Historical Romance May 2017 Books 1 - 4. Bronwyn Scott
Читать онлайн книгу.
draft and speak to him myself.’ He reached for the paper, recognising his mistake in bringing it to her. The pity on his face reminded her of the way the elder Mr and Mrs Charton had looked the morning they’d come to tell her about Milton. It was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to experience in marriage, what Jasper had promised her wouldn’t happen and yet here it was. What other secrets of his were waiting to rise up and humiliate her? The possibility added to the disquiet surrounding her since leaving Mrs Hale’s.
‘No, he told me the other day he received a note from Georgia about some unfinished business. This must have something to do with it.’ She’d bet her eye teeth it wasn’t the sort of commercial interest Jasper had alluded to, but it allowed her to save face with the solicitor. She refused to stand here and have him think her a betrayed wife who’d inadvertently discovered her husband’s infidelity. ‘I’ll sign the draft and speak to Jasper about it later.’
‘Of course.’
Jane took the paper to the writing table and signed the document, her fingers tight on the pen to keep it from shaking as she wrote her name. Then she handed it to Mr Steed, who tucked it back in his valise.
‘Thank you, Mrs Charton. I hope I haven’t inadvertently caused you any distress or concern,’ he apologised while Jane escorted him to the front door.
‘Of course not.’ She smiled brightly, trying to shake off his embarrassment as well as hers. ‘Good day, Mr Steed.’
He slipped on his hat and darted down the walk to his waiting carriage.
With as much composure as Jane could manage she returned to the study while Johnson closed the door. She stopped in the centre of the narrow room, fighting back the wave of distress crashing over her.
Jane slumped into the gilded chair by the desk. Maybe this was the real reason he’d been reluctant to marry her. He’d hoped his paramour from Savannah might join him. Except Mrs Robillard was married. No wonder Jasper had changed his mind. Better to wed a free woman in London who could help him with his club then pine for a married one in Savannah. Except he isn’t pining. He’s sending her money.
If he were upstairs sleeping, she would march up there directly and ask Jasper about this mysterious woman. But she didn’t know where he’d gone while she’d been out. She would have to wait until he returned to escort her to his parents’ house for dinner.
His parents.
It was bad enough she intended to enter their home while lying about Jasper’s true occupation and income, but to be forced to play the role of the happy newlywed while she worried about his fidelity was more than she wished to bear. Perhaps she could plead a headache and not go, except it would probably have his sisters flooding in here wondering if she were with child, since she never took ill. There was nothing to do but go and face his family, guilty conscience or not. She’d taken on Jasper’s lies when she’d married him and she must endure them and whatever troubles they caused her as she’d sworn to do at the altar. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t discover the truth, but it wouldn’t be tonight. She couldn’t hope to maintain any sense of composure if Jasper confirmed her suspicions. She must keep her concerns from everyone, including Jasper, until she could find a moment and a way to face him and discover at last what was going on. It made her feel more alone and isolated than when she’d lived with Philip.
This wasn’t the way her marriage was supposed to be.
Jasper sat across from Jane in the coach as it carried them to his parents’ house and the dinner party awaiting them. He hadn’t seen Jane since their encounter in their bedroom. Even after he’d come home from the jeweller’s to dress, she’d been so occupied with Mrs Hodgkin there hadn’t been a moment for them to talk. He’d been secretly relieved, in no mood for a fight before they left for his parents’ house. When at last he could no longer put off facing her, he’d braced himself and come down from dressing to find her waiting for him in the sitting room. She’d been polite and sweet, peppering him with innocuous questions about his day and allowing him to escort her to the carriage, her small hand on his arm, her copper-coloured evening dress whispering against his legs as they walked. Yet for all her pretence to everything being well, the stiffness of her gait and the shallowness of her smile told him it wasn’t and, like him, she was doing her best to hide it.
It was time for him to make amends and bring the light back into her expression.
‘I have something for you.’ He removed a long, slender velvet box from his coat pocket and held it out to her.
She eyed it and him with suspicion. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’ He perched on the edge of the squab, eager for the smile his gift would bring to her red lips. He needed her good humour. He didn’t have enough of his own.
She pushed back the lid, her eyebrows rising at the gold-and-diamond necklace inside. ‘It’s stunning.’
Her response wasn’t. There were no effusive thanks, no squeal of delight or the throwing of her curving arms around his neck like she’d done before their visit to the theatre. With his gift he’d tried to recapture the joy of their first week together, just as he’d strived to maintain the connection between them this afternoon when he’d kissed her. He hadn’t been manipulating her into agreeing to his plan for separate rooms, only searching for the connection which had bound them together over the last few weeks, the one he’d severed with his foolishness. He should have known better than to think he could do it with jewellery.
She lifted out the necklace and the diamonds flashed in the carriage lantern light as she held it out to him. ‘Will you put it on me?’
‘Of course.’
She turned her back to him and he took both ends of the cool metal and slipped it around her neck. Her perfume encircled him like the gold did her neck, the arch of it tantalising beneath his fingertips. He wanted to press his lips to the tender skin, to make her sigh and tilt her head back to rest on his shoulder, to draw her closer and banish the discomfort between them. He fastened the clasp, then rested his hands on her shoulders. Her skin was soft and warm and as familiar as his own. When he slept in the mornings, he would miss the heat of her beside him and the ease of laying his palm on her firm thigh. The nights would be colder, too, without her in his bed. He thought he’d needed space, but he was fast learning what he needed was her. He was about to admit he’d been a fool to leave her room when the carriage rocked to a halt.
She turned her head, her eyes catching his, the uncertainty in their blue depths as strong as in the pit of his stomach. If he’d never gone to America, if he’d rejected Uncle Peter’s vices instead of embracing them, if he’d kept his promise to redeem himself, he’d be worthy of Jane’s heart.
Let her help you and make everything right again. He couldn’t, not when they were moments away from facing his family.
He removed his hands from her shoulders and she slipped back across the carriage to take her seat and wait for the driver to open the door and hand her down.
* * *
Jane held Jasper’s arm as they climbed the wide staircase to reach the sitting room and the party waiting for them. The necklace sat heavy around her neck. She wanted Jasper’s whole heart and the respect he’d promised her, not expensive gifts. She wasn’t as convinced as Mrs Hale of her ability to draw him out, and feared the distance between them would continue to grow until it could never be overcome. One day, she might walk into the Charton home alone the way she had after her failed engagement. She never wanted to face such humiliation again.
Voices and the melodious notes of Lily’s piano playing drifted out of the upstairs sitting room, adding a warm cheeriness to the house which could not penetrate her and Jasper. She’d been here a thousand times, but this would be her first as a wife trying to pretend everything with her marriage was well when it wasn’t.
They reached