Page 116 of The Belle of Belgrave Square

Her family.

They were, weren’t they? Jasper, Charlie, Alfred, and Daisy. Even Mr. Beecham, whose role was more that of an old friend than a put-upon servant.

Julia had passed three days in their company, her confidence building by slow degrees.

At first, she’d been overwhelmed. Not only did she have to look after herself now, without benefit of a maid or a proper laundress, she had the burden of being mistress of Goldfinch Hall.

Some mistress.

She knew nothing about managing a household. Certainly not one without any staff. How was she to distinguish herself?

But the household seemed to chug along without her guiding hand. The men were surprisingly self-sufficient. The children were self-sufficient, too.

The boys still hadn’t fully accepted her. She consoled herself that they didn’t appear to have fully accepted Jasper, either. Only Daisy genuinely looked on him as a father. She even called him Papa on occasion, when she deigned to speak at all. She was a quiet, watchful child, content to keep her own counsel.

Charlie and Alfred were the exact opposite. They were loud and boisterous, capable of trying the patience of a saint.

Of the two, Charlie was the more difficult. He was a moody boy, angry and sullen at times, behaving as though he hated Jasper. Other times, he was civil, even playful, laughing at a jest or grinning over a story from their mutual past.

Jasper bore it all with an impressive degree of patience.

But then, he’d said he was a patient man.

He was waiting for her, wasn’t he? Courting her.

Julia couldn’t fail to notice his diligence. He never pressed her. And he hadn’t tried to kiss her again. Not since the day they’d arrived at the Hall. But he was there—kind and solicitous and wanting her so much. She could feel it, the desire he had for her. It was a physical sensation. A connection between them that was stretched even tighter after the events of this morning.

She shivered to think of it.

The way he’d looked at her as she’d stood at the basin, half-undressed in front of him. In that moment, it had felt as though all the oxygen had been leeched from the room. As though she couldn’t expand her lungs for want of breath.

She’d been embarrassed. Of course she had. But, alarmingly, that hadn’t been her only emotion. Something else had chased after it. A warm, delicious thrill that had made her belly clench and gooseflesh rise on her naked skin.

If he’d kissed her then, she had the ridiculous notion she might have burst into flames.

Up ahead of them, the boys leapt into the pond with a resounding splash. Alfred disappeared beneath the shimmering surface, only to reemerge a few yards away. Charlie swam after him, his arms cutting through the water in a confident arc.

“Did you teach them to swim?” Julia asked Jasper.

“I did.”

“Who taught you?”

He hesitated before answering. “My father.”

Julia knew better than to ask anything more. His parents were off-limits. That’s what he’d said before accepting her proposal.

“You’re to ask me no questions about my parents or about my time before the war.”

Perhaps he hadn’t got along with his mother and father. Perhaps the memory of them was as distasteful to him as his experiences in the Crimea.

“If you can call it teaching,” he added grimly.

She glanced up at him, surprised he was willing to say anything else on the subject. “What do you mean?”

“When I was a boy, he threw me off of the village pier. Sink or swim, that was his philosophy. There was no instruction connected with it.” Jasper stopped to set down their hamper on a shady patch of grass beneath one of the trees that curved toward the water. “Pity. The current was quite strong that day.”

“What did you do?”