The Belle of Belgrave Square (Belles of London #2)(118)

“And I love you,” she admitted.

A tremor went through him. He closed his eyes, clinging to her tear-clogged words as if they were a lifeline on a stormy sea. His grip on her tightened so that he feared he might crush her.

It would be all right now. If she loved him, everything would be all right.

But it wasn’t all right.

Her body remained stiff in his arms.

“I love you,” she said again. “If I didn’t, perhaps all this would be easier to forgive.”

His eyes opened as understanding sank in. An unsettling chill stole the warmth from his blood. “Julia—”

“Let me go,” she said softly. “Please. I can’t think clearly when you’re near me.”

He reluctantly loosened his hold. When she withdrew from his arms, he felt a sickening sense of loss. She was slipping away from him and there was nothing he could do about it.

She stood out of his reach. Her habit was rumpled from his embrace, her ebony hair half falling from its pins. She looked as though she’d been mauled by a tiger.

Jasper regarded her with a brooding frown as she put herself to rights. “What can I do?”

“You can leave me alone,” she said.

He flinched.

“I need time to think.”

“How much time?” he asked.

She tucked her hair back into its silken net. Her hands were trembling. “The rest of the day for a start.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “That’s why I need time.”

It went against Jasper’s every instinct to allow it. He didn’t want to leave her alone—to give her a chance to formulate an even more damning opinion of his conduct. He wanted to hold her tighter. To overwhelm her with the strength of his feelings for her. To kiss her and make love to her and compel her forgiveness.

But forgiveness didn’t work that way.

It wasn’t something he could demand. It had to be given of Julia’s own free will—if it was given at all.

“Very well,” he said. “If time is what you require, time is what you shall have.” So long as you don’t leave me, he wanted to add.

But he didn’t.

He merely assisted her onto Cossack, and then, mounting Quintus, he rode away, back to Goldfinch Hall.

Alone.



* * *





?Julia didn’t return to the Hall until the early evening. Jasper wasn’t at the stables waiting for her. There was only Plimstock. Leaving Cossack in the groom’s care, Julia made her way to the house.

Jasper wasn’t there, either—not on the steps, impatiently anticipating her arrival, and not in the entrance hall to ask what had taken her so long.

The house felt quite empty.

She supposed everyone was readying for dinner. She hadn’t much appetite herself. What she wanted was a book, a bath, and then her bed. If Jasper truly meant to honor her request to be left alone, perhaps he’d arrange to sleep elsewhere tonight?

The thought provided no comfort.

Sagging with weariness, she walked down the corridor to the library. There were only J. Marshland novels in her bedchamber, and at the moment, she had no wish to read any of those. What she needed was something else—something with less meaning attached to it.

She found the library door half-open. The low hum of conversation drifted out into the corridor. It was Jasper and Daisy.

Julia hesitated on the threshold, uncertain whether to go in.

“Then what happened, Papa?” Daisy was asking.

Jasper’s deep voice murmured in answer, “After the happily-ever-after? It doesn’t say. These kinds of stories never do.”

“But you must know.”

“I daresay it all depends on one’s definition of happily-ever-after.” He paused. “What do you suppose it means?”

“That they had babies,” she said.

“Ah.” There was the sound of a book being closed and returned to a shelf.

“What do you think it means?” Daisy asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps that they cared for each other, and looked after each other, and that they were never lonely again.”

“I like being alone,” Daisy said.

“Being alone isn’t the same as being lonely,” Jasper replied.

Julia’s heart clenched. It was the same thing she’d told him at Lady Clifford’s musicale. It seemed a lifetime ago. And yet he’d remembered.

Of course he had. He loved her. She knew that beyond all doubt.

It didn’t change the fact that he’d lied to her.

Pushing open the door, she entered the library. Jasper stood at the bookcase in his shirtsleeves, his hair disheveled, as if he’d been raking his fingers through it. Daisy was seated nearby, her pinafore smudged and her plaited hair frayed in an ebony halo around her face.

“Julia!” She leapt from her chair. “You’re back!”

Jasper turned to the door. A faint expression of relief flickered in his eyes, then was gone.

Julia vividly recalled how he’d kissed her so desperately on the moor. He hadn’t wanted to leave her there, but he had in the end—obviously against his own better judgment. He must have been dreadfully worried.