Page 25 of Holding Onto Love

He clamped down hard upon the teeth of jealousy that had begun to gnaw. He would not sully her friendships with coarse suspicion of men’s motives.

“And there was Henry. His father was Dr. Wardrip, my mother’s physician. My mother considered herself an invalid. I don’t know what her malady was. It seemed to be constantly changing. But the point is, Dr. Wardrip was a frequent visitor to our house. Henry accompanied him from the time we were children. Little children. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Freddy.”

“I see. But he was not banished when he became old enough to be viewed as a suitor?”

“Well, no. Because he did not need banishing. He went away to school at St. Thomas’s. I hadn’t seen him for three years, and then he returned as his father’s assistant.” She pulled her hand away, fluttering. She was not a flutterer. “The story grows so sordid from here, I…”

“Nothing you have done is sordid.” He turned her chin until she looked him in the eye. “Vanessa, nothing.”

She blinked. Nodded. “I don’t know when it dawned on me that Henry was falling in love with me. I didn’t love him. I recognized that much. But I didn’t go out of my way to discourage him because I liked him. I considered him a good match and assumed my parents would think so as well.”

“You were unaware of your father’s intentions?”

“I was aware, but I thought them to be ridiculous. He had money, but not the connections. I could see that, even if he did not.”

The carriage hit a rut, jostling them against one another. Jasper used the opportunity to slide an arm across her shoulders, to reassure her—seeing what was coming—that he was on her side.

“But then he managed, somehow, to gain an introduction to the marquess. Hilyer declined an invitation to supper, but Frederick Culpepper never takes no for an answer. He made me dress up like a ladybird. It was not the first time. He liked to parade me about. I hated it, Jasper, hated it so much. I didn’t know he meant to waylay the marquess in the street. He even managed to work a mention of my dowry into the conversation. The marquess looked at me as though…”

She flushed deeply. Jasper blanched. He could not find words contemptuous enough.

“Within a week, my father had his offer. It didn’t matter that I refused.” Her voice thinned. “Contracts were drawn.”

“My God.”

“I resorted to the airs of a gothic heroine. I threatened to kill myself. I refused to eat. My father scoffed at first, but eventually, it alarmed him. I suppose he recognized he could not deliver a corpse to the marquess.”

“Vanessa,” he murmured. He kissed the top of her head. He didn’t know what to say. Only that men were brutes, and he was ashamed to be one. Look at Carleton and Stevenson. Look at Crispin. Look at himself.

“Father called in Dr. Wardrip. He was appalled by me. He warned me that I must eat. He told my father that if I had taken nothing in three more days, he would return, and force feed me. He described the process to me in detail. Henry was in the room, but he would not look at me. Jasper, that night I prayed for hours that I would die before the doctor returned.”

More tears rolled down her cheeks. This time, she brushed them angrily away.

“The next morning, Henry appeared without his father. He carried a sugared loaf and explained that Dr. Wardrip had sent him to try to tempt me to eat. My mother followed him up to my bedroom. She watched him tear off a large piece. He pressed it into my hand. Then he took a smaller one and said, ‘Open your mouth, Miss Culpepper.’ I don’t know why, but I did. He put a piece of bread into it along with something else. I pretended to swallow. He said, ‘Promise me you will eat the rest.’ I could only nod. He suggested to my mother that they leave me alone, and she was so impressed with him that they did.”

“What did he put in your mouth?”

“A note. It said he would be outside my window at midnight. He said if I was willing, he would take me to Gretna Green and marry me. He said I must know that he loved me and that he only hoped that one day I would feel the same. That night, we eloped.”

“Thank God for Henry Wardrip.”

“Yes.” Then she burst into heaving tears. “I killed him, Jasper. I killed him.”

*

They rode twice through the park, stopping once when Vanessa needed air. Well, frankly, she needed to cast up her accounts, and then, she needed air.

She hadn’t killed Henry, of course. That was done by Boney’s soldiers. And Jasper laid the blame for that squarely at Frederick Culpepper’s door.

Crispin wrote that she was the widow of a fine British soldier. Jasper had no doubt that was true. But the boy was a bacon-brain.

From what she’d said, they had been two eighteen-year-old children. Children, because they knew nothing. Even Jasper, at eighteen, had understood more of the world. They had scarcely a few pounds between them. Vanessa had not thought, before lowering herself from her bedroom window, to stuff a few necklaces into a reticule to pawn. Despite her father’s vast wealth, or more likely because of it, she had no concept of money. Not then.

Henry may have been less naïve, but not much less. His father earned a good living by doctoring. Henry apparently believed they would return home blissfully wed and all families involved would simply adapt.

The stupidity of it all galled Jasper. Because of course, the families did not adapt. Accusations flew. Either Henry was a serial seducer, introduced by Dr. Wardrip into the homes of his wealthy patients to snare an heiress by means most foul, or Vanessa was a harlot who ruined young Henry’s budding career. Both families cut them off. The marriage had been consummated. It could not be undone. Not unless Vanessa accused Henry of forcible abduction. He would be arrested. A divorce could then be arranged. Hilyer was still willing to have her.

It was at that point in the tale when Jasper had to stop the carriage. He had not thought to bring brandy. Why would he have? He could do nothing but kneel beside her and rub her shoulders while she retched. As they remounted the carriage, one of the footmen passed him a flask. The man could be fired for drinking on duty. He could be fired for even acknowledging he’d overheard anything being said. But when Vanessa gratefully took a few sips, Jasper vowed to himself he would raise the man’s wages.