His stomach rumbled and gurgled as the scent from roast beef and herbed potatoes curled through his nose and downward. Using the desk for balance, he moved to his chair and sat. After choking down the first few bites, eating became easier. The room was brighter and warmer than he’d thought, though he’d never heard anyone stoke the fire or bring in candles.
Annabel. It had to be her doing. Mother would have fussed, and the servants would have never breached the door of their own accord. Would a woman who wished him dead care whether he sat starving and cold in the dark?
Jasper finished his dinner and stood. He left the room and several of his doubts behind, though he listed to the right as he crossed the hall. He clung to the banister and watched his feet as he climbed the stairs. It would never do to evade being trampled and shot only to tumble backward and bash in his head on his own stairs.
His bed was turned down, but empty. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. Annabel’s door was ajar, a sliver of firelight tempting him to go through it.
A bleary-eyed Travis entered the room a few moments later. “Your lordship. Do you need—”
“Thank you, Travis, but return to bed,” Jasper whispered, hoping to avoid waking his wife. “I can do this myself.”
He did just that, stripping off his clothes before filling the basin and scrubbing clean. He cleaned his teeth last, hoping to rid himself of the smell of alcohol, if not the effects.
He opened the door to a room he’d never entered as an adult, other than during the tour the previous butler had insisted on conducting before his departure. Likely to prove he hadn’t stolen anything.
All Jasper cared for was the woman in the bed, facing the door. Everything he wanted to ask her, every word he wanted to say, jumbled together in his brain and stayed there. “My feet are cold.”
A slow smile crept over Annabel’s face as she pulled the bedclothes back in invitation. Jasper slid beneath them and into her arms. Her warm cheek rested against his chest. “Your mother told me everything.”
Likely not everything. He didn’t even want to tell her everything. Not tonight.
“She believes you are angry over Edgar’s slight.” Her breath heated and tickled his skin.
Her hair was silk against his fingers. “What do you believe?”
“That you want a fourth estate like you want a third arm.”
“A third arm might be useful now and then.” He stroked her spine, and she arched closer, pressing her breasts against his ribs. “They lied to me, Annabel.”
“Do you tell the truth all the time?”
He forced himself not to squirm away from her question. “This isn’t water in my gin glass. He’s my cousin, and he couldn’t find a good time over the last twenty years to tell me. Neither could Mother.”
“Sometimes the longer you’ve kept a secret, the more difficult it is to reveal,” she whispered. “Especially if you care about the person.”
Her words pricked his conscience, but he pushed the impulse aside as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The peace she gave him was addictive, and he didn’t wish to lose it. Perhaps, though, he could explain the reasons for his decisions and it would help later. When he was sober. And clothed, without her knee resting near vital bits of his anatomy.
“Society wraps heirs in soft cloth until we’re needed,” he said. “We’re all shipped off to school, safe from any drama of home and family. We’re groomed to manage estates, but not work them; to create children, but not raise them; to declare wars, but not fight in them.”
He drew a deep breath. “For years I wished for an older brother.”
“Maybe two.” Annabel’s smile teased his skin. “You could have been third.”
“God, no.” Jasper’s laughter shook the bed. “Can you imagine me in the pulpit every Sunday?” He kissed the top of her head. “Besides, I don’t think I could manage being that poor.” He sighed. “But soldiering…”
Her knee grazed his thigh, but she stayed quiet. Only her uneven breath told him she was still awake, listening to him ramble as the gin wore off.
“Rather than declaring Kit his heir and saving him from war, Edgar paid for his commission.”
“Did Kit wish to be saved?”
“He says no. That he told Edgar he didn’t want to be an earl, and Edgar went along with it.”
“I see.” She raised her head and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “Who are you angry with, then?”
Her deep brown eyes held his. The mattress was soft against his back, and the fire warmed the room. Her body was warmer still, soft and yielding.
“Both,” he whispered. “I had to stay behind and watch Kit and Gareth sail for Egypt.”
“Gareth?”
“Claudette’s husband.” He twined a lock of her thick hair around his finger, then unfurled it, only to repeat the action.
“He died in the war?”
He shook his head against the pillow. “Afterward. He and Kit came home whole and safe. I would have, too.”
Her sharp inhale shifted her ribs away from his. “You wanted to go?”
“I thought it was only fair.”
“Jasper,” she scolded him quietly for the lie.
“Fine.” He met her arched eyebrow with one of his own. “My titles, which I have simply because I am the only male of my generation on my father’s side of the family, give me every luxury but adventure.” He put a finger to her lips to stop her protest. “And, before you say it, I know war is not an adventure. However, I’m allowed to go to the Continent to shop, or for sex, but I’m forced to stay in England while young men without the benefit of birth or fortune go fight for something vastly more important. Something their government, of which I am a part, has ordered them to do.”
Annabel shifted against him, rising just enough to press a soft kiss against his lips. Her palm cradled his jaw. “I, for one, am glad you didn’t go to war, whatever the reason.”
There was nothing but sincerity in her eyes and her words. It was the same every time he looked at her, every time he held her. Whatever misguided belief had brought her into his life, she offered something he’d never expected to find—a place to be himself. He couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
