He shrugged, but his stare remained level. “A spy, but not how you think.”

“How, then?” she whispered. Questions begat more questions. Right now it was best to focus on the ones that wouldn’t break her heart.

“The queen has asked Kit and me to uncover an embezzler, but we think the money is part of a larger scheme.”

“I see.” She didn’t. All she could see was that Kit wasn’t here, and Jasper was wounded. “Spencer is involved.”

It wasn’t a question. She was certain of it, though she didn’t yet know how a chaplain in the royal household could breach the treasury or why he would do it.

Jasper’s nod wobbled as he covered a yawn. “You told him you’d find the truth. That’s the truth.”

She’d told Spencer that the night Jasper first kissed her. When he’d confessed to things much more trivial than a mission for the queen, and she had let him closer than anyone had ever been yet told him nothing.

The night she’d unlocked her door.

“What happens now?” she asked.

There wasn’t an answer. Jasper was asleep, his broad chest rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm. The bandages peeked out above the blankets with every inhale.

Annabel made sure he wasn’t bleeding and tucked the blankets tighter to keep him warm, then returned to the torturous chair to keep watch. It would be just like him to open his wounds in a fit of stubborn independence and bleed to death while she slept in the other room.

The fire popped and sizzled, and the candles sputtered. Darkness danced along the walls in random patterns that grew more menacing the longer she stared. It was easy to see their ending. Arguments. Isolation. Loneliness.

Annabel drew a deep breath. If she didn’t rein herself in, she’d be mad by morning.

She knew the shadows. She’d lived in them before. The light was more difficult to see. She’d had glimpses of it, so brief it was difficult to believe it was permanent. Anything could happen.

Anything. She gritted her teeth and stared at her fears.

There was more to her than met the eye.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jasper shifted, and pain sent him curling around the pillow—which was helpful, since he didn’t want Annabel to hear him scream. He’d had muscle pains and stitches before. He’d even woken with cramps from sleeping in odd positions.

He’d never had them all at the same time.

The cool sheets should have been soothing. Instead, they reminded him he was alone in bed for the first time in weeks.

He hadn’t slept alone, though. Time had passed in fitful gaps, but Annabel had been there whenever he woke, dozing beside him in a chair that looked like it had been used in the Inquisition. She had fussed over him in in her quiet way, as silent as the gray ghost he’d once teased her of being.

Jasper had considered joking with her, just to see her smile. He’d thought better of it when he saw the questions swirling in her eyes.

The door between their rooms gaped open like an empty mouth.

“Annabel?” Hating the tremble in his voice, he cleared his throat. “Annabel?”

The only answer he received was an echo.

He’d botched it. Half out of his mind on laudanum and weak from blood loss, he’d believed she would welcome no longer having secrets between them. Instead, she looked as though he was going to lock her in the Tower of London.

Gritting his teeth, Jasper reached to the bell rope and fell back against the pillows, swearing against the pain.

The door flew open, shocking in both the force of it and how quickly Travis answered the call.

“What the bloody hell did you do?” Kit roared. “And why the deuce didn’t you wait for me?”

Travis pushed past him like he wasn’t there. “What do you need, your lordship?”

“Where is my wife?” Jasper demanded. “And why is no one at the door?”

“Lady Ramsbury is in the garden with your mother and sisters explaining your…illness and necessary quarantine. Frederick is with her, at a distance that will not worry Lady Lambourn, so Stapleton—”

“Stapleton is at the door and didn’t receive word that I shouldn’t be let up.” Kit strode in the room. “Thank you, Travis. If you’ll leave—”

“Don’t order my staff about. This is not your house.” Jasper tossed the covers back and gratefully accepted Travis’s arm to stand. “What day is it?”

“Thursday, sir.”

Two days. He’d been asleep for two days. Annabel was likely wandering the house stooped in the shape of that blasted chair.

The medic-cum-valet helped him into his dressing gown but, thankfully, left it for him to tie himself. Even that simple act was exhausting. “Thank you for your help, Travis.”

“I’ll send a maid up with a tray. Some good coffee, scones, and eggs will serve you well. Both of you.” Travis left the room without a backward glance.

Kit glowered from his place near the hearth. “Still wishing you’d gone to war?”

“Still hating being an earl?” Laughing sent needles to Jasper’s fingertips. “Because you seem to be adjusting well.”

The maid arrived with a rattling tray that had been prepared so promptly it was likely waiting for him to wake. He’d have Annabel to thank for that. Sitting was a combination of relief and torture, but he managed. Just.

Kit sat in the opposite chair. After filling a coffee cup, he helped himself to a scone—devouring half of it in one bite. “I’m tired.”

“And hungry, apparently.” Jasper sipped his coffee and nibbled on his eggs, waiting to see if his hunger would reap the consequences of being drugged during minor surgery. “Don’t you have a cook?”

“I did when I left.” Kit lifted a piece of streaky bacon from the tray. “But I’ve been in Wales, fetching Claudette.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to Cardiff.” Jasper buttered a scone.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to get into a knife fight.”

When he’d had to protect himself or someone else, he’d always been armed and prepared. Last night he’d done nothing but step in front of Annabel and offer himself as a sacrifice to stupidity. He’d known better than to let down his guard. “It was less fight and more ambush.”

“Where?”

“Outside Ramsbury House. Repairs are finished, so I wanted to show it to Annabel. She met me there after the session ended.” He shook his head, cursing himself a fool for putting her in danger. “We left, someone approached us, and I don’t remember much after that.”