His gaze lingered on her face. “We do, don’t we?” Lifting his hand, he stroked his knuckles along the edge of her jaw. It was an infinitely gentle caress. Almost as gentle as the words that followed. “How are you, sweetheart?” he asked. “If you’re feeling weary, you must tell me so.”
She was disarmed by his touch, just as she always was. “I am weary,” she admitted. The hours-long carriage ride from Malton had been arduous, and she was still weak after her bloodletting.
“Would you like to retire to bed?”
“At this time of the morning? No, no,” she said. “A cup of tea and some cake will soon put me right.”
“I know something else that might do so.” His eyes glimmered with a flash of devilry. “Shall I wait to share it with you until after you’ve eaten something?”
Her interest was instantly piqued. “On no account,” she said. “What is it? Tell me.”
“It isn’t something for me to tell you. It’s something for me to show you.” He stood and offered his hand.
She took it, permitting him to assist her to her feet. She’d never seen him look so pleased with himself. It lent a boyishness to his stern features. A trace of vulnerability that fairly stole her heart away.
Weary or no, in that moment, she believed she’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
Luckily, he asked her to accompany him no further than back out into the hall. From there, he guided her down a corridor toward the rear of the house, through a double set of stone archways that led to a large wooden door.
He pushed it open.
A familiar fragrance assailed her. Books. She recognized it immediately—which rather spoiled his surprise.
Or so she thought.
But when Jasper nudged her across the threshold and into the room, the sight that greeted Julia wasn’t just a bookroom or a library. It was something else entirely.
It was paradise.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh my.”
Bookshelves lined the walls, stretching two stories high, every one of them packed full to bursting. But not with the large, leather-bound tomes one usually found in a well-stocked private library. Not with expensive books on art or classical history, or dry volumes on agriculture, animal husbandry, or economics.
“They’re novels,” she said in wonder. “They’re all novels.”
Jasper stood behind her as her eyes skimmed the shelves. “Not all of them. That would be impossible in a library of this size. But a fair number of them are. Six-shilling novels and penny serials, mostly.”
Julia was in awe. “However did you acquire so many?”
“They’re inexpensive to accumulate. I started buying them when I was a lad. It was how I spent all my pocket money. When I inherited the estate, I discovered my uncle had shared a similar passion—though his tastes veered more toward the horrid than the adventurous or romantic. His novels account for the greater part of the collection.”
In the dim light filtering through the library windows, Julia caught glimpses of titles she recognized, and many others she didn’t.
“Have you read them all?” she asked.
“Most of them, and some of them twice over.” Jasper’s arm came around her waist, his breath warm at her temple. “What do you think?”
She covered his arm with both of hers, leaning back against the hard wall of his chest. “I think,” she said in all solemnity, “I’m very much in danger of falling in love with you.”
* * *
Jasper’s eyes squeezed shut briefly at her words. She was jesting, he knew. It was about the books. Those were what she loved, not him. He nevertheless allowed the warmth of the sentiment to penetrate into his soul. For one fleeting moment, it filled up the emptiness inside of him, making him whole.
It didn’t last.
Julia stepped out of his arms almost immediately to inspect the bookshelves. “I wish Anne and Stella could see this. And Evelyn, too. We all of us adore novels.”
“Perhaps one day you can invite them for a visit.”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t object?”
He shrugged. “Not if they don’t.”
A frown marred her brow as she resumed perusing the shelves.
Jasper wondered if it had occurred to her yet that her friends might not wish to visit her here. That, in marrying him, she’d ostracized herself from their society as surely as she had from her parents and every other fashionable connection in London.
She traced the spines on a row of books, her expression distracted. “I must write to Anne. She’ll be arriving back in London this evening. Heaven only knows what she might hear.”
Jasper could easily imagine.
By this time, Sir Eustace and Lady Wychwood would be aware of their daughter’s flight. Soon, news would filter throughout the fashionable world. There would be no keeping it secret, not when the Wychwoods’ servants and Ridgeway’s staff had all been privy to Julia’s abduction.
Doubtless her maid, Mary, had divulged the whole of it on returning to Belgrave Square.
Jasper fully expected that within a fortnight, he would have to contend with the consequences. The only question in his mind was how those consequences might present themselves.
He followed behind Julia at a distance. “There’s paper and ink in the desk. Write to whomever you like. I’ll see it’s posted.”
That seemed to alleviate her concerns—for the moment, at least. “Thank you,” she said.
“Of course.”
She resumed investigating his collection, stopping to withdraw a novel from one of the shelves. “The Cursed Veil.”
“A gruesome tale about a new bride kept prisoner in a haunted ruin.” He plucked the book from her fingers, returning it to the shelf. “Not the best story to begin your new life here.”
She gave him a speaking glance. A silent reminder that he’d promised not to restrict her reading.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t read it,” he said. “Only that it might not be an auspicious beginning.”
Julia wandered onward. She’d gone no further than the next shelf when she came to an abrupt halt, her attention riveted by a long row of books—fifteen altogether, of similar size and shape. “These are J. Marshland novels.”
Jasper stilled. “Er, yes. They are.”
Her gaze scanned the shelf. “But . . . you have titles of his I’ve never even heard of.” She extracted a novel from the front of the row, opening it to examine the frontispiece. “This one was published in 1848.”