A Reluctant Bride

by Jess Michaels

  She bent her head. “I didn’t crush down my anger earlier today.”

  “I was glad of it,” he whispered. “I deserved it, for one, and also it made me think that perhaps you trusted me enough not to hide it from me. That we were bonded enough for you to show me the truth. Now I see you standing here, coiled like a spring about to pop, holding back all that you feel because you don’t think you are allowed to share it. I’m asking you to share it with me.”

  She swallowed. She’d wanted him to tell her he loved her, she supposed. Not tonight, but someday in the far future when she had proven that it was a good bargain for him to take. But right here, right now, he was saying words that were far more powerful. Words that sank past the barriers she put up to protect herself, to protect those around her, and gave her permission to be…herself.

  She straightened her shoulders. “Can I trust you?” she asked. “Truly?”

  She expected his defensiveness at that question, his upset. But instead he held her gaze, steady and gentle. “I can promise you a thousand times that you can trust me, but that won’t matter until I prove it. Which I intend to do, you know. For as long as it takes, even if it takes a lifetime.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  His lips parted and he shifted slightly. “Because I…” He broke off and shook his head. “You’re my wife, Thomasina. And I want us to be happy together.”

  She wrinkled her brow, wondering what it was he was going to say before he shifted his tactic. Too afraid to ask him. Too exhausted to be rejected one more time.

  “Right now,” she said. “I despise my father. He forced Anne into the marriage bargain with you and he must have known it wouldn’t be a good match. He didn’t care about her, just as he proves he doesn’t care about her now. She’s lost her value by running away and he has moved on to his next plan.”

  “That must be difficult,” Jasper said. She saw his hand flutter like he wanted to touch her, and part of her wished he would. Part of her was glad he kept the distance between them.

  “You would know, based on your own past,” she said.

  He nodded. “I do understand, I suppose. Though I can’t say I know, because your situation is different.”

  She blinked. He took no ownership of her pain. He didn’t try to erase it or hurry her through it. He just stood there, offering her his ear and nothing more.

  She shook her head as the pain heightened. “I have never been without my sisters,” she whispered. Her voice broke with the depth of her heartbreak at that thought. “Never for more than a night at a time. And now they will both be gone.”

  “Should I go with him to Scotland instead and leave Juliana here with you?” he asked.

  She gasped as she stared at him. “You would do that?”

  “I think Gretna Green is likely a waste of time because I don’t think Anne and Maitland ever truly went there,” he said slowly.

  “Nor do I,” she agreed. “But why send my father there, then?”

  “In order to cover that faint possibility and perhaps even shock him into understanding the gravity of this situation beyond the damned scandal.” His fingers flexed at his side. She could see he wanted to touch her. Console her. He didn’t out of respect to her. “But if you’d like to keep Juliana here, I would go in her stead.”

  She reached out and caught his hand, lifting it to her lips and pressing a brief kiss on his knuckles. “The fact that you would offer such a boon is meaningful beyond measure. But no. Juliana would go wild here, waiting for information. And the two of us wouldn’t know what to look for in any search we made. It is better for her to go with my father and keep him on task. For you and I to remain and do whatever real work there is to find Maitland’s prize.”

  He stared down at her, nodding slowly at her words. But she saw the shift in him. The desire that fluttered into his eyes just because she’d touched him. She felt a faint desire of her own calling back to him. A knowledge that if he touched her now it would erase the pain for a moment. It would begin to reforge the bond that had been damaged when she found those letters hours ago.

  He lifted a hand into her hair, gliding his fingers along her scalp. He tilted her face toward his and she let out a shuddering sigh as his mouth found hers.

  He was gentle in the kiss. Almost like it was the first time. Perhaps it was the first, for their relationship had changed—they were renegotiating their future now. She parted her lips when he traced them with his tongue, drowning in his taste and the way his arms felt as they came around her and supported her.

  But then she thought of all that had come to pass between them. All that had been said and unsaid. All that he had done to keep the truth from her even as she begged for it. And she gently shrugged from his embrace and backed away.

  He let her, watching her but not pursuing.

  “You told me once that I could withdraw my consent at any time,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming as she dropped her gaze to the floor beneath her bare feet. “And I am doing that now. Not forever. But until my mind can untangle the truth from the lies.”

  She lifted her gaze to read his reaction. He could take what he wanted, not that she thought he was that kind of man. He could argue and cajole and seduce and get it through those means too.

  But he didn’t do any of those things. He took a long step away instead and inclined his head. “I understand,” he said softly, the strain heavy in his voice. “I know I’ve lost any right to touch you. I know I must earn that back, as well. So I’ll leave you if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s probably best for tonight,” she said, and suddenly didn’t feel as certain in that decision.

  He moved for the door. He stopped there and turned back to her. “I’d like to start the search of the rest of those trunks in the morning, if you are up for an early day.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be sure to have my maid wake me at a reasonable hour.”

  “Good.” He shifted, running his fingers along the door absently. “Thomasina, I won’t push you, but I want you to know that I do want you. I do need you. And when you are ready for me, I’ll be here. Goodnight.”

  He left then. Left her to stare at the barrier he closed between them. Left her to ponder if she’d made the right decision by putting up the wall to protect herself.

  Left her to miss the man who had come to mean everything to her.

  Chapter 22

  The walk down to the outbuilding was as quiet as the one the day before had been, but this time Jasper didn’t feel as high of a barrier between them. Thomasina might have refused him the night before, but today she talked a little easier with him. She dared a smile now and then.

  Still, he felt her worry. Her fear for both her sisters, now that Juliana had gone with Mr. Shelley to search out some truth in Scotland. He felt how lost she was without those same sisters as her anchors.

  How could he help her? How could he soothe those hurts? He didn’t know because he’d never been close enough to another person to want to do that. He’d never been encouraged to embrace his more emotional side because of the fear he would become irresponsible and a wastrel like his father and brother.

  Only loving Thomasina didn’t make him feel out of control or less responsible. It took nothing away from the man he had fought hard to be. No, loving her added something to his life. Made him steadier, it gave him a compass and a center he hadn’t ever had before.

  So he had to learn how to be the man she needed.

  “Thomasina—” he began.

  But she wasn’t attending. She grasped his arm and pointed, drawing his attention away from her face and toward the outbuilding where they were going.

  “The door is open, Jasper!” she gasped.

  “We locked it behind ourselves last night,” he breathed. “And no one from my staff would have disturbed it.”

  They exchanged a glance and then both began to run toward the building a hundred yards away. When they reached it, she moved to enter, but he caught he
r, pushing her behind him.

  “It someone broke into the building, they might still be inside. Stay back and let me look.”

  She caught her breath. “Oh, Jasper, no. Please, you must be careful.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I will be. If anything happens, run to the house.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she nodded and released him at last so he could push past the partially open door into the storage building.

  Inside it was quiet. The remains of a candle were melted into the dusty wood floor. That had probably provided the light for the intruder who had come here after he and Thomasina left. He could certainly guess who that was. But the building seemed empty now.

  But not untouched. Every trunk, every box, had been torn open, thrown about, the contents ripped through like an animal had been the one searching them.

  “Jasper?” Thomasina called from the door.

  He sighed. “Come in. Whoever did this is gone.”

  She entered and her hand jerked to cover her mouth as she looked around the chaotic room. “My God,” she murmured.

  “Yes. Maitland was driven to find this item, whatever it is,” he mused.

  She leapt forward a few steps. “You think it was Maitland? That means he’s been watching the estate. It can’t be a coincidence that he broke into this building the day after you and I began our search here.”

  “You’re right.”

  His stomach clenched at the idea that Maitland had been watching them. Watching her. What had he said in Beckfoot? That he would find a pressure point to get what he wanted.

  Anne hadn’t been that for Jasper. But Thomasina was a different story. Thomasina was everything, and if Maitland discovered that, it might put her in grave danger. Jasper had to put a guard on her for the rare times they weren’t together.

  “If he’s close by, do you think my sister might be with him? Or near?”

  He hated the desperation in her tone. The lilt of hope and terror mixed in one. Especially since he couldn’t give her that answer.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, driven not to lie anymore, even for a good purpose. “But we’re going to look into it. Come, we must return to the estate and let my staff know of the break in. I also must write to my man of affairs, Reynolds, and get him back here.”

  “The kind of man who would do this…what if Maitland won’t let my sister go?” she asked, her voice cracking as she bent her head.

  He moved to her then and caught her hands, lifting them to his chest so she could feel the steady beat of his heart. “I will not stop searching until we find Anne. I promise you I’ll never stop.”

  Her expression softened and she lifted on her tiptoes to brush her lips to his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Come, we must take care of this duty.”

  He took her arm and led her from the outbuilding and the mess made there. But as he took her to the house, he could only pray the promises he made were ones he could keep. For his sake, for hers.

  Thomasina was with Jasper in body as they entered the house together, but her mind and her spirit were far away, dragged to terrible places by visions of the horror of what Anne was going through at present.

  She blinked, trying to find focus as she watched Jasper bark out orders and jerk out messages across a sheet of vellum that a rider raced to deliver to his man Reynolds, wherever he was. He looked every inch the earl in that moment. Formidable, powerful, unwavering in his every action and word. Perhaps that might have encouraged her. Perhaps she should have sought solace in that face, but she couldn’t.

  Because in his eyes she saw fear. It was the same fear she had sensed down at the building when he realized it had been ransacked. It was the fear of a man who had underestimated his enemy and now realized what kind of foe he faced.

  Tension lined the corners of his lips and wrinkled his eyes.

  At last the servants had scattered to fulfill his every whim and he stared at her. His shoulders rolled forward a fraction, the earl dissolved away and the much more complicated man she called her husband reappeared.

  She reached for him, needing to offer comfort as well as receive it. He was as damaged by this as she was now, the only other person who fully understood the thoughts tangling her mind.

  She squeezed his fingers. “Do you think Maitland found what he was looking for when he ransacked the outbuilding?”

  He sucked in a breath. “He tore at items that could hide nothing within. He kicked trunks until there were holes in them. He destroyed where there needn’t be destruction. To me that says frustration. Desperation.”

  “He tore that place apart and ended in defeat. Which means the item he is seeking wasn’t there, Jasper.”

  “Or well hidden,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Was there any other place where you put Solomon’s things after he died?” she encouraged softly. When he flinched, she already knew the answer. And hated that they had no time for him to ready himself.

  He bent his head. “Yes,” he admitted after what felt like the most pregnant of pauses. “There is just one trunk left, which Reynolds brought to the attic. It’s filled with the most personal of my brother’s items. But they are not of much value.”

  “Except to you,” she said.

  He lifted his gaze to hers and held there. “I value nothing my brother left behind. You know that.”

  “I know you tell yourself that,” she said, lifting his hand to her lips and brushing them across his knuckles. “Jasper, why don’t we look there? Please.”

  He released her hand and paced away to stand at the still-open door. The rider he had sent with his message thundered past, riding hard toward the gate. Jasper speared her with a glance over his shoulder. “Fine,” he said, his tone harder than it had been toward her in a very long time. “We can waste our time with this. Come with me.”

  She gathered her skirt in her hand and followed him. Something in that attic made Jasper turn himself away from her. Away from himself. And she feared that as much as she feared the discovery of whatever supposed treasure had been hidden from plain view.

  The attic rooms had once been kept for servants, back in his grandfather’s day and before. Over time, they had been closed up, the servants moving into either lower level rooms in the estate or out to the dedicated servant quarters his father had built just after taking over the title.

  Now Jasper stood at the door and felt why the family had made the change. It was bloody hot in the hallway. All the heat from the rest of the house lifted to fill this sloped ceilinged space. How generations of house servants had survived during especially warm summers, he didn’t know.

  He supposed he had to give his father some credit for not abusing his staff by making them continue to live in such conditions. He frowned as he led Thomasina up the narrow hall and to a closed and locked door at the end.

  He hated giving his father even the slightest credit for his behavior.

  “Here,” he said, pulling the key from his pocket and taking a breath before he slipped it into the lock. There was a rusty click as the door creaked open slowly.

  He stepped in first. Rude, perhaps, but after coming upon the ransacked remains of the outbuilding that morning, he wasn’t about to let the custom of ladies first put his wife in danger. Or at least further danger. He feared she was already in some peril just by being married to him and sharing the title that had brought so much shame to so many.

  The room was as dark as it was dingy. He withdrew the candle and flint he had retrieved from Willard a short while before and lit it, giving the room a rather eerie glow. Made more so by what it revealed.

  There was only one thing in the room. One item that sat in the middle of the narrow chamber. A trunk. The trunk.

  The last remnants of his brother’s most treasured items. Reynolds had packed it up after Solomon’s demise, assuring Jasper that he would be extra careful with any very personal items or those that had value. He’d tried to pass a few of the heirlooms along, bu
t Jasper hadn’t taken any. He didn’t want anything to do with those things.

  He still didn’t and the sight of that trunk in the middle of the room, rather like a coffin arranged for viewing in a rotunda, turned his stomach.

  He shook his head as he broke his gaze from the trunk. He looked around the room a bit more. “My brother locked me up here once,” he mused, thoughts going back to his childhood. “I was five and desperately afraid of the dark. He was eleven and thought it was the best joke. I could hear him laughing as he walked away while I screamed. One of the servants found me a few hours later, huddled in the dark. Was it this room? Perhaps another—they look very much alike.”

  Thomasina bent her head. “I’m so sorry, Jasper.”

  He shrugged, though the memory meant more than he decided to let on to her. She knew it, of course. That was what she did…knew things. Even things he didn’t want to share.

  No wonder he loved her. No wonder the idea of that love was so…troubling.

  “Let’s get it over with, shall we?” he said, moving a step toward the trunk. He stopped, still three feet away. He stared again at the old, battered box, sealed shut by two rickety buckles that held heavy leather straps around the circumference of the trunk.

  She tilted her head, watching him, then Thomasina stepped forward. Her tone was falsely bright as she knelt before the suitcase. “Why don’t I open it and hold up each item for you to access? That seems a better use of my hands than of yours.”

  He grunted his acquiescence because he could find no other words. He held his breath as her delicate fingers loosened the stiff leather straps, sliding them through the buckles one by one and finally lifting the trunk lid.

  It creaked like the door had, signifying the lifetime this case had been here. Or was it only a year? It felt like a lifetime. Everything always felt like a lifetime when it came to memories of his brother.

  She reached into the trunk and withdrew the first thing she found. He flinched, turning his head.