Chapter Eighteen
His grandmother was every inch the duchess, even in grief. She sat on the edge of the Duke’s bed, holding his hand and smiling down at him. Tears ran down her cheeks, but her spine stayed straight. Her shoulders never hunched.
“It’s all right, Edward. It’s all right, now. Everything will be all right.”
The wheeze of his grandfather’s breath filled the room. It was an ever-slowing metronome. They all subconsciously counted the beats between.
“Jasper,” his grandfather rasped.
Jasper stepped forward, leaning in over his grandmother’s shoulder. “I’m here.”
“Remember what I told you.” The words were a struggle. Each pause seemed like the next word would never come. “I’m so proud of you. Both of you. My remarkable grandchildren.”
Behind him, Ruby began to cry. Soft, muffled sobs.
“Lillian?”
His grandmother lifted the Duke’s hand. “Yes, my love.”
“I will count every minute without you, but don’t hurry. I’ve never minded waiting for you.”
Sitting by Julia’s bedside was a unique agony, but he stayed. Even though he wanted to run off to a pub or the continent, and do anything but sit still and watch her suffer—he stayed. He told himself this wasn’t like the last bedside he’d sat next to. Julia would be all right. Everyone said so. She was strong and stubborn, and she’d come through this before. He knew that, but it didn’t stop the memories from toying with him in the silence of the night.
It didn’t stop him from thinking about Ruby, either, or the way she used to beg him not to go before he set off on one of his wild adventures. She had stopped begging a few years ago. Now she just glared, or lectured. The truth was—Ruby never did anything dangerous, so Jasper had never had to spend an anxious night worrying over her. If it felt anything like this, he owed her an apology. Or twenty.
Nora’s coming and going broke up his reminiscing. Eventually she stopped bustling about and took a chair by the fire. Jasper watched Julia, sleeping restlessly. Nora watched him.
“I can’t quite figure you out,” the maid said eventually.
“How’s that?”
“You’re a rake through and through—that much I know. But rakes don’t stay when it stops being fun and easy.”
Jasper didn’t owe her any explanations, but he was growing tired of everyone making assumptions about his character. “I believe in living life to its fullest potential. Taking pleasure where you find it.”
Nora scowled.
“And embracing love with an open heart when you find that.”
“Is that what you’ve found with my lady?”
“Yes.” He loved her. He wasn’t going to change his mind. There were certainly less complicated women for Jasper to love, but this was the one who had stolen his heart with quick wit and reckless inclinations.
Nora blinked at him. “If she couldn’t give you children, would you still want her?”
The question hit him like a jolt. He hadn’t thought as far as children, for himself or for them. He thought about it now, but it didn’t change anything.
“Is Julia barren?”
“Don’t know. Maybe. Could be.”
“I don’t need children. Pregnancy would be harder on her than most, wouldn’t it?”
“A duke needs an heir.”
“I need Julia. My sister’s children can have the title.” In fact, that wasn’t a half-bad plan. Ruby needed some sort of motivation to get her to the altar, and she was abysmally dedicated to being responsible.
Nora’s eyes narrowed. “What if the time comes that Lady Julia can’t walk?”
Another thing he hadn’t considered. “We’ll figure something out.”
Nora wasn’t finished. “She can’t go flying off on spontaneous adventures. There is a schedule she has to follow.”
“I’m learning it.”
“Traveling is difficult.” Nora pinned him with the intensity of her stare. “It might kill her.”
Looking at Julia, pale as the sheets beneath her, he knew he would do everything in his power to keep that from happening. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t. But she liked being cooped up about as much as he did. He knew from experience there was far more to life than being safe. No amount of security would satisfy her if she never truly got to live.
“We’ll take it slow, and I’ll hire excellent doctors to travel with us. And you, if you’ll come.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t stay in England? It’s safer for her here.”
“If she wants to travel, I’ll take her, and we’ll make it as safe as we can.”
Nora sighed. “Of course I’ll come. It’ll take years off my life, but no one else can manage her sass.”
It didn’t escape Jasper that Nora was no longer speaking in the hypothetical. Whatever test she’d been administering, he appeared to have passed it.
“Nora—” He wouldn’t move away from the bed, so he tried to impart his words with the gravity he intended. “I will cherish her with everything I am and everything I have.”
“Will you marry her?” The maid’s pursed lips and narrowed eyes made him nervous.
“If she’ll let me.” She loved him. It was a start.
“I suppose that will do.”
Eventually the worst of it passed. Her fever was coming and going in bursts, and her entire body ached like she’d been run down by a carriage, but there were hours where she felt significantly less miserable. It was during one of the wretched hours when Jasper came to sit by her bed, but Julia was not in the mood to be good company.
“Go away,” she groaned. “I’m hideous.”
“You’re lovely. Shall I read to you?”
Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, her head ached, and it felt like her eyeballs were on fire. “All of Amelia and Nick’s stories are boring.”
“It’s fortunate, then, that I have a few of my own.” His cheerfulness was abhorrent. “We have a story about a pirate, one about an unapologetic prostitute, and the memoir of a dashing young gentleman traveling the far east.”
Unapologetic prostitute sounded promising, but Julia refused to be tempted. “No books.”
The mattress dipped down next to her. He didn’t say anything, but she felt the tie at the end of her braid coming undone and his fingers threading through the strands. He combed through her hair, tugging on the ends. His fingers massaged the column of her neck and the space around her ears.
Julia sighed and rolled over, into the space under his arm. “I’m sorry I’m awful.”
“Don’t be. I expect you to be gracious when I’m awful. I’m a terrible patient.”
He likely was. They had a great deal in common; limited patience and a tendency toward drama. The implication that they would have the kind of future where she could take care of him made her snuggle in closer to his chest.
Nora cleared her throat. Julia groaned. Jasper’s chuckle vibrated under her cheek.
“Come on. Ignoring the schedule is how we got here.” He extricated himself from Julia’s grasp and stood up. “Tea or broth this time?”
“Let’s try some broth,” Nora answered. “I’ll crack the door when it’s all right for you to come back in.”
He kissed Julia’s cheek and headed down to the kitchens.
The chamber pot ritual took twice as long when she felt poorly, and it happened twice as frequently with Nora and Jasper pumping her full of liquids any time she stopped protesting for a moment.
“That man of yours is coming along, I think.” Nora changed out the bedclothes with brisk efficiency.
“You shouldn’t use him like a servant. He’s a duke.” The edge of her vision started to go dark. She grabbed Nora’s arm for support.
“Have I ever asked him to do anything? He takes it on himself.”
It was true—and strange. He’d woven himself so neatly into her and Nora’s routine. No one except Amelia had ever seen so far beyond the facade she put up.
Nora tucked her back beneath the sheets, and then opened the door for Jasper. He came through carrying a tray with a steaming bowl on it.
Julia shook her head. “I can’t.”
He set the tray aside. Julia motioned for him to join her and made room for him on the bed as he took off his jacket. When she was settled back in against his chest, he picked up a book.
“Reprobate’s log, day one.”
Julia laughed.
“We’ve only just left port and already I feel better. London has lost its charm, so I am off to greener pastures…”
They’d made it through many pages of exaggerated observation when the author made mention of his sister—Ruby.
“Which book did you say this was?” she asked.
“The memoir of a dashing young gentleman.” He tried to pick up where he left off, but Julia pinched him.
“You’re reading me your diary!”
“It’s quite riveting.”
“You are an incurable egotist,” she laughed. “Read me one of the other ones.”
“Which would you prefer, unapologetic prostitute or pirate story?”
“Pirate story.”
He flipped through the book he was holding, finding a new page. “Reprobates log, day seventy-five. I believe we are under attack.”
Julia pinched him. “That’s still your diary.”
“I only brought one book, love.” The man was incorrigible.
“So, the unapologetic prostitute…”
“Much later in the sequence of events. Well after the pirates. Her name was Delphine—I think you’d have liked her.”
Julia wasn’t so sure about that, now that she knew these were accounts of Jasper’s actual adventures. “Read me that one, then.”
He didn’t get a chance. A footman came to the door to tell Jasper there was a messenger waiting to hand-deliver an envelope for him. She felt Jasper’s body tense beneath her.
“Is it a royal messenger?” Jasper asked.
“It is, my lord.”
Jasper kissed her forehead again and made his excuses.
She would have followed him if she weren’t certain to end up face down in the hallway. Did he know what the message was about? He appeared to have been expecting it. Why hadn’t he said anything? But one did not leave a royal messenger languishing in the foyer.
Instead, she let him go without comment and turned her silent questions to the ceiling. A royal messenger could not be good news for her. In the best-case scenario, it had nothing to do with her and the queen was finally getting around to dressing him down for his behavior at his summons to Parliament.
In the worst case, Victoria had heard about them—likely from Ruby—and was commanding her cousin to stay away from scandalous Julia Bishop. Julia wouldn’t put it past Ruby, especially not after her failed bribe.
If the queen did command him to stay away, would he do it? He said he loved her, but you didn’t just ignore a direct order from the queen. How could she hope to keep him if the crown was set against them?
She never should have let herself love him.