Page 53 of To Wager with Love

“I love you,” she said, because she had to, because he deserved to hear it after all this time.

To her astonishment his eyes grew bright, and he blinked hard before giving a rueful little laugh.

“Thank God,” he said, his voice almost as rough as hers. “Thank you, God, and thank you most of all, my darling girl. I love you too, and I shan’t let you down. I promise.”

Harriet nodded as exhaustion tugged at her eyelids. She was so very pleased to have pleased him and, with a contented sigh, she went back to sleep.

***

7th September 1814. Holbrooke House, Sussex.

Jasper made a nuisance of himself for the next few days, driving Harriet’s poor maid to distraction as he fussed and rearranged everything she’d already arranged perfectly well, but he felt as if he’d go mad with nothing to do.

Harriet slept a great deal at first but, as the days passed, she improved, the fever abating and a healthier tinge returning to her cheeks. This morning, when he entered her room, she was sitting up in bed and looking far brighter.

“Good morning, love. How are you feeling?”

“Bored,” Harriet said with a huff. “I want to get up, but that stupid doctor says I can’t, until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“You’re adorable when you’re grumpy, did you know that?” Jasper said, smiling as he bent to kiss her forehead.

“I’m never adorable,” Harriet replied, wrinkling her nose.

“I beg to differ. Now,” he said, pulling up a chair and sitting down beside her. “We have a wedding to plan.”

Harriet groaned.

“Well, that’s the kind of thing that can hurt a fellow’s feelings, love,” Jasper said, shaking his head at her, well aware it wasn’t the marriage she objected to now, just the fuss.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly and then caught the amusement in his eyes. “Oh, Jasper, I can’t bear it. All those people staring at me and wondering how I trapped you into it.”

Jasper felt his temper rise at the idea. “I have already made it very clear to anyone who cares to listen, that I trapped you,” he said, which was perfectly true, but Harriet just snorted.

“Oh, they’ll just think you’re being a gentleman and saving my reputation,” she said irritably.

“Not when they see how devoted a husband I am, trailing around after you like a little lamb.”

Harriet snorted again, though she looked amused this time. “You? A little lamb?”

“Baaaa.”

She snickered and shook her head. “Foolish man,” she said, but with such affection in her tone that Jasper felt his heart swell. She loved him. It seemed utterly impossible, but she’d said so, and Harriet never lied.

Don’t mess it up, St Clair, he warned himself.

“How about a private wedding, in the chapel here? Just you and me, our brothers I suppose,” he added with a long-suffering sigh. “And whatever peculiar women you wish to invite.”

“Peculiar Ladies,” Harriet corrected sternly, before sighing and reaching out to take his hand. “Oh, Jasper, that sounds perfect, but don’t you mind? Won’t your mother be dreadfully disappointed? I imagine she’s been longing to arrange some grand affair.”

“I’ll talk to her,” he said, smoothing his thumb back and forth over her hand, still finding it hard to believe that she had reached for him, that she wanted him.

Anxiety lingered in his heart, the fear that she wanted him against her will, that she knew as well as he did that she’d likely grow bored with him. No, she loves me, he reminded himself, and not just for his handsome face, not just because of how he made her feel in bed, there was more to it than that, wasn’t there?

An unpleasant thread of panic uncoiled in his belly and he swallowed it down.

“I want to marry as soon as we can arrange it,” he said, assuring himself he wasn’t saying it to tie her to him, to ensure she couldn’t ever leave him, wouldn’t have time to come to her senses and change her mind.

“I think we must,” she said with a sigh. “I can only imagine what’s being said about me.”