“And no,” he added. “She does not live with us. She hasn’t been a part of our lives for a long while. My youngest scarcely remembers her.”
Miss Wychwood went quiet again.
Her silence set Jasper’s teeth on edge. He hated that they must discuss this. Hated that any gently bred young lady—Miss Wychwood in particular—should be obliged to give voice to anything so coarse and unsavory.
He nevertheless continued, though the words stuck in his throat. “Allow me to say that I would never ask a lady to join me in living at the Hall if I thought the situation there would degrade her.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Miss Wychwood said. Her words were softened by the trace of a smile.
“You don’t find the presence of my three children too scandalous to be borne?”
“It is scandalous,” she acknowledged. “But I suspect many ladies would be willing to bear the scandal if it meant marrying well and being mistress of their own property.”
For an instant, he took leave to hope.
“Are you one of those ladies?” he asked.
“Does it matter? If it’s money you require, I daresay any heiress would do. If not me, then someone else. Miss Throckmorton, perhaps.”
He couldn’t dispute the fact. Money was his primary concern. It was what had brought him to London in the first place.
But it wasn’t what had brought him here this morning.
On rising from his bed, he hadn’t thought of riches, or even of Goldfinch Hall. He’d thought only of seeing Julia Wychwood again.
“Miss Throckmorton is an impressive young lady,” he said.
“She is,” Miss Wychwood replied without a hint of malice. “It was good of her to come to my aid last night.”
“As I say, an impressive young lady. However . . .” He cast her a weighted glance. “She wasn’t my first choice.”
“I know that.” She straightened her habit skirt—a restless movement not entirely in keeping with her quiet hands and seat. “What I don’t understand is why.”
Honeyed words might have been difficult, but the truth came easily enough. Jasper didn’t hesitate to utter it. “You’re beautiful.”
She returned both hands to the reins. Her horse tossed his head, sending the curb chain of his Pelham bit clinking. “I’m flattered you think so. But beauty doesn’t last.”
“Your kind will.”
She gave him a doubtful look.
He gazed steadily back at her, as solemn as he’d ever been. “I believe, ma’am, that you have a beautiful soul. That you are a beautiful soul. I don’t expect that will alter with age.”
She stared at him for an instant, seemingly speechless. Her mouth trembled. “What a lovely sentiment.”
He shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” he returned. “Or better yet . . . tell me something of your own feelings.”
Her expression became wary. “What about them?”
“You said you wished to know me better. I assume that’s why you’re here. You must have known I’d be here, too. That I intended to speak with you away from your chaperone.”
“I always ride at this time of morning. But . . . Yes. I understood what you meant when we parted last night. I may be silly on occasion, but I’m not a fool.”
“No indeed.” He frowned. “Yet still you came.”
She gave him a bemused glance. “You sound as though you’re trying to warn me off.”
“I should,” he said. “I still might.”
“Your very changeable, sir.”
“I suffer from pangs of conscience. An unfortunate condition. I’m endeavoring to overcome it.”
She laughed.
The sound provoked a lump of yearning in his chest. He realized, to his disquiet, how much he wanted to be the one to make her laugh.
“Unfortunate, to be sure,” she said. “Given your purpose for being in town.”
Naturally, it was. A fortune hunter was meant to be conscienceless. Ruthless. A role that anyone would have said suited Captain Jasper Blunt to a certainty. And yet . . .
He hadn’t been ruthless with Julia Wychwood, not by a long chalk.
When she’d asked him to stop pursuing her, he’d done so. And then, last night, when he might easily have compromised her on Lady Holland’s balcony, he’d chosen instead to talk to her about romance novels.
J. Marshland’s novels, for God’s sake.
“My purpose hasn’t changed,” he informed her.
“I’m aware,” she said. “But you’ve been nothing but kind to me. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you this morning. I never got a chance to properly thank you for rescuing me last night.”
“That wasn’t a rescue. That was naught but a minor service.” Jasper’s eyes held hers, his voice dark with promise. “When I rescue you, Miss Wychwood, you’ll know it.”
Eight
Julia’s breath caught at his words. She supposed she should be afraid. Any sensible lady would be. Captain Blunt had all but outlined his plan to marry an heiress and use her dowry to repair his fortunes. He was making no effort at deception. Quite the opposite.
Thus far, they’d talked of his finances, his illegitimate children, and even the children he might sire with his future wife. A wife who, only a few short days ago, he’d imagined would be her.
An unseemly conversation.
Anne would be horrified. But Anne didn’t subsist on a steady diet of romances and sensation novels.
To Julia, there was nothing very evil about Captain Blunt’s plans. He wasn’t, for example, anything like Sir Percival Glyde, one of the characters in Mr. Collins’s novel The Woman in White. Sir Percival had been charming on the surface. But underneath, he’d been a thorough villain; marrying a vulnerable heiress only to steal her fortune, falsify her death, and have her committed to an asylum under an assumed name.
Not so Captain Blunt.
He’d been honest and straightforward with Julia from the beginning. She admired him for it, even if she didn’t wholly understand him.
“I hope I won’t need rescuing at Lord and Lady Claverings’ ball tonight,” she said. “Will you be there?”
“I will.”