden with you. Forget James. You’ll thank me for it later.” He prayed she’d understand one day that his deception would help her. It had hurt him to betray her like he had, she was so damned lovely, so perfect in so many ways, and knowing he’d taken away her dreams hurt him as much as she was hurting. As soon as she opened her heart again, he would be there to claim her.
“Please Jasper…” she begged softly, her sweet voice a plaintive bird’s frightened trill. The shattering pain in her eyes killed him. She was a strong woman, and he’d broken her.
Hellfire and damnation, I ought to be hanged for what I’ve done.
“It would do no good…” he repeated, wishing for her sake she would not cry.
She did. The well of tears came first, glistening in her eyes like vibrant, shining jewels, then the trembling shoulders, and at last the choked sound in her little throat.
It broke him into a thousand pieces, scattering like dust in the breeze. All that cool restraint he’d been gripping tooth and nail to keep was gone.
Gemma tried to step around him, to flee the isolated confines of the small garden shed. It was too intimate a space for them both to share, not while her despair and his desire wreaked havoc on them both. Their bodies brushed against each other, fraying his control with the soft promise of what it would feel like to hold her, to ease her pain.
He blocked her path to the door, but she tried to slip to the left, one trembling gloved hand reaching for the iron door handle, but he flung his hands out barring her way to freedom. The moment he wound his arms around her waist she railed against him, fists curled tight, beating his chest. The blows didn’t hurt though, and he let her strike out, deserving every stinging punch she gave him.
“Gemma, I’m sorry, truly I am.” Take out your anger on me, little one, I’ll still hold onto you for the gift you are. The gift he wished he could lay claim to now. Knowing he couldn’t, created a sharp ache inside his chest. She would need time to come to terms with James, and he still had the problem of his confession with the letters. He didn’t want to tell her, but he knew he had to. He was damned either way.
“How could you? How could you do this to me? I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you Jasper!” she hissed, her fingers digging into his chest, clawing uselessly at his well-protected body. Her voice had risen in pitch when she’d shouted her last statement. Jasper sighed, thankful she’d fled to a place where no one would find them…or hear them.
He pulled her tighter to him, holding her firmly, but gently while she cried herself into a soft exhausted state. Having her in his arms felt so right. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking that, and not just because he was the one who’d made her cry. This woman was too good for a man like him. He’d done a lot of things in his life he wasn’t proud of. He’d killed men in the heat of battle, he’d seen friends blown to pieces when cannon balls exploded across the decks of his ship.
Every minute he’d been fighting for his life, trying to save himself and his crew from being killed, captured or drowned; it had been this woman here in his arms that had kept him alive. Jasper had fought to stay alive because of her. Her letters had given him courage and strength. Before every battle at sea, he’d wrapped her latest letters in a flat package and secured them against his heart beneath his shirt and uniform. Like a romantic fool, he’d wanted to have that little bit of her close to him, should he perish.
And she’ll never know, can never know how much I needed her these last few years. How she saved my life by simply writing back to me. And I’m the bloody bastard who ruined her because I couldn’t say no to James.
James had forced him to choose between him and Gemma. Could he deny the man who’d saved his life countless times whatever he asked and in turn hurt the woman he’d come to cherish more than his own life. A devil’s predicament with no easy answer except that he was damned no matter who he chose. And he had the sinking feeling he should have protected Gemma over James, not that it would have helped. James would have broken her heart no matter what because he wouldn’t let himself fall for any woman, not when it would create a weakness in him that could be exploited.
His throat tightened and he closed his eyes, hating that so many lies rested between them, lies she didn’t even know he’d told.
“There now, shhh,” he hushed her gently, whispering against her ear. Every little choked sound escaping her lips was slicing him deeper and deeper inside. “Please, darling, I need you to dry your eyes.”
If she didn’t stop crying soon, he’d do something they’d both regret and enjoy. He’d have to kiss her and make her smile.
Jasper stroked her hair, while her tears soaked through his dark waistcoat. She shouldn’t be touching him, shouldn’t let him hold her, but his very presence, his very body against hers was thrilling and calming all at once. She wanted to burrow into him even deeper, press every inch of her against him and let his body heat warm her up.
With a little shiver, she rubbed her cheek against his waistcoat, sniffling. That enticing, masculine scent that made her think of the woods, with a hint of sandalwood and a touch of leather. A scent that wrapped itself around her and made her feel safe. How strange that she should feel such things for him? Safe with the man who had just destroyed everything she’d dreamt of having. But it was true,
she felt protected by his hold on her, the way he cradled her to his body.
It had been so long since anyone had held her like that. The last time she remembered being so protected, she’d been a child. She’d skinned her knee when she’d sprinted across a stony path too fast and fallen. Her father had found her crying. He’d picked her up, cradling her on the front step of the house until the pain had eased and she was able to let him clean the little scrape. It was so strange that Jasper could make her feel safe. B she didn’t feel like a little girl, not while he held her. The way he touched her made her feel like a woman, one that mattered to him. Her heart gave a little jolt when she realized she was thinking about Jasper and not James.
Is my heart so fickle that I should fall for Jasper only minutes after losing James? She clenched her hands into fists and she tried to convince herself she wasn’t fickle, that everything that had happened hadn’t changed her character in the last half hour.
She opened her eyes again, taking in the dusty interior of the small shed, the thick brown dirt tracking over the gray stone beneath her slippers and Jasper’s boots. Their feet were tucked together in a little pattern of boot, slipper, boot, slipper. They remained so tightly pressed against one another that they shared the same breath, almost the same heartbeat. Her skirts tangled between his trousers and he thread his fingers through the loose curls of her hair. Somehow this felt more intimate in a way than what they’d done the previous night in the garden. Was it because she’d bared her soul, and he could see her heart bleeding? Gemma couldn’t help but wonder, what sort of man had Jasper become? How had the years changed him?
As a boy, he’d always been distant where James had been attentive, but then Jasper was a year older and the more dominant one of the pair. James had gotten all the attention because of his natural charm and Jasper had gotten all the responsibility. Gemma had loved James for his smiles and boyish antics which had amused and excited her. She hadn’t given much thought to Jasper at all, not when James tugged her curls and wrote her love letters which he snuck through her window in the evening by climbing the trellis outside her window. But somehow all of that ceased to matter when Jasper held her now.
