“How could you?” he asked with a shrug. He’d got over that trauma years ago. And there was no reason to let Hermione take that on as her own burden, too. “I survived it. And one of the reasons why is cards.
“You see,” he went on, “at school, you need a way of making a name for yourself. A way of making you stand out, so that the other boys will admire you. And if they admire you then they want to be your friend. My skill was cards.”
He thought back to the days when he’d first realized he possessed that particular affinity for numbers that allowed him to guess almost without fail which card another boy held, or which card was still hiding in the deck. It had been almost as great a thrill as the first time he’d kissed Hermione.
“I was soon the talk of school,” he continued. “We weren’t allowed to gamble in the open, of course. So we held secret games after hours. Or when we could get away for the weekend. And I found that I was no longer the one who was the butt of every joke. Instead, I began to make friends, like Freddy and Trent and Craven, and eventually became a leader. After that, it became as familiar to me as driving is to you, I would imagine.”
“I had no idea,” she said, her expression serious. “I knew you were good at it, but it never occurred to me that it would have been the way you managed to make friends, and become a man.”
“But that was a long time ago,” Jasper said, needing to let her know how important she’d become to him. “If you wish me to stop gambling in order to feel safe, then I will consider doing it. I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself instead, but I do not want you to think that your wishes are unimportant to me. Or that I care more about cards than I do you.”
Hermione stared at him for a moment, and Jasper wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. They’d only been married for a couple of days, after all, and here he was talking about feelings and such. Clearly he was an idiot.
“Neverm—” he started to say, before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Not that I mind,” he said when she pulled away, “but what was that for?”
“I believe my question has been answered,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears. “I don’t think in all the years I begged Papa to stop that he ever once told me that he loved me more than cards. In fact, I am quite sure he does not. Oh, he cares for me after a fashion, but not more than he does those squares of paper.”
“Well,” he said, relieved that his words hadn’t sent her over the edge. “I am pleased to know you are pleased.”
“I am,” she told him with a shining smile. “So pleased. And I do not need you to give up cards. Though I do reserve the right to revisit this conversation if I feel you are skirting toward becoming the sort of player my father is.”
“My dear,” Jasper said in all seriousness, “if I begin to become the sort of player your father is, I will quit the game myself. Because I have absolutely no wish to lose everything I hold dear for the sake of a game.”
“I suppose I owe you an explanation of why I enjoy driving so much, then,” Hermione said, once she’d settled back against the pillows.
“Tit for tat,” Jasper said with a shrug.
“It’s not all that different from your story,” she said, plucking at the bedclothes nervously. “I was a rather lonely child. And unlike you, I didn’t go away to school. I had governesses of course, but my favorite thing was when I could go to the stables to see the horses. And when the head groom taught me to ride, and then to handle the ribbons of the gig, I became even more interested.”
“How did you come to know how to drive a curricle, though?” Jasper asked. “I did wonder, since your father hardly seems like the sort who would teach you. And if he himself didn’t drive overmuch then I didn’t know why he’d have a curricle.”
He felt Hermione still beside him. And he suddenly guessed what she would say next.
“I’ve been friends with Leonora for a long time,” she said finally. “And her brother, Jonathan, too. Since we were in our early teens at least. We met in the park one day when we were all three on horseback. And soon I was spending a great deal of time at the Cravens’ house.”
“So Jonny taught you to drive a curricle,” Jasper guessed. He’d known his friend had played a part in Hermione’s life. Though it hadn’t been until after Jonathan’s death that he finally met the girl his friend had spoken of so often over the years.
“He did,” she said softly. “He was a good teacher. Patient and easygoing, though he could get worked up if he thought I was taking too many risks. Or driving too fast. It was all well and good if he drove recklessly through town, but if I tried it, I’d get a horrible scold.”
“He could be tough,” Jasper said, recalling how intense Jonathan could be at times. Especially when it came to horses and driving.
It was driving that had eventually killed him.
“He could,” Hermione agreed. Then, turning to look at him, she continued, “There was never any understanding between us, Jasper. You have to believe that. Though I did love him. And I believe he cared for me.”
“Then why didn’t…” He couldn’t quite finish the question.
“I think deep down he must have known he wasn’t long for this world,” she said sadly. “I always got the sense that Jonny was driving so fast because he felt he had to in order to get all his driving in while he still could. Does that make sense?”
Thinking back to how his friend had lived, Jasper nodded. “I think that’s a fair assumption.”
“So, when he died,” she continued, “I wasn’t heartbroken. Though I was terribly, terribly sad.”
Jasper took up her hand and kissed it. “So was I.”
“And the reason I drive,” she said, “is because, like you, it’s the thing I am good at.”
“You are good at a great deal of things, my dear,” he said with a smile. “And I have little doubt you’ll discover many more.”
“I am glad to hear you say it,” Hermione said, “but please don’t ask me to give it up. For unlike you and gaming, I’m not sure I don’t have Papa’s inability to quit.”
He stared at her, this woman who had bewitched him body and soul. And tried to imagine what she would be like if he attempted to rein her in, as she did with her horses. The very idea was inconceivable.
“Hermione, I could no more ask you to stop driving,” he said to her, “than I could ask the sun to stop shining or the stars to fall from the sky.”
She raised a brow. “This is England. The sun will stop shining whether you ask it to or not.”
“Saucy minx,” Jasper said, leaning forward to kiss her. “Just know that I don’t want you to change. Or rather, I don’t expect you to. It isn’t a requirement for my happiness.”
“You are a wonderful man,” she said, kissing him back. “My father couldn’t have chosen better.”
Jasper could have informed her that it hadn’t really been her father who made the choice, but figured they’d shared enough secrets for one night.
* * *
The next afternoon, after checking in on her father, whom she found sleeping peacefully, Hermione came downstairs to find the dowager Lady Mainwaring seated in the drawing room with a needlepoint frame before her.
“I hope you are feeling better after your unhappy encounter in the stables, my dear,” her mother-in-law said with a frown. “To think that someone was so bold as to attack a countess like that. It’s shocking.”
“Aside from a small headache,” Hermione said, hiding a smile at the other lady’s indignance, “I am feeling much better, thank you.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” the dowager said, not looking up from her embroidery. “I don’t know what this world is coming to when thieves and brigands feel free to attack ladies like that. It makes me quite frightened for the state of things.”
“It is troubling, indeed,” Hermione said. Then, hoping to change the subject, she asked, “I don’t suppose you know what has become of Jasper? He was already gone
when I came down to breakfast.”
“I believe he said something about going to speak with the Bow Street runner,” the dowager said, looking up with a questioning gaze. “You aren’t already bickering, are you?”
Thinking back to their lovemaking and heartfelt conversations of the night before, Hermione blushed. “Certainly not. I must admit that I slept later than usual thanks to the bump on my head, though, and I had hoped to ask Jasper if he had learned anything about the attack on Papa.”
“Not that he told me,” said the older lady with a scowl. “I hope that these ruffians are caught soon. How we are to sleep soundly knowing that such villans are roaming around the city, I do not know.”
Hermione was saved from reply by the arrival of Greaves, who informed her that Ophelia had come to call.
“Oh, do send her in,” Hermione said with relief.
Looking up, the dowager gave Hermione a short nod and rose from her place before her sewing. “I will leave you to your friend’s tender care. Please do let me know if you hear anything from my son. I cannot like that he is out and about while those fiends are still at large.”
Impulsively, rose and hugged her. “Thank you. Truly.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what for,” the older lady said, but she looked pleased.
She greeted Ophelia as they crossed each other in the doorway, and was gone.
“I am so relieved you are getting along with her,” Ophelia said with a sigh. “I was concerned that you were trapped here with no one for comfort but Jasper.”
“And what is the matter with Jasper?” asked Hermione with a raised brow.
“Oh, I mean him no ill will,” the other lady said with a shake of her head. “It’s just that he’s a man. And he has his estates to run and his masculine pursuits. I know you have not been used to having a mother and sisters, but having other ladies to confide in makes one’s day-to-day life so much easier. If you get along. And I am pleased to hear that you do.”
“I suppose you have a point,” Hermione said with a frown. “But never having had them, I don’t know that I’d have known the difference. At any rate, I am quite pleased that we will not be constantly at daggers drawn for I might be able to endure it, but I’m not sure Jasper would,”
“Where is Jasper?” Ophelia asked, unable to disguise the censure in her voice. “I thought after what happened to you yesterday he would be watching you like a hawk.”
“Pray do not fly into the boughs,” Hermione said dryly. “He did not abandon me in my hour of need. He left to go speak with the Bow Street runner, Mr. Rosewood.”
“I won’t apologize,” her friend said, her lips pursed. “I cannot help but look out for you. I only have so many friends in this world, and you are one of them.”
“And I do appreciate it,” Hermione said with a fond smile. “But you may as well know that Jasper and I have progressed quite a bit from the first time we met. Indeed, one might even go so far as to say we care for each other.”
“Oh, that is interesting,” Ophelia said with a raised brow.
To Hermione’s annoyance, she felt her cheeks heat.
“Yes, well,” she said defensively. “We are married, you know.”
“Oh, I am well aware of the fact,” said Ophelia with a knowing smile. “And in the interests of friendship, I would like you to expound on that a little.”
Hermione laughed. “Not for the wide world. I will leave that to your mama once you are betrothed.”
“You’re just as bad as Leonora,” Ophelia groused. “I had hoped that you’d see the logic in letting me know what to expect.”
Hermione thought about her own worries regarding wifely duties—at least, her worries before Jasper had kissed her for the first time.
“I will tell you that it is nothing to fear,” she said, hoping that Ophelia would take what she said to heart. “And it is quite … ah—”
She was saved from continuing by a knock on the door followed by a footman with a note.
Thanking the young man, she ripped it open.
“It’s from Miss Fleetwood,” she said to Ophelia with a frown. “She asks if I might meet her at her house. Alone.”
“That’s odd,” Ophelia said, her brows drawn together. “What do you think she wants?”
“I did inform her that she could find me here,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “Perhaps she wishes to talk about Lord Saintcrow or the Lords of Anarchy.”
She didn’t say that she now knew the lady’s brother was suspected of wrongdoing by the Home Office.
“I don’t like it,” Ophelia said, frowning. “You were attacked yesterday, and today you get a note from a lady you don’t know very well asking you to leave your protected home to visit her alone? It is suspicious.”
Hermione secretly agreed, but she was tired of sitting still while Jasper did all the work. And she’d genuinely liked Miss Fleetwood the day she came to call in Half-Moon Street. If the lady was ill, and left to the tender mercies of a brother who had shown himself to be a ruffian—as the dowager would call him—then Hermione wasn’t sure she could let her request for company pass unheeded.
But she had an idea for how to stay within the bounds of Jasper’s request that she stay away from Fleetwood, and yet still check in on Miss Fleetwood.
“I need to go get some of Papa’s things for him,” she told Ophelia after a moment of thought. “What if I go to Papa’s rented house and ask Miss Fleetwood to come next door? That way, I won’t be endangering myself needlessly, and if she is too unwell to come, then I will simply send my regrets and use the opportunity to get some work done.”
“Hm. That does sound better than going to the Fleetwoods’ by yourself, but I don’t really know how remaining next door will be all that different,” Ophelia said. “Though they are two separate houses. And I suppose you lived there for months before Jasper even warned you about them.”
“I will be right as rain, I promise you,” Hermione said.
Twenty-one
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Jasper demanded, his fear for Hermione’s safety overcoming his good manners.
“She took a footman,” Trent said patiently as he and Jasper discussed Hermione’s disappearance from the house in her husband’s absence. “Ophelia said that she tried to dissuade her from going, but that Hermione was insistent. You know how persuasive she can be.”
He did know, and that’s what made him so damned afraid. Not only was she persuasive, but she’d use that skill to convince the footman to let her go inside the Fleetwood house on her own just to issue the invitation for the lady to join her next door. After all, it was only a visit to a sick friend, he imagined her saying with that winsome smile she used when trying to wheedle. Damnation. He should never have let her out of his sight this morning.
“Don’t think the worst, Mainwaring,” said Trent, whose calm was quickly becoming an open invitation for Jasper to plant his fist in his face. “Fleetwood is a questionable character, I agree, but if the note really did come from his sister, then Hermione is very likely only visiting a sick friend as Ophelia said. Let’s just go after her now and you can see that for yourself.”
With a grim nod, Jasper climbed up into Trent’s curricle with no hesitation whatsoever. He needed to find his wife and he was damned if he’d wait for his horse to be saddled, no matter how much he might dislike traveling by coach.
When they arrived in Half-Moon Street after a brisk drive that saw Jasper holding onto the sides of the vehicle to keep from being thrown out, the two men hurried up the stairs of the Upperton town house and their brisk knocks were rewarded with a confused Greentree.
“Where is my wife?” Jasper demanded before the man could even speak. “She should be here with Miss Fleetwood as her guest.”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” said the butler with a frown, “but we haven’t seen her today. Perhaps she called next door and was detained?”
Not waiting for the older man to finish his query, Jasper turn
ed and hurried over to the house next door, followed by a grim-faced Trent.
In answer to his knock, the Fleetwoods’ butler opened the door.
“Where is my wife?” he asked.
“And who might that be, sir?”
“Lady Mainwaring,” Jasper said through clenched teeth. “Is she here?”
“I’m sure I don’t know—” the man began, but Jasper and Trent pushed past him into the foyer, which was the mirror image of the same room in the house next door.
As they hurried toward the stairs, Jasper saw Hermione coming down them, her arms akimbo. “What on earth do you mean causing such a ruckus in a house where there is a sick lady?” she demanded in a loud whisper. “Miss Fleetwood is quite ill. And you have upset the poor girl greatly.”
But Jasper was only interested in clutching her against him. “Thank God.” He sighed. “Thank God you are well. I thought … well, I cannot tell you what I thought.”
She was stiff in his arms at first, but as his worry communicated itself to her, she began to relax. “I am perfectly fine,” she said, patting his back. “Truly, fit as a fiddle. Nothing has happened.”
When he finally accepted the fact that her visit to the Fleetwoods hadn’t, in fact, done her any irreparable damage, Jasper allowed her to pull away. Trent, he saw, was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched them. He gave his friend a sheepish look, to which Trent simply offered a shrug. As if to say “it could happen to any of us.”
“Do you mind telling me what that was all about?” Hermione asked, after she’d gone to assure Miss Fleetwood that the commotion had been a misunderstanding. “For I don’t mind telling you that you frightened the life out of me.”
“Perhaps we should go next door?” Trent asked. “Or rather, the two of you can go next door. I will take myself off if you have no further need of me, Mainwaring.”
With a nod of thanks to his friend, Jasper slipped his arm through Hermione’s and they all three left the house. Trent going back to his curricle and Jasper and Hermione going into the Upperton House.
Good Earl Gone Bad Page 22