Page 31 of Adeline

Lord Ailesbury’s stare shifted from cold and narrowed to widened confusion as he matched her step for step.

However, as she moved closer, he moved away until his shoulders pressed into the mantel above the hearth.

…as if he were terrified of her.

Chapter 12

As if by some grand scheme concocted by a deity Jasper had no belief in—and likely one that cared not a whit for him—Miss Adeline Price not only stood before him but proceeded to walk his way. His entire body stiffened when the blades at his shoulders came into contact with the rough wood of the hearth mantel.

The blanket his housekeeper had set about the woman’s shoulders lay forgotten by the door.

Adeline strode toward him, all confidence with a sensual sway to her hips.

Did she always saunter thusly?

Jasper wracked his memory in an attempt to determine how he hadn’t noticed the woman’s allure before this moment.

Certainly, he had not been completely unaware of Adeline’s beauty.

However, finding a woman beautiful and longing to strip every inch of clothing from her body were indubitably different things. Only a moment before, he’d been questioning the look he’d seen in her eyes outside the plant—convinced he’d misread everything he’d seen.

Jasper hadn’t misread anything. All the confirmation he needed was right before him in Adeline’s stance, mirroring his from a moment before. Uplifted chin, penetrating glare, and purposeful air. Those were his mechanisms…his tricks…to send her fleeing the room in fear of what the Beast of Faversham would do next.

The foolish woman had used his intimidating position against him, driving Jasper back in fear.

But what did he fear, precisely?

What didn’t he fear, was a far more appropriate question.

He feared his need to have Adeline at Faversham Abbey, even when she was but a stranger who’d been stranded alongside the road. He feared his intense reactions to her—both anger and lust—and the control he felt slipping with each breath. And what he feared most of all…watching the woman depart Faversham, which would happen at first light. It had to happen. There was no other choice for either of them.

The sooner, the better…for all concerned.

The last thing Jasper wanted was the woman overhearing something she had no business knowing. Or asking questions on subjects he had no answers for.

She stalked toward him, the shadow cast by his body and the fire shrouding her in mystery though her eyes held none. Suddenly, she was the hunter and he the prey. Why did that suit him so?

Halting several paces from him, Adeline bent at the waist and slid her hand under the lounge. When she straightened once more, a smirk upon her plump lips, she held his forgotten tumbler. For the life of him, Jasper could not remember setting the thing down, let alone it having rolled under the lounge.

She set the glass on the low table before the chaise and returned her stare to his as she continued toward him.

Belatedly, Jasper realized his folly in not escaping when she’d been preoccupied retrieving the glass.

“May I ask you a question, Lord Ailesbury?” Her voice was so soft it could barely be heard over the crackling fire at his back.

“Jasper,” he mumbled.

“Pardon?” Her brow furrowed, and her pace slowed.

“My name, it is Jasper.” It had only been with Adeline’s arrival that his servants took to calling him anything but his given name.

“Jasper.” The single word dripped like honey from her lips, the corner of her mouth notching up. “Jasper,” she repeated, her hooded, hazel eyes scanning him from head to toe as he had with her after realizing he wasn’t alone in the room.

No one in his employ spoke his name with such reverence.

At that moment, he thought he would answer her any question—travel the earth ten times over, journey to the sun, and die of thirst in the Sahara, if only to find the information she longed to know.

“Tell me what happened to your family,” she whispered. “The villagers…they spoke of unimaginable things.”