The duke’s mouth curved into the ghost of a smile. “My wife’s wisdom has never required my survival, Gainsford. Only my agreement.”
That earned another round of laughter, though Jasper’s gaze had not left Lottie’s.
She tilted her head. “Matrimony sounds a most dreadful ordeal. I cannot imagine why women rush so eagerly towards it.”
“Necessity, perhaps,” he said, idly nudging a ball across the baize with his cue.
“Or folly,” she countered. “For what is marriage but a bargain in which women surrender freedom in exchange for the fiction of protection?”
A ripple of murmurs stirred through the spectators, who watched on with wide eyes. One lady whispered to a beau behind her fan, prompting stifled laughter.
Jasper watched Lottie intensely. “Perhaps the wiser sort of wife does not surrender her freedom at all but merely disguises it. A clever woman learns to bend the rules to her favour.”
“And must twist herself into knots to do so!” Lottie returned, stamping her cue on the ground.
The assembly went silent, and Jasper took a slow step nearer. “Knots are not always chains, Miss Tolliver. Sometimes they hold fast what would otherwise come quite undone.”
He watched as Lottie’s lips parted, and the cue slipped from her grip, clattering to the floor. Heat flamed in her cheeks as she glanced around; the onlookers pretended fascination with their wineglasses, fans, and cuffs, though several eyes darted her way with undisguised curiosity.
Jasper bent, retrieved the fallen cue, and offered it to her. “Allow me.” And as he rose, he said for her ears alone, “Even the fiercest of us drop something now and then, Miss Tolliver. Pride. Fear. A cue.”
She huffed. “You think me afraid?”
“Never. I think you clever. Far too clever not to see that the world has already placed its chains about you—married or not. I should only wish to see you wear them loosely, and of your own choosing.”
“Have you learnt nothing at all, Mr Deverell? Liberty granted by another is no liberty at all.”
“Then we are at an impasse,” he said quietly. “You will have no master, and I would have no prisoner.”
“Then we agree at last,” she replied, before sweeping past him and from the billiards room.
The door closed upon Miss Tolliver’s retreat, leaving a ripple of laughter in her wake.
Jasper exhaled, slow and low, turning the cue absently in his hands.
A quiet presence drew beside him. “Do you mean to go after her, Deverell,” asked the Duke of Morleigh, “or remain here looking the perfect fool?”
Jasper glanced sideways. “I have already achieved the latter, Your Grace.”
Morleigh’s expression did not shift, though his brow lifted by the smallest degree. “Quite so. You’ve a talent for spectacle.”
“I try to provide amusement where I can.”
“Hmm.” The duke turned and studied the green baize. “You are more a fool than I had thought, Deverell.”
Jasper gave a wry laugh. “How so?”
Morleigh did not immediately answer. Instead, he began to set the balls back upon the table as though restoring order to a scene of chaos. Only when the triangle was full and neat once more did he speak, his tone as even as ever. “It is a singular blindness,” he said, removing the frame and setting it aside, “to stand so close to a thing and yet fail entirely to see it.”
“You will have to be plainer, Your Grace. I suffer from many deficiencies—clarity chief among them.”
The duke sighed, positioned himself at the table, and struck the cue ball. It cracked through the formation, scattering the coloured balls in every direction. “You are in love with her, Deverell.”
Jasper sighed in return, and chalked his cue. He lined up a shot in silence, before sending a red ball neatly into the cornerpocket. “And what of it? You disapprove of me on principle, as I recall.”
Morleigh’s gaze followed the ball’s smooth path. “Langley has vouched for your character. He seems to think you a good sort of fellow, and I am partial to his judgement. Nevertheless, my patience wears thin.”
“Your patience, Your Grace?” Jasper asked lightly. “I was not aware it had been put to the test.”
