Page 66 of The Belle of Belgrave Square

Jasper covered her hand with both of his. He brought it to his lips. “Miss Wychwood—”

“You’re in my bedchamber, Captain Blunt. My name is Julia.”

Julia.

It was the greatest intimacy she’d allowed him. Almost as great as the kiss they’d shared at the ball. To call someone by their given name was to know them as only their closest friends and family knew them.

He granted her the same privilege, such that he was able. He wished it might be more. “Jasper.”

“Jasper.” Her mouth curved. “I didn’t realize. Aside from rumors about the war, no one knows anything about you.”

“Thank God for that.” It was bad enough that Ridgeway should suspect the truth. Jasper couldn’t afford for anyone else to do so. Not even her.

She searched his face. “But you’ve changed since then. For the better. You told me so yourself. You’re not cruel anymore. You’re not unkind.”

“I try very hard not to be.”

“Can you promise that? That you’re a different man now?”

Jasper felt her question as much as heard it. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to weep. “My dear girl, that I can promise you absolutely.”

“Good,” she said. “Good.”

A fleeting smile tugged at his mouth. “Is my reformed character of such importance to you?”

“It is. Because it prompts me to ask you something of a more personal nature.” Her fingers pressed gently around his. “I was wondering . . . Would you like to marry me?”

Jasper stared down at her. He didn’t know what he’d expected her to ask, but it hadn’t been that. The question hit him like a prizefighter’s blow to the chest. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. He could only look at her, dumbstruck, certain he must have misheard.

She went on in the same earnest voice. “I know you’ve a preference for Miss Throckmorton. You must think her dowry greater than mine. But it isn’t. I have one hundred thousand pounds coming to me on my marriage. It’s more than twice what hers is. Did you know that?”

He hadn’t known. Ridgeway had said Julia was in expectation of fifty thousand pounds upon her marriage, not one hundred. Either way, it made little difference. Without her father’s permission, Jasper would get none of it.

That fact should have been foremost in his mind. But sitting at Julia’s bedside, her hand cradled in both of his, all he could think of was having her.

And why shouldn’t he if she was offering herself to him?

She was so sweet. So beautiful. Like an enchanted princess in a fairy tale; lying there, rosy lips half-parted in expectation, waiting for true love’s kiss to break the spell.

It wasn’t meant to be him. She deserved someone better. Kinder, gentler. A man who could give himself to her absolutely, with no dark secrets. No sinister past.

Jasper was keenly aware that, in this story, he was the villain, not the hero. It should have stopped him. And perhaps it might have if he’d been nobler.

But he wasn’t noble.

He was tired and bitter—so ungodly bitter at the injustice of it. After all he’d suffered. All he’d sacrificed. Fate couldn’t be so cruel as to offer up his heart’s desire and expect him to refuse it.

“Did you?” she asked again.

He didn’t answer her, asking instead: “What if there were no money?”

Her brows notched. “What do you mean?”

“Just that.” He refrained from going into specifics. Her father’s duplicity was the last thing she needed to hear about right now. Her parents had already betrayed her enough. “What if you had no dowry at all? What if there was no means to afford servants, fine clothes, or carriages? What if there was only me?”

“Only you?” She didn’t sound at all put off by the idea.

Jasper’s pulse jumped on a ridiculous surge of hope. He forced it to calm. He was getting ahead of himself. “And the children,” he added. “And a house that’s crumbling to its foundation.”