Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“Come, Robert, you must begin,” Evelyn urged, her eyes alight with mischief as the circle settled after dinner.
The Duke of Aberon looked at his wife as though she had asked him to stand upon the table and declaim poetry. “I cannot imagine why I must be the first victim,” he said dryly.
“Because you are host,” she replied, with the kind of calm certainty only a devoted wife could wield.
Jasper, who was until that moment lounging in his chair with an expression of polite boredom that concealed a restless energy, now watched the exchange with interest. Robert was not a man easily ruffled, but Evelyn’s smile had him cornered, and Jasper almost pitied him. Almost.
Robert finally turned to his duchess with a sigh. “Very well. Evelyn, if you could only eat one dish every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
The room erupted in laughter. Hazel raised her brows. Cordelia nearly toppled from her seat in delight.
“Food?” Matilda’s voice cut through the laughter. “That is your great question?”
Evelyn shook her head, feigning despair. “I married a duke, and yet he questions me like a farmer’s boy begging for supper.”
Robert, entirely unmoved, simply smiled at her. “You need not answer if it displeases you.”
“Oh, I shall answer,” she declared, her eyes softening as she looked at him. “I would choose bread. Because it is the simplest thing in the world, yet never fails to satisfy.”
The laughter turned to knowing smiles. Even Jasper, who claimed no taste for romance, could not help noticing the tenderness in her tone. Robert leaned to press her hand, and though he said nothing, the look they shared was far louder than words.
Hazel fanned herself dramatically. “Good heavens, Evelyn, must you always make matrimony look so appealing? It is indecent.”
That earned fresh laughter. Evelyn only laughed as well, unashamed, and turned her sights upon her friend. “Very well, Hazel dear, your turn. Tell me this: if you were to wake tomorrow and find yourself a man, what would you do first?”
Hazel’s mouth dropped open, her cheeks blooming red as roses. “Evelyn!” she cried, half in scandal and half in glee. “You will ruin me with such a question.”
“Answer,” Evelyn sang sweetly, “or else you must pay a forfeit.”
“Oh, I refuse! Never shall I speak such a thought aloud.” Hazel clapped her hands over her face and shook her head so violently her curls tumbled from their pins.
Jasper leaned forward, his grin spreading. He had always thought Lady Hazel the most ungovernable of the ladies, yet now she hid her face like a schoolgirl caught whispering.
“Then a forfeit it must be,” he drawled. “Something humiliating, naturally.”
Evelyn tapped her chin. “She must compose a verse… and it must be a compliment to… Jasper!”
Hazel groaned. “I cannot rhyme. I shall sound absurd.”
“Even better!” Cordelia teased, and it drew a roar of friendly laughter.
Jasper was enjoying himself more than he cared to admit. His gaze flickered briefly to Lady Matilda, who sat composed, with her pale eyes cool and unreadable as ever. Yet her lips betrayed her with the slightest upward curve. He found, most inconveniently, that he wanted to see that smile again.
“I need a moment to compose myself,” Hazel said, clearing her throat, as she stood up before everyone.
“Of course,” Jasper arched an amused brow. “But do not imagine it will earn you mercy from us. The rhyme must stand.”
Hazel thought about it for a few moments, then she began:
“There once was a duke named Harrow,
Whose stare was both sharp and narrow,
He smiles with his dimples,
Confounds with his simples,
And struts like a proud little sparrow.”
The room erupted before she could even finish, Cordelia shrieking with delight, Evelyn doubled over in laughter, and Robert actually clapping the arm of his chair.
Jasper himself leaned back, with his hand pressed to his jaw to conceal the grin tugging at his mouth.
He had heard many flatteries in his life, most of them insincere, but never had he been compared to a sparrow.
The sheer absurdity of it pleased him beyond reason.
The applause had scarcely died down when Hazel, ever composed, turned her sharp gaze on Jasper. “Since I have fulfilled my forfeit, it is my right to pose the next question. Your Grace, what is it you most admire in a lady?”
A hum of approval circled the group. Evelyn leaned forward with bright expectation, Cordelia clasped her hands, and Robert gave a resigned little groan as if bracing himself for impropriety.
Jasper steepled his fingers, letting the silence linger longer than necessary.
He could have said kindness, grace, beauty, all the things expected of him.
But his eyes, without willing it, found Lady Matilda across the circle.
She was straight-backed, her expression carefully impassive, yet her pale-grey gaze betrayed the smallest flicker of unease under the weight of his attention.
He smiled, slow and deliberate. “I admire a lady who has the courage to speak plainly, even when she would rather retreat. A lady who does not let shyness or circumstance blind her judgment. A lady who can tell the truth, even when it is most uncomfortable.”
The company accepted this with nods and murmurs. Evelyn declared it “noble,” Cordelia sighed that it was “too serious a reply for so light a game,” and Robert muttered something about dukes always turning philosophical when asked about women.
But Jasper saw it: the faint blanch of Matilda’s cheek, the way her lips pressed together as though holding back words, the sudden sharpness in her eyes. She knew.
He inclined his head the smallest degree, acknowledging the message only she had received. It was a reminder, a challenge, perhaps even a taunt.
The laughter had scarcely settled before Jasper, with his mood high with mischief, leaned forward. “My turn, I think. Lady Matilda.”
Her eyes cut to him at once, wary as a stag hearing hounds. “Yes, Your Grace?”
He tapped his chin as though considering some weighty problem. “Tell us, if you were forced to spend an entire month in the company of one gentleman here stuck on a desert island, who would you choose?”
A chorus of delighted gasps rippled through the circle. Cordelia giggled, Hazel pursed her lips in mock solemnity, Evelyn looked gleeful, and Robert groaned.
“Harrow, must you always?”
Matilda, however, sat as still as marble. “I decline to answer.”
Jasper’s grin spread. “Then a forfeit.”
“Of course,” she said coolly. “And what humiliation do you intend for me, Your Grace?”
He spread his hands. “Simple. Outdo Lady Hazel’s ode. Compose a rhyme about me.”
The uproar was instant. Evelyn was clapping, Cordelia was squealing that it was too perfect, and Hazel was smiling with all the triumph of a general whose plan has succeeded.
Matilda’s grey eyes narrowed. “Are you so egocentric, Duke, that you require two odes to your name in a single evening?”
“Absolutely,” Jasper said, without a flicker of shame.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. But she rose, smooth and deliberate, every inch the viscountess despite the ridiculousness of the moment.
“Very well. If you demand such vanity, then hear my verse.”
She drew breath, lifted her chin, and began. “There once was a duke most insufferably—”
“Ah—nah, nah, nah,” Jasper interrupted, springing from his seat.
The room erupted again as he strode toward her, every step carrying the energy of a man who had just invented a more dangerous sport.
“No standing ode will do.” He reached her, bent low, and took her hand before she could withdraw it. His palm was warm, his grip firm yet coaxing. “I want a rhyme about my glorious self, while we are dancing the waltz.”
The company roared approval, with Cordelia declaring it genius, Hazel smirking as if she had expected nothing less and Evelyn crying: “Oh, yes, yes, she must!”
Matilda stood frozen, her hand trapped in his, her eyes wide with indignation and something perilously close to alarm. Only Jasper saw the wild flutter at her throat, only Jasper felt the slight tremor in her fingers.
He smiled down at her, all dimples and wicked delight. “Shall we, my lady?”
Jasper drew her forward, bowing with exaggerated grace as though they stood in a grand ballroom instead of a drawing room crowded with half–suppressed laughter.
Matilda, her hand still caught in his, arched a brow. “And how, pray, do you expect us to waltz without music?”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “Your voice will be my music, my lady. Simply let me lead.”
Her eyes flared in what was half outrage, half something he preferred not to name, and yet she allowed him to guide her into the open space.
He set a hand at her waist, felt the rigid line of her frame beneath silken fabric, and smiled to himself.
The company clapped in time, offering a rhythm of sorts, though to Jasper it was unnecessary.
He had all the music he needed in the heat of her blush.
They began to turn, slowly at first, then more surely as she followed his step despite her every effort not to. She kept her gaze on his shoulder, lips pressed shut. He could not resist leaning nearer.
“Well?” he murmured. “Am I to dance to silence? Or will you honor me with verse?”
Her grey eyes snapped to his, sparking with fire. He felt the thrill of it ripple through him. And then, at last, she began.
“He demanded an ode to his name,
A forfeit to heighten his fame,
So here is my song,
To prove him all wrong,
For vanity’s ever his game.”
The room erupted. Jasper blinked, his step faltering for half a beat. He had expected grudging words, stumbling effort, not a polished rhyme that landed as neatly as a rapier thrust.
Matilda’s lips twitched, her composure trembling at the edges. She pressed on.
“He struts and he boasts, with a dimple to spare,
Yet his boots are oft muddied, cravat in disrepair,
A duke he may be, with a title so grand,
But he cannot quite manage to keep out of the sand.”
A roar of applause surrounded them momentarily, but Jasper could hear nothing but the sound of her voice. His grip tightened just slightly at her waist as they spun. Shock, yes. But beneath it, something far more dangerous: admiration.
“Remarkable,” he murmured, low enough for only her to hear. “You should insult me more often, Lady Matilda. It suits you.”
Jasper leaned close, his breath warm against her ear as they turned once more across the carpet. He could feel the tension in her frame, the defiance in every line of her body, yet beneath it all, the flutter of her pulse against his palm. It tempted him past reason.
Her rhyme ended to thunderous laughter, but Jasper kept his voice low, meant for her alone. “Tell me, Lady Matilda, was it truly my arrogance that sent us tumbling into the pond? Or did you secretly wish for an excuse to let me catch you?”
Her eyes flew wide, grey as storm clouds, and in them he saw both shock and fury. Her cheeks burned with sudden color. “How dare you,” she whispered, sharp as a blade.
He smiled, entirely unrepentant. “Because it is true.”
She pulled back so abruptly that he almost lost his grip on her hand. She tore it free as though scorched, and turned to their astonished audience.
“You must excuse me. The room is warm. I need a breath of air.”
Hazel half rose at once. “Shall I come with you?”
Matilda forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. “No, dearest. I will be quite well. Only a moment.”
Before anyone could protest further, she swept from the room.
Jasper remained where he was, bowing with lazy ease as if nothing were amiss.
Yet his gaze followed her retreat, feeling a slow heat curling in his chest. He had struck a nerve.
He knew it. And though she might despise him for it, the memory of her pulse beneath his hand, her blush, her fury, her flight, every bit of it told him she felt the pull as keenly as he did.
And that knowledge was delicious.