Seated beside her in their first-class compartment, cradling her in the crook of his arm and feeling the precious weight of her head resting on his shoulder, he was conscious of the great responsibility he owed her.
She was his now completely, in law as well as in spirit. His own selfish choice. One that had nothing at all to do with the estate or the children or anything else that had come either before or after the war.
No matter that it hadn’t started that way. That it had been her dowry—not her kindness or her sweetness or even her taste in novels—that had first inspired his interest.
They were long past that now.
When they arrived in York, he gentled her awake just long enough to change trains. She was still pale and weak. He expected it would take several days for her to regain her pallor after her ordeal. In the meanwhile, she was content to lean on him and he was glad, quite shamelessly glad, to assist her in dozens of little ways—tying the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin, holding her hand, and encircling her waist as he guided her to their new compartment.
It was nightfall by the time they reached Malton, far too late to continue any further. Hardholme had no platform halt. The remainder of their journey would have to be made by coach—a long and arduous drive at the best of times. One best not attempted after sunset, especially when there was no full moon to light the way.
Foul weather greeted them at the station, cloudless blue skies replaced by darkness and driving rain.
Jasper found them a carriage at the cabstand. “We’ll put up for the night,” he said as he helped Julia into it. “Somewhere close.”
“We needn’t stop,” she said. “I’m strong enough to go on.”
“I’m not.” He climbed in after her, shutting the door behind him. He thumped on the roof to give the coachman the office to start. “The road to Hardholme can be treacherous. Better to start fresh in the morning.”
“Will we stay at a hotel?”
“Nothing so luxurious as that. There’s a coaching inn outside of town, just along the highway. I’ve stayed there once before. It’s clean and they serve a decent meal.”
It was a minor economy, but a necessary one. He’d already spent more than he should on their rail tickets. He didn’t regret the decision. Traveling first-class had enabled Julia to rest in the comfort and privacy of their own compartment. But going forward, he’d have to tighten the purse strings.
He hoped she wasn’t too disappointed. If she was, he couldn’t tell. The interior of the carriage was dark and there was no lamp to light her face.
With the weather, it took the driver a good half hour to reach the inn. Rain poured down in buckets, making a marshy stew of the uncharacteristically busy yard. Jasper’s boots squelched in the mud as he jumped down from the carriage.
He didn’t attempt to guide Julia through it. Instead, as she stepped out of the cab, he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the building.
Julia clung to his neck. “So much for a cloudless sky.”
The unspoken sentiment was clear: Perhaps we’re in for some bad luck after all.
Setting her feet down in the smoke-filled front passage, Jasper wondered if she might not be right. The inn was teeming with people; a chaos of voices and clinking glass drifting out from the small dining room.
When the innkeeper finally deigned to make an appearance, it was to inform Jasper they were full up.
“The rain came so unexpected like, travelers come straight in off the road,” the man explained in a thick Yorkshire drawl. “We’ve only got the one spare room in the attic, and it ain’t fit for any but a single guest.”
Julia’s teeth were chattering.
“We’ll take it,” Jasper said.
He arranged for their baggage to be carried up, and ordered dinner to be sent in to them in a half hour’s time. Julia was in no state to sit up in the dining room, and he had no wish to expose her to such a rowdy group of people.
That didn’t prevent her from being curious. Cleaving to Jasper’s side as he spoke with the innkeeper, she gazed about in round-eyed wonder.
“I haven’t ever been out of London before,” she’d told him.
He couldn’t imagine how all this must seem to her. First the railway journey and the carriage drive, and now this. A busy coaching inn on the edge of a remote North Yorkshire highway.
Add to that the fact that she now had a husband, and he wouldn’t blame her if she fell into a fit of the vapors.
But she didn’t.
She was being extraordinarily good-spirited about the whole thing.
“Jasper,” she said as the innkeeper fetched them a key.
He bent his head to hers. “What is it?”
Her voice dropped to a bashful murmur. “I’m not certain I’m able to climb four flights of stairs.”
“There’s no question of you doing so.”
She bit her lip. “But surely you can’t—”
“Here you are, sir,” the innkeeper said. “The boy’s lit the fire and brought in your bags. All’s in readiness for you.”
Jasper accepted the key, and then, once again, picked his new bride up in his arms. She made a muffled sound of protest, burying her face into the curve of his neck as he carried her up the stairs.
“Hush,” he whispered to her. “It’s no hardship on my part, I assure you. Quite the contrary.”
“I’m mortified,” Julia whispered back. “What must everyone think?”
“They’ll think I’m an eager husband with a very fetching new bride.”
She groaned in embarrassment.
He wasn’t merely being gallant. It was no effort to convey her up the stairs to their attic room. Reaching the fourth floor, he found a single door at the end of a short passageway. He had to duck to carry her through it, knocking off his hat in the process. Only when they were safe inside, the door shut and locked behind them, did he set her down.
The room, though tidy, was ludicrously small, even by the standards of a modest coaching inn. Shadows cast by the flames from the newly prepared fire shifted over the slatted floor, the worn armchair by the hearth, and the washstand in the corner topped by a chipped porcelain bowl and pitcher.
A bed in an old iron frame stood at the center of the room. Made up with clean sheets and a patchwork quilt, it was barely big enough for one large-sized man, let alone that man and his wife. Unless, that is, the couple slept together with a particular degree of familiarity.
A frown notched Jasper’s brow.
Bloody hell. This was his wedding night. A night he was meant to spend in that bed deflowering his new bride.