Her lips parted, and for the briefest instant the fire in her eyes softened. “Then you are a fool, sir. For I am not worth so dear a loss.”
She recovered at once, drawing herself up, the curve of her mouth sharpening into a brilliant smile. “Unless, of course, you delight in folly. In which case, you may count yourself the happiest man alive, for I am exceedingly well practised in producing it.”
Jasper ought to have laughed; it was, after all, precisely the sort of quip he would have fashioned in her place, but mirth deserted him. For he had glimpsed that moment’s falter, and it struck him with inconvenient force. Did she truly hold herself so cheaply? Did she believe her worth so meagre, even as she blazed brighter than any person he had ever known? If Charlotte Tolliver, of all creatures, doubted her own value, then the world was far madder than he had ever supposed.
She huffed and moved to perch upon his bed. “Now—onto your punishment! I have devised something most delightfully devious.”
Jasper watched her closely. Charlotte Tolliver had come to his room in the middle of the night to rage and charm and demand a forfeit, but beneath the challenge he could feel the question she would not ask. Do you want me? Do you pity me? Am I a game to you? A duty? A scandal? A future mistake you are already trying to manage?
She drew herself up. “My forfeit,” she said, very clearly, “is that I shall sleep in your bed tonight, but you will not touch me.”
He blinked and then laughed, though it came rougher than he intended. “Cruelty itself. To have you within arm’s reach and be forbidden the smallest touch? That is not punishment, but execution.”
“Good.”
His amusement faded a little when he saw that she was not smiling. He tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.
“You threw the match because you wanted me to have the victory. And perhaps that was kind, but I do not want to be handed triumph like a ribbon at a fair. I do not want to be managed into happiness, or protected into obedience, or loved in such a way that I am forever being quietly overruled.”
“Charlotte…”
“No. You may admire me, desire me, even lose to me if you must—but you do not get to decide for me.”
“Understood.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” he said, quieter now. “I think it is.”
Her throat moved. Some of the fire in her eyes wavered, though she did not lower her chin. “Then prove it.”
Jasper had not thought her truly serious on sharing his bed until Charlotte tugged back the counterpane herself and climbed into his bed as though she had been mistress of it all her life. She arranged herself with great deliberation, plumping one of his pillows, casting another aside entirely, then shifting again until the sheet and bolster suited her liking. He could do nothing but watch, both amused and distraught, until she settled, and he climbed in beside her.
“There,” she said. “Half for you, half for me.”
He lay rigid, his arms braced at his sides, staring fixedly at the canopy overhead. Never had proximity been so unbearable.
It was, he reflected, a most deviant punishment indeed. To have Charlotte Tolliver lying beside him, all soft limbs and disordered curls, and be forbidden the smallest liberty—it was enough to unman a saint, and he had never pretended to be one.
“Goodnight, Mr Deverell,” she announced with a satisfied sigh. “Sleep well.”
“Goodnight,” he echoed hoarsely, staring at the canopy.
Sleep, of course, was impossible. She thrashed about as only a Tolliver could—flinging an arm, then a leg, sighing dramatically, stealing first one pillow then another, until Jasper lay half-dislodged from his own bed. At one point, her knee brushed his thigh; at another, her bare foot trailed deliberately—oh, too deliberately—down his shin. He ground his teeth, determined not to move.
Minutes—or hours, he could not tell—passed in this exquisite torment, until she gave an irritable huff. “Ergh! I cannot abide so much fabric.” And with regal disregard for modesty, she sat up, tugged her nightrobe over her head, and flung it aside.
Jasper’s heart very nearly stopped.Holy God,he thought,I amundone.
She was gloriously bare in the moonlight, her skin pale against the dark coverlet.
“Much better,” she declared, settling back down with enviable composure, as if this were the most natural arrangement in the world.
Still—by some miracle of devotion or folly—he did not reach for her, even as she sighed contentedly and stretched like a cat across his pillows.
After quite some time, when he was sure she must be asleep, she draped an arm across his chest. It was quite by accident, surely… except that her fingers began to trace idle patterns in the sparse hair that gathered there.
He shut his eyes. “Charlotte…”
