The Belle of Belgrave Square (Belles of London #2)(78)

Julia stared at him, her head spinning at the implications of what he’d confessed. Her heart was in similar turmoil. “How did she find herself in such circumstances? Your relationship with her was one of long standing. And recent, too, if Daisy’s age is any indication. Did you not provide for them?”

“I did not.”

“Why not?” She tried and failed to keep the edge of accusation from her words. “You’re their father.”

“Many gentlemen fail to provide for the children they sire outside of marriage. It’s no excuse, but . . .” A muscle worked in his jaw. “I was of a different mindset before the war. A different man.”

So he had told her in the Claverings’ garden. And so Julia had believed. She still wanted to believe it, quite desperately.

She searched his face. “And yet . . . when you returned, you didn’t seek them out. Dolly had to come to you. If you’d truly changed, why did you not go to her and set things right?”

A frown darkened his brow. His gaze dropped from hers. “I wasn’t well for a time. I was . . . confused.”

“And all the while the boys were in a workhouse? And Dolly was dying of consumption?” Julia’s chest ached with muted anguish. The truth did indeed make her new husband sound monstrous. “Oh, Jasper.”

He winced. Only this morning, she’d called him dearest.

“You can’t forgive me,” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“I haven’t any right to forgive you. It’s not me you wronged. It was your children. It’s to them you must make amends.”

He looked at her again, his frost-gray eyes burning with a furious light. “I am making amends. I’ve been trying to set things right from the moment Dolly appeared on my doorstep. Sometimes it seems as though I’ll spend the rest of my life atoning. You can ask Beecham if you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you.”

He exhaled. “Well. That’s something, at least.”

Julia felt a flicker of guilt. Had she overreacted? Been too harsh in her judgment? The past was the past, after all. She had no right to censure him for it, not when he was so clearly doing his utmost to repair the damage.

And he was right, of course.

Gentlemen didn’t make a habit of taking care of their by-blows. Not that Julia was aware. It was the very thing that had scandalized London society about Jasper’s behavior—his desire to clothe and house Charlie, Alfred, and Daisy as openly as if they were his legitimate children. It wasn’t done. Not by respectable people anyway.

But Jasper had been doing it for six years. Out of love for his mistress, Julia had thought. Admirable as it was, it had pained her to recognize it.

But had he loved Dolly?

He’d claimed he had, but his past conduct indicated not. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have abandoned her to such a fate. He wouldn’t have abandoned his children.

It was all too awful.

Julia couldn’t reconcile any of it with the man she knew today. A man who had come to her rescue, marrying her and whisking her away with no hope of ever obtaining her dowry. A man who had brushed her hair last night, who had held her and kissed her with such passionate tenderness. A man who read novels, for heaven’s sake.

This wasn’t a man who could have done the cruel things Lady Heatherton had described. The even crueler things Jasper had just confessed to.

Julia rubbed her temple. Her head was beginning to ache.

“You’re tired,” he said.

She blinked up at him. How long had she been sitting there, engaged in her grim ruminations? “I’m sorry. My thoughts are running wild. I can’t stop wondering—”

“No more talk of the past,” he said firmly. “Nothing good can come of it. From this moment on, we adhere to our agreement.”

She balked at his directive. How was she to refrain from talking about the past when it permeated the whole of their lives here?

But it was what she’d agreed to when she married him. That she wouldn’t ask him about his time before the war. And that she’d never enter his study. They weren’t unreasonable restrictions. Not any more than the restrictions Bluebeard imposed on his newest wife.

A disturbing thought. And an unjust one, too.

Jasper wasn’t Bluebeard, surely. And she’d promised him. One couldn’t start a marriage by breaking one’s word.

She gave a reluctant nod. “Very well.”

He stood. “Would you like to lie down? There’s plenty of time before dinner.”

“Perhaps I shall.” She was rather fatigued from the journey. Troubles always seemed worse when one was battling exhaustion. In times like this, bed and a good book were generally the best prescription for her own peace of mind.

She rose from the window seat, smoothing her skirts with an anxious hand. Her unfinished Marshland novel, The Hero’s Return, beckoned to her from the bedside table.

“Do you need help undressing?” Jasper asked as she walked past him to the bed.

She moved out of his reach. “No, thank you,” she said quickly. “I-I can manage.”

His manner was instantly formal. “Of course.” He bowed to her. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He was gone before Julia could say anything more. She was left standing beside the gruesomely carved four-poster bed, painfully aware that a chasm had opened up between her and her new husband.