The Belle of Belgrave Square (Belles of London #2)(48)

The door opened a crack. “What is it now?”

“A gentleman’s come to see Miss Wychwood.”

“Does she look like she’s receiving?” the maid answered back tartly. She moved to close the door.

Jasper caught it before it shut. At the sight of him, the maid’s eyes goggled. “Mary, is it?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Blunt, sir.” She took several steps back into the room as he entered. “You can’t be in here. It’s not proper.”

A grand four-poster bed stood behind her. The blue damask draperies were half-drawn, concealing the bed’s occupant from view.

Jasper’s heart thumped hard. “No doubt. But I am here. I’ll not leave until I see her.”

Mary briefly stood in his way. Like the footman, she was a servant of middle age. A sensible servant. She didn’t seem inclined to scream the house down. “You’ll ruin her,” she warned. “If anyone should hear of this—”

“Then best make certain they don’t.” Jasper walked around her.

The bedchamber wasn’t as dark as the rest of the house. Sunlight glimmered through the gaps in the curtains, and a fire crackled in the grate of an ornate marble fireplace. Silk-covered walls shimmered in the light cast from the flames. The same light that illuminated the interior of the bed.

On reaching it, Jasper stopped short.

Inside the heavy draperies of the four-poster, tucked beneath a quilt, Julia Wychwood lay sleeping, half-propped against a plump pile of pillows. Her unbound hair spilled around her shoulders in a wild tangle of ebony waves.

A lump formed in his throat.

He’d never seen her with her hair down. Had never dared imagine it. Such a sight was reserved for a lady’s husband.

Or her lover.

He was keenly aware he was neither.

Knowing that—accepting it—made his presence all the more unseemly.

He shouldn’t be here, looking upon her in this vulnerable state. Not when she couldn’t consent to it. Not when her eyes where closed, her black lashes fanning over her pale cheeks.

And she was deathly pale; her beautiful face drained and still, almost waxen in repose. The white of her prim cotton nightgown was vibrant in comparison.

“Is she—” His words failed him.

“She’s resting,” Mary said in a stern undertone. “Best leave her be. If Sir Eustace or Lady Wychwood were to—”

Jasper silenced the maid with a look. The footman had said Sir Eustace and his wife were in separate wings of the house. Neither would know Jasper was here. Not so long as the servants kept their heads.

“Come away, Mary,” the footman said. “Let the man have a moment.”

Mary gave the footman a look that would have withered an orchard. She joined him by the closed door, one eye still on her mistress as the two of them engaged in a whispered argument. Their words drifted to Jasper’s ears in broken scraps.

“—by bringing him here?” the maid was demanding.

“—no romance in your soul?” the footman returned.

“—not romance. Madness. Only a fool—”

Jasper ignored them. A spoon-back chair was drawn up beside Miss Wychwood’s bed. He sat down on it, scanning her face.

She showed no signs of physical distress. Nothing save the pallor of her skin and the faint sheen of perspiration on her brow, dampening the fine wisps of hair at the edge of her hairline.

It wasn’t enough to reassure him.

Her arms lay outside the coverlet, one at her side and one draped loosely across her midsection. The long, ruffled sleeves of her nightgown obscured any evidence of Dr. Cordingley’s treatment. But knowing it existed—that she’d been cut and hurt in such a barbaric manner—tore at Jasper’s soul.

He gently took her hand. It was warm and silky soft, and so damnably small in comparison to his own. A surge of protectiveness tightened his grip.

Miss Wychwood’s lashes stirred. Her eyes opened slowly. She looked up at him, brows drawn in confusion. “Captain Blunt,” she murmured. “Is it really you?”

“It is,” he said.

And he felt, all at once, the full impropriety of being here.

Good Lord. What must she be thinking? To wake seeing his battle-scarred face looming over her? In her bedchamber of all places. A room into which no gentleman unrelated by blood or marriage would ever dare enter. Not even if a lady was at death’s door.

But she wasn’t dying.

He saw that now. She was only drained and weak. Urgently in need of the restorative power of sleep, just as her maid had insisted.

And what had he done?

He’d traveled here at breakneck speed, bribing his way into her rooms like some desperate character from a penny novel.

“Forgive me,” he said gruffly. “I heard you were ill. I had to come.”

“I’m not ill. Just . . . tired.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you to rest.” Rising from the chair, he loosened his grasp, expecting her to withdraw her hand. She didn’t. Quite the reverse. Her fingers curled around his with a trust that entirely disarmed him.

“Please don’t go,” she said.

His chest constricted with emotion. He sank back into his seat. “I won’t. Not if you don’t wish me to.”

She was quiet, lids heavy as he held her hand. He began to think she was nodding off again, when her lashes lifted and her eyes lit on something to his right.