The earl arched a brow. “Your tone leaves something to be desired. Now, tell me there’s something to be done here. I’m bored.”
“When Miss Tolliver exits the dance floor, I should like her to know my theory regarding today’s events.”
“Ah, you want to see how she reacts. Personally, I don’t see how a woman could have moved that statue. And you cannot tell me Sir Richard helped her. I’m not even certain he could lift his sibling.”
“Leave no stone unturned.”
When the waltz ended, they made certain to place themselves in Miss Tolliver’s path. She greeted Westfield with a charming and studied curtsy.
“Miss Tolliver.” Westfield gave an elegant bow. “A pleasure to see you.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She offered a sympathetic smile to Jasper. “How is your foot this evening, Mr. Bond?”
“Improving, Miss Tolliver. Thank you.”
The pretty brunette offered a flirtatious smile. The pale yellow gown she wore was more heavily adorned than the similarly shaded gown Eliza had worn earlier in the day. Such details were not something Jasper was accustomed to noting. What a woman wore or how she styled her hair was inconsequential to him.
But Eliza’s appearance tonight was such a contrast to her usual mode of dress he suspected she purposely minimized her beauty before. It made him consider the attire of others with a more discerning eye, part of his careful reflection on the desire he had for her. Only days into their acquaintance and he knew he would not be ready to part from her in the foreseeable future. He also knew he was willing to go to great lengths to have her.
“I heard about the unfortunate incident at the Royal Academy.” Miss Tolliver shook her head. “How terrifying for Miss Martin! I am certain I would be bedridden for a sennight after such a shock.”
“She is managing extraordinarily well,” he agreed.
“Especially considering the circumstances,” Westfield said, in a confidential tone.
She frowned. “Circumstances?”
The earl leaned closer. “There is some speculation that the rope securing the statue might have been deliberately cut.”
“No!” Her hand went to her throat. “Why would anyone do something so heinous? Especially to Miss Martin.”
“I didn’t say she was the intended target,” he qualified, straightening. “She might simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Well, there is some small comfort in that.” She exhaled audibly. “Deliberately cut, you say. I wonder why?”
She looked away and worried her lower lip with her teeth.
“I wouldn’t dare speculate,” Westfield said. “It’s rarely good to have one’s name associated with such sensational tales.”
“True of us all,” she said gravely, dipping into another curtsy. Miss Tolliver excused herself, and Jasper followed her with his gaze. She headed directly to a group of women.
“She spreads the tale,” Westfield murmured, turning his back to her.
“That’s no proof of innocence. In fact, a clever person might assume that bearing the news to others would lighten suspicion. After all, what reasonable person would air their misdeeds to all and sundry?” Jasper intended to have both Tollivers followed for a time. He would not take any chances.
“Excellent point.”
“What do you know of the investment pool managed by Lord Collingsworth?”
“I participated for a time, but Collingsworth is too conservative for my taste. You might feel similarly.”
How like Eliza to be cautious. Money was vitally important to her, not for what it could buy, but for the measure of freedom and control its possession granted her. “Do you know who the other investors are?”
“A few. Not all. Why?”
“Miss Martin is one of them.”
“Truly?” Westfield’s brows rose. “Wasn’t aware of that. Does that make me a suspect?”
Smiling, Jasper said, “Possibly.”
The earl grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing servant. “How delicious.”
“Not if you’re at fault.” Jasper moved forward.
“Was that a threat, Bond?”
“Not if you are at fault,” he said again. “In that case, it would be a promise.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the card room. Perhaps the scent of desperation will lead me in a new direction.”
“You never answered my question about what you’ll do once you own Montague’s property.” Although Westfield was the public face of the wager that secured the property, Jasper hadn’t revealed why he wanted it.
However, he had no hesitation in revealing what he would do with it. “I will raze the house, then leave England.”
“For parts unknown?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Jasper looked at him. “I’ve purchased a plantation in the South Seas.”
“Good God.” The earl choked on his champagne. “Only you would find peace living among savages.”
“I think similarly about your life.”
A brilliant shade of sapphire blue in the periphery of Jasper’s vision caught his interest. He turned his head to catch Eliza moving toward one of three sets of French doors leading outside to a wide veranda.
She shot him a look over her shoulder. It was not the calculated look of a practiced flirt. It was simpler and more sincere, betraying pleasure at seeing him and the hope he might follow.
He smiled and inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“I will go ahead without you,” Westfield murmured.
“I’ll only be a moment.”
“You disappoint me, Bond. When a beautiful woman looks at you in that manner, you should need far more time than that.”
Eliza moved toward the nearest exterior exit with the hope that her dark gown would blend somewhat with the darkness of night and provide her a brief spell of anonymity. She felt Jasper’s stare following her and fought the urge to quicken her pace. Not because she wished to avoid him, but because it was instinctive to run when caught in the sights of a hunter.
The anticipation of capture was its own pleasure. The hair on her nape stood on end and gooseflesh covered the parts of her arms exposed above her long gloves. When the warmth of a large hand surrounded her elbow, she couldn’t fight the shiver that moved through her.
“Miss Martin.” Jasper’s deep voice caused a tingling in her stomach. With an easy grip, he led her outdoors to where several guests were paired in quietly voiced conversations. “You might have warned me that you would steal my breath upon sight.”
“Thank you.” Unlike Tolliver’s compliment, Jasper’s praise did not make her feel awkward. Instead, she felt warm and slightly giddy.
“Altering your appearance to goad speculation was an excellent plan.” He looked down at her with warm appreciation. “In case I’ve failed to mention it, I love the way you think.”
Eliza flushed. “Would you admire my intellect less to know I hoped my presentation would impress you as much as my reasoning?”
“No. I would be deeply flattered.”
“I feel silly,” she confessed. “Simply knowing you goads me into acting in ways I normally wouldn’t.”
Jasper smiled, and she found him so handsome it made her chest tighten. “Would it ease your nervousness to know I have second-guessed every aspect of my attire from the knot of my cravat to the shoes on my feet before every meeting I’ve had with you since the first? I believe it’s part of the mating ritual.”
He slowed as they stepped outside the circle of light cast by the ballroom chandeliers. There were torches set around the veranda, but they were spaced at wide intervals to provide just enough illumination to delineate where stone gave way to lawn.
“Part of the charade?” she asked.
“I’ve yet to feign anything with you, Eliza.”
Unsure of how to banter flirtatiously, she moved on to safer topics. “How do you know Lord Westfield?”
“Lucian Remington introduced us one evening.”
She was momentarily surprised Jasper would boast membership in such an exclusive establishment as Remington’s Gentlemen’s Club. Then, she recalled that Lucian Remington was the bastard son of the Duke of Glasser. He was known to allow gentlemen of any background to join his club…so long as they could afford it. The practice was tolerated by those born of higher station because Remington’s was grand on the grandest scale. They were loath to deny themselves such luxury.
“Have you known one another long?”
“Not excessively long, no.”
Although he didn’t move, she sensed the change in him. The sudden alertness. It was similar to being doused by chilled water. She sometimes forgot she and Jasper Bond hardly knew one another, because her overwhelming physical attraction to him fostered an illusion of intimacy.
Eliza deliberately kept her tone light when she said, “Forgive me for prying into your personal matters. They are none of my concern.”
She would do well to follow his example and keep to safer topics in their relations. He worked for her, and an employee was all he would ever be to her. Perhaps it would slow her fascination with him to keep that in mind.
How deeply could one fall when the pool was shallow?
While there was no outward sign of it, Jasper knew Eliza had withdrawn and he’d lost ground with her. Relationships were complications for just that reason—at some point, women expected full disclosure. He found the need mystifying.
But he wasn’t willing to cede any of the progress he had made with Eliza, regardless of the points on which he would have to bend.
“I met him two years ago,” he elaborated. “He finds the work I do interesting and from that interest, we became…friends.”
“You say the word ‘friends’ so strangely.”
“It’s not one I am accustomed to using.”
She nodded and softened toward him, both physically and otherwise. “I understand.”
Jasper looked at the stone beneath his feet. Of course she would understand. There was an unusual affinity between them. On the surface, they could not be more wrong for one another. In private moments, however, nothing had ever felt more right.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Martin,” a confident and familiar voice called out.
Turning his head, Jasper watched Lord Montague exit the ballroom. Wearing dark emerald velvet and an artful amount of diamond accoutrements, the earl looked solvent and unflappable. It was a feat made more impressive by Jasper’s knowledge of the truth. Montague’s circumstances could not be shakier. Still, the earl’s wide smile and bright eyes made it clear he was genuinely pleased to see Eliza. Or at the very least, the fortune she represented.
Jasper straightened. He’d never resented his younger brother for bearing the title and privileges that came with it—until the present. In the case of Eliza, Montague’s advantages now posed the first real threat to Jasper’s aims. Jasper could provide only intangibles, such as passion, acceptance, adventure, which were things Eliza had only recently shown an interest in. If she came to the conclusion that she needed matrimony to have sex…
There was the possibility that in seducing her, he was pushing her into marriage.
Extending his hand, Jasper waited for Eliza to set hers atop his palm. He kissed the back, hating the white satin barring his lips from her soft, pale skin. “I shall leave you to your admirer,” he murmured, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
As much as he disliked it, the best way to establish the distinction between himself and Montague was to let her experience it firsthand.
He passed the earl with no more than a slight tilt of his head as acknowledgment, feeling more than a little satisfaction that he held the marker to the peer’s beloved property and the earl didn’t know it.
Jasper moved directly toward the card room. Now was as good a time as any to see which of Eliza’s swains was dependent upon the whims of chance. In that enterprise, at least, he had no competition.
“Mr. Bond is an exceptionally fine-looking young man,” Lady Collingsworth said from her seat on the opposite squab. The Collingsworth carriage inched its way through the congested streets. While most of the other conveyances squired their passengers from one society event to another, Eliza and her ladyship were retiring to their respective homes.
“You mentioned that earlier.” Eliza draped her long gloves over her lap. She’d found the sight of Jasper in finery so pleasant, she would have liked to see him again before the evening ended. Their brief discussion on the veranda had been long enough only to make her wish for more time.
“There are certain types of handsomeness that are so compelling you tell yourself later you must have exaggerated the appeal in your mind. When you see the man again and he exceeds your embroidery, it’s impossible not to remark upon it.” Although the lamps were turned down low, there was enough light to see her ladyship’s smile.
“He does render one speechless,” Eliza agreed. “Sir Richard Tolliver felt the need to warn me that a man as comely as Mr. Bond would set his cap for me only because of my purse.”
“Good heavens.” Regina’s ramrod-straight spine stiffened further. “Tolliver is blind and desperate. I paid a great deal of attention to Mr. Bond over the course of the day. He most definitely has tender feelings for you. Enough so he fears being unable to make you happy.”
“How did you reach that conclusion?”
“Mr. Bond said as much to me.”
Eliza’s brows rose. “Did he?”
“He did indeed. Are you considering his suit?”
“To answer that conclusively, I would need to know him better.”
Lady Collingsworth linked her hands together in her lap. “The responsibility I was given for you is a deep honor. As you know, your mother meant a great deal to me. I loved Georgina as I would a sibling. I wish most sincerely to do well by you.”
