A Reluctant Bride

by Jess Michaels

Or should have been.

  He straightened up as he watched Shelley join his name to Jasper’s on the paperwork.

  “Why not offer Thomasina first if you believed her to be more agreeable?” he asked. “Or was it to prevent your wild child from ruining all your other options?”

  At that, Shelley glanced up at him, and then he shrugged once again, as if he had put little thought into the matter. As if the young women were substitutable, even if they had different personalities.

  That their father would think so was…disappointing. Heartbreaking. There was no wonder Thomasina seemed driven to please. To make peace. It was a survival technique and Jasper understood those, even if his own was far different.

  “Thomasina is shyer than her sisters, more uncertain of herself,” Shelley explained. “And Juliana runs my household, so I would not wish to give her up until the very last moment possible. Anne seemed the best option for your bargain of the three and now it is Thomasina who fits the bill.”

  “Are they so interchangeable to you?” Jasper asked, stepping back from his future father-in-law with a scowl.

  Shelley’s smile faded a fraction. “You ought not to talk, my lord. After all, you did not recognize that Thomasina was taking Anne’s place any more than anyone else in that room did, including me.”

  Jasper set his teeth and growled, “Actually, I did. I realized it was Thomasina the moment she stepped into the room last night. I honestly do not know how anyone could mistake her for Anne. She moves differently, she tilts her head differently, she carries herself completely differently.”

  “Made a study of my youngest, have you?” Shelley said, his brow arching. “And found yourself differences where I assure you none exist. But those feelings do tell me that you are not entirely unhappy with your change in circumstances. If you are trying to pretend upset in order to extract something extra from me, I will not negotiate. You are getting a fine settlement and a bride of the Shelley fortune, and that is what you asked for from the beginning.”

  Jasper wrinkled his brow. The man was truly only about the business being done. His daughters could have been prized horses or barrels of whisky to be traded and he would have had the same disregard. And every time he saw that, Jasper couldn’t help but think of his own family. His father overly emotional, his brother driven by passion.

  At least he’d known they cared enough to fight, whether it was physically or for something that mattered. He’d never really appreciated that fact until now.

  But he pushed it all away and forced his strong reactions down deep where Shelley wouldn’t see them. Where they wouldn’t distract from the reality of Jasper’s situation.

  He extended a hand reluctantly. “I am not trying to renegotiate, sir, I assure you. Our documents are signed, at any rate. And my man Reynolds has informed me that the special license will be ready for us before the wedding on Saturday.”

  Shelley seemed satisfied and shook Jasper’s hand firmly. “Excellent.”

  “I assume you plan to send someone to Gretna Green after Anne,” he said.

  Shelley wrinkled his brow. “Why?”

  Jasper stared at him a moment. “Because she’s run off with some unknown man, a potential villain. Don’t you want to know her whereabouts? If she reached her destination? If she wed as she thought she would?”

  Shelley shrugged. “I’m sure she did, for that was the plan and Anne has a way of getting what she wants. The gentleman may not be as elevated as I hoped for her, but I’m certain we’ll determine his credentials soon enough when she returns with him.”

  “You’re so certain she will return?” Jasper asked.

  Shelley nodded. “Of course. She and the new husband will no doubt want to convince me that she still deserves her part of the dowry settlements.”

  “You think this is all about the money for her, for this man, and that doesn’t trouble you?”

  “Why? Money makes the world go ’round, after all.” Shelley glanced over his shoulder, not a care in the world. “I would like to have a moment before supper, so I shall leave you. Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” Jasper muttered, troubled by the lack of concern the man showed. But perhaps he was right that Anne would make her return, a new husband in tow, soon enough.

  He pushed those thoughts away, and the thoughts of Thomasina’s true terror when it came to Anne’s safety, and turned toward the still-drying contracts. He would have Reynolds collect them in a while and then it would all be finished. His future locked, once again, in stone.

  He was about to turn and leave the room when Willard stepped into the parlor. “I’m sorry to disturb, my lord, but you have had a missive delivered and the messenger said to convey its importance to you.”

  He held out a folded sheet of cheap vellum, and Jasper found his heart leapt at the look. This was about this Ellis person. This was about Anne. He knew it before he took the letter.

  “Thank you,” he managed to mutter as he turned the message in his hand. “Tell Reynolds to join me as soon as he can. And close the door, please.”

  Willard nodded and did as Jasper had asked. Once he was alone, Jasper turned the note over and looked at the seal. Cheap black wax held the pages shut, with an image of a man’s fine profile on the seal. He wrinkled his brow at the strange calling card and broke the wax.

  There were no more than a dozen words slashed across the sheet in a wild hand. He read each one over and over, his heart sinking. He heard the door open behind him and held the letter toward the intruder without even waiting to see if it was Reynolds there to greet him.

  “It is Ellis Maitland,” he said softly, his fears about Anne’s whereabouts as strong as ever.

  Reynolds groaned, and the rustle of papers made Jasper straighten his shoulders.

  “Make the horses ready when you’ve read that enough times for it to sink in. We have a meeting with this man in the morning over in Beckfoot, and I want to get there tonight to try to discover just what the hell is going on. And maybe, just maybe, get a leg up on the bastard.”

  Thomasina stepped into the parlor where the families were to meet for their pre-supper drinks and small, private “celebration” of the new engagement. But she found there was no one in the room yet save for Lady Harcourt.

  Jasper’s mother stood beside the window, staring out at black nothingness as she ran a finger along the edge of her glass. Thomasina’s heart leapt. She hadn’t spoken much to the woman since her arrival here. Lady Harcourt was more taciturn than even her son and Thomasina had never been able to read her. Anne had simply been terrified of her, going on and on about how cold and disconnected she was.

  For a moment, Thomasina considered bolting from the room and not coming back until she had the support of someone, anyone, else.

  “No,” she whispered to herself, and forced her shoulders back in an attempt to be braver than she was. “Good evening, my lady,” she said in what she hoped was a breezy, friendly tone as she swept into the room and toward her future mother-in-law.

  If she had hoped to garner as welcoming a response, she was immediately disappointed. Lady Harcourt turned and gave her a bored look with flat, empty eyes. “Which one are you?” she asked.

  Thomasina swallowed hard and shifted with discomfort. “I am Thomasina, my lady. Your son’s newly intended.”

  Lady Harcourt made a little sound in her throat and returned her gaze to the window. “Very well. Good evening, Miss Thomasina.”

  “How are you tonight?” she asked, continuing to force herself into an attempt at polite conversation.

  “Tolerable,” Lady Harcourt said without looking at her.

  Thomasina clenched her hands at her sides. “Wasn’t the weather lovely today? With all the rain recently—”

  Lady Harcourt pivoted on her, those dark eyes spearing her again. “I have no desire to prattle on about the weather with you, foolish girl. If you are trying to make some kind of good impression on me because I am your future mother-in-law, then le
t me be frank with you. I don’t care about your marriage to my son except for the dowry it will provide our house. Honestly, I assume he doesn’t care either since he switched between the two of you so easily.”

  Thomasina took a long step back. “I-I am sorry, my lady.”

  “All I want from your match is for you to exercise more self-control than your terrible sister did. I have borne enough whispers in my life. If you can manage not to bring even more scandal to our family, then you and I will have nothing further to say to each other.”

  Thomasina swallowed past the lump in her throat at such bluntness, at the edge of cruelty and dismissal this woman portrayed. She did not cry, though, which she congratulated herself for. She had a feeling that would only set off this woman even more.

  “I do beg your pardon,” she whispered as she backed toward the door. “I understand you perfectly, and I assure you I will do my best to bring no shame to your family once the wedding has been held. Good evening.”

  She pivoted and ran from the room, blindly seeking a refuge where she could have a moment. She’d never believed she would encounter such coldness from a woman she didn’t even know. And if she had felt its underlying cause was some protectiveness of Jasper, she might have understood it and even respected it given the circumstances.

  But it didn’t seem Lady Harcourt cared for her son more than anything else. She couched her concerns about the marriage in terms of scandal, not Jasper’s happiness or comfort.

  And for a moment, Thomasina’s heart swelled for him. Was that how his mother behaved with him too? She rarely saw them interact, after all. It seemed he was utterly alone in the world.

  She was about to go upstairs, to seek out Juliana for a discussion on the subject, when she heard Jasper’s voice in the foyer. She moved toward it, toward him, and stopped at the edge of the circular entryway to the home.

  “Reynolds will take care of those arrangements,” he was saying to Willard as he pulled his gloves over his hands. “I assume we will be back by supper tomorrow. I will try to send word if that changes.”

  “Back?” Thomasina said, stepping forward.

  Willard and Jasper exchanged a brief look, and then the butler inclined his head. “I will do as you say, my lord. Safe travels.”

  He exited the foyer and Jasper took a long step toward her, his dark eyes as blank as his mother’s had been a few moments ago. She shrank from that similarity, the ability to feel nothing that she certainly didn’t share. Sometimes it seemed she felt everything.

  “Eavesdropping?” he asked, though there was no coldness to his tone.

  She shook her head. “No, my lord. I was passing by and overheard you speaking. It is not the same thing.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I suppose not.”

  “You are leaving?” she asked.

  His gaze darted from hers, and her stomach immediately clenched at the break of their connection. “I am,” he said. “Business has called me away, but only to a town not too far from here. We will arrive very late tonight. My business is to be conducted there tomorrow morning and then we will return, assuming my meeting doesn’t require me to stay another day.”

  She stared at him as he recited these facts swiftly and with no particular inflection.

  “What kind of business takes you away just five days before your wedding? And if you are delayed, what will happen then? Unless this is your way to repay me for my part in Anne’s escape, by running away from me?”

  His lips parted and he stared at her a moment, then he surprised her by holding out his arm to her. “Why don’t you walk with me to the stables where my man is preparing our horses?”

  She drew back and stared at him a moment. His expression had softened somewhat and he no longer looked so severe or cut off.

  “Very well,” she said, and touched his arm, just folding her fingers into the crook of it. How she hated herself for how strongly she reacted to that simple act. How much she noticed the heat of him and the hardness and the scent of sandalwood from his shaving soap.

  How she hated that this touch moved her, when it clearly did nothing for him. She was an exchangeable piece of his plan, just as his mother had said earlier.

  She shook her thoughts away as he led her from the front door and down around the house to a long path that led to the stables in the distance. They were silent a few steps, almost companionable except for her racing thoughts.

  Then he said, “I would never abandon you, Thomasina. I recognize you don’t know me well, but I honor my obligations. Certainly, I would not create a bigger scandal either for you or for myself.”

  She supposed those words were meant to comfort her, but they yet again reminded her of that utterly unpleasant encounter in the parlor a few moments before.

  “Yes, your mother made it clear that you both abhor scandal.”

  They were almost to the stable now and Jasper stopped in the path, releasing her and running a hand through his hair. The action mussed the usually perfect dark blond locks and gave him a rather rakish look. His frown, however, was not rakish. “You encountered my mother,” he said. “Alone, I assume?”

  She nodded. “I found her in the parlor before supper.”

  He shook his head. “May I guess from your tone and expression that Lady Harcourt was cold as ice and cruel as a blade?”

  She flinched and turned her face. “I-I—”

  “We won’t lie to each other, remember?” he said, and now he reached out and took her hand. Her bare fingers rested against the black of his leather riding gloves, and she shivered as he stroked his thumb against the webbing between her thumb and first finger.

  “She was not kind,” she admitted at last.

  He let out his breath. “Well, she can be unkind, yes. I would give you some excuse that she has had a difficult life and that is how she handles herself. But it sounds very flat, I think.”

  “How do you handle yourself?” she asked.

  The moonlight flickered off his face and she saw the surprise at her question. He stepped a little closer and tilted his head to look at her. Reading her. Judging her.

  “I’m not sure I handle myself very well, Thomasina.”

  She wrinkled her brow at the suddenly sad tone to his voice and the expression of it in his eyes. That he was hurting truly surprised her somehow. He so often portrayed such an icy exterior that to see there was a heart beneath it gave her hope. Earned or not.

  He lifted his other hand, and suddenly the leather-clad fingers were sliding along her jaw. He tilted her face up and she obeyed, mostly because she could scarcely breathe when he looked at her that way. The same way as the terrace. The same way as the parlor. Like he wanted her. Not just any Shelley sister and the dowry that came with her. Her.

  “When I return,” he said, his voice suddenly low and hypnotic and rough. “I want to discuss our marriage with you.”

  “The wedding plans,” she said, shocked that she could find enough air to make words. “Yes, of course.”

  He leaned in, closer and closer, and her eyelids fluttered shut as his breath stirred her lips. Then his mouth was on her at last, the culmination of what felt like such a long time of waiting. The pressure was gentle but persistent, and she gripped her fingers against his forearms as she leaned into him and his kiss.

  He gave a little shudder and then his lips parted, his tongue tasting the crease of her mouth and forcing her to open to him. Which, of course, she did. He drew her tighter against his chest, the kiss deepening and sharpening until the only thing that mattered in Thomasina’s world was his lips on hers and his arms around her.

  And in that moment, he broke away. He was a little breathless as he said, “No, Thomasina, not the wedding plans. I want to talk to you about our marriage. And what we will both desire it to be.”

  Her lips parted at that unexpected statement. Then she nodded. “Goodbye, Jasper.”

  “Goodbye,” he repeated, then released her and walked away without looking back.


  Chapter 7

  Beckfoot was certainly not the worst town Jasper had ever been in, but it was far from the best. The comings and goings of the small boats and larger crafts, moving goods and people back and forth to Scotland, sometimes surreptitiously, made it a transient place. And transient places were sometimes rougher than others, for no one had much to lose.

  Jasper sat at a rundown tavern just beside the small docks that ran along the western edge of the city and nursed an ale as his thoughts turned, rather dangerously, to Thomasina and the kiss they had shared the previous night.

  He’d thought of her almost constantly since then, a thud in the back of his head that kept bringing him back to her taste and her smell and the sound of her sharp intake of breath when his mouth met hers.

  He shook away the memories and refocused on matters at hand. He was supposed to meet with Ellis Maitland here at any moment. Reynolds sat just a few tables away, slouched down with his face covered by a low-brimmed hat, watching for any trouble, so he wasn’t utterly alone. But Jasper knew there was no safety in a wandering mind.

  Especially considering what they’d discovered about Maitland since their arrival the night before. There was no doubt he was the one who had seduced and taken Anne. Several people had recognized her description and mentioned she was with a man named Maitland. The previous morning he had put her on a small boat with another person and then disappeared into the town. No one could say much about his movements since.

  Jasper glanced toward the door and straightened to full attention as the man himself stepped in. Ellis Maitland. It was definitely the same one who had come to him a year ago to report that his brother had been killed in a duel. At the time, Maitland had put on a good show, expressing what had seemed like genuine empathy, giving details with even a glitter of tears in his eyes.

  Now there was none of that. Maitland had a confident expression as he sauntered into the bar. Like a cat who’d gotten into cream and didn’t give a damn if everyone knew his triumph.

  Maitland was a handsome man, no one could deny that, with broad shoulders, longish dark hair and a dimple in his cheek when he smiled, which he did at Jasper. Jasper didn’t return the expression as he slowly got to his feet.