Her legs sagged beneath her.
He maneuvered her to one of the standing stones. It was the approximate height of a chair.
Julia sank down on it numbly. Her thoughts were in chaos. She had the vague notion that she had fallen. That she’d suffered a blow to the head.
Jasper briefly stepped away from her to secure the horses to a nearby tree. “I convinced myself I deserved it,” he said as he tied off their reins. “That it was the least Blunt owed to me for all the violence and misery I’d endured at his hands.”
“The marks on your back . . .” She didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice. “It was Captain Blunt who flogged you?”
“Mercilessly.” Jasper returned to stand in front of her. His face was taut, as if he was resolved to continue his tale, no matter the cost. “He was a merciless man, to me and to everyone within his power. We were already in a wretched state. It was freezing—we had to thaw our ink to write. And our clothing wasn’t suited for the elements. We were emaciated and starving. What food we were allotted wasn’t fit for consumption. But Blunt made it worse. He cut our rations for the smallest infractions. He flogged men for insubordination who were already dying of dysentery and exposure. I took pity on one of them and gave him my bread. When Blunt found out, he made an example of me.”
Her throat convulsed on a swallow. She recalled Jasper’s words to her in the Claverings’ garden. The way he’d described the vicar’s son who had been flogged.
“He was a brave lad, too. Noble, you might say. All the same, he wasn’t made for soldiering.”
He’d been describing himself. He was the noble young soldier who had given bread to a dying prisoner. The bookish son of a country vicar. A lad who hadn’t been made for soldiering.
“I was confined to the guardroom for the night,” Jasper continued. “My wounds were left untreated. I was unable to sleep or even to move. Blunt sat with me until the wee hours, drinking and talking and drinking some more. It’s when he told me about his estate. He said he was the last of his name. That he had no one waiting for him. Imagine my dismay when, a few weeks after I arrived at the Hall, Dolly Carvel turned up at the door with Daisy in her arms.”
It was the faintest shadow of a silver lining. Julia clutched at it with both hands. “She wasn’t your mistress.”
“Of course she wasn’t. I’ve never had a mistress. I’ve never—” He broke off again, scrubbing at his jaw. “Dolly was something wholly out of my experience. As I was to her, I have no doubt. She’d heard Blunt had taken up residence at the Hall and had used the last of her coin to make the journey, hoping he’d do something for her and the children. But she was no innocent. She recognized my game as soon as she clapped eyes on me. It took her less than five minutes to resort to blackmail.”
“Blackmail?” Julia struggled to marshal her racing thoughts. “What did she want from you?”
“She wanted me to fetch the boys from the workhouse, and to care for the children after she was gone. If I refused, she intended to expose me. She was the sole person who could do so. Blunt spent most of his life serving in remote parts of the world. He hadn’t any friends. He was too volatile to maintain relationships. Dolly was the only one who knew him for any length of time. He gave her money when he visited her, but he’d provided nothing for the children’s long-term support.”
“You could have left. You could have gone away somewhere.”
“I could have,” he acknowledged. “Indeed, I planned to after I retrieved the boys from the workhouse. But Dolly was dying. And Daisy was so small and helpless. They had nowhere else to go and no one to look after them. I couldn’t bear the thought of Blunt’s cruelty claiming any more victims. Not if I could do something to help them.”
“They don’t know?” she asked.
“No one does.” He paused, a frown flattening his mouth. “Ridgeway suspects, but he’s not likely to share his suspicions. As for everyone else . . . I’ve been careful. I’ve had to be. If anyone found out the truth, it would mean losing the children. They’re the reason I stayed. The reason I’ve done all of this. I care for them now as if they were my own. It’s why I came to London to find a wealthy wife. It seemed the only way to save the estate and secure their futures. But I didn’t find what I was looking for. I found something else—something better. I found you.”
She blinked rapidly against an onslaught of tears.
He sank down in front of her, just as he had earlier in the library, except now there was a burning intensity in his gaze. “I didn’t marry you for the children or the estate or for anything to do with Blunt,” he said. “I married you for myself. My true self. I married you because I love you. That much you must believe.”
Julia looked back at him, her heart in her throat. “Are we married?”
Thirty-Five
Jasper flinched. He’d anticipated the question. That didn’t make it any easier to hear it. Crouched in front of Julia on the desolate moor, alone with her amid the rocky sandstone and the biting wind, he felt a building sense of desperation.
She was too quiet. Too stoic. Though tears brimmed in her eyes, she wasn’t crying and she wasn’t raging at him.
His deception had hurt her badly. He was only now beginning to realize how much.
“Of course we’re married,” he replied roughly. “You’re my wife.”
“I married Captain Blunt,” she said.
“Which is who I am now. Who I must be for all time.”
“But you’re not Captain Blunt. You’re James Marshland.”
Jasper’s chest contracted painfully. Many a time as he’d kissed her or made love to her, he’d have sold his soul to hear her utter his name. To call him James just once.
But not now.
Now it felt like an indictment.
“In spirit, perhaps,” he said, “but not in law.”
She shook her head. “Our marriage can’t be legal.”
“It is. I made certain of that.”
“How?”
He hesitated to explain, aware of how cold-blooded it would make him sound. “I made confidential inquiries before we married.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Inquiries of whom?”
He was quiet for a moment before admitting, “I consulted with Mr. Finchley the day he came to Ridgeway’s house.”
Her bosom rose and fell on an unsteady breath. “He knew the truth, then.”
“Not entirely. I presented the issue to him as a hypothetical. He knew only enough to render counsel.”