“I’ve had to learn more than I’d like about birds during my time at the Hall,” he offered by way of conversation. “Did you know that a flock of goldfinches is called a charm?”
She flicked him an uncertain glance. “Is that true?”
“I swear it.”
“A charm.” Her lush mouth curved with pleasure. “Oh, but I like that.”
“Better than a murder of crows.”
“Much better,” she agreed. “Though I haven’t anything against crows. They’re very intelligent birds, you know. I once read a novel where the heroine had a talking crow as a pet. When she died, it was he who revealed the identity of the villain who had poisoned her. He even testified in court.”
“An unlikely occurrence.”
“Novels needn’t be realistic to be entertaining. Some of the most thrilling I’ve read are filled with outlandish twists and turns. Secret babies, lost heirs, falsified deaths, and hidden identities.”
Not quite so outlandish, Jasper thought grimly. Not if one had seen the things he’d seen. Done the things he’d done. Indeed, elements of his past made popular fiction seem rather tame in comparison.
But a young lady of Miss Wychwood’s breeding wouldn’t know about that. To her, it was the stuff of entertainment.
“Like Lady Audley’s Secret,” he said.
“Exactly like that.” She gave a gentle tug on her gelding’s reins, preventing him from nipping at Quintus’s neck. “The way you describe Goldfinch Hall makes it sound like something from a novel. I know you said it wasn’t a castle in a French fairy tale, but—”
“It isn’t. There’s nothing romantic about the state of it. When I returned from the Crimea, I found it in an appalling condition.” He grimaced to recall it. “My uncle—God rest his soul—was a recluse, not entirely in his right mind. He’d let the fields run fallow and allowed the house to crumble down around his ears. It’s a miracle it still stands.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said. “You must have been disappointed to find it so.”
“Disappointed. Yes.”
An understatement.
He’d been shocked. Gutted. And the condition of the estate had been only the first of many unpleasant surprises to greet him on his arrival in Yorkshire.
But there was no point in repining.
He’d made his decision and he was bound to stay the course. Not just for a week or a year, but for all time. The children’s future depended on it.
“Has it always been in your family?” she asked.
“Not always. My uncle’s grandfather bought it at the end of the last century. It had been standing vacant before he took residence. The house has a history of neglect.”
“You mean to repair it?”
“I do. And not out of any misplaced sense of vanity. I don’t require a grand estate. Were it up to me, I’d have abandoned the place long ago. It’s for the children I do it. It’s their birthright.”
A soft breeze ruffled her black net veil, briefly shaping it to the contours of her face. “Some might argue that children born outside of wedlock have no birthright.”
His jaw hardened reflexively. “Is that what you believe?”
She seemed to consider the question. “I don’t know. I’ve never given any serious thought to the matter. But I know what people are like, and how unforgiving they can be about anything that doesn’t fit their ideas of propriety.”
“So do I,” Jasper said. “It doesn’t diminish my responsibility to the children. The house is theirs, and the land along with it. I won’t permit it to fall to ruin. Not if I can contrive a way to save it.”
“What about your own children?” she asked.
A jolt of apprehension made him stiffen in his saddle. “They are my children.”
“Yes, I know that. What I mean is . . . What about the children you’ll have with whomever it is you marry?”
Jasper thought he detected a flush of color in her cheeks. It was difficult to tell through that dratted veil of hers.
If she was blushing, he couldn’t blame her. He felt a little warm under the collar himself now he understood her meaning.
It was something he’d never considered. An unforgivable oversight on his part. Of course she must want children of her own. Children with him.
And why shouldn’t he oblige her?
There was little else he was capable of giving her. The house was derelict. Charlie, Alfred, and Daisy were half-wild.
And worse.
Miss Wychwood would have to contend with having Jasper as her husband. His great scarred, hulking self in her house—and in her bed.
His muscles clenched low in his belly.
It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. No opportunities existed in Yorkshire. And on those rare occasions when the chance had presented itself elsewhere, he’d felt no great impulse to exert himself.
He was a dashed sight too romantic-minded, that was the problem.
Perhaps that was what he and Miss Wychwood had in common.
“I suppose,” he said carefully, “a certain amount of my wife’s dowry must be set aside for any children arising from our union.”
Her brows knit. “But not the estate?”
It was a valid question. Jasper cursed himself for not having prepared for it. What had he expected? That his future wife wouldn’t want their children to inherit the one thing of value he possessed? That she’d quietly accept him leaving the whole of it to his bastards?
“It’s rather complicated,” he said.
“Undoubtedly.” She fell quiet, the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves on the hard-packed earth the only sound. “Does the children’s mother live with them at the Hall?”
Jasper failed to suppress a flinch. Her question was as startling in its frankness as a sharp slap across the face. To be sure, he’d have preferred the slap.
She hastened to apologize. “Forgive me. I’d assumed your children all shared the same mother.”
If her first question was a slap, the conclusion she drew from his response to it was as brutal as a punch in the jaw.
Good God. She must take him for a whoremonger.
“They do,” he said tightly. “I’m not completely lost to decency.”
It was a ridiculous distinction. He knew it as soon as he made it. After all, what was the difference between one mistress and three of them? A whoremonger was a whoremonger. The rest was only arithmetic.