“You’d let us ride Quintus?” Alfred abandoned any pretense of being interested in the card game.
“Naturally,” Jasper said. “In company with my wife—providing you can manage to be civil to her.”
Charlie scowled. “Who wants to ride that big lummox?”
“I might,” Alfred said. “If I can gallop him.”
“That all depends on your behavior.” Jasper straightened from the doorframe. “I expect both of you downstairs in the drawing room before dinner—washed, dressed, and well-behaved.” He met Charlie’s eyes across the distance, his own gaze implacable. “You and I will address your temporary lapse after dinner.”
Having said his piece, Jasper withdrew, leaving the boys to mutter among themselves about his unrelenting high-handedness. Let them do so. It was preferable to them thinking he was undependable.
From the beginning, he’d striven to be steady with them. A man they could rely on—the same on one day as on the next. It was that which they needed, not an outpouring of affection or a torrent of discipline. They needed to feel safe and secure.
It was the same thing Julia required of him. Not his love, but his protection. His steadfastness and strength.
Returning to their shared bedchamber, he found her standing in front of the open wardrobe, placing a folded skirt onto a high shelf. Several articles of her clothing had already been carefully put away. They lined the lower shelves in colorful stacks of silk, wool, and muslin.
He scanned the room. “Is Daisy not here?”
Julia glanced at him, her expression peculiarly blank. “She was here.”
“Where did she go?”
“Downstairs, I believe.” Her tone was as opaque as her countenance.
Jasper had a sinking feeling. He entered the room, shutting the door behind him. “I suppose she said something untoward.”
Julia turned to face him. “Nothing you didn’t warn me about.”
“She spoke of her mother?”
“She did.” Julia walked to the window. Framed by folds of heavy leaf-patterned damask drapery, it boasted a deep-set seat much like the one the boys were taking advantage of in the servants’ quarters. She sat down upon it, rain drumming on the glass behind her. “What was her name?”
His sinking feeling swiftly transformed into a leaden weight in his chest.
This wasn’t a conversation he’d anticipated having so soon after their arrival. But like much in his cursed postwar existence, the unpleasant reality of it was unavoidable. The best he could hope for was that, in divulging some semblance of the truth, he wouldn’t hurt Julia in the process.
He approached her slowly, conscious of the fact that it may be too late. That she may already be hurt. “Her name was Dolly Carvel.”
“Is she buried in your garden?”
Bloody hell. Is that what Daisy had told her?
Not that it wasn’t the truth.
“She is,” Jasper said.
“I see.”
He sat next to her in the window seat, far enough away that he could look her in the eye. “You don’t,” he assured her. “There’s no way you possibly could.”
It was the wrong thing to say. That much was evident immediately.
Julia’s beautiful face hardened, twin spots of color rising in her cheeks. “I’m not entirely ignorant, you know. Even though I’ve never been anywhere or done anything. Even though you’re the first gentleman I’ve kissed.”
“That isn’t what I—”
“You loved her. You told me so last night at the inn.”
What?
Jasper opened his mouth to deny it, only to close it again. He belatedly recalled his admission to her as he’d brushed her hair. Good God. She’d assumed he was talking about his mistress.
Of course she had.
He’d been too caught up in his own painful memories to recognize it. And now it was too late. There was no way to correct her misapprehension. Not without divulging more than he was able. But he had to say something.
“I never meant—”
“What I hadn’t realized,” Julia went on, heedless of his protestations, “was that it was the kind of grand passion Heathcliff had for Cathy. Something that transcends a person’s death.”
Jasper choked back what would have been an exceedingly ill-timed laugh. “This isn’t Wuthering Heights. If it were any novel, it would be . . .” He struggled to come up with a comparable title and failed. “Blast it all, Julia, this is real life! There’s nothing romantic about it.”
“How well I know it.” She folded her arms, leaning back into the window seat as if to put an even greater distance between them. “You still might have prepared me. The very idea—”
“I warned you the children would say things,” he said. “And you promised—you promised—you wouldn’t ask me about my past. It was part of our agreement.”
Her blue eyes glistened with injury. “I’m not asking you anything.”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, bitterly conflicted, torn between six years’ worth of secrets and the powerful urge to alleviate the look of hurt in her gaze. A look that told him she was no longer certain of her place here, in his home—or in his heart.
But it wasn’t only that.
The truth was, he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her so damned much. Frustration welled within him, driving out the last vestiges of caution.
“Very well,” he said at last. “If you want to know about Dolly, I’ll tell you about Dolly.”
* * *
Julia’s stomach trembled with anxiety as she waited for Jasper to speak. It was all she could do not to pepper him with questions. But she recognized the danger in his mood.
Though it took an effort, she held her tongue.
At length, he began: “Six years ago, when I returned from the Crimea, I came here with the intention of settling down. I was still recovering from my injuries, and, ah, not entirely myself. Beecham was here. He had the management of the place. Other than that, I was alone. Until one day, a month after my arrival, Dolly appeared at my door, with a ten-month-old infant in her arms. She told me . . .”
Julia waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. He didn’t seem to know how. “Why do you hesitate?”
“Because,” he said, “what I’m about to tell you is going to make me sound more monstrous than anything you’ve heard about my reputation thus far.”