Jasper had been at Scutari, too; not on an errand, but as a gravely injured patient—the sole survivor of the skirmish, rendered all but unrecognizable by the severe wounds on his face.
Ridgeway had spoken to him, attempting to rally his spirits. A futile task. Jasper had been in no mood to speak to anyone. But later, upon his release from hospital, when Ridgeway had written to him, Jasper had grudgingly replied.
An occasional correspondence had followed.
It wasn’t a friendship. Not anywhere near it. Jasper hadn’t any friends. And unless he was mistaken, neither had Ridgeway. They were merely two men brought together by circumstance. Cordial acquaintances—and sometimes, not even that.
Indeed, since coming to stay with him, Jasper had found Ridgeway’s cold-bloodedness increasingly repellant.
“Why so glum?” Ridgeway cast him a glance. “No luck with Miss Wychwood?”
“Luck has nothing to do with it.”
“You did see her?”
“I did,” Jasper said. Despite the fact that she clearly didn’t want to be seen.
Given the drab, ill-fitting clothing that shrouded her figure and the riding veil that concealed her face, one might think she had reason to hide. That her face and body were something to be ashamed of.
It wasn’t true.
Julia Wychwood was beautiful.
He’d realized that from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
In another time—another life—he might have been in grave danger of losing his heart.
Ridgeway continued admiring his reflection. “What’s the problem, then?”
“The problem,” Jasper said, “is that this business is becoming quite a bit more mercenary than I’d intended.”
“Courtship is mercenary. And marriage is positively cutthroat. If you don’t have the stones for it, you may as well resign yourself to a permanent state of bachelorhood.” Ridgeway smoothed his hand over his side-whiskers. “Which isn’t so bad, now I think on it. So long as you can afford it.”
“Which I can’t,” Jasper reminded him.
Ridgeway shrugged. “There you are, then.”
“Yes,” Jasper said. “Here I am. And there you are, being absolutely useless, per usual.”
“I say. That’s unfair. Didn’t I introduce you to her?” Ridgeway met Jasper’s eyes in the glass. “She’s an heiress. A sickly heiress, too. Take my advice and marry the chit. She won’t overburden you for long.”
Jasper’s jaw tightened on a surge of anger. Mercenary he may be, but he hadn’t yet sunk to marrying an invalid and praying for her early demise. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
Ridgeway shrugged. “She took to her bed last month for several days. I hear that the doctor was called in to bleed her. She’s already a pasty thing. How much more blood do you suppose she has left to offer?”
“She’s stronger than she looks.”
“You can’t know that. You’ve only seen her a handful of times.”
“I’ve seen enough. I’ve seen her ride. She’s not yet at death’s door.” Jasper paused, adding, “And she’s not pasty.”
“No? What would you call her complexion? It’s not marble or alabaster. Not like her friend, Lady Anne.” Ridgeway again looked at Jasper in the glass. “By the by, if you take my advice, you’ll make the most of that lady’s absence from town. You might have noticed, whenever she’s here, she guards her little protégé like a hydrophobic mastiff.”
“Lady Anne has left London?” That was news. “For how long?”
Another shrug. “A few days. She and her mother have hared off to Birmingham to look in on that child medium everyone’s talking about. The one who claims to have contacted Prince Albert.”
Jasper’s lips compressed. He’d heard of the boy. When one was out in fashionable society, it was impossible not to. Jasper put no stock in such tales. No more than he put in spiritualism as a whole. It was all so much nonsense. Ghosts and spirits and proclamations from beyond the veil.
As if he hadn’t enough of that to deal with in Yorkshire.
“I wonder that Miss Wychwood didn’t accompany them,” he said.
“The Wychwoods don’t involve themselves in such things. They’ve enough trouble on this side of the grave, what with their rapidly failing health.” Ridgeway stood abruptly. “Speaking of which, Fennel tells me that Miss Wychwood will be attending Lady Camden’s musicale this evening. Good thing you didn’t refuse the invitation.”
Jasper sighed. A musicale meant a crowded room filled with the cream of London society. It meant him, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with eligible young misses and their overbearing mamas.
“Having second thoughts?” Ridgeway asked.
Yes. And third ones, too.
But Jasper wasn’t going to confide all of his doubts in Ridgeway. The man already knew too much. “There must be someone else who will suit.”
“What?” Ridgeway gave him a narrow glance. “Another heiress, do you mean?”
“Yes,” Jasper said. “Exactly that. Someone who . . .”
Someone who didn’t nearly faint at the sight of him. Who wasn’t afraid to look him in the face.
From anyone else, he could have tolerated well-bred disgust. It was a frequent enough reaction to his appearance. But he couldn’t accept it from her.
“Blast it,” he muttered under his breath. “This shouldn’t be so complicated.”
“It isn’t.” Ridgeway reached for his coat and tugged it on. “You require an heiress with no family or connections—no one to ask questions about you or to come snooping to Yorkshire. The only heiress who fits the bill is Julia Wychwood. If not her, then you may as well let the bailiffs take your estate.”
Jasper ran a hand through his hair in frustration. The bailiffs. Bloody hell. It wasn’t going to come to that, was it? Not after everything he’d already risked to forge a new life for himself.
Ridgeway laughed. “The look on your face. One would think you were too high-minded to follow through with it.”
An image of Miss Wychwood materialized in Jasper’s mind, her sapphire blue eyes shining vividly from behind her black net riding veil.
“I believe I owe you an apology.”
She’d taken him completely off of his guard. Had puzzled and disarmed him.
Was she really who she appeared to be? A sickly wallflower heiress, ripe for the plucking?