Page 28 of To Wager with Love

“I’ll never forget the way he said it, Matilda. With such disdain! As though Peter was a fool for even considering he could have any interest in me. I told myself that he hadn’t meant it, though it certainly sounded like he had. I told myself that he was just irritated with Peter, and I waited for him to write to me. If he felt anything for me, surely he’d write, wouldn’t he?”

“One would imagine so,” Matilda agreed, nodding.

“I waited and waited, determined that I’d not write to him until he’d sent me a letter. If he wrote to me, I’d reply and ask him why he’d spoken so to Peter, but he never did, Matilda. Not once. He was away almost a whole year, and he never once wrote to me… but that wasn’t the worst of it.”

“Oh, Lord,” Matilda said with feeling.

Harriet returned a wan smile. “I saw Peter two months later. He was full of news of Jasper, having heard from his father, you see. He seemed to delight in telling me how popular Jasper was with the ladies, and some truly shocking stories about him, things one ought never discuss with a lady, but it was certainly clear that Jasper was not pining away for me.”

“I’m so sorry, Harriet.”

Harriet shrugged. “At least I knew. Better that I’d discovered it then, rather than sitting about waiting for him to come home and ask my father’s permission to court me, when that was clearly not on his mind. By the time he returned, I’d resolved to forget him and concentrate on my studies. As far as my father would allow me, anyway.” She gave a heavy sigh. “Now I think perhaps Jasper thought he was being kind,” she said, her expression perplexed. “Kitty made me reconsider his actions and I’ve been trying to do as she asked. With the benefit of hindsight, I’ve come to believe he thought it was a sweet thing to do, giving me my first kiss, for I never knew him to be cruel before that, and surely he knew I was infatuated. Perhaps he thought it a good moment, when he would be gone for so long. I’ve been trying to forgive him for it. He wasn’t to know how badly he hurt me, how many nights I cried myself to sleep after he’d gone.”

Matilda’s heart twisted at the confusion in Harriet’s eyes, knowing the poor girl had been thinking about this and puzzling it out for years and years.

“And when he returned?”

Harriet looked away, staring at the fire. “I avoided him. I went to visit my aunt in Scotland a few weeks before he was due to return. Everyone assumed I’d be back for the big event, but I pretended to be ill, and my aunt is rather a hypochondriac herself, so it wasn’t hard to persuade her I was too unwell to travel. I didn’t see him for months after that, as we were both away for various reasons, and when I finally saw him I all but ignored him and… and we ended up as we are now.”

“But did he never ask you why?” Matilda demanded.

“Of course,” Harriet said, nodding. “But I could never bring myself to tell him I’d heard what he said. I’d been so humiliated, knowing he’d just been playing with me. God, he must have been amused by how I fell into his arms. I practically swooned. So, I pretended it had been a silly infatuation and that I’d grown out of it.”

“But it wasn’t silly, was it, Harriet? And you’re still in love with him.”

Harriet closed her eyes and nodded. “I tried so hard, Matilda. I tried so hard to stop loving him. He’s not the boy I fell in love with any longer, is he? He’s a grown man and I don’t know him at all. We don’t have the least thing in common. I’m plain and I love learning, he looks like a fallen angel and despises it. Why on earth would he want me? Why do I want him? He hurt me so very badly and I’ve hated him for it, and I don’t understand how I can hate someone and love them at the same time. It’s illogical.”

Matilda gave her a wry smile. “Illogical it may be, but not impossible, I assure you.”

Harriet returned a quizzical look and Matilda hurried the conversation on. “So, what happened last night?”

There was a heartfelt groan of misery, and Matilda waited for what would come next.

“I allowed myself to soften a little, to accept Kitty’s advice and put the past behind us, to forgive him, and that—together with the brandy soaked punch and that stupid bloody dare—well….” Harriet threw up her hands in despair. “And just look at the mess I’m in now!”

***

Jerome watched his brother as he poured himself another drink. That had to be his second in ten minutes, which was most unlike him.

“Steady on, Jasper,” he said, amused at being the one to have said it. The boot was generally on the other foot.

His older brother turned and glared at him but said nothing, raising the glass to his lips.

Jerome shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me if you’re foxed at dinner, but Mother will be furious, and I’d say you’re in enough trouble.”

“Well, I figured it was my turn,” Jasper muttered, giving Jerome an impatient glance before turning away.

“Can’t deny it, I suppose. You’re dashed near respectable these days. A regular dull dog. Well, until this morning’s excitement, anyway. Such a scandal, Jaz, really! I didn’t know you had it in you, and with Harriet, of all people.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Jerome paused, taken aback by the fury of his brother’s words. “Well,” he said carefully, watching Jasper with interest. “If it had been Miss Hunt or Miss Butler, I’d not have been so surprised, but Harry? She’s—”

“She’s what?” Jasper snapped, his posture rigid.

Jerome blinked, startled. “Sensible,” he said at last. “A bluestocking, and practically our sister. What were you thinking?”

Jasper’s jaw tightened and Jerome didn’t think he’d answer.