Chapter Four
Jasper
Jasper’s eyes narrowed upon her, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “I’m sure we will find a suitable form of repayment.”
In the distance, Helena made a choking sound.
The woman nodded reasonably, as though he hadn’t said something deeply improper. “I have no doubt,” she replied.
He found it difficult to look away from her now that her vision was restored. For someone who had allegedly woken up terribly unmoored, there was a welcome surety to her now. It had only been twelve or so hours since he and his sisters had come upon her bloodied form in the road. Don’t let them get me had been the very first thing she’d said to him, and now she had the cheek to parry words with him about his ruined boots.
She was something of an enigma. A woman so lost should not appear so assured.
It meant he would never trust her fully, even as he felt himself warm in her presence like the first thawing of spring. Was it truly possible for someone to become untethered from their own mind? Did that mean she’d forgotten the distress she’d been in as well? He would not forget the fear in her eyes. That had been real. But what about the rest?
His hands still ached from the cold. It had taken longer than he’d anticipated to dig through the snow in search of her spectacles. And then joy had coursed through him when he’d found them, a feeling of elation like he had won a sizeable bet at a gambling table. He had marched through the manor, intent on using the spectacles as a means of forcing the woman to remember herself. But when he’d rushed into the Lavender Room filled with purpose, the sight of her had stolen every thought from his mind, leaving only one: she was particularly beautiful.
It was a ridiculous notion to have filling his head, especially when there were far more important matters to focus on. But he couldn’t help it. She was stunning even with a bandage covering the side of her head, even with dark bruises under her eyes, even in a too-large nightgown in the middle of a bed that seemed intolerably empty with only her in it. But it was deeper than that, too. Something about her tugged at the parts of him he’d thought long buried. Something about the way she spoke to him chipped away at the walls he had so carefully constructed.
Standing there, dumbstruck by her, he struggled to banish the thought from his mind. She was either a liar or a liability. Each possibility was reason enough to keep his distance from her. His sisters could keep him informed of her progress. He had work to do. He didn’t have time for damsels in distress.
But then she had mentioned her debt to him, and all thoughts of leaving her to Helena had faded. His reply had been a desperate attempt to make clear there was nothing transactional about his finding her spectacles or providing her with a place to recover.
And when she had teased him, a long-forgotten flicker of roguishness had flared in him. He hadn’t meant for his comment about her repayment to sound so sinful. Jasper needed to get a grip on himself, and quickly.
“I presume you have yet to recover your memory?” he asked, perhaps harsher than he’d intended.
She looked hurt by his sudden shift from playful to stern. With inhuman strength he managed to ignore the desire to put her at ease once more. “Not yet, my lord. But not even a day has passed since my injury.”
“Quite right,” said Helena, giving Jasper a look of irritation. “Take all the time you need.”
Jasper didn’t like the sound of that, but it wasn’t as if they had a choice. Where could they send her? If word got out that the Earl of Belhaven had sent an addled woman away after she was injured on his property, it would be the height of scandal, and the sort of thing that would tarnish his siblings’ prospects. Which was to say nothing of the woman’s vulnerability in her current state. There were any number of criminals and charlatans lying in wait for women like her, hoping to press a nefarious advantage and bring harm upon her.
No, he wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps she just needed some more prodding.
“My lady,” he began, causing her to wince. He paused, waiting for an explanation.
“I need a name,” she said at last, her frustration evident in her tone. “I need to start thinking of myself as someone.”
“Well, what do you suggest we call you? Since I don’t imagine you’re very close to simply remembering who you are, despite how much trouble that may save us.”
“Call me whatever you like, my lord,” she replied through gritted teeth. “I have no preference.”
Jasper was sure the honorific had never sounded quite so insulting, giving him leave to match her enmity. “What about ‘Patience,’ then, since you seem to have it in droves.”
Her cheeks reddened. “I find I have some preference, my lord.”
Jasper suppressed a smug smile. “I thought you might.”
Helena cleared her throat as if to remind them both that she was there. “There was an item in your pocket that may help shed some light.” She held out the ring. The woman accepted it eagerly, studying it as though it held all the answers.
“ JHD ,” she said aloud, though not with a tone of sudden understanding. Despite his pessimism, Jasper did his best to not visibly deflate. “This was in my pocket?”
“Yes,” Helena answered.
“It reveals very little about your identity,” Jasper pointed out.
“That much is clear,” she replied without tearing her eyes away from her careful consideration of the ring. “There is a maker’s mark inside,” she said, squinting to read the faded engraving. “B none bear the same mark,” replied Helena.
“Pity,” she said, holding her hand out and slipping the ring over her little finger, the way men wore signet rings. It fell off as soon as she turned her wrist. Furrowing her brow, she closed her hand over the ring in disappointment.
“Try your ring finger,” Jasper suggested. Her eyes widened as she slid the gold band over her finger. It fit, but barely. Her hands were very small.
“Whomever it belonged to, you must have deemed it important enough to take with you.”
She looked over to him, her spectacles slightly enlarging her gray eyes, making them appear almost unnaturally silver like when he had found her in the storm. “What if it belonged to me?”
“You think you’re JHD ?”
She looked slightly affronted. “It’s not impossible, is it? At the very least it’s a clue.” She held her hand up to gaze upon the ring, and something in Jasper’s chest snagged at the thought of her being married before he dismissed it as yet another ridiculous thought. She looked up at Helena and then back at him. “I could be a Jane,” she said, a bit defensively.
Helena nodded. “An entirely suitable name—”
“I’d have thought you more of an Elizabeth,” Jasper muttered.
Her brow creased as she considered his words. “Elizabeth Bennet?” she scoffed as she realized his meaning. “I hardly believe I possess even one tenth her cleverness.”
“But you are familiar with Jane Austen?” He didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but his patience was wearing a tad thin.
Helena sighed in annoyance. “Jasper, you’d be hard pressed to find a woman in all of England who wasn’t.”
The woman—he supposed he should start thinking of her as Jane—began to speak as she picked at the stitching on her sleeve, her gaze vacant, lost in thought. “I suspect there are two categories of memory within my mind: the first pertaining to things like my ability to speak or recollect the works of Jane Austen, memories that are either too ingrained or inconsequential to be taken from me, and then the second pertains to the things that matter a great deal more, but are perhaps the most fluid, like my sense of self or memories of my family.” She stopped the nervous fiddling and looked up at them both, clear-eyed through her pain and obvious exhaustion. “The injury couldn’t alter the first category, but devastated the second, leaving me rather adrift, I suppose.”
Jasper knew nothing of what she purported to be experiencing, and yet he recognized some of his own suffering in her words. There was an unwelcome tightness in his chest when he thought about how his own memories ruled him, and how, if given the opportunity, he might wish to rid himself of even the happy ones if it meant relief. He had too many memories while she had too few, and yet there were commonalities between them, things that could tie them together if he wasn’t careful.
Helena stepped to the bed and sat on the edge, taking the woman’s hand in hers. “Well, we do know one thing.”
Her eyes brightened a bit. “What’s that?”
“You were wrong about lacking Elizabeth Bennet’s cleverness.”
The woman smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes. Jasper could see how she was fading, and understandably so, given her injury. “So what shall it be, then? JHD ,” he mused. “Jane Harriet Danvers? Or perhaps Jane Hazel Debenham?”
The woman shook her head and then winced, raising a hand to the borders of her injury. “No, just Jane, if you please. I wouldn’t want to delve too far into fiction and build my life upon a falsehood.” She paused, seeming to reflect upon the prospect until her skin blanched. Why was it he could read her so easily? Jasper had never considered himself a particularly astute man when it came to the feelings of others. Not for lack of skill but rather a lack of interest. It wasn’t a flattering evaluation of the person he’d been before he’d met Annabelle, but it was an accurate one. She took a deep breath. “Jane somehow feels right, even if it is incorrect.”
He summoned a smile for her, quite certain that he had never referred to a woman he barely knew with such intimacy. “Jane it is, then.”
Helena stood. “We should let you rest, but can I bring you some food? A reviving broth perhaps?”
Jane had already sunk into the bed at the mere mention of rest. “Broth would be lovely,” she said, her fatigue evident.
“And your dressings will have to be changed soon—” Helena started before Jasper pulled her away from the bedside.
The two of them paused in the doorway and looked back at Jane. “She’s already asleep,” he whispered.
Helena glared at him. “No doubt exhausted by your constant interrogation,” she whispered quite harshly.
Jasper folded his arms over his chest. “I hardly think my desire to aid her can be construed as an interrogation,” he whispered back.
“And I hardly think you have any idea how to treat a convalescing guest, but I assure you it isn’t by demanding they recover on your schedule.”
“I only wish to return her to where she belongs,” he hissed. “With her family .”
“And if she has none? Are we to turn her out into the streets with little more than the clothes on her back and our sincerest wishes for a swift recovery, only somewhere else so as not to burden us?”
“That is not what I meant…” He paused, noticing Isobel over Helena’s shoulder, her attention rapt.
“Oh please don’t cease your whispered quarrelling on my account. I rather like seeing you both so lively.”
Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose, a sure sign of irritation he must have picked up from his father, since he couldn’t recall doing it before the demands of his unwanted title fell upon his shoulders. “What is it, Isobel?”
His tone must have suggested he wasn’t in the mood for whatever it was she came to tell him. “It’s nothing,” she assured him, her own falsely bright tone betraying her as she straightened.
“Isobel, please.” It was better to get whatever it was out of the way so he could focus on literally anything other than the thoughts of Jane that clouded his mind. Was she a brazen charlatan? An immensely creative fortune hunter? A madwoman? Or more distressing yet, was she someone on the run from something he couldn’t save her from? And if so, what then?
Christ, I need a distraction. He’d spent much of the last year working the land with his tenants, a backbreaking effort that had done much to silence his troubled mind. But it was winter now, the crops had long been harvested and the fields planted. There were no more fences to be mended, no more leaky roofs to be fixed. His tenants, as grateful as they had been for a helping hand, were likely tired of his zeal.
With Christmas around the corner, chaos—in the form of Freddie and August—would be descending upon them soon. Jasper shook his head, emptying all thoughts of escape from his mind. He was the Earl of Belhaven and the head of his family. Mulgrave Hall was the only place for him now.
Isobel looked like she wished to disintegrate on the spot rather than speak as a sharp bark of a rather unkind-sounding laugh echoed from below. Jasper’s blood went cold. Behind him, Helena swore for the first time in living memory.
Isobel clearly saw no reason to obfuscate any longer. “Aunt Adelaide is here,” she told them, rather uselessly.
“Who invited her?” Jasper asked, still gripped by the shock of it.
“I’d say I suspect Battersby penned one of his ‘helpful’ letters the moment you brought a broken, bleeding woman across the threshold,” said Isobel bitterly, “but even she couldn’t traverse the Channel so quickly.” She paused, her eyes widening. “Perhaps we should consider that she may have crossed riding a broomstick.”
Jasper laughed darkly, taking a moment to shut the door to Jane’s room. He turned back to his sisters, their faces both mirrors of his own shock. “So she’s a witch or it’s just disastrous timing.”
“We must do something,” said Helena, her voice small.
Jasper sighed, resigned to the misery of a rare visit from their father’s younger sister, a formidable woman the siblings had only spent scant days with over the course of their lives, as Lady Adelaide Maycott had made her home in Bordeaux. England was too pedestrian for a woman of her stature, she’d claimed.
“Short of abandoning our home and identities, I don’t believe there is much we can do, Helena.”
The sound of their aunt’s voice grew closer, and with it, Jasper’s impending sense of doom. His father had never tolerated any of their complaints about her, but Jasper knew their relationship had been strained since before any of them were born. Something about how she had treated their mother in the beginning of his parents’ courtship. The most Jasper ever got out of his father was that Aunt Adelaide had been her father’s daughter through and through. It was not a flattering comparison. She hadn’t even returned for the funerals, citing an illness Jasper had uncharitably hoped might keep her away forever.
As she entered the hallway, Jasper was certain he saw Viola’s door—which was never closed entirely, lest she “miss anything”—shut rather firmly. Battersby trailed behind her, his arms laden with her various trunks and cases, with a similarly burdened Nash behind him, no doubt roped rather forcefully into service. Adelaide’s cheeks were rosy and her shoulders dusted with snow. Her red hair glowed like firelight against the drab traveling gown she wore, and her blue eyes pierced right through them, searching for flaws or weaknesses, as she was wont to do. She looked younger than he remembered, or was it that Jasper in his weariness had caught up to her in age? Despite it all, her presence was a bit like having a part of their father returned to them. It felt like a knife to Jasper’s gut.
She paused before them, expectantly. Isobel and Helena braced themselves, but Jasper stepped around them, prepared to take the full blow of their aunt’s scrutiny.
“Welcome, Aunt. What an unexpected joy.”
“I’d say I’m rarely an expected one,” she sniffed, though there was a gleam of mischief in her eye. “I thought you could do with a visit. Wouldn’t want my nieces and nephews to face the holiday alone.”
Jasper looked out the window to the swiftly falling snow. “I would have thought the storm would slow you down.” Hoped, more like.
“ Psh ! Nothing a little grit can’t overcome.” He wondered if her coachman would agree. “Ready my room, would you, Battersby? My legs are aching and I’ll need a maid to draw me a bath.”
Battersby, who often acted as though the requirements of his position were beneath him, hopped to her service at once, disappearing down the hall for the Verdigris Room, her favorite. Nash reluctantly followed, giving the siblings an encouraging wink as he passed, leaving them at their aunt’s mercy.
“Let me get a look at you.”
It was nothing short of a demand and they heeded it quickly, forming a line for her to inspect. She walked it, beginning her assessment with Isobel.
“Too thin. Men don’t like a frail woman, despite what they may think.”
Isobel’s defiant streak, likely inherited from Adelaide herself, pushed to the surface. “I find I don’t much care for the opinions of men.”
The corners of Adelaide’s mouth tugged upward until she beat the grin into submission. “How old are you, Isobel?”
She stuck out her chin. “I turned nineteen last month.”
Adelaide tsked. “Nineteen and without a single Season under your belt.” She let the statement hang in the air ominously before moving on to Helena, her imperious gaze softening a bit. “You wear your grief upon you like a corset, my dear.” She extended her gloved hand and rested it on Helena’s shoulder. “Not that I blame you, but you must take care to loosen the laces before it smothers you.”
Jasper watched as Helena flinched with each subsequent word, and felt his anger boil over. Their aunt was not overtly malicious, they could not point to a particular cruelty, but her tone was wielded like a weapon. He’d been forced to tolerate it when he was simply Mr. Jasper Maycott, second and most wayward son of the Earl of Belhaven. But Jasper was the earl now, and he would go to war to protect his sisters from even the barest of slights.
“Aunt Adelaide, you must be exhausted from your long journey. Perhaps a rest before supper is in order.” He gave her a half bow out of respect and moved to take her arm in his. “Please allow me to escort—”
“Not so fast, boy.” She stood as firmly as a mighty oak. “There are a hundred things I could say to you , but I wish to see the girl first.”
So Battersby had ensured she was informed. The desire to protect Jane from his aunt’s clutches flared in his chest. “She is resting.”
Adelaide shook her head. “I must see her—”
“She doesn’t need to be seen, Aunt,” he replied as sternly as he dared, not knowing how much his aunt knew about the state of Jane’s mind, but wanting to protect her regardless. “She needs rest.”
She gave him a look so cold it seemed to darken the hall. “What she needs is a chaperone.” The word hung heavily between them, a reminder to Jasper of what was truly at stake. Adelaide continued, sensing his weakness. “Because as soon as word gets out that an unaccompanied, unwed woman has taken up residence in the home of the Earl of Belhaven without the benefit and protection of a chaperone, your options will be limited to either marrying her or ruining her.”
If pressed, Jasper would have had to admit that she was right, and that he should have thought of the matter first. Helena was a widow and could have served as one if needed, but he knew from his days as a rake that the most unimpeachable chaperone in the eyes of those who counted was a spinster aunt with a spine of steel.
Much like the woman standing before him, who looked at him as though he were an intolerable fool. And perhaps she was right. The issue with Jane was precarious indeed, but nearly all of the risk fell on her shoulders. He pictured her again, bandaged and bruised in that ocean of a bed.
He scratched his neck, feeling very exposed. “We seek only to protect her.”
It had been the wrong thing to say, judging by Adelaide’s exasperated expression. “And tell me, nephew, who will be protecting you ?”
The question fell with the heaviness of a cudgel, and even Jasper had to admit it was a fair one.