A Reluctant Bride

by Jess Michaels

  “Mr. Maitland,” he drawled, ignoring Maitland’s outstretched hand of greeting. “I never thought I’d see you again. I certainly never thought I’d hear you stole my fiancée and spirited her away to God knows where.”

  Maitland flopped himself into the seat across from the one Jasper had abandoned. “I would wager you didn’t, Harcourt. Funny where life takes us.”

  Jasper fought the urge to simply pummel this man and sat down. Punching him was what Solomon would have done, all emotion and no reason. Jasper had to be better.

  As much as it pained him.

  “You have some explaining to do, Maitland,” he growled. “Start talking. I have no time for foolish games.”

  “And I have less than you do,” Maitland snapped and the smile fell away and revealed the hardened man beneath.

  “Then tell me why. Why have you done this and what do you want?”

  “Your brother and I went a long way back,” he said, motioning for a barmaid. “Your best whisky, darlin’. It’s on the gentleman.” He winked at Jasper as he sent her on her way. “I mean, you must have discovered some of his…less savory interests since he…” There was a beat’s hesitation. “Since you buried him.”

  Jasper pursed his lips, for this subject was a sore one, indeed. Yes, he knew his brother gambled in hells of the worst kind, that he smuggled goods against his own country, that he invested in ridiculous schemes, including a tunnel under the Thames four years before, which had turned out to be some kind of underhanded way for him to hide money he’d gotten from an unnamed source. In the end, the tunnel had truly collapsed, though, and Solomon had lost it all, along with several of the diggers.

  Jasper’s brother had been a fool and a sometime villain, and now his friendship with the man sitting across from Jasper came into sharper focus.

  Jasper despised Maitland for that. For casting a harsh light on the shadows he tried his best to ignore.

  “So, you were friends,” he said with a shrug that didn’t reflect his feelings on the matter whatsoever. “What the hell does that have to do with Anne or with me?”

  “He owed me something,” Maitland said, glancing up as the barmaid brought his whisky. He took a long slug and motioned for her to bring another before he continued, “He owed me more than you could ever imagine.”

  “You were settled nicely for your help with my brother,” Jasper said. “I now question that decision.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Maitland shifted, almost as if he was uncomfortable. “But I want something else.”

  “And what is that?”

  Maitland looked at him speculatively. “Your brother took something of mine before he died.”

  Jasper flinched and shoved down the riot of emotions that rose up in him at that statement.

  “There isn’t enough cash in your coffers to make up for it,” Maitland continued. “I need it back, and Anne is my…she’s my way to make certain that you take me seriously and work very hard to find what I want.”

  “Took something of yours?” Jasper said, and thought of Reynolds’ words about Maitland wanting to take any objects Solomon left behind. Had he been looking for this mysterious item even then?

  Maitland leaned closer and a glint of desperation entered his stare at Jasper’s confusion. “Don’t play like you don’t know, for I’m certain you must have come up with some record by now. Your brother took a treasure that…it doesn’t matter what or why.”

  “Treasure,” Jasper repeated, and almost laughed but for the danger of this situation. “I assure you, Mr. Maitland, I know nothing about a treasure. If I did, I wouldn’t be in the very public position that I am now.”

  Maitland’s jaw set and his fist flexed on the table. It took a moment for him to respond, like he was trying to rein in his emotion. “That is a very sad story for you, my lord, because you see, I will not return your Anne to you until you get me what your brother stole from me.”

  Jasper shifted. He had to play this very carefully. If Anne was near this man—which by all accounts she had been, though not now—she was in danger. Whoever Maitland’s associates were, they could be no better. Right now Maitland felt she had value.

  But if the bastard thought she didn’t, then perhaps he would release her.

  “You needn’t give her back,” Jasper said carefully, and tried not to flinch as he thought of what Thomasina would say about his cold dismissal of her beloved sister. She would hate him, even if he tried to explain why he was doing this.

  “What?” Maitland’s mouth dropped open in shock and for the first time his confidence in his plan seemed to falter.

  “Keep her,” Jasper clarified. “You see, she has no value to me. I am marrying someone else, one of her sisters. I never cared about her—I care about her family fortune. So you may keep her.”

  Maitland stared for a moment, seemingly stunned by this turn of events. Then he shook his head. “You’re more of a bastard than Solomon was. Who would have thought that was possible?”

  Jasper held steady, although his stomach turned. “Perhaps that is true. And so is this: I don’t know a damned thing about a treasure. If my brother had it, he likely got rid of it one of his drunken nights when he didn’t know his head from his ass.”

  Maitland lunged to his feet, flipping his chair back in the process and causing every head in the bar to turn toward him. Slowly, Jasper got to his feet too, readying himself for attack even as he flicked his wrist at Reynolds to keep him away. He didn’t want the interference. Not yet.

  “You’d best rethink your position, my lord,” Maitland hissed. “Because you might not give a damn about Anne Shelley, but if you force my hand I will have to find a pressure point that will matter to you. You can bet your life on that.”

  He pivoted and stormed out of the bar. Reynolds shot Jasper a look and hurried after their foe as Jasper righted Maitland’s abandoned seat and sank back into his own chair with a long sigh. That had gone badly and now he had more questions than ever. And more fears when it came to Anne.

  He sat for half an hour watching the door, waiting for Reynolds. When his man of affairs returned to the bar, Jasper almost sagged in relief. Reynolds took the seat Maitland had left and met his eyes. He shook his head slightly.

  “Gone, eh?” Jasper said. “You couldn’t track him?”

  “Just for a bit,” Reynolds said softly, apology in his stare. “I think he knew I was tailing him. He disappeared into a crowd and then he was smoke on the wind.”

  Jasper scrubbed a hand over his face. “He won’t be found again unless he wishes to be, I’d wager. My brother involved himself with a much more dangerous set than I gave him credit for.”

  “I think that might be true. Did Maitland give you any clues about Anne’s whereabouts?”

  Jasper’s heart sank. “No. I tried to persuade him that she meant nothing to me and couldn’t be used as a bargaining chip. Hopefully he’ll abandon his plot for her and allow her to escape. My stomach turns at the idea that he could…he could hurt her.”

  Reynolds nodded slowly. “It is a possibility. But we know she’s not with him right now—she got sent off in a boat with someone else. Let me do some research here, send some resources to Scotland and track them if I can.”

  Jasper swallowed. “Yes. Do that. I must do everything I can to find her. She’s only endangered because of me. And Thomasina is…” He trailed off as he thought of the fear in his new fiancée’s eyes every time she considered her sister’s fate.

  Reynolds gave him a strange look but said, “I will do everything in my power to discover her and return her if I can, my lord.”

  “Then I will go home,” Jasper said as he got up and tossed some blunt on the table for the barmaid. “And marry the woman whose fortune will pay for it all. Like the fucking bastard that I am.”

  Reynolds’ forehead wrinkled at that statement and he cocked his head. “You weren’t the bastard in this, Harcourt,” he said softly. “You’re just trying to clean up his mess.
”

  Jasper bent his head because for a moment an image of his brother popped into his mind. Not as a thirty-year-old wastrel Jasper had come to resent, but as an eight-year-old with a crooked smile and a fishing pole. The older half-brother who had taught Jasper to climb a tree and do a cartwheel.

  He shook those thoughts away and cleared his throat as he regained his composure. “Keep me apprised of anything you discover,” he said. “I will head back now.”

  Reynolds nodded, the pity clear on his face. “Very good, my lord. I will keep you informed of anything I hear.”

  They left the bar together. Reynolds headed up the street after their goodbyes, and Jasper made his way to the man who was holding their horses. But as he swung up on Ember and urged her in the direction of home, his mind wandered. This time not to his brother, but to Thomasina, waiting for him back in Harcourt Heights. To all he would have to conceal from her to protect her from the nonsense his brother had created.

  And to the fact that seeing her was all he wanted to do right now.

  Thomasina flicked the tines of her fork across the beef filet once more, breaking up the fibers halfheartedly as she glanced up the table to the very empty seat at the head of it. Jasper’s seat.

  Jasper, who had left last night and promised to return just before he kissed her senseless. And yet she felt a powerful fear at the sight of that empty chair. And at her memories of his haunted expression as he rode away from her.

  “You are so forlorn, Thomasina,” her father said with a chuckle. “Seems I have made you a love match after all. I suppose you will thank me for it.”

  Juliana huffed out her breath and Lady Harcourt glanced up from her plate with a frown. Heat flooded Thomasina’s cheeks at her father’s uncouth comment and she balled her napkin in her lap.

  “Not at all, Father,” she said. Lied. He wasn’t wrong about the forlorn part, after all. “I am simply tired after all the excitement of the last few days. Might I beg off the rest of supper?”

  He blinked at her. “You want to leave in the middle of supper?” he blustered. “Did I not raise you better?”

  “Doubtful,” Lady Harcourt said into her glass, loud enough that Thomasina couldn’t doubt she wished to be heard. Her future mother-in-law seemed to teeter between complete disconnection and abject disdain when it came to her.

  And that only made her churning stomach even more unsteady. She glanced at Juliana and found her older sister watching her carefully. For a moment that unspoken connection felt very strong, that bond of a long-ago shared womb that had always united she and her two sisters. How she missed Anne in that moment and her smiles and unspoken jokes.

  Juliana smiled at her gently. “Let her go, Papa,” she said, using that tone she always used to soothe him when he was angry or frustrated with one of her sisters. “She will have little opportunity to herself once Lord Harcourt returns from his errand. You cannot begrudge her an early evening when she will be solving so many of your own problems in just a few days.”

  For a moment their father seemed to consider that logic, then he shrugged. “Go then, daughter. Go read in your bed by candlelight. Your eyesight will not be my problem once Harcourt takes your hand. Go on.”

  Thomasina cast a quick smile to Juliana and one to her father. Then she nodded toward Lady Harcourt. “My deepest apologies, my lady,” she said softly. “I hope I will be in a better humor tomorrow.”

  Lady Harcourt arched a brow. “As long as you do not humiliate us on Saturday as your sister did, I really do not care.”

  That elicited a small gasp from Juliana and even Mr. Shelley jerked his head up at the rude comment. But somehow Thomasina managed to blink back tears at the set down and exited the room. Once she was out of anyone’s view, she rushed up the stairs like the very hounds of hell were on her heels and scurried into her chamber. She slammed the door behind her, turning to lean her forehead on the cool surface as she tried to calm her suddenly racing heart.

  She stretched her fingers against the wood to bring feeling back into them and then looked up at the bell pull. She needed to ring it, to bring her maid Ruby to help her get ready for bed.

  “I don’t want to see anyone,” she whispered.

  “Even me?”

  She started at the deep voice that came from the shadows behind her and pivoted to find Jasper standing at her dressing room door, watching her.

  She moved a few steps toward him before she stopped herself. He didn’t want her to throw herself into his arms. Even though that was just what she wanted to do right now.

  “My lord,” she gasped, lifting her hands to her chest so she wouldn’t do something as foolish as reach for him. “You are here.”

  “I am here,” he repeated softly, and entered her room in one long step, closing the dressing room door behind himself and shutting them into what now felt like a very small chamber. He looked around. “Had I known your sister was going to act a fool, I would have given you the biggest chamber of the three connected ones.”

  Thomasina found herself smiling a fraction despite her continued shock that he was in her bedchamber. And he was looking at her bed, then her, with an expression she couldn’t read. It didn’t seem angry or accusatory, though. If anything, he looked…he looked lost. He looked sad.

  Her heart ached for him.

  “How was your excursion?” she asked.

  To her surprise, that sadness in his gaze deepened before he jerked it away and hardened himself to her inquiry, locking her out from what she’d seen. But she couldn’t unsee it. Jasper Kincaid, Earl of Harcourt, had something lurking beneath the surface, something broken that called to her. That made her want to smooth the line of his frown away. That made her want to help him.

  “I don’t want to speak about that,” he said, his voice rougher.

  She shifted at the tactic being used to put her off. And at the questions she continued to have. But they could wait.

  “And why are you in my chamber?” she asked, her breath coming short. “Instead of joining the rest of the family for supper upon your return?”

  He looked at her again, his eyes trailing over her slowly, with a heat she didn’t fully understand but that created an answering clench in every muscle in her body. That made her ache in very inappropriate places. That made her want more of his kiss, as she had been dreaming of since he left her the night before.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. His voice cracked a fraction. “I don’t know why I’m here, but I-I needed to be here. In your room. With you, alone. Even though I shouldn’t. Even though it’s wrong. It goes against everything I’m trying to…”

  He broke off and shook his head. “So I must ask you, since you might have more sense than I do in this moment. Do you want me to leave, Thomasina?”

  Chapter 8

  Thomasina couldn’t breathe as she stared up into Jasper’s face. His expression had changed again in the firelight and now he wasn’t hiding what he felt. It was written in every line of his mouth and eyes. The same expression that had been written on that beautiful face before he kissed her.

  He wanted her, somehow. Wanted to touch her just as she longed for him to do the same. He was asking her to give him a reason to walk away. To go back to propriety. But in this moment, she wasn’t strong enough to save them from themselves.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered.

  He let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Very well. But before we…we proceed, I do want to talk to you about something.”

  She swallowed hard, her uncertainty filling her throat with a lump that she could barely speak beyond. “Then do so. We promised we would be honest with each other, Jasper. I know that is important.”

  His gaze flitted away at that statement and he fiddled with a loose thread at his wrist before he said, “I mentioned to you before I left that we needed to have a conversation about our marriage. It would be best to do this now before…before anything else clouds both our judgment.”

  Sh
e shifted a little. “I have thought about that statement quite a bit since yesterday, but I’m not certain what to say on the subject. After all, I’ve never been married, so I don’t know the kinds of expectations you might have of me. I will try to be a good countess, of course. It isn’t something I specifically prepared for, but my father always hoped for good matches for all his daughters, so I know about running a household.”

  He shifted, and she thought she heard him curse beneath his breath as he turned away and paced off toward the window. He looked out for a moment and then said, “I don’t doubt you are more than capable of being a fine countess, Thomasina. You have already been kind and thoughtful toward my tenants and my staff during your time here. It isn’t those sorts of things to which I refer.”

  She tilted her head. He seemed very uncomfortable but she couldn’t place why. “Just say it, Jasper. I’d rather have you tell me something I do not like honestly than to hide the truth from me.”

  Once again he shifted and then shook his head. “I’m talking about our expectations of each other when it comes to our…our connection.”

  She blinked. “Our connection.”

  “I did not seek love in a marriage partner, is what I mean,” he said, smoothing his hands along the front of his jacket. “I certainly have seen love matches work out, but they can be messy. I do not wish for a life that is messy—I’m trying to get myself out of just that sort of thing right now, thanks to my brother’s bad behavior.”

  That was an entirely unexpected admission. Jasper had never spoken to her or in front of her about his late brother, nor of the persistent rumors that surrounded him and his untimely death. But there it was, blurted out as he ran a hand through his hair with an uncommonly wild expression to his dark eyes.

  “The notion of love is fine, of course,” he continued. “For fairytales. But I do not want to go into this arrangement with you misunderstanding why I am doing it.”