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Chapter Twenty-Four
With nothing else to do except ignore the constant stream of journalists who knocked on his front door, Jasper wandered into the temporary classroom Mrs Mimms had made in his never-used morning room to see how the children’s lessons were going. At dawn, as the newspaper had come out, he had considered cancelling the daily appointment with Jim and the new governess before he realised that wouldn’t be fair to the lad.
Jim had undergone the most painful procedure imaginable on the promise of an apprenticeship and despite the obvious discomfort of the tight splints on his rebroken leg, had worked hard on his lessons since they had started three weeks ago. Then worked even harder by helping Izzy with them too. The boy had done nothing wrong whatsoever, so it felt churlish to take away the one bright light at the end of his tunnel simply because Jasper’s world had imploded after he himself had lit the fuse.
A promise was a promise after all and the one he had made to Jim had nothing really to do with Hattie beyond the fact he had embarked on it for her. That he was gaining a potential loyal and valuable employee in a few years on the back of this was its own reward. And Izzy already adored Jim, so that was that, he supposed.
Besides, it wasn’t as if the dust from the scandal was likely to settle overnight, or even by the end of the year, so he reasoned it was probably the best for all concerned to carry on as much as they could as usual while he bided his time in purgatory. Therefore, these lessons would continue and the club would open tonight as usual with Jasper brazenly welcoming the guests at the door.
This was his choice.
His decision and he would make no apologies for who he was or what he did. That had always been his philosophy since the day he had first been disowned and, so far, it had always worked in his favour. He hoped the fact that he was doing right by both Cora and Izzy made the necessary absence of Hattie in his life easier to swallow, and he consoled himself that at least the ordeal he had been dreading since she first came back into his life had finally started. It couldn’t end until it started and now that it had, he had to let fate’s cards fall how they may.
Perhaps, in a few months, when the ton remembered he was destined to be a duke, included him in invitations again and he gradually ceased to be persona non grata, and if she felt the same, he and Hattie could pick up where they left off? If they could, he would do things properly this time, out in the open and above board. In the meantime, he would do the decent thing and give her a wide berth. Give her all the time, distance and space she needed to decide whether or not he was worth all the effort in the long run.
It niggled that he hadn’t been able to tell her all that in person, or alert her to the fact that he had gone to The Times. But with Freddie rightly ready to turn his guts into garters, he hadn’t dared send her a note at home in case her suspicious brother intercepted it and realised all his worst suspicions were completely correct.
Jasper had, however, sent a letter to her via the infirmary. A letter in which he had, rightly or wrongly, poured out his entire heart because it did not feel right to have done something as drastic as he had without letting her know why. Drastic times called for drastic measures and he loved her too much to watch her be eviscerated by the gossips simply because she had the deepest well of compassion of anyone he had ever known and wanted to rescue him.
But he already missed her. Mourned them as a partnership. Felt lost without her by his side.
‘Where is he?’ Hattie’s distant shout snapped him out of his melancholy. ‘I know the coward is in here, Mrs Mimms!’ Whatever his housekeeper answered, he had a feeling it wasn’t the polite but decisive ‘Lord Beaufort is unavailable’ which he had instructed her to tell everyone for the foreseeable future, as seconds later, Hattie’s uneven stomping gait could be heard coming down the hallway from the direction of the back kitchen. ‘I am going to wring his stupid neck.’
While both the new governess and Izzy stared at him wide-eyed, Jim pulled a face. ‘As I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong of late, I’m hoping it’s not my neck she intends wringing.’
‘It’ll be Papa’s,’ offered Izzy in reassurance as she patted Jim’s arm. ‘Because Mrs Mimms told Cook she thought he had handled things all wrong.’
‘Handled what?’
Jim’s question went unanswered because Hattie had arrived, with his traitor of a housekeeper hot on her heels. ‘You sent me a letter!’ She sliced his missive in the air like a blade. ‘A letter!’
‘You really cannot be here Hattie. Especially today.’ He gestured towards the front of the house. ‘There are reporters outside. If they see you then...’
‘How dare you send me a letter!’ She jabbed it in the air again. ‘After everything—you didn’t have the courage or the decency to tell me about this yourself?’
‘Have you read it?’ Because if she had and she was this angry, then he had very definitely chosen the wrong words to pour out his entire heart.
‘If you have something to say to me Jasper Beaufort, then you should at least have the decency to say it to my face!’ She folded her arms, the offending missive dangling from her fingers, the seal glaringly intact. ‘Especially as, thanks to you, the whole of Mayfair is gossiping about me this morning. Casting me as the eternal victim again. The Limping Lady scorned because not even the lowest reprobate of the ton with precious little other choice wanted her. A little warning would have been nice.’
‘After Freddie—’
‘I knew my interfering brother had a hand in this!’ She cut him off to wave her arms and pace. ‘I am going to wring his wretched neck the second I have finished wringing yours! How dare you make a decision about me and my life without consulting me!’
‘Hattie...it wasn’t like that.’ Jasper raked a hand through his hair. ‘And it wasn’t really Freddie’s fault because...’ While the new governess was trying to look as if she wasn’t listening, Mrs Mimms was stood with her foot impatiently tapping as if she too deserved an explanation. ‘Why don’t we discuss this in the drawing room?’
As he caught Hattie’s rigid arm, the front door knocked again and he glared at Mrs Mimms. ‘Get rid of them and then arrange for my carriage to be readied so we can smuggle Hattie out of the mews without the pack of wolves outside seeing her!’
Jasper hurried her down the hallway, tugged her inside the drawing room then closed the door. Arms folded again, Hattie walked stiffly to the window, her back resolutely to him as she faced the garden.
‘Speak.’
Well, that set the tone nicely. ‘I didn’t want to have to hide any more.’
‘I see.’ Although by the clipped tone of her voice she clearly didn’t.
‘I realised that I have been handling everything wrong. Doing everything in the wrong order. Running before I could walk.’ There were a lot of ‘I’s in the sentence when this wasn’t about him, it was ultimately about them. ‘We had to pass this milestone, Hattie, don’t you see? We—I—was racing ahead to the one in the future and ignoring the one staring me straight in the face and blocking the path.’
‘So you decided the best way to pass it was without me?’ The catch in her voice undid him, but when he turned her around the tears in her eyes completely destroyed him.
