Chapter Fifteen
“This time, why not just open by tipping your king?” Nicholas set the board for the next match. “It would save us both the trouble of playing it out.”
Jasper sipped his whiskey and stared at the checkered marble squares, but it did no good. He couldn’t see what move he wanted to make any more than he could see his and Julia’s futures. Waiting was not one of Jasper’s talents. “How have I known you this long, and never known you’re the sort of cad who kicks a man when he’s down?”
Nick snorted. “This is hardly equal to what you’ve put me through during our friendship.”
He supposed it was what he deserved—Jasper hadn’t given Nicholas any quarter when he was heartbroken over Amelia—but he might have if he’d known what it felt like to want someone who wasn’t ready to want him back.
“What problem has presented itself that you cannot buy or charm your way out of?”
Jasper pinched the bridge of nose, toppling his king in the process. “Julia.”
Across from him, Nick went still. “Am I going to end up in another brawl?”
“No—but you might end up drinking too much while I lament my fate.”
Nick cleared the pieces away, rightly suspecting there wouldn’t be any point in another game. “I thought you two were getting on like a house fire.”
Jasper’s laugh was humorless. “We were…we are. Sort of. I care about her. It’s not going to go away, but she doesn’t believe me.”
“Tell me, Jasper.” Nick frowned down at his hands. “Have you actually done anything to prove you’re serious?”
“Apparently not, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He’d tried to give her romance and adopted a previously unheard of self-imposed celibacy, but it wasn’t enough.
“You do realize, to make an honest offer for her, you have to get your own house in order.” Nick’s grimace was almost an apology. They were in the habit of being honest with each other, but they both knew that wasn’t what Jasper wanted to hear.
Still, he couldn’t deny it. An honest offer was the least Julia deserved, and he couldn’t make it hiding from his family and his title. He had to face it, if he wanted any chance of convincing her.
“Are you going to?” Nick asked.
“Make an honest offer?” Countless affairs decorated Jasper’s past. Almost all of them were pleasant memories he thought of with fondness, but that wouldn’t be the case now. He needed Julia. He wanted to build a life with her. “Yes, I am, but there are things she and I need to work out first, though.”
Like the fact that she didn’t trust him. Or the fact that he was still grieving. They both had things to overcome, and none of them were small.
“Well.” Nick poured them both glasses of warm-amber whiskey. “A preemptive toast, then.”
“To?”
“To your finally becoming responsible.”
They clinked glasses and Jasper took a swallow. “Will I end up as boring as you are? Is that something they hand you alongside responsibility?”
“Absolutely,” Nicholas smirked. “You’d better write to your tailor and break the news that it’s all brown tweeds from here on out.”
“Percival would rather see me dead than wearing tweed.”
“My lord.” The butler’s interruption saved Jasper from Nicholas’s impending lecture on the patriotic nature of boring textiles. “Lord Bishop is here to see his daughters. I couldn’t find Lady Amelia.”
From behind him, Lord Bishop’s deep baritone rumbled. “I’ll wait in the parlor with Wakefield until my daughters turn up.”
Winslow cringed.
Nick just smiled and stood—his patience for all things Bishop was a lifelong achievement. “Bring in some brandy. Lord Bishop, it’s a wonderful surprise to have you stop by.”
“I’m just passing through on my way to Cardiff and thought I’d check on my girls—I won’t be staying.” The father of Jasper’s tormentor clapped Nicholas on the back and then turned to Jasper. “Bellamy! Or, my apologies, Your Grace. It is the Duke of Albemarle now, isn’t it?”
The question of the month.
“It’s not official yet, but I don’t think they have anyone else to give it to.” Jasper stood to shake the older man’s hand. There wasn’t much resemblance between Lord Bishop and his daughters, but there was a sharpness to the way he took in the room and everything in it that reminded Jasper of Julia. She was very perceptive, and so was her father.
“It’s a rough business, the passing of a title.” Lord Bishop nodded his condolences. “It’s a happy occasion to run into you, though. I never properly thanked you for punching that brigand that tried to blackmail my Amelia.”
“It was my pleasure.” He hadn’t realized he’d be defending the honor of his future family member. The idea of it brought a smile to his face.
The brandy arrived and they passed glances around before taking their seats. Lord Bishop chose one of the sofas, stretching out in the wide-legged posture of a man at ease.
Jasper did his best to make conversation. “Are you headed to Wales on business?”
“There’s a doctor there that published an interesting paper on the treatment of spinal conditions. I’ve arranged to speak with him about Julia.” Lord Bishop sipped his brandy. “There’s no promise that anything will come of it, but I’ve got to try.”
“Our father leaves no stone unturned where Julia’s medical care is concerned,” Amelia answered from the doorway. She kissed Lord Bishop on the cheek, pushing his knee to make room for herself beside him. “We didn’t expect to see you today.”
“Especially since you promised to leave off chasing any more doctors.” Julia followed her sister in, but chose to claim an armchair rather than squeeze in on her father’s other side.
Jasper’s breath caught at the sight of her. Patience. He’d promised to be patient.
“I know what I said, but there’s potential for some truly interesting developments. With a little bit of funding—”
“Papa, do not give that man any of your money,” Julia insisted.
“The benefit of it being my money, daughter, is that I can give it to whomever I choose.” The set of Lord Bishop’s jaw reminded Jasper of Julia in her more stubborn moments.
“Nothing ever comes of it.”
“Nothing ever will if I don’t go and see if there’s anything worth pursuing.”
Julia’s chin went up. “Am I that bad, Papa? Are you really so desperate to fix me?”
A different woman would give up the argument, or at the very least demure, but not Julia. She wasn’t cowed by anyone, not even her father. She would make an excellent duchess.
“Julia. Papa.” Amelia stepped between them, hands raised. “Perhaps this isn’t the place for this discussion. Are you staying? Maybe in the morning…”
“I just popped in to see you on my way. The carriage is waiting in the drive.”
“Running the horses to death in his frenzy to make me normal,” Julia spat.
“Enough!” Amelia insisted. “Nicholas, Jasper. Would you give us the room for a minute?”
“Of course.”
On his way out, Jasper passed behind Julia. He gave her hand a small squeeze. “Can I see you a moment?”
Julia nodded, stepping out with him. The muffled voices of Amelia and Lord Bishop reverberated through the door as they waited for Nicholas to clear the hallway.
She breathed deep. “My father is frustrating.”
“You’re maddening.”
“What?” She leaned back from him, scowling.
Jasper closed the distance, pressing their foreheads together. “You drive me mad. I want you near me every second.”
She relaxed against him, running her hands over his lapels.
“You’re wonderful,” he told her. “You know that, don’t you?”
She sighed. “Sometimes I’m not sure my father thinks so.”
He placed a quick kiss against her lips. “You know he does.”
“Well, he has an odd way of showing it.” She leaned in, resting her head against his chest. “Can I just stay like this a moment?”
A quiet contentment moved through him as he wrapped his arms around her. “As long as you like.” Forever, if you want to.
They stood quietly in the hall, leaning against each other. It brought a calm to him that had been missing for weeks.
Eventually, though, she had to step away. “All right. I have to go back in, or my father will end up bankrupting us with his misguided philanthropy.”
Jasper grinned. “Give him hell.”
“What has gotten into you?” Lord Bishop demanded. “Petulance is beneath you, Julia. You’ve never doubted that I love you exactly as you are.”
Petulance! “Why are you racing off to Wales, if not to fix me?”
Amelia sat down on the empty sofa, her face strangely expressionless. “He’s not just going to meet a doctor.”
“What? Why would he—” No. “You’re going to see Mother? That’s what this is all about?”
Lord Bishop was suddenly very interested in the carpet. “The doctor and your mother are both in Cardiff, but I haven’t decided yet if I would see her.”
Obviously, he couldn’t see her. She’d locked Amelia up and tried to ship her off to Canada in a horrendous forced marriage. “I’ll decide for you. Don’t. Don’t go at all.”
“He can go if he wants to, Jules.” Amelia’s voice was pitifully small.
“No, he can’t.” Julia sat next to Amelia and held her hand. “She did awful things to you.”
“She’s still your mother,” Lord Bishop insisted.
“Then she should have acted like it,” Julia threw back.
Once again, it was Amelia trying to be the voice of reason. “She is our mother, and she is your wife. Do you have reason to think she’s had a change of heart, Papa?”
If she even has a heart. Julia might have forgiven their mother for trying to hide her, but she would never, ever forgive her for trying to send Amelia away.
“It’s been months. I just—surely she’s seen sense by now.”
“Sense has never been Mother’s strong suit.” Julia picked up Nicholas’s abandoned brandy and downed it.
Lord Bishop looked between his daughters. “If it still hurts you that much, I won’t go. But I don’t see how any of us are going to get past this staying as we are.”
It seemed getting past things was the theme of the day. Julia sat down and took Amelia’s hand. “What do you want, Mia? You were the one who was wronged. I’ll go with whatever you decide.”
Amelia nodded slowly. “Go, then. But Papa?”
“Yes?”
“Make absolutely certain, if she says she’s changed, that she truly has.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it,” Amelia insisted. Her fingers clenched around Julia’s. “If she chooses status over her children a second time, there won’t be a third chance.”
Lord Bishop nodded his agreement. “I’ll be sure. The prospect of a titled son-in-law overwhelmed her, but all that’s past now.”
Amelia coughed. Julia sent her a glare and a not-so-subtle elbow to the ribs.
Lord Bishop saw it, his brow crinkling into a frown. He looked to the door Jasper and Nicholas had left through, and back at Julia. “Is something developing between you and Bellamy?”
Of all the times for parental instinct to kick in. The situation was complicated enough between her and Jasper without trying to explain it to her father. “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s a lot to think about.”
“Meaning,” Amelia jumped in. “My sister is a ninny who keeps trying to get in her own way.”
A smile spread across Lord Bishop’s face. “My Julia, a duchess.”
“He hasn’t asked, and even if he did, I wouldn’t say yes.” They couldn’t be together. It was all well and good to fantasize about being a duchess, but everyone in the room knew it could never happen in real life. Or they ought to, if two of them hadn’t abandoned all sense.
“Should I stay?” Lord Bishop asked. “Is it even proper for you to be here with him?”
Julia groaned. “Nothing is going to happen, good or bad, so you needn’t concern yourself.”
Amelia rolled her eyes, but she didn’t abandon Julia completely. “I’m a married woman now, Papa. It’s completely proper.”
Perhaps not completely—or even remotely. Not that her father’s presence would have stopped any of Julia’s behavior up to this point. She would just have had to lie more.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you to keep an eye on your sister, Amelia, I just—”
“Don’t trust me to keep an eye on my sister.” Amelia smirked. “Does it help to know Lady Ruby, Jasper’s sister, is also here?”
“Not to mention that Nicholas has the temperament of a scowling dowager,” Julia added.
One of those did the trick. Lord Bishop slapped his knees and stood up. “All right. I’ll trust you girls, but you also have to trust me. If I come back with your mother, will you promise to give her a chance?”
“We will,” Amelia answered.
When Julia didn’t say anything, Mia elbowed her.
“Fine,” Julia agreed. “One chance.”
They stood up and Lord Bishop kissed each daughter’s cheek. “About the other thing—you know I’m not trying to ‘fix’ you, don’t you?”
“I know.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but it was one more thing that would be too difficult to explain. She knew he loved her as she was. That was what he was really asking.
“I couldn’t forgive myself if there was something we could have done, opportunities we could have given you, that we missed.”
“I know, Papa.”
They walked him out of the parlor, into the foyer.
“I should say my good-byes to Nicholas.” Lord Bishop waggled his eyebrows at Julia. “And Lord Bellamy.”
She put her hands on his back and pushed him toward the door. “Get in your carriage, old man.”