LITMIR.BIZ

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to be involved in most of the children’s issues. Unlike many mothers, Laura didn’t relegate the children to the second-floor nursery not to be heard from until it was time to be presented to their parents. Instead, they ran openly through the house like whirlwinds, as Jane, Milton and Jasper used to do.

      ‘No, I didn’t,’ Thomas insisted, with all the seriousness of Philip and Jane. His hair was lighter like his mother’s, while his younger half-sister and -brother had the darkness of Laura’s.

      ‘William started it,’ Natalie accused.

      ‘No, I didn’t.’ The little boy took a swing at his sister and the two of them were back to squabbling.

      Jane tried not to sigh while she waited for the row to die down, but the children were insistent in their quarrel. Laura threw Jane an apologetic look which begged her to be patient, but Jane was tired of waiting. With a half-understanding smile, she left her coffee behind and fled the chaos of the dining room for the quiet of the hallway. In the past she and Mrs Hale would have crept off to the garden to discuss the matter. There was no one to speak with now. She wandered past her brother’s office to the back door leading to the garden. The Stiltons were gone and Philip sat behind his desk, speaking with his warehouse manager about some goods he’d been forced to seize from a client who’d defaulted on a loan. If Philip had been alone, she might have at last talked to him. She needed to speak with someone, to believe there might be one person who’d listen and give some attention and priority to her concerns. The truth was, there was no one.

      Jane wandered out into the garden. She stopped at the edge of the portico and took in the sun falling across the white and red roses bouncing on their stems in the light spring breeze. The sight of the flowers didn’t calm her as it usually did, it only added to her frustration. If her mother were here, she would listen and make Jane a priority as she had when she was six. But her mother and father were gone and it was her fault they’d left.

      Stop it. She sat on a bench in the centre of the garden. Frustration, anger and loneliness welled inside her until she wanted to walk through the gardens and knock each bright rose from its stem. She closed her eyes until it passed, but the disquiet accompanying it failed to ease. She wanted a place and life of her own and she had no idea how to find one.

      ‘Good morning, Jane.’ Jasper’s voice carried over the birds and the distant noise of the streets.

      She rose and turned so fast, the garden swam, but Jasper remained stable in the centre of it. ‘What are you doing here?’ She wasn’t sure if she was delighted or distressed by his unexpected arrival.

      ‘I came to see you.’

      ‘Well, I’m not sure I wish to see you.’ She crossed her arms over her chest, flattered and irritated all at once. ‘I’ve had enough of condescending gentlemen this morning.’ No matter how impeccably dressed they might be. Jasper, like young Mr Stilton, was no stranger to his tailor, but there was a muted elegance to his dress the gaudy young cheesemonger lacked.

      ‘Tell me who’s ruffled your feathers and I’ll pummel him for you.’ He said it with a smile, but she caught a hint of seriousness in the slight narrowing of his eyes. If only she could set him on Mr Stilton. The cheesemonger’s son deserved a beating.

      ‘He isn’t worth bruising your knuckles.’ A little hope fluttered in her chest. He’d risen rather early this morning to seek her out and she suspected it had something to do with last night. ‘I assume you’re here to discuss more than my morning’s conversations.’

      ‘I am.’ He motioned to the bench.

      She dropped down on the stone, the coolness of it seeping through her morning dress. He sat down beside her, the heat of his body noticeable against the chill of the spring morning. ‘Well? What brought you here?’

      Unlike most people, he didn’t flinch or scowl at her directness.

      ‘I’ve given a great deal of thought to what we discussed last night and I’ve realised you’re right.’ He stretched out his legs. His boots covered his calves before stopping just below his knees and the polish reflected the grey of the house. ‘I need your skills and talents, your knowledge of the Fleet and business. And what more could a man ask for then a friend for a wife?’

      Her heart raced so fast she thought she might have to run around the garden to calm it. He wants to marry me, to have me help him with his club.

      She smoothed the front of her dress with the air of aloof uninterest Philip had taught her to assume when haggling with difficult merchants. She might have proposed first, but she wasn’t going to jump at his offer like some desperate spinster, or allow her desire to prove people like Chester Stilton wrong lead her into another mistake. ‘So you now believe we’d be good partners?’

      ‘Yes.’ He clutched the edge of the bench with his gloved hands and flexed his fingers over the stone. ‘When I told you my secret, you didn’t hate me for it or threaten to reveal it. Instead, you understood and wanted to help. You have no idea what that means to me.’

      ‘Yes, I do.’ She’d held back from telling Philip and Laura so many truths because she didn’t want them to laugh or scoff at her. Jasper wouldn’t laugh. He never had, not even when she’d blurted out how much she’d cared for him nine years ago. He could have been cruel and taunting, but instead he’d been tender and honest, saying he didn’t feel the same way. She was glad for that now. It meant he couldn’t play on her emotions as his brother had. But his honesty didn’t extend to everyone—Jasper was willing to deceive his family about who he really was and what he did for a living. He could easily deceive her, too, about the depths of his affinity for her and his reasons for changing his mind.

      ‘With your brother’s connections we can secure a common licence and be married by the end of the week and you could start work on the Fleet Street club at once.’ He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. It flowed over her like a warm breeze. ‘Besides, I got a little taste of you the other day and I liked what I sampled. Marry me and there will be more of that, much more.’

      A chill raced along her arm and it sparked her curiosity about the more intimate aspects of a union. The idea this could become something deeper than two friends making a bargain hovered between them. It almost made her forget about her objections. Almost. ‘Be serious.’

      ‘I am serious.’ Jasper didn’t sit back, but rested one elbow on his knee, remaining tantalisingly close. ‘I thought you were, too, after your outlandish proposal which, if I know your brother, got you nothing except some bother.’

      ‘I was serious.’ She was also scared.

      ‘Then why resist now?’

      She took a deep breath, not wanting to be so vulnerable, but this was no time to hold back. Her entire future rested on this one proposal, and her getting it right this time. ‘I don’t want you to marry me out of some temporary convenience or because I’m an easy solution to your present problems. I don’t want to be forgotten or overlooked the moment you no longer need me and I don’t want you to conceal things from me the way you’ve concealed them from your family. I was embarrassed enough by your brother’s secret when it came out. I don’t want to be surprised by any of yours. I want you to be my friend, my true, real and forthright friend, like you used to be.’

      He stared down at the ground, his mirth fading.

      ‘You can’t do it, can you?’ she challenged, the prickliness she’d first greeted him with returning.

      ‘No, I can’t talk about everything I experienced in Savannah. Surely you understand.’

      She studied him and how the sun and the shadow from his hat darkened the circles under his eyes. Philip had taught her long ago to read people, but she’d never been as talented at it as he was. However, there was no mistaking the depth of Jasper’s pain, one she understood all too well. Like her, there were things he couldn’t talk about either. ‘I do.’

      She glanced over her shoulder at the spire of St Bride’s Church rising up over the house and the churchyard

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