They held one another’s gaze for a heartbeat too long before she broke away with a sharp laugh. “You are intolerable.”
“And you,” he said smoothly, though his voice was quieter now, “are very poor at pretending.”
Matilda lifted her skirts, quickening her pace to escape him. Their words might have turned playful again, but her heart was still racing. The conversation had cut deeper than either of them dared admit.
And as they neared the terrace, she knew one thing with piercing clarity: they could laugh, they could spar, they could deny it all they wished. But something had shifted between them, and neither banter nor pride would unmake it.
Chapter Thirty-One
The following day brought a fresh round of carriages rattling up the drive, as more guests spilled into the great hall with their trunks and chatter.
Jasper endured the commotion with his usual detachment, offering a bow here, a careless smile there, though in truth his mind was elsewhere. He had scarcely slept because his thoughts were plagued by the memory of Matilda’s blush, her laughter, and the sharp edge of her words.
He was halfway down the staircase, intent on slipping away before the crowd thickened, when a figure detached herself from the arriving company and glided toward him with evident purpose.
“Your Grace.”
The voice was light, lilting, and all too familiar. He slowed, turning toward the foot of the stairs.
Lady Isabelle Tinton stood there, with ribbons fluttering from her bonnet and her smile bright with unguarded triumph. Waterbury’s widow, barely nineteen, still in her first bloom of beauty. She had already startled him once before, cornering him in a library during a ball, pressing far too close with an eagerness that belonged more to a girl’s fantasy than a widow’s discretion.
She dipped a perfunctory curtsey. “I wondered if you would pretend not to know me again.”
Jasper inclined his head. “I do know you. Waterbury’s widow.”
A shadow crossed her expression, quickly smoothed into a pout. “How dull, to be remembered only for that. I was in your father’s house often, long before I was married. Surely you recall?”
Jasper searched his memory, but there was nothing. He smiled faintly, without warmth. “I cannot say I do.”
Her lips curved as though she found this amusing. “You were older, of course, and I was told not to expect your notice then. But I was assured the day would come when I needn’t remain invisible.”
His jaw tightened at the phrasing. “Who assured you of that?”
She shrugged, a careless little gesture. “People talk. Parents dream. Futures are discussed.” Her gaze flicked up to meet his, soft yet insistent. “You were always part of mine.”
Jasper’s chest constricted.His father. Always with his damned schemes. Always arranging, promising, maneuvering. Isabelle’s words had the stale taste of those chains he had broken long ago.
He forced a thin smile. “Then I must disappoint you. Whatever was spoken in those days, I gave no consent to it.”
Lady Isabelle tilted her head, studying him with almost childlike defiance. “Perhaps you did not. But one day, you may wish you had.”
Before Jasper could reply, another guest called her name. She left with a swirl of skirts, throwing him a last, lingering glance over her shoulder.
Jasper exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. Another ghost from his father’s legacy, another shadow clawing at his heels.
Jasper remained at the foot of the stairs for a moment longer after Lady Isabelle drifted away, his expression schooled into the easy charm everyone expected of him. He had bowed, he had smiled, he had said all the right things.
And yet… something in it had felt wrong.
In the past, he would have handled her with the same careless confidence he used on every woman who sought his attention: a teasing remark, a flash of dimples, perhaps even an invitation toprolong the game. He had been the rake, the practiced charmer, the man who flirted because it cost him nothing.
But when Isabelle had leaned close, reminding him of a childhood he scarcely remembered, of some promise he had never made, he had not felt that familiar ease. Instead of amusement, he had felt the faint prickle of irritation. Instead of interest, only weariness.
And beneath it all, an odd awareness of how hollow his charm suddenly seemed.
His smile had been practiced, his words courteous, but there had been no spark behind them. He had not wanted one.
It unsettled him more than Isabelle’s persistence.
