“I’ve got to go into town,” he said. “Do you need anything?”
“Rose oil,” she said immediately. “And if Seph’s is open, I wouldn’t saynoto more cashews.”
“Oho, neither would I,” he agreed, perking up a bit as he turned toward the door. “I’ll stop there first. Lib?”
“Hm?” she said, already moving to throw the wadded-up letter drafts in the bin.
“I just want to know,” he said, a hesitant, little frown playing around his lips. “Is Jasper involved?”
“In this?” she asked, crinkling the ball of parchment and then tossing it into the basket. “He is not. I assure you.”
Malcolm seemed to wither a little and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Good. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Godspeed,” she told him, swallowing down the guilt that had begun to bubble in her throat.
As soon as he was gone, she penned the damned letter.
And once it was sent, she could not remember what words she’d chosen, in the end.
*
The night ofthe dinner arrived earlier than she would have liked, but alas, time was often prickly that way.
She had not seen Jasper at all since the day of the wharf incident. She had avoided him, truth be told. Physically, at least.
He hadn’t needed physical presence to hound her every waking step and thought, as it turned out. Though of course, she would never give him the satisfaction of telling him that.
It wasn’t just the waking thoughts and actions he was sabotaging, either.
She hadn’t slept well. Or at least, not what she estimated as sleeping well, for herself. At least when awake, she could choose what to recall and envision and get into a temper about. She could conjure his stupid, mangled face or his fully clothed form leaping into the icy seawater. And that was still not ideal.
When she was asleep, he seemed to eternally be in repose in the parlor, splayed on the chaise with nothing but a pair of trousers on and his face miraculously healed. She’d endured night after night of fireplace shadows dancing over the contours of his bare torso and glinting off his unexpected chest hair.
Tiresomewas the right word for it in many clever ways.
Though she couldn’t tell anyone that thought, either, no matter how clever it was.
Instead, she chose another of Juliet’s costumes, this one in emerald brocade and with copper flourishes and an assortment of matching copper accessories. She’d taken the time to carefully oil and curate every strand of her hair so that she could wear it down tonight.
Scandalous, perhaps.
She’d chosen this costume because it parted in the middle, just a hair, showing a flash of her muscled midriff.
Scandalous without a doubt. And unfashionable, to boot, for a woman to have such a build.
She’d been told more than once that she had unseemly muscles for a woman, often in a voice dripping with a potent mélange of derision and desire. Well, they did not see the light of day often enough.
Well, he’d wanted fire, hadn’t he? And no one could say such things were inappropriate in Xandine’s homeland. No one at all.
She’d told herself that again while applying the kohl to her lashes and the rouge to her lips. It was a lighter touch thanwhat she’d wear on stage, far from her audience, but Libba had dressed in dinner-light costume before.
One had to raise funds for a play, after all. Appearing at banquets in character and costume was no foreign concept to the likes of Liberty Lennox.
And if it was to Jasper Townsend, then that was just too bad, wasn’t it?
Why couldn’t he simply be who he was? Why couldn’t he see that Jasper at his root was all that anyone had ever wanted? Malcolm had been telling him that since they’d been children.
She sighed, shaking her head. Perhaps the schemeswerejust who Jasper was. He was a man of ideas and enthusiasm, and she had always enjoyed that. She had always found it delightful and diverting because she hadn’t realized he was only doing it to prove something.
