Page 48 of Holding Onto Love

“I don’t expect you will ever meet her.” He sounded apologetic.

“Of course not.” He didn’t mention his sister, Olivia. Meeting her was so far beyond the realm of possibility, he did not bother. Vanessa refused to let that hurt.

He tossed his hat on the rack and rested his walking stick against the wall. Then he spotted something on the correspondence table and frowned. A few letters meant for him found their way here instead of his parents’ home. She didn’t know why he looked so alarmed.

He picked it up and tore it open.

“God.”

“What?”

He handed it over to her without speaking. There was only one word on the page. He must have recognized the handwriting.

EXPLAIN

She looked at him, questioning.

He said, “Crispin.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jasper felt the rebuke as if Crispin had appeared in the flesh to slap sense into him. He stared at the letter and repeated, muttering, “Crispin.”

Here he had been congratulating himself on his success. Vanessa’s success. He didn’t think she understood just how much of a triumph the day had been. Especially after those lines had appeared in the Post, designed to make a mockery of everyone involved.

And Father! Jasper had never loved him so much. When he’d presented the dilemma, Father sighed and said, “Hilyer is a dog.” He agreed to publicly acknowledge his son’s paramour—no small favor to ask—all while sparing Jasper the moralizing that was a father’s prerogative.

And Lady Posonby. What a stroke. How had he not thought to approach her first? The woman was an unabashed bluestocking, but her birth was impeccable. She made it her life’s work to defy societal conventions. And she led a small, tough cadre of like-minded daughters of the ton. Vanessa would have friends. She would probably have to spend time reading poetry or Wollstonecraft, but if she could face down Napoleon’s finest, she could hold her own with Rose.

If that little peep in the Post was Hilyer’s worst, they had already won. But Jasper had one more card to play. The following night, Hazard would be hosting a private party at Brooks’s. His club. He invented something to celebrate. Hazard was choosier about his friends than Jasper was. As a consequence, men clambered to be included in his set. Hazard invited many of them, even the few peers who still regarded the marquess as worth knowing. He did not invite the marquess, who would arrive at Brooks’s to find the gaming room essentially empty and the doors of the party swing back, closed to him. Jasper, not even a member of Brooks’s, would be there. The Prince Regent as well. A decided coup to obtain that commitment. Jasper could not imagine how Hazard had finagled it—unless he had lent Prinny more money than he admitted.

If Hilyer blustered—and he would—he would find himself tossed out of his own club on his ear.

The devil. Jasper had been so busy congratulating himself on the way he was “protecting” Vanessa, that he’d lost sight of the reason she needed protection. Crispin reminded him. He had taken a grieving widow and made her his paramour.

Vanessa looked white about the mouth.

“Why does he feel he deserves an explanation? Is he your confessor? Is he mine?”

“I don’t think being angry with Crispin serves any purpose,” Jasper said wearily. “He sees through defensiveness. He exploits it.”

“Defensiveness? Jasper, aren’t you the one who keeps saying we must not be ashamed?”

“Yes. Yes, and we should not. You, especially, should not.” He heaved an enormous sigh and confided in her. “It is important to me to have my brothers’ respect.”

“That’s only natural, but—”

“No.” He laughed a little. “I think it is unnaturally important to me. They are—” She waited for him to find the words. “Talented,” he finished. “It is as though God asked, at my conception, which talents I would most wish to have, and then he allotted them to my brothers. Which is actually a wonderful God gift.” His jaw ached from clenching. “It is so very humbling.”

“You cannot tell me you have not been gifted with enough.”

“Reginald is brilliant. Eye-wateringly, stare-at-the-sun brilliant. He is six years younger than me, and I swear, by the time I was twelve, I knew not to challenge him on anything factual. Or for that matter, mythological. But I don’t particularly envy him that peculiarity.” He sniffed. “No, I am jealous of his aim.”

“His what?”

“His aim. Gentlemen are supposed to be able to shoot. Vanessa, I cannot keep my eyes open when I pull a trigger. I have a terrible tendency to jerk my arm at the last moment. God alone knows where the bullets end up. Even Olivia laughs at me.”

“Jasper, that’s ridiculous.”