Page 56 of To Wager with Love

Had Jasper done all this?

Harriet looked at the map once more to get her bearings, concluding that the building she was searching for was on the very outer edge of the farm complex, before it gave way to fields. According to the map there was a cluster of buildings now, and they must all be new as she had no memory of there ever being anything but fields there. She walked on, skipping around puddles and enjoying the fresh air. The sun warmed her back and she breathed in lungfuls of sweet, clean air, grateful to breathe a deal easier than she had a few days ago.

The building, when she finally came upon it, was a solid red brick affair with high windows, far too high to allow Harriet a discreet peek before gathering her courage and knocking.

Well, she’d come this far, and it was only Jasper. Why on earth was she so nervous?

Harriet raised her gloved hand and rapped smartly on the door.

For a long moment there was no answer, and she’d just raised her hand to knock again when the door opened, and Jasper stuck his head out.

“Harriet!” he exclaimed, obviously surprised.

He came outside, closing the door behind him without allowing her the barest glimpse of what he was doing in there.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Looking for you,” she replied, studying his face. “I’ve not seen you since last night, when you left my room like I’d set light to your heels.”

“I didn’t.” He stiffened at once, his expression guarded, and she was aware of tension vibrating through him.

“Yes, you did,” she said, reaching out and taking his arm, which was stiff and unyielding under her hand.

“I had things to attend to. I told you I’d forgotten… something.”

Harriet sighed and looked up at him, wondering why he was insisting on sticking to that hopeless excuse when it was patently untrue.

“Forgot what, Jasper?”

“Never you mind!” His voice was taut with irritation, and something else that she thought sounded remarkably like panic.

She remembered the panic she’d seen in his eyes yesterday, too.

“Everything was fine until I asked you to read to me,” she mused, considering the possibilities until something obvious occurred to her. She sighed and looked up at his handsome face, trying to keep the smile from her lips. “Oh, Jasper, do… do you need glasses? Is that why you made such a fuss?”

She started as he snatched his arm away from hers.

“No, I don’t bloody need glasses,” he said, and Harriet gasped at the anger and hurt in his expression as he turned back to her. “Though I can hardly be surprised you’d think it. You believe me a brainless twit, don’t you? You think I only care about how I look and what to wear. Of course, Jasper’s too bloody vain to wear glasses to read, he’d prefer not to bother rather than ruin his pretty face—that’s it, isn’t it, Harry? Christ, if that was all it took….”

He snapped his mouth shut and turned away from her, his arms folded tightly across his chest. She could feel misery and tension rolling off him in waves and did not know why, or how to help, though she longed to do so.

Harriet approached him cautiously, her heart thudding in her chest. His obvious hurt made her feel horrible, guilt weighing her down. It made her heart hurt to see him in such turmoil. Jasper had always been the one to laugh, the one with the quick smile and something witty to say, the one to cajole her out of the doldrums when her father had treated her like a silly little girl and refused to see she was more than that.

“Jasper,” she said, close enough now to put a hand on his arm. She looked up at him, but he kept his face turned away from her. “Jasper, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She wanted to put her arms about him and hold him tightly, as that was clearly the biggest lie he’d ever spoken. That one word held a world of hurt and defiance, and she knew she must tread carefully. Whatever it was had injured his pride badly. Harriet had grown up among boys and knew what a fragile thing that pride was. A boy would sneer and laugh and say I’m not scared, when he was quaking in his boots, or, that didn’t hurt, when he’d skinned his knees, even though the desire to be hugged and kissed shone in his eyes. She recognised that same fierce pride now, in every line of his body, and in the way he refused to meet her gaze.

“Why do you think I believe you’re stupid, Jasper?” she asked, keeping her voice soft. “I don’t, you know. I never have done.”

He made a sound of disgust that suggested he didn’t believe a word of it.

“I’ve been frustrated by your lack of interest in study, it’s true,” she said, deciding she’d best get him to talk about this, even if she had to make him angry to do it, for surely this was at the bottom of whatever problem he had. Had he been afraid to read to her in case she’d given him some scientific journal he couldn’t follow? Surely not. “When you chose not to go to university I was annoyed and jealous, because I’d have given my right arm for such a chance and you just said no without a moment’s thought. You didn’t even consider it and—”

“Because I’m too bloody stupid to consider it!” he shouted, furious as he stalked away from her.

“No, you’re not!” Harriet shouted in return, outraged that he should think such a thing when it was so clearly untrue. “I know you’re not.”