“I saw you with your wife, Jasper,” Reynolds said, reverting to a comfortable address he hadn’t used in a year. “I saw your face when I came into the room, and I haven’t seen that expression since before Solomon’s death. A moment where my old friend, the one with far fewer burdens, still existed.”
Jasper shook his head. “You saw a ghost then, because that man died alongside my brother, as surely as if he were shot in that duel.”
“I thought that too, and mourned him when you took the title,” Reynolds pressed. “But it seems he was only maimed, not killed that day. He was with her at that very desk not half an hour ago.”
Jasper stared blankly at the papers before him. Sometimes he did feel like that old self when he was with Thomasina. The heavy weight of all he carried slipped away when he touched her, forgotten even if only for a moment and that made him…lighter somehow.
“Isn’t it dangerous to forget one’s duties like that, though?” he asked, to himself as much as his friend.
Reynolds’ smile was a little sad. “I know you. You’d never forget permanently. But you deserve the break, I think, if you can find it with her.”
“That wasn’t the purpose of the marriage,” Jasper mused.
Reynolds was quiet a moment. “It doesn’t mean it isn’t a fine side effect, though.”
“She is unexpected,” Jasper admitted slowly. “In a great many ways. I never thought to be surprised but I have been so far. And I don’t…dislike the sensation. But it is not a love match.”
He said it out loud and shifted beneath the cruelty of the words. The finality he had put on them, as if nothing could ever shift or change. Change hadn’t been his friend of late, but now he felt an odd longing for it.
“It doesn’t have to be a love match to be good or happy,” Reynolds said with a shrug. “And I would suggest, in my last moments here as your friend and not your man of affairs who could be fired for such impertinence, that you ought not dismiss any person who can give you peace in a world of chaos.” He nodded and his face went impassive. “Now, is there anything else you require before I continue my investigation, my lord?”
Jasper looked up at him. “No. Thank you, Reynolds. Thank you…Benedict.”
His friend smiled slightly at the return to informality, then he saluted playfully and headed from the study, leaving Jasper alone. Except for the words that kept bouncing around in his head. About Anne, about both the Maitlands who had a hand in her disappearance, about Thomasina and whatever future he might build with her.
In that moment, he had a strong urge to go to his wife. An urge he didn’t resist as he set his work aside for the moment and gave in to the peace Reynolds had seen. The peace Jasper had denied even though it was absolutely true and felt completely dangerous.
Thomasina sat in the parlor on a settee, her feet tucked beneath her and a book perched in her fingers. She was not, however, reading. She couldn’t, for the words swam on the page every time she made the attempt, and she ended up reading the same sentence over and over without any understanding of its meaning.
She was distracted. That was no surprise, after all. Distracted by Anne, by the strange turn of events that had brought her here…and by Jasper. Their interaction in the study had been both unsatisfying in how she had learned nothing about her sister and only a tantalizing taste of Jasper’s true character and history.
She was, as far as investigations went, a failure. But she couldn’t stop thinking of her husband’s face when he’d mentioned his strained relationship with his brother. Or when he’d asked her if she intended to stay with him or go to London if her father and sister left.
Both times he had seemed…pained. Almost younger, like those questions drew him back to a more vulnerable and sorrowful time. And yet he kept her from the heart of it. The truth of it. The truth of him.
Would it always be this way?
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
She started at the voice that came from the doorway. That of the very man she had been pondering endlessly since she saw him less than an hour before.
She stood and faced him with a blush. “You weren’t interrupting,” she said as she took him in from head to toe. Great God, but he was handsome. Looking at him was always a pleasure, her pleasure.
“The book in your hand tells me otherwise,” he said, motioning to it. “I can leave you to it.”
She set the book down with a dismissive wave. “I can tell you I was not attending the story at all.”
“No?” He arched a brow. “You were preoccupied then? By what, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She blushed, for she’d been caught. She shrugged and broke her stare from his. “By…everything, I suppose. You could name anything that happened during the upheaval of the last few weeks and I was distracted by it. The good and the bad.”
He nodded. “I felt much the same after Reynolds left me. Perhaps we could…”
He trailed off and she wrinkled her brow at what was his obvious discomfort. That felt so different from the confidence he normally exhibited in front of her. It felt like an opportunity.
“What would you like to do?” she asked as she took a long step toward him.
His gaze flowed over her again, this time more charged with sexual energy. Her body reacted of its own accord, brought to life by him as was always true, it seemed.
“Walk with me around the estate,” he said.
She drew back in surprise, for that didn’t seem to be the message his look was sending. But she didn’t mind. Walking and talking together felt as intimate as making love to him. And there would be plenty of time for that later.
“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand and taking what she hoped would be the next step toward the relationship she wanted.
Chapter 15
Jasper watched her hand for a moment, almost as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Or that taking it meant something he wasn’t ready to share. Thomasina held her breath, feeling the importance of the moment, even though it seemed so casual on the surface.
But at last he drew her closer as their fingers folded against each other. When he smiled, it lit up his face, and she nearly staggered at the way it changed him. Made him lighter and younger and even more attractive. He so rarely shared that expression, and yet he gifted it to her more than anyone else.
Like his pleasure was hers and hers alone.
A foolish feeling, but one she would cling to in the fog of her love for him and her desire for something more than just a surface relationship.
He guided her down the long hallway and to a back parlor. They exited the house through a pair of French doors and out onto the terrace that wrapped around the back of the home. The same terrace where he’d almost kissed her when she’d been pretending to be Anne what felt like a lifetime ago, though it was just a week.
There was a set of stone stairs in the far corner of the terrace, and he took her down their length and into the pretty garden behind the house. A maze of flowers and trees and perfectly trimmed hedges greeted them, and she smiled at the beauty of her surroundings.
“You approve?” he asked, and sounded as if he truly wished for the affirmative.
She nodded. “How could I not? It’s beautiful. I do love a garden and this one is very fine. I’ve walked in it a dozen times or more since we arrived and always find something new and lovely. Did you mother oversee it during her time as countess?”
He frowned at this question, and she felt the wall going up between them immediately. “The dowager does not garden,” he said at last. “I don’t think she would want to be bothered by such a mundane thing.”
She cleared her throat at the sudden discomfort between them. Whenever she asked him about his past, this was what happened. It severed the tenuous connection she was trying to build. But perhaps she was going about it wrong. Perhaps she needed to give before she would receive.
“Not everyone has the green fingers, as my mother used to say,” she said. “She
loved to garden and oversaw every bush and flower at my father’s country estate. It is one of the few things I remember about her, but I learned to garden because of those lovely memories of her tending, cutting and arranging flowers. She used to make us these little bouquets, one for each, with our favorite flowers in them.”
“Different favorites?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yes. She, like you, recognized the three of us were individual people, even if we did share a face.”
“She died when you were very young, didn’t she?”
She was a little surprised he knew that, since he had obviously cared little for the bride he’d chosen for purely monetary reasons. She nodded. “We were just five when we…we lost her,” she said with a sad shake of her head.
“How, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She hesitated and then said, “In childbirth. My father wanted sons, even though the difficulty of our birth made that even more dangerous, I think.”
“He pushed on anyway,” Jasper said. “I suppose that doesn’t surprise me.”
“No, he is a bulldog in all things,” Thomasina said with a sigh as she looked off into the distance with unseeing eyes.
“There is a lake just over that little hill,” he said, following her line of sight. “Would you like to walk to it? It’s private and very pretty. I liked to fish there as a boy.”
“With your brother?” she asked.
He stiffened, though he didn’t release her as they walked along the path out of the garden, through a long, flat section of grass. “Yes,” he said at last. “Solomon and I did fish together there when we were young. He taught me to fish, actually.”
“Then you were close once,” she said softly.
He cast a glance her way. “I sometimes don’t remember it after everything that happened in more recent years. But…yes. There was a time that we were close, when I was very young. He was six years older than I was, so we were leagues apart, but he could be…kind. He could also be awful, but I suppose all brothers are from time to time.”
“I never had brothers, so I don’t know about that,” she said, freeing him again from having to speak more than he wished by turning the lens of their conversation on her. “My father was obsessed with having heirs for a while but never got his wish, so I can only speak to the bond of sisters.”
“Why didn’t he marry again, after the loss of your mother, if sons who could inherit and increase the family fortune were of such importance to his grand plans?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve often wondered that myself. I think he must have gone out onto the marriage mart as soon as it was seemly, I cannot imagine him doing otherwise. But no one was ever good enough for his standards, I think. He’s always thought he deserved the best. I suppose he didn’t like the pedigree of whoever was willing to settle herself with him.”
“A blunt view of your father,” he said.
She stopped as they crested the hill and looked down onto the vast, blue expanse of a gorgeous lake. “Oh, you are lucky to have water on both sides of your home. The lake here and the sea to the opposite. I adore it. I shall be very happy with both vistas.”
He caught her elbow and drew her a fraction closer. “I didn’t mean what I said as a slur,” he explained. “In fact, I think your father deserves the censure. He hasn’t proven himself very high in my estimation.”
She flinched, for many would judge the child with the same harshness as they did the parent. But Jasper’s gentle expression didn’t show that. She sighed. “I think he might blame…blame us for his troubles as much as himself. Ladies were fearful that if his first wife bore multiple children like us, they might face the same fate if they married him. Childbirth is terrifying enough a prospect, but since most would not survive such an ordeal…”
He shook his head. “So he both blamed you for the reality and then planned to use you to change it. Again, I do not think that speaks highly of him.”
“He is a man of his time,” she said with a shrug that didn’t show the pain she had gone through to get to that conclusion. “And he isn’t all bad.”
He arched a brow but said nothing, as if to grant her an opinion he didn’t share. They moved to the edge of the lake and stared for a moment. He bent to pick up a rock, then tossed it. She watched as it skimmed along the surface. “Oh, how did you do that?” she asked.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “You’ve never skipped a rock? No cousin ever taught you?”
“No, our male cousins were older and thought us odd for being triplets,” she said. “I’ve never done it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”
“It’s all in the wrist movement,” he explained, and picked up another rock. He flicked his hand and the rock skipped along the water’s surface, farther than the last had done. “Do you want me to show you?”
She nodded and moved closer. He picked another rock from the shoreline and stepped behind her, folding her fingers around the smooth surface. She caught her breath as his body heat curled around her back, his fingers gentle on her bare wrist as he showed her the flicking action.
She tried it and the rock sank immediately. They both laughed and he searched around for another rock to try. “Sometimes it helps if they’re flatter,” he explained, tossing a few aside before he found the right one. He handed it over, and this time just watched as she tested it and failed once again.
While he looked for a third rock, he said, “So your cousins joined the chorus against you three sisters. No wonder you are so close.”
She shrugged as she took the next rock she was to try. She rolled it in her fingers. “They were always accusing us of trading places and playing tricks on them. They hated that they couldn’t tell us apart.”
“Were you trading places and playing tricks?” he asked.
She tossed the newest rock and it skidded just barely before it sank. “Oh, so close!” she cried out in pleasure, holding out her hand for another rock. “Er, sometimes we traded places, and it was hard not to play tricks on people who were so cruel.”
He grinned. “I must admit, I approve that answer.”
“Even though you’ve been on the receiving end of the trick?” she asked, and hoped her voice sounded light. That night when she’d pretended to be Anne was still a tender spot between them. One she feared he didn’t fully forgive.
“I hope you didn’t do it because I was cruel,” he said.
She shook her head. “No.”
“To be fair, I did know it was you right away, so you didn’t trick me,” he said, and handed out another rock. He let his fingers glide along her palm gently before he released it.
She shivered at the contact of his skin on hers and blinked as she tried to focus.
“Try turning your body a little,” he said, leaning to one side to show her. “And move your thumb along the top there…” She adjusted and he nodded. “Just so. Perfect.”
She smiled and flicked the rock. It skipped along the surface of the water, bouncing out into the waves before it finally sank.
She jumped in place, clapping her hands with the pure joy of success. Jasper whooped and caught her waist, spinning her around before he dropped a kiss firmly on her mouth. She opened to him, and for a moment rocks were forgotten, problems were forgotten, everything was forgotten except the bond they were forging. She lifted into him with a shiver and sank into that connection with a sigh.
He parted from her after what felt like far too short a time and smiled as he steadied her. “Good show, Thomasina, that was wonderful.”
She laughed and smoothed her skirts as she stepped away from him. “I admit, I’m very proud of myself. I may not have a higher accomplishment than that in my life thus far.”
“I doubt that is true. Would you like to try again?”
“Yes!” she said, bending to help him find a flat rock to toss next. “This is my main duty as countess now, I’m afraid. Everything else will be secondary to skipping rocks on the lake.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a chuckle, and picked up a handful of perfect rocks.
As he handed the next over, she glanced at him from the side of her eye. “You mentioned again that you knew me that night at the ball. And I know I’ve asked you this before, but I’m not sure you ever answered me. How did you know? You said it wasn’t a trick to tell us apart, then what is it?”
She skipped the rock, just a bit farther than she had the last. He smiled at her triumph, but she could feel his hesitation at her question. She held her breath as she waited, expecting him to distract her or put her off directly. Then he sighed and faced her.
“There is a light in you that I don’t see in Juliana or Anne,” he said at last. “Something that draws my eyes to you across the room. Makes me move toward you, even before I should have. Even when I knew it was wrong. That probably sounds silly to you.”
She faced him with a shake of her head. “No, not at all. That is lovely to think I have a light in me. It is…it’s very special, and I hope it’s true.” She swallowed and dropped the rocks that remained in her hand back on the shore with a clatter. Garnering up her nerve, she moved toward him. When she reached him, she leaned up into him, pressing a hand to his chest. “My light, if it exists, is yours, you know. To help you find your way in times of trouble.”
His body tensed and his face became serious. His pupils dilated as he stared down at her. Then he lifted his hand to her forearm, sliding his fingers up and up slowly. Her flesh dimpled with goose bumps and she couldn’t stop the gasp of pleasure that exited her lips.
He leaned down, this time more purpose in his gaze, as he brushed his lips to hers. “You want to help me?” he whispered.
She nodded. “Very much,” she said on what was hardly any breath left.
He drew her closer, flat against him, and his mouth found hers. He kissed her, but this time there was far more purpose to it. Far more drive. Her body sparked, the fire starting between her legs, shooting through her veins until every part of her felt the heat of longing.
A Reluctant Bride (The Shelley Sisters Book 1) Page 14
