Page 58 of To Wager with Love

Harriet felt a lump rise to her throat. “That’s why you didn’t write,” she said, blinking back tears now.

“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I wanted to, but—”

She couldn’t hold back another minute, damn his pride. Harriet ran to him and wrapped herself about him as tightly as she could.

“I love you, Jasper. I love you, and you are the bravest person I’ve ever met, but you are not stupid, and you must never think it.”

He was stiff and unyielding in her arms, the hurt he felt hidden behind a brittle wall that she needed to break down.

“Maybe not stupid,” he allowed. “But I’m no great thinker, love. Not like—”

“If you say de Beauvoir, I will kill you,” she snapped, before he had time to finish the sentence. “I tell you now, I admire many things about Inigo de Beauvoir, but I have concluded he is the stupidest genius I know.”

Jasper gave her a blank look.

“His ideas on love are the most idiotic I’ve ever heard in my whole life,” she said, shaking her head at him. “I tried to believe them for a long time, but I always knew he was wrong at heart. Honestly, how stupid do you need to be to think such a thing hasn’t been proven over and again in infinite ways, since the beginning of the human race? What a great clod pole.”

To her immense relief, his lips twitched.

“Well, I don’t like to say I told you so,” he said.

Harriet let out a little huff of laughter and stared up at him, touching her hand to his face.

“I’m so glad you told me, so relieved I understand, and we will work things out together, yes?”

He shrugged, his expression still wary and uncertain. “You can’t fix me, Harry.”

“I don’t need or want to fix you,” she shot back, irritated by the idea. “You’re not broken, you….” She held his gaze as she thought about it. “Perhaps you just work differently from other people. Not badly, just… differently.”

She watched him, hoping she’d said the right thing, relieved when he let out a long breath and leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers. “I love you so much, Harry. I couldn’t bear for you to be ashamed of me, or—”

“Never!” she said, hearing her voice break on the word as she shook her head. She pulled him close and pressed a fierce kiss to his lips. “I could never, ever be ashamed of you.”

“Thank you,” he said, his smile a little surer now.

“Thank you,” she replied. “For trusting me.”

They stood together for a long while, holding each other tight and saying nothing at all, until Harriet looked up.

“Now. then,” she said, her tone business-like. “Isn’t it about time you showed me what you’ve got hidden in this secret workshop of yours? I’m dying of curiosity.”

He laughed, and it was the carefree Jasper from her youth, the one she’d fallen in love with, without even noticing it was happening.

“All right,” he said, looking almost shy. “As it happens, I just finished your wedding present.”

Harriet stared at him. “You… You made me a wedding present?” she said, astonished that he’d taken such trouble for her. “Oh, Jasper, that’s—”

“You haven’t seen it yet,” he reminded her, and she saw a flash of doubt in his eyes. “You might not like it.”

She took his arm, wondering how she’d never noticed before how uncertain he was, how thin a veneer that confident, smiling countenance had been.

“You made it for me, Jasper. Whatever it is, I shall think it terribly romantic and love it more than anything else in the world.”

He looked pleased by that and grabbed her hand. “Come along, then.”

Chapter 18

Miss Butler,