The Secret Marriage Pact

by Georgie Lee

  Love.

  She pulled back, her hands stilling on his shirt, unsure if it was really love. She hadn’t bargained for anything but friendship when they’d negotiated their betrothal and she hesitated to assume there might be more. At times, their shared humour drove away his brief flashes of darkness, and his confidence in her abilities kept her doubts about herself at bay. He was so much more to her than a friend and the fire in his eyes tempted her to defy her fear and say it aloud, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure he’d say it back or appreciate her trying to drag him into affection he wasn’t willing or prepared to give. She took his face in her hands and kissed him hard, meeting his furious passion with her own, wanting, like him, to lose herself in their coming together, to forget her worries and simply be one with him.

  * * *

  They lay together hours after the sun had set and the trays of dinner brought to their room had been discarded on a table near the door. Jasper held Jane while she slept, his body content from their lovemaking, if not his mind. In the Fleet Street building today, he’d begun to believe he could finally leave the gambling life. Like Mrs Robillard’s letter, the stranger had reminded him how tight a hold it still had over him.

  He pressed a kiss to Jane’s temple and inhaled her sweet perfume, searching for the calm she offered, but he failed to find it. During their first few minutes in bed when her eyes had held his, more than friendship had passed between them. Remorse had stopped him from reaching out to seize it. If he’d never gone to America, if he’d rejected Uncle Peter’s vices instead of embracing them, then he’d be worthy of Jane’s heart.

  He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the clock beside him chimed twelve times and exhaustion made his thoughts spin faster. She was doing everything she could to free him of this life while he was clinging to it, and risking her peace of mind and her safety in the process. He took a deep breath, concentrating on Jane’s steady breaths and the softness of her cheek against his arm to try to settle himself. In his mind he pictured her beneath him, crying out in pleasure at his touch, laughing with him at jokes and sharing his troubles. It settled him for a while, but the later it grew, the more the agitation inside him continued to build. He should stay here tonight with her, but he wanted to go to the hell. If Lord Fenton or Captain Christiansen had connected him to the club, then they might confront him tonight, allowing him to deal with them instead of worrying about what they might do.

  Jasper slid his arm out from underneath her. She murmured in her sleep and he paused, waiting to see if she would awaken, but she rolled over and went back to sleep. He lingered bedside the bed and watched her sleep, a peace he craved decorating her pretty face. He wanted to caress her soft cheek, to crawl in beside her and hold her, to see if she could push back the shadows tonight like she had in the carriage, but the demons were too strong. With regret, he took his clothes off the back of a nearby chair and left the room.

  * * *

  ‘Jasper Charton, I’ve been waiting for you.’ Chester Stilton stepped out from the shadows near the warehouse door, his cravat as dishevelled as his hair.

  Jasper paused beside his carriage, careful to keep his panic under control. ‘What are you doing skulking about warehouse doorways in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I went to your building in Fleet Street, but you weren’t there. I’m glad you decided to come here tonight to play. I must speak with you.’

  So Chester was the one Mark spoke to. What he wanted remained to be seen, but as long as Chester believed Jasper was another gambler, it lessened the risk of him seeing him here. Jasper could think up a thousand ways to explain his presence to his parents if need be, more lies, more deceit. It came too easily to him, even if it still stung his heart like a punch. ‘There’s no reason for us to speak. We aren’t associates or friends.’

  ‘I know we’ve had our differences, but I need your help.’

  ‘You insulted my fiancée.’

  Chester shrugged, trying to appear humble, but it further distorted his already rodent-like appearance. ‘A lapse in judgement on my part, but you didn’t catch me at my best. I must play tonight. You said you were connected here. Perhaps you can speak with the owner. I need to win before my creditors force me abroad.’

  The fever lighting up his small eyes made Jasper take a step back. He’d seen this look in a hundred other men’s eyes before they’d lost everything. That moment was when Jasper should have stepped in to stop them, to save them from being consumed by their habits. As much as he disliked Chester, he wouldn’t give him the chance to ruin himself.

  ‘No, I won’t help you. Go home and speak with your father about work, tell him about your debts and find an honourable way to pay them before it’s too late.’ He was a desperate man which explained why he’d approached him. Desperate men were capable of anything, except walking away from the cards.

  Chester’s greed turned to hate and he clutched Jasper by the lapel. ‘You think you can look down on me because your father refused to give me a loan?’

  Jasper knocked his hands away and pushed him back, ready to pummel the man if it drove him from here and saved him for the mistakes so many, including Mr Robillard, had made. ‘I don’t care who my father extends money to or not. His business isn’t mine and if you’re smart, you won’t rely on luck to save you. Only hard work and legitimate effort can do that.’

  Chester pulled back in disgust as if Jasper had suggested he accept the King’s shilling and enlist to escape his debts.

  Then the door to the warehouse opened and Mr Bronson stepped through it, a number of credit notes in one hand. He failed to notice Chester. ‘Jasper, good you’re here. I need you to sign for Mr Portland’s credit. He isn’t so lucky tonight.’

  Jasper flicked his glance to Chester and Mr Bronson caught his mistake too late.

  Chester was all triumphant smiles while he glanced back and forth between the two men. It made Jasper wish he had struck him.

  ‘No wonder you knew about my debts,’ Chester hissed with gloating realisation. ‘This is your place, isn’t it? It certainly explains the clientele and all the expensive things you can afford.’ He jerked his thumb at Jasper’s carriage.

  ‘What are you doing here? You were told not to come back,’ Mr Bronson growled with an authority to help cover his mistake, but both he and Jasper were acutely aware of it.

  The cheesemonger’s son tugged at his collar before he regained his nerve. He turned his beady eyes on Jasper. ‘I’m glad I did. It seems tonight will be more lucrative than I originally imagined. What will you pay to keep me from telling everyone what you’re up to here, especially your sanctimonious father? Imagine how he’ll feel when he learns his progeny runs a gambling hell, especially after giving me a lecture on the evils of cards? He’ll be the laughingstock of the Fleet.’

  ‘I won’t give you a farthing.’ This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to blackmail him. He’d learned from Uncle Patrick long ago never to give in. If he did, Chester would own him and every night it would be a new and larger demand until he ruined him, then eventually told his secret anyway. He was already a slave to the hell, his past and all his lies. He wouldn’t become one to this fool. ‘Say what you like to who you like, it makes no difference to me.’

  Chester’s smug smile dropped like his jaw. Jasper brushed past him, Mr Bronson falling in step beside him as they headed inside.

  ‘You’ll regret not paying me,’ Chester yelled after them before the door swung shut, leaving him outside in the mist.

  Jasper stopped in the darkness, pressed his fists to his hips and took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Bronson offered, his voice as tense as Jasper’s insides.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ It’s mine. Try as he might to avoid complications, they seemed to be seeking him out.

  ‘What are you going to do about h
im?’

  ‘I don’t know. With any luck, he’ll flee abroad before his desire for revenge outpaces his good sense.’

  ‘We could handle it the way Patrick used to,’ Mr Branson suggested.

  ‘No.’ He was too much like his uncle already without sinking to the level of common street thug. ‘We’ll leave it be for now.’

  Jasper rubbed his chin, his many mistakes piling up on him, along with those of his uncle. Uncle Patrick no longer had to face them, but Jasper did, every day. He had a sickening sense that his carefully constructed world was about to come crashing down around him. There was nowhere else for him to go if things fell apart here and this time so many more people would suffer.

  * * *

  The bark of a dog on the street outside startled Jane out of sleep. Her back was cold and she turned over to find Jasper missing, again.

  He must have gone to the gambling room. She pulled the coverlet up to her chin and snuggled into the soft mattress, but the sound of a bird outside announcing the coming dawn, and the front door opening and closing downstairs, made her sit up. She listened for the fall of Jasper’s boots on the stairs, but heard nothing except a slight noise in the sitting room beneath their bedroom. It wasn’t like him to linger downstairs when he came home.

  She twisted the sheets between her fingers, wondering if she should go down or leave him alone. He hadn’t come up for a reason and she feared her questions would revive the awkwardness of their previous early morning encounter. However, if he was suffering she didn’t want to leave him alone. In the weeks after Philip’s first wife had died, Jane had caught Philip up at night many times. The helplessness Philip had experienced over his wife’s death had haunted him and robbed him of sleep. He hadn’t been any more forthcoming about his reasons for being up than Jasper had been the other morning, but she’d guessed. Then Laura had come into Philip’s life and helped him to open his heart and leave the tragedy of his wife’s death behind. It had brought them closer together and uncovered the love developing beneath their marriage of convenience. Jane wanted to do the same for Jasper and be to him what Laura was to Philip.

  Unless it wasn’t Savannah keeping him up, but guilt. She turned the diamond wedding ring on her finger, hesitant to risk rejection again, but she didn’t want to sit here in the darkness with so many questions about the letter and his sudden reserve torturing her either.

  She rose, tugged on her robe and left the room.

  The wood of the stairs was cold against her bare feet. Outside, a few voices of men making their way along the street carried in through the closed windows. In another hour or so light would fill the sky and more people would join them to begin their long day.

  Once downstairs, she crept up on the sitting room, pausing outside to listen to the steady fall of Jasper’s feet as he paced inside, her courage wavering. It was clear he craved solitude and she didn’t relish another fight, but she couldn’t leave him in pain either. Jane braced herself and stepped into the room. ‘Jasper, what’s wrong?’

  He whirled on her, his pale skin reddening at the interruption. Embarrassment brought a faint flush to his cheeks before it vanished, replaced by the testy irritation of a lack of sleep combined with being startled.

  ‘Nothing, go back to bed.’ He flicked his hand at her.

  ‘No.’ He was mistaken if he thought he could dismiss her like a child.

  ‘Don’t be so stubborn.’

  His accusation rattled her more than it should have. Milton used to call her stubborn, so did Philip, Justin and, on a few occasions, Mrs Hale. It had turned people off her so many times, but she had never thought it would happen with Jasper. It bit into her determination, but still she continued on. ‘I want to know what’s wrong and don’t lie to me about it not concerning our venture or some other such nonsense. I want the truth about whatever is going on at the hell and the letter you received today.’

  His eyes flashed with irritation. ‘I needn’t explain myself to you or anyone.’

  Jane stepped back, stunned but not cowed. ‘If you think you can hide things from me, you’re mistaken.’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything.’

  ‘You wouldn’t behave like this if you weren’t. Tell me what it is.’

  ‘I said there’s nothing.’ The tightening of the lines at the corners of his eyes betrayed him. She’d cornered him, but it was a hollow victory.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Don’t chastise me like you’ve never had troubles you’ve kept from everyone.’

  The image of her mother’s sickroom and her on her knees beside the bed almost startled the argument out of her. She hadn’t told him about her guilt. She’d never told anyone. With him all but scoffing at her, she wasn’t about to reveal her greatest failing. ‘This isn’t about me. I’ve seen how this kind of thing eats at people and the damage it can do. Philip worked so hard to hold back from Laura, even after her uncle tried to kill her. It changed him and almost drove a wedge between them until Laura overcame it.’ With love, she wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time to say it and put him off the idea for good.

  Jasper studied her with a sadness to make her ache. ‘You must accept there are things you can’t know about me.’

  Like who the woman who wrote the letter is. Fear began to overwhelm her but she held it at bay. If she allowed it to engulf her, she’d lose this argument for sure. ‘So you say, but what happens when there are children? With the way we’ve been carrying on there are sure to be. Will you be there for them at night like your parents were for you or will you be too busy handling your private affairs to care about their welfare or mine?’

  ‘You wouldn’t say such things if you had any idea what I’m dealing with to ensure your and our future children’s welfare.’

  She marched up to him. ‘Then tell me everything you’re facing, no matter what it is, and we’ll find a way to deal with and overcome it together.’

  His expression went blank and she held her breath, thinking he might at last confide in her. A coal popped in the grate and outside two men called to one another before their voices faded off down the street. ‘I don’t need your help. I need my privacy.’

  ‘Fine. Pace a hole in the floorboards for all I care, but don’t wake me when you finally decide to come to bed.’

  Jane fled the room, her hands shaking at her sides. This wasn’t the Jasper who’d kissed her so tenderly and laughed with her during the day. He was a stranger she loathed and she didn’t know what had brought about the change.

  Perhaps Mr Bronson knows what’s wrong. She considered paying a visit to the hell and asking him, but she hated to garner information about Jasper in such an underhanded way. She didn’t know how he would react if she did and he discovered it.

  She paused in the upstairs hallway, catching the faint reflection of herself in the black-speckled mirror. She was no longer sure this was a fluke and not some indication of how their future together might be. Jasper, her oldest friend, her husband, was, like everyone else, pulling away from her. In the darkness, the image of her six-year-old self being chased out of her mother’s sickroom by the cranky old nurse reflected back at her.

  ‘You’ve done enough damage already, child, now get out.’

  ‘But I want to see my mother. I need to see her and say I’m sorry.’

  ‘Your apologies won’t help her. You should have listened when she told you not to sneak out to the fair instead of insisting on having your way, you naughty child.’

  Jane screwed her eyes shut against the image and the stinging tears. The nurse had had no right to be so cruel and dismissive, and neither had Jasper. I was only trying to help him, like I wanted to help Mother.

  Her father and mother had been the first ones to leave her.

  He won’t leave me. He can’t. He needs me. She dashed into their room and slammed the doo
r shut. She snatched up the poker and knocked the coals with it, trying to elicit some warmth from the fading fire and making the flue ring with the racket. Without her, Jasper would never have his club, assuming he really wanted it. She’d heard nothing more about any plans to turn the hell over to Mr Bronson but she also hadn’t asked. After tonight, she wondered if she’d be able to question him about anything without it getting his hackles up.

  She dropped down on the hearthrug, tossed the poker aside and pulled her knees to her chest, barely touched by the warmth emanating from the grate. The chill creeping through her was too severe and it made her teeth chatter. She wondered if the man she’d faced tonight was the real Jasper, the one she’d caught more than once hovering in the shadows just behind the carefree man. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed it before because she’d been too eager to marry to see the truth.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. She’d wanted a life for herself and in marrying Jasper she’d thought she’d achieved it. She’d also wanted to be the most important person to someone and she wasn’t. Whatever he was hiding or trying to accomplish by keeping their spheres so separate was the most important thing to him. She came in a distant second and it stabbed at her because for all her hesitations about saying the word while they’d been intimate yesterday, she did love him. She always had and it hadn’t stopped during their time apart. She’d tried to convince herself she didn’t need his heart and could exist in a marriage without love, but like so many other aspects of her present situation it was a lie. She wanted him as much now as the night she’d tried to secure his heart nine years ago, to be his true wife in a real marriage, and he was pushing her away this morning like he had then. It made the sting of it even more severe.