Jasper drew to a halt just inside the threshold, looking at Westfield in a way that said he wasn’t surprised to see the earl visiting. Either his men watching the house had informed him, or he’d known from Westfield. Eliza didn’t know how she felt about the latter possibility.
What she did know was that their relationship was irrevocably changed. Although he was dressed from his neck to his toes, in her mind’s eye she saw him as he’d been last night—flushed and disheveled, naked and vulnerable. He had been so open then, so willing to bare his thoughts and feelings, even when he didn’t understand them. The knowledge of that hidden side to him created a nearly unbearable yearning. A part of her believed she “knew” him. It was not reasonable for her to feel thusly, considering how little about his life and past was known to her, but it wasn’t her mind making the determination.
From the way he was looking at her, he was remembering the night before, too. But if he felt the same deep connection, why had Westfield come to call on her?
“Miss Martin.” Jasper bowed, his voice lingering in the air for a delicious moment. He straightened and pivoted to face the earl. “My lord.”
Westfield stood. “Bond. How fortuitous your arrival is.”
“Is that so?” Jasper looked at her. “Why?”
Eliza understood from Jasper’s low tone that he was in a volatile mood. She hesitated a moment before answering, unsure how to relay the events of her morning. “Lord West-field has come to offer his assistance.”
Visually, there was no change in Jasper’s countenance, but his clipped response spoke volumes. “With what?”
She looked at Westfield, turning the conversation over to him.
Jasper’s arms crossed.
The earl smiled. “I’m simply following through with what we discussed last night. Seeing Miss Martin wed might resolve the problems of everyone involved.”
“Wed to whom?”
“To me, of course.”
“Of course.” Jasper shifted slightly, in the manner of a stirring beast.
Eliza, who was uncertain of what was transpiring, thought it best to keep her own counsel.
Westfield’s smile began to fade as the silence stretched out.
Jasper glanced at Eliza. “Have you answered him?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Why the delay? Westfield is suitable in every way.”
Stiffening against a sharp pain in her chest, Eliza lifted her chin and replied, “Perhaps I was waiting for your endorsement, Mr. Bond.”
“Damned if I’ll give it to you,” he snapped.
She blinked.
The earl looked equally stunned. “Now, see here, Bond—”
“What is your answer, Eliza?” Jasper stared hard at her.
She looked at his hands, noting the whiteness of his knuckles as he gripped his biceps. She forced herself to look away and give Lord Westfield her full attention. Her fingers were linked so tightly, they hurt. Even lacking refinement in social graces, she knew what she was about to do was wrong in many ways, but she also knew Jasper needed to hear she wanted him as well. He required it said aloud, with a witness. As confident and aggressive as he could be when in his element, he was as lost as she was when it came to intimacy.
After a deep inhalation, she said, “As honored as I am by your address, my lord, I must decline. My feelings are engaged elsewhere.”
Westfield’s brows rose.
“Right, then,” Jasper said, breaking his stillness. “Out you go, Westfield. I’ll see you this evening. Come early. You and I have matters to discuss.”
Frowning, the earl stood. “My offer will stand through the end of the Season, Miss Martin. As for you, Bond—” Westfield’s face took on a hardened cast—“we do, indeed, have matters to discuss.”
Eliza was vaguely aware of holding out her hand to West-field, who lifted it to firm lips and kissed the back. She might have said something inane, he might have as well, but she was so taken aback by the intensity with which he stared at her that she missed the rest. It was a searching look, one she couldn’t answer.
He left shortly after, with Jasper following him to the front door. Eliza took the brief moment of solitude to take a fortifying drink of her now tepid cup of tea.
Equanimity. She missed it. Feeling so unsettled and confused was anathema to her. This was exactly the sort of situation her mother had so often wallowed in, the sort of situation Eliza long promised herself to avoid.
“Eliza.”
“What did you tell him?” Her head lifted so she could see Jasper’s face, then lowered again as he sank to one knee in front of her. Her heart thudded violently. Her free hand fisted in her lap.
He urged her grip to relax by gently prying open her fingers. “The only thing Westfield knows is the reason why you hired me. I needed someone who had invitations to the events you attend, so I could gain entry.”
“Of course.” As he massaged her palm, the tingles that coursed up her arm weren’t entirely due to a returning flow of blood. “You didn’t know he intended to—”
“No.”
“I thought, perhaps, it was your way of protecting me from the consequences of last night.”
He took the cup from her other hand. “I’m not that selfless. Regardless, the memory belongs only to us, and I would never share it.”
She swallowed hard. “Why are you kneeling in that way?”
A slow, self-deprecating smile curved his mouth. “If I’m able to secure Melville’s blessing, would you have me?”
“Jasper.”
“Westfield is correct. It would solve many problems. I would have greater access to you, the person who wishes to harm you would have less access, we would have more time to—”
“We hardly know one another!” she protested, while a rush of warm and sweet feelings tightened her chest.
“We have honesty and desire.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. His eyes were dark, his words delivered with heartrending earnestness. “You have money and breeding; I work in trade, and my blood is worthless. But I would spill it for you.”
Eliza sucked in a shaky breath. “What are you saying?”
“Marry me.”
“I don’t want to marry.”
“But you want me.” Jasper reached up and cupped her nape, his thumb stroking across her throbbing pulse.
“Why can’t I have you without a ring?”
He snorted. “Only you would prefer to be a man’s mistress instead of his wife.”
“You should prefer me that way, too!”
“While other men line up to ask for your hand and claim rights to you that are mine? I think not.”
“In a month, the Season will be over—”
“But our relationship will not be. You don’t yet see it, but you are visibly changed by what transpired between us last night. The more I have you, the more obvious it will become, and other men will be drawn to that new awareness in you.”
She absorbed his words, startled to think that the lush languidness she felt might be obvious to others. Studying Jasper, she searched for signs of change in his appearance.
His mouth curved. “I am down on one knee, Eliza. If that isn’t a reflection of change, I have no notion what would be.”
“Please do not make light of this. You don’t want to marry either. You said you have no place in your life for a wife.”
“I can make a place for you. We’ve both thought of matrimony in terms of how it would limit our lives, but marriage can be useful in some regards. A married woman has far more freedom than a spinster.”
“How would it be useful to you?”
“It would settle me.” His touch moved downward to cup her cheek. “In the last few days, I’ve been pulled in two di-rections—between work that must be done and thoughts of you. If you were mine, you would be close and protected. I could focus on the tasks at hand in the thorough manner I’m accustomed to.”
She gripped his other hand tightly in her lap. “Perhaps it would be best for both of us if we went our separate ways and resumed our lives as we knew them.”
“Eliza.” He made a frustrated noise. “Don’t ask me to come to you as Montague and Westfield did, with practical reasons and sound arguments. If pressed, I would have to say we have no business in one another’s lives and we would be mad to marry.”
“I know.”
“But I can make you happy. We are alike in many ways, yet different enough to complement one another. You can show me how to be more circumspect; I can afford you the opportunity to be as adventuresome as you like.”
An odd sort of delight bubbled within her. Like champagne, it made her slightly giddy. “I’m not nearly as confident in my ability to make you happy. Most people find me to be aloof and too quiet. I am proficient with the pianoforte, but I’m a terrible singer. I—”
He laughed and leaned forward to kiss the end of her nose. “I don’t want to be entertained. I want you. Just the way you are.”
“You worry about the possibility I might be with child,” she argued.
“I take that very seriously, yes. But why ask for marriage now, instead of waiting to be certain?” Jasper leaned back. “Tell me truthfully, Eliza. Is your fortune an obstacle between us? Do you think it matters to me?”
She shook her head without hesitation. When he continued to seem expectant, she spoke the negation aloud, “No.”
“Good.” He released her, and set both his hands on his upraised knee. “Let us make a bargain, shall we? I will secure Lord Melville’s blessing, and you’ll say ‘yes’ to me—”
“Jasper, I would swiftly bore you.”
“Then,” he pressed on, “the banns will be read. That will give us the time we need to find the source of your trouble, discern whether or not you are increasing, and spend some time together. If, after all of that, you still believe we don’t suit and cannot be happy together, we’ll break the engagement at the end of the Season. Is that reasonable enough for you?”
“It isn’t easy to break an engagement.”
“But it can be done.”
“You claim not to be reasoned about this, yet you present me with a practical plan that affords me the opportunity to reach solid conclusions.” She sighed. “I’m faced with two difficult choices: Make a decision now with too little information, or progress further than I ever intended in order to gather the information I believe we both need.”
“If only you were impulsive,” he teased. “I might have been able to convince you to elope with me and spare you all the rumination.”
“How can you be so confident about this?” she complained. “Why can I not have some of that surety?”
“I make my decisions here”—he tapped his abdomen— “and they are usually instantaneous. You make your decisions here”—he tapped her temple with his index finger—“and that takes more time. I’m trying to give you that time, Eliza, while staving off my own impatience. An engagement is the compromise we reach.”
Worrying her lower lip, Eliza struggled to find the courage to say what she shouldn’t.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
“I cannot decide if it’s desire goading me to agree against my better sense, and I’m also concerned that as the novelty of bedding me becomes less engaging you will want me less and less, until eventually you no longer want me at all. After we are bound to one another, it will be too late to realize we had only lust, which was quickly sated.”
His nostrils flared. “If the possibility of waning interest concerns you, I can prove I desire you for more than sex. I won’t ask you to give yourself to me again until we are wed, but I’m available to you whenever and wherever you want me. Chivalry and mores are no restraints to me. I learned long ago never to spite myself; the only person who loses is me. You should know of that aspect of my character, I suppose, before you wed me.”
To be wanted so keenly…Eliza finally understood why her mother had been addicted to the feeling. It was so very tempting. And Jasper was irresistible.
To have him whenever she wanted. The thought of commanding sex from him, at any time and in any place, was impossibly arousing.
“Eliza,” he murmured, drawing her focus back to him. “Give yourself permission to take what you want, for once. You might enjoy it more than you think.”
That was partially what she was afraid of. But her fear wasn’t a strong enough deterrent to mitigate her memories of the night before and the lingering happiness she’d felt upon waking.
“Speak to Melville,” she said. “Then, ask me again.”
Chapter 11
“I would never have expected this of you,” Westfield said, rocking back on his heels.
“That makes two of us,” Jasper said dryly.
The Valmont ballroom was larger than many, but the broad expanse and thirty-foot ceilings did little to ease the crush of guests. Worse than the crowd was Jasper’s realization that he was an object of curiosity. Having spent the entirety of his life avoiding notice whenever possible, he found it decidedly uncomfortable to be the center of attention. But the news of the notoriously reticent Miss Eliza Martin’s betrothal to a man few people had ever heard of was apparently the most interesting item of discussion. His appearance was being examined by nearly everyone, as if the reason he’d won her could be determined visually.
Mindful of Eliza’s pride, he had dressed with care. While he’d elected to wear black to minimize his size, his coat and breeches were flawlessly tailored. The materials used were exceptional, as were the diamond in his cravat pin and the sapphire in the ring on his right hand. The result was understated yet expensive elegance, which he hoped mitigated any speculation that he wanted Eliza for her fortune.
