“For the compliment?”
“Yes. And for the service. It feels divine.”
“Thank you,” he said. “You made a splendid effort with the children this evening. I’m grateful for it.”
“I hope I wasn’t too silly, telling them about Nanny Plum and Nanny Bracegirdle.”
“Not at all. It amused them greatly.”
But not him, it seemed. Julia sensed an underlying tension in his frame. As if something about their dinner conversation had troubled him.
“Have you always escaped into stories?” he asked.
“For as long as I can remember,” she said. “What is it you called novels at Lady Clifford’s musicale? ‘An inexpensive escape from the realities of life’?”
It’s what they’d been for her. An escape. A gateway to another world. Somewhere she could experience romance and adventure without anxiousness or fear—even if that experience was only in her imagination.
“I did,” he said. “But that’s not all they are.”
“What else?”
He ran the brush through her hair—one long, deep stroke from her roots to the end of her thick tresses. Julia’s limbs turned to treacle under his ministrations. Mary’s brushing had never had this effect. It had never made Julia feel so warm and languorous, as if she might melt with every sweep of the bristles.
“Stories like the ones we read in novels help us understand the human condition,” he said. “They teach us empathy. In that way, they’re more than an escape from the world. They’re an aid for living in the world. For being better, more compassionate people.”
Julia frowned. She hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. “Is that what novel reading has done for you? Made you more empathetic?”
“It has.” He ran the brush through her hair for another long stroke. “And you as well, I suspect. Perhaps that’s why you’re so unlike your parents.” His deep voice tickled her ear. “It wasn’t them who raised you. It was romances and fairy tales.”
She smiled, even as a shiver traced down her spine at the huskiness of his words. “One could just as easily say I was raised by penny dreadfuls. And what kind of parent would Varney the Vampire make? Or Sweeney Todd?”
He chuckled. “Fair point.”
Her smile faded as he continued brushing. “Speaking of empathy . . . Is Mr. Beecham responsible for all the household chores?”
“God no. He’s too old for any of the heavy work. He attends only to the cooking and light housekeeping. And to tutoring the boys now they’re out of school.”
“What about the laundry?”
“I do the laundry.”
She cast him a startled look. “You?”
“Why not? It’s generally too taxing for Beecham—all that bending and scrubbing. And it isn’t as though I’ve no experience with the job. Any good soldier knows how to wash and press his clothes.”
Her brows knit. “Goodness. I never considered it.”
He gave her a wry smile. “I’ve found it’s better to be self-sufficient. It doesn’t pay to rely on people too much. You never know when they might be gone and you’ll be left on your own.”
Julia dipped her chin again so he could resume brushing. She hoped he wasn’t referencing her own plight. She didn’t think he was. Jasper wasn’t the kind of man for cutting remarks or innuendo.
No, she realized. He was talking about himself.
Had he been disappointed by the people in his life? Left without anyone to help him or support him?
She had the feeling he had. That he was used to being alone, though not entirely content in that state. What had he said to her in the carriage?
“I’m not unhappy. Not now you’re coming home with me.”
She recalled his words with a pang of sadness. Whatever his past—whatever he’d done—he didn’t deserve to be consigned to this remote place, lonely and friendless.
But she refused to feel guilty over it. She’d done nothing to cause his fate. His suffering was of his own making.
“Do you look after the stable, too?” she asked.
“We don’t keep a stable,” he said. “Not formally. We’ve no coach horses or carriage. There’s only Quintus and Musket.”
“And now Cossack,” she reminded him. “When do you think Lord Ridgeway will send them?”
“Within the week, I trust. Until then, we must rely on Musket and the dogcart. Beecham can drive them into Hardholme tomorrow to post your letter to Lady Anne, and to collect anything else we require from Taggert’s Market.”
“I must write to my bank in London, too,” Julia said. “I daresay I should have done so already. You’ll need access to my funds as soon as may be.”
“Let’s not think of that at present.”
“Have we something more important to think of?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Us.”
She turned to face him on the bed. Their eyes met just as they had at dinner. Except now she was in her nightgown and he was in his shirtsleeves; exposed and vulnerable. An electric charge seemed to pass between them. She felt it in her soul—an alarming quake of longing.
“I mean to court you,” he said. “Just as you asked me to do before we married.”
She shook her head, flustered. “I didn’t—”
“You did. You said you wanted a month or two in order to know me better. You said you wanted to be courted.” Casting aside her hairbrush, he reached to cup her face. His large hand engulfed her cheek and jaw. “That’s what I mean to do,” he said. “I mean to woo you and win you, and when you’re sufficiently amenable to the act, I mean for us to consummate our marriage, here, in this bed.”
A scalding blush swept through her body. “That’s . . . That’s all very well, but after what you told me today about Dolly and the children . . . I’m not certain I can bring myself to—”
His hand tightened on her cheek. “I know that,” he said roughly. “You’re disposed to think me a monster. But I promise you—”
“Not a monster, no. Just . . . not the gentleman I thought you were.”
He stared down at her. “Did you truly believe me someone better?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” She looked deep into his eyes, past the frost-covered surface to the fathomless warmth beneath. “When I look at you like this, the man I see isn’t a man who could have done any of those things. I see someone else. Someone who’s honorable and good. That’s the man I wanted to share a first kiss with. The man with whom I could, eventually, share a bed.”