“Is it much further now?” she asked.
“Another hour,” Jasper said. Dressed in a sober black suit, with an equally sober expression on his face, he was seated across from her in the carriage, not beside her. Indeed, since they’d left the inn, he’d seemed resolved to put a bit of distance between them.
Julia couldn’t think why. Had she said something? Done something? Or was it only that he was brooding about returning home with a new wife in tow?
She was anxious, too. Though her anxiety had nothing to do with regrets about their marriage. Last night, tucked beside him in their narrow attic bed, she’d slept more soundly than she ever had in her life.
It had been an entirely new experience—and not only because he was a man. She’d never shared a bed with anyone before. Even as a little girl, none of her ever-changing roster of nurses had slept beside her. And Julia had never been permitted to have any of her friends stay over, or to stay over with them in return.
Sleeping with Jasper had felt scandalous at the start. He was too big—too male. It was impossible to move an inch without touching him. But exhaustion quickly overtook any thought of shyness or embarrassment. She’d drifted off as soon as she closed her eyes.
After that, she couldn’t remember much of anything about the experience. But she could readily recollect the feelings it had engendered. She’d been wonderfully warm and utterly and completely safe.
At dawn, she’d awakened to an empty bed. Her new husband was an early riser. He was already up and half-dressed, standing in front of the washstand, shaving himself. She’d watched him for a moment from the warmth of the tangled bedcovers, fascinated to witness such a private masculine ritual.
Her spying hadn’t lasted long.
He’d caught her gaze in his shaving mirror. His razor had stilled on his jaw. Taut seconds passed, and then: “I’ve ordered breakfast,” he’d said. “If you’re equal to it, I’d like to be on the road within the hour.”
She’d pushed her tousled hair back from her face, feeling suddenly self-conscious as she registered the change in his mood. “Of course. It won’t take me long to wash and dress.”
As the poorly sprung carriage rattled through the mud, jolting her in her seat, Julia again wondered what had happened to alter his manner toward her.
Perhaps it was only now sinking in that he was stuck with her. That he hadn’t only gained her fortune, but her as well—until death would they part.
She reminded herself once more that she hadn’t married him for romance. She’d married him to free herself from the oppressiveness of London, and from an inevitable betrothal to Lord Gresham. Jasper’s isolated estate would be a sanctuary for her. A place where she could finally breathe.
All that was required was that she get along with the children—and that she exhibit a minimal competence in household management. It was the least expected of a wife.
Dropping her hand from the curtain, Julia settled back in her seat. She’d dressed on her own this morning and even managed to arrange her hair. Hopefully, the children would find her good enough to pass muster.
“Are you certain they’ll know we’re coming?” she asked.
“They should,” Jasper said. “I had Ridgeway’s butler send a wire to Hardholme. With luck, Beecham will have received it by now.”
“How far is the village from the Hall?”
“Five miles of bad road. Carriage travel is difficult, but a horse and rider can manage it, even in this weather. Mr. McCready at the telegraph office will have sent someone.”
“Five miles isn’t such a great distance,” she said. “I’m surprised you’ve been unable to find any servants.”
“It isn’t only the distance that dissuades people from accepting regular employment at the Hall.”
Her brows lifted in question.
“There’s my reputation, for one,” he said. “And the children’s lack of legitimacy. And then there’s the house itself.”
She waited for him to continue, but he once again fell silent. He was in a grumpy, brooding frame of mind, more content to frown at her from across the carriage than he was to indulge her curiosity.
In the early days of their acquaintance, it might have put her off. Then, she’d been disposed to shrink from him the moment he looked in her direction. But not anymore. Not now she knew something of the man lurking beneath the beastly exterior.
“Lady Arundell claims it’s haunted,” she informed him. “And she’s not the only one who’s said so.”
A scowl darkened his brow.
Julia was undeterred. “Is it true?”
“It’s true that the Hall has a reputation.”
She looked at him expectantly.
He grudgingly continued, “It was originally owned by a family of Royalists who were executed during the Civil War. According to local superstition, some of them still walk the grounds.”
“Have you ever seen them?”
“Are you asking me if there are ghosts living at the Hall?”
Her mouth tipped at one corner. “Are there?”
Jasper surprised her with his answer. “Goldfinch Hall is haunted. But not by the kind of ghosts you imagine.”
Her attention was captured as surely as if he’d unveiled a new chapter in a serialized sensation novel. “What do you mean? What kinds of ghosts?”
“Old sins cast long shadows,” he said. “If the atmosphere at the Hall is unsettling, you can attribute it to that, not to any spectral presence.”
Her rapt expression faded. He wasn’t tempting her with a ghost story. His bleak sentiments were all too real. She regarded him with bewilderment. “You make it sound as though you’re unhappy there.”
He looked back at her steadily, his stern countenance belied by a gruff admission: “I’m not unhappy. Not now you’re coming home with me.”
His words settled inside her breast, glowing warm and bright, like a coal fresh from the fire.
Her smile returned slowly. “I do believe you mean that.”
“You can believe it,” he said. “If nothing else.”
“It isn’t only my dowry, then?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “If it were, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Wouldn’t we?” Julia’s smile turned quizzical. “I thought that was the most important quality in your prospective wife—the size of her dowry.”
“The size matters little if your father refuses to grant it to me.”