Page 26 of To Follow her Heart

She worried for her friend, he understood that, but they needed time. Whether that time would bring a decision to run away together, or for Baxter to force Kitty to accept the situation, he didn’t know. He wished they’d run; it would give him hope to see them overcome the odds, or to face them together head on. They loved each other, though. Whatever happened, that desire to be together was between them.

His chances were rather less favourable.

He could hear Harriet thinking, he was certain of it. His terse answer had annoyed her, naturally, but he couldn’t help himself. Whenever she was near, he existed in a constant state of frustration, as snappy and short-tempered as a small, belligerent dog, nipping at her heels. He was always aware of her, aware of her moods, of where she was in relation to him, in the same way he didn’t need to look at the sun to know it was there.

“If anyone finds out, if Mr Derby―”

“No one will find out,” Jasper said, wishing he didn’t sound so damned impatient. “Mr Baxter went out for a ride with me, and my mother escorted Kitty with you and Miss Hunt. We went in different directions and did not meet. Unless the man will accuse the Dowager Countess of St Clair of being a liar, he’s got no option but to accept it.”

“He’ll still figure it out,” Harriet said, as dogged as always.

“Good!” Jasper muttered. “He’s blackmailing Baxter, keeping him from marrying the woman he loves. What right has he to do so?”

Harriet returned an expression with which he was all too familiar. It said you’re an idiot without her having to go to the trouble of saying it aloud.

“Men of your rank don’t marry for love and you know it,” she said, every bit as terse as he’d been. “Whilst my heart breaks for Kitty, I think it is wrong to give her false hope. It will only cause her more pain, not to mention dragging her and Mr Baxter through a public court case….” She shuddered and closed her eyes. “To have everyone talking about them, knowing the details of their affair… it would be hideous, unbearable.”

Though he knew he was doing himself no favours, Jasper could not fight the helpless swell of emotion that rose in his chest. “Have you no notion of love, Harry?” he said, knowing she’d hate him for using the name forbidden to him, the name he’d been allowed to speak once upon a time. “If you gave your heart to someone, wouldn’t you fight for them, wouldn’t you do anything, anything at all, to be with them?”

There was nothing but cool contempt in her eyes when she looked back at him.

“I could never love a man who would act without thought for the consequences, who could be so thoughtless as to ignore who else might be hurt by his actions. We are not animals, to act upon our desires as and when they arise with no thought of feeling. Otherwise a man could lead unsuspecting women astray, falling in and out of love at a moment’s notice and casting aside dozens of lovers, leaving them abandoned by the wayside as he went.” Her gaze never wavered as she stared at him. “I suppose some men do live this way,” she added. “Acting as though they are in love in one moment, and casting it aside like an unfashionable coat the next.”

He felt the words rather than heard them, felt each one like a small knife paring away another slice of his heart, though he didn’t understand why she attacked him so. Was this her opinion of him? Oh, he knew his reputation, of course he did, though it seemed blown out of all proportion to him. Yes, he’d had lovers, plenty of them, but he’d never pretended love, never felt it for any but one woman. He never dallied with anyone he thought might read more into his attention than a mutually agreeable way to spend some time, and he never ended an affair on bad terms with any of the women he took to bed. This was because he never lied, and he chose his lovers with care.

“Harry,” he said, knowing at once there was too much emotion in the way he spoke her name. “I’ve never—”

Harriet turned her back on him before he could say another word and walked away. He moved to follow her, but she called out to his mother, who was speaking to Miss Hunt by the edge of the lake. “Lady St Clair, do show Matilda the summerhouse. It’s such a sweet little building, and it will be cool out of the sun.”

“Harriet!” he said again, willing her to turn back to him, but she kept on walking.

***

As she’d known he would—eventually—Luke told her everything.

He told it in a brief and concise manner, with no embellishments. He said nothing of his feelings on discovering Mr Derby waiting for him at his home the day they had taken him from her. After having spent the day with Kitty and arranging to meet her early the next day, he’d been stuffed in a carriage with no explanation and taken away. He said nothing of his loneliness and confusion at being torn from the place he’d made home and the girl he’d loved, and subjected to an endless procession of tutors and daily lectures from Mr Derby or the earl himself. He went from days of fishing and exploring, and skinny-dipping in the freezing river to being taught everything from the history of the Trevick family to Greek and Latin, to etiquette and the proper comportment of a future earl.

For a boy who’d already been torn from a school with dozens of friends—a place where he’d been happy—and dumped next in the middle of nowhere with not so much as a nanny in sight, it was yet another bewildering change in circumstances.

Not that Luke said as much. There were no disclosures about his isolation, about his mother’s indifference to his misery, but he didn’t need to give such revelations. Kitty could hear it in what he didn’t say, in the brittle, emotionless way he told the story, and she understood. If he allowed emotion to enter his words, they would both flounder in sorrow and no sensible decisions would be made.

Yet her heart broke for him, for his courage, and for his desire to protect her from the tyranny of the Trevick family.

Kitty had always disliked Luke’s mother, though as children she’d appreciated the woman’s selfishness as it allowed Luke so much freedom. Yet she was in raptures over Luke’s inevitable elevation to peerage. The wretched woman cared nothing for her son’s happiness, only her own consequence, and Kitty knew well the woman would make him suffer if he turned his back on everything the earl was offering him.

“You did try to contact me, didn’t you?” she said, once he stopped speaking.

He was staring at her, his expression resigned. She knew he was waiting for her to agree that it was hopeless, that they could never fight an earl and a duke.

Darling Luke, always so naïve.

“Of course I did,” he said with a huff of laughter. “I bribed the staff to post them, but they had been primed. Mr Derby rewarded them for every letter they handed in. The earl’s pockets were rather deeper than mine, sadly. Once I realised, I tried to run away. I tried countless times, but I never got far. I was too well chaperoned.”

He paused, staring down at his hands, which were occupied with shredding an oxeye daisy, one petal at a time.

“I was desperate to get back to you,” he said, and this time she could hear all that he hadn’t said before. “I missed you so badly and it hurt, Kitty, like they’d cut you from my chest with a knife. I couldn’t sleep for fear that you’d think I’d abandoned you. I couldn’t bear to think it.”

Kitty smiled at him, blinking back tears. “I never thought that, eejit,” she said, though her voice was soft and teasing, the way she’d used to speak to him when he’d said something she thought silly. “But no one could tell me where you’d gone. It was like fairies had spirited you away, or like I’d dreamt you. I begged my father to make enquiries, but all he could discover was that you’d left Ireland, not where or in whose company. For all I knew, you’d gone to America.”