Her expression softened. Lifting her hand from his, she reached up to gently touch his cheek.
The shy caress sent a jolt of heat straight through his vitals.
Her eyes searched his. “A moment ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. But you truly mean it, don’t you?”
“I mean it,” he said huskily.
“You did want me for myself alone.”
“I still want you.” He lowered his head to hers, seizing her lips.
Her fingers slid into his hair as he kissed her with fierce tenderness—softly, deeply, and all too briefly.
The carriage shuddered, careening over a stone in the muddy road.
Julia gave a breathless laugh as they broke apart. “I fear this vehicle is too poorly sprung to support such activities.”
“A shame.” He smoothed a stray lock of hair from her face, tucking it back into the crepe-lined interior of her fashionable straw bonnet. “We shall have to postpone our kisses until this evening.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “I meant to ask you about that.”
He put his arm around her, drawing her close. “About kissing each other?”
“No. Not that exactly.” She snuggled against his side. “I was wondering if we’re going to share a bedchamber?”
The question ignited his already smoldering blood. It took an effort to answer with any degree of equanimity. “Ah.” He affected to consider the matter. “Would you like to share a room with me?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Most ladies would rather have their privacy.”
“I do enjoy my privacy. And I hope I shall have plenty of it. But at night . . .” She slid an arm around his midsection. “I slept so soundly with you next to me, dearest.”
Dearest.
His heart clenched hard.
Julia continued on, oblivious to the havoc she was wreaking in his breast. “More soundly than I ever have. I can’t think why, except that you make me feel so safe. Rather like a lamb in company with a very large sheepdog.”
He choked on a hoarse laugh. “Good God.”
“I didn’t know it was possible to ever feel that way. I shouldn’t like to give the feeling up, not so soon after I’ve found it.”
“Very well,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
“You don’t mind it?”
To sleep with her every night and not to have her? He minded it like the devil. But at the moment, he had the besotted notion that he’d give her anything she desired. Anything—even his very life, if she asked for it. Even all his secrets, though it may destroy him in the process.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I want it, too.”
* * *
An hour later, amid a pounding rain that fell sideways as much as downward, they passed Hardholme. Another five miles, jolted in the carriage as the wheels rolled over the deserted scrap of uneven road that cut through the North York Moors, and the tall iron gates of Goldfinch Hall appeared in the distance.
Jasper drew back the curtain for his wife to see. “There. Is that gothic enough for your romantic sensibilities?”
Julia leaned across him to get a better look, bracing one hand on his thigh. “Gracious. How sinister they look! And they’re standing open, too.” She glanced back at him. “Do you suppose that means Mr. Beecham and the children are waiting for us at the house?”
“Possibly.” Or it might mean that the last person to go through them had failed to shut them. The Hall housed a veritable collection of savages—Daisy among them. For all Jasper knew, the gates had been standing open for the entirety of his absence.
She sat back in her seat. Her face was anxious. “I wish I’d had time to buy gifts for the children.”
“Your presence will be gift enough,” he said gallantly.
She gave him an amused look. “If that’s what you think, you must not remember your own childhood very well. A new toy or a book means the world to a child.”
“They have books,” he said.
If only she knew how many.
A part of him was eager as a lad to show her. To share it all with her—this remote, ramshackle place that would soon be her home. A place where she would remain, to be his own and to live with him for the rest of his life.
“You can never have too many books,” she said. “That’s a fact.”
He refrained from comment.
Julia didn’t notice his lack of reply. She was too busy straightening her skirts and smoothing her hair.
He watched her with possessive attention, learning all her various fidgets and idiosyncrasies. Committing them to memory.
She had nothing to be concerned about. Wearing a carriage dress of lobelia blue silk, her ebony hair swept back in a black velvet–trimmed net, she looked beautiful, just as she always did. It was a beauty that shone out of her like a beacon, irrespective of outward trappings, warming whoever was fortunate enough to fall within its proximity.
It warmed him, even now. Even though he was fully aware of what was to come.
But there was no prolonging his pleasure.
Inevitably, the carriage turned the familiar corner, advancing up the sloping drive. The same corner Jasper had turned six years ago, the future stretched before him, seemingly endless with possibility.
He pulled back the curtain once more. The great stone house loomed ahead against a slate-gray sky, as hateful to him now as any fairy-tale castle might be to the creature cursed to exist within its walls.
“There it is,” he said grimly. “Goldfinch Hall.”
Twenty-Two
Julia held tight to Jasper’s hand as he assisted her out of the carriage. It took an effort not to gape at the house.
The monstrous edifice was built of granite that had severely weathered in places, giving the surface a look of perpetual shadow. A mad tangle of heavily thorned wild roses climbed the high walls, encroaching on the arched windows and doorways in an oddly sinister fashion. Only a few rain-battered blooms were evident among all the prickly leaves and spikes, their overblown petals as red as freshly spilled blood.
No wonder people said it was haunted. With its imposing facade and air of derelict grandeur, it appeared like something from a gothic story. All gloom and decay and lingering mystery. A castle under an evil fairy’s curse. Heavens. There was even a tower!
Stepping down onto the muddy drive, she took Jasper’s arm. He shepherded her through the rain and up the moss-covered stone front steps. An aged gentleman awaited them at the top, sheltered beneath a stone outcropping. His eyes were keen with intelligence; his gleaming bald head complemented by a profuse white beard.