Page 105 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Hector did not turn. “Have you come to amuse yourself?”

“I always hope to. It keeps our friendship from becoming too noble.” He chuckled.

“I am not in the mood.” Jasper stopped smiling at once.

“You seldom are. It has never stopped me before.”

Hector exhaled through his nose. Jasper alone seemed able to take liberties without making him wish to end the acquaintance. It was an old mystery and an older mercy.

Jasper came farther into the room, and Hector could make out the darker movement of him against the light, the suggestion of broad shoulders, dark hair, and the restless grace of a man too accustomed to being welcome.

“Shall I guess?” Jasper asked.

“No.”

“Then I shall do it silently, which you will find more irritating.”

“Jasper.”

“There it is,” Jasper said. “The ducal warning. I tremble.”

Hector moved away from the window. The room shifted in blurred planes as he crossed it, the cane finding the floor ahead of him. “You know nothing of it.”

“I know you have not been yourself.”

“I am precisely myself. That is the trouble.”

Jasper was quiet for a moment. The silence lost its teasing edge. “Then is it about the duchess?”

Hector did not answer right away.

“That will do as confirmation,” Jasper said on a breath.

“Leave her out of this.”

“I cannot. She appears to be the entire subject.”

Hector’s grip tightened even further. “Do not speak lightly of her.”

“I was not going to.” Something in Jasper’s voice made Hector still.

There were moments when his friend’s charm fell away like a cloak slipped from the shoulders. What remained was harder to dismiss.

Hector said, “I kissed her.”

The words hung in the air between them, and Jasper’s silence deepened. In it Hector heard again the small, broken breath Poppy had given when his mouth touched hers.

“At last,” Jasper said softly.

Hector’s head snapped toward him. “That is your response?”

“It was the first one. I have others if you prefer variety,” he said drily.

“She asked me not to touch her.”

That silenced Jasper, in truth.

Hector swallowed, but the bitter taste returned. “She made me promise, and then I kissed her.”