A Lady Would Know Better

Chapter Eleven

Jane

Warming up was taking far longer than Jane was willing to admit.

She sat bundled before the hearth, inching ever closer, hoping the Earl of Belhaven didn’t notice how her limbs shook and her teeth chattered beneath the protective shawl of blankets Isobel had wrapped around her.

Perhaps her hasty departure into the thick of a storm had been a mistake, but it wasn’t as though she was going to tell Jasper he was right. Surely the man knew it already. It would do her pride no good to speak of it again.

“Cold, Jane?” he asked, reading her thoughts.

She made a show of shrugging out of the nest of blankets. “Why, it’s positively tropical in here.”

They sat in one of Mulgrave Hall’s parlors (she assumed a manor of its size had many), toasting themselves before a roaring fire. Jasper was seeing to his earlish duties, reading from an intimidating stack of correspondence, his brow furrowed in mild irritation. Jane was relieved she wasn’t the cause of it, for once. Helena had departed to see to her own duties, but not before hastily introducing Jane to August and Freddie, the former as cocksure then as he had sounded in the library, the latter even more timid than she had surmised, though it seemed that Maycott men did not come in a homely variety: they were both handsome, with dark hair and light eyes, but August was tanned and freckled, and Freddie a great deal paler. Once introductions were made, Helena had tasked her brothers with various duties, leaving only Isobel, who dozed on the settee, and Viola, who tossed a string of yarn for Mr. Darcy to chase, the kitten having taken quite quickly to his new, pampered life.

Jane thought his name was a nice touch. It had come to her in a fit of inspiration, and the look on Jasper’s face when she’d announced it had almost made the entire frigid endeavor worth it. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t currently freezing. Could someone become permanently cold, she wondered, as Jasper stood up from the desk and walked toward the fire.

Ha , she thought. At least he’s as cold as I am.

But he bent to the woodpile and tossed another log on the fire, looking back at her with something resembling concern on his face.

So the stern bastard wasn’t doing it for himself. She made an effort to look less chilled but deemed it likely pointless before shifting even closer to the flames.

“I have an idea,” announced Viola, standing and depositing Mr. Darcy in Jane’s lap. “I’ll be back.”

“Brace yourselves,” Isobel muttered absently from the settee, her eyes closed and head resting on a pillow.

Playing with the kitten did much to warm Jane, but she knew the creature must be starving. As if conjured, a maid appeared with a saucer of milk from the kitchens, one that Jane had not requested.

She looked questioningly toward Jasper, who shrugged.

“I suspect he’s hungry,” he offered noncommittally before shuffling the papers on his desk.

Mr. Darcy lapped up the milk eagerly. “How thoughtful,” she remarked lightly.

“Don’t go thinking this means I’ve warmed to him.” He pointed his finger in warning, not looking up from his work.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him.

Satisfied, the kitten settled back into her lap and promptly fell asleep, and without his frenzied energy or Viola’s constant stream of conversation, the room felt entirely too quiet. Jane wracked her mind for something appropriate and neutral to say to fill the growing silence, but the only thing she could think of was how good it had felt to be in Jasper’s arms. She had been chilled to the bone when he reached her, but it had taken hardly any time at all for the heat in her belly to spread all the way to her toes as they’d argued, stepping closer together until they could step no more. The storm had raged on around them, but Jane had felt none of that cold.

She’d suspected that Jasper’s passion would eclipse the fury she elicited in him, and she’d been right. There had been something in the way he had stood his ground, letting her close the distance. Jasper had let himself feel rather than flee, and meeting him in the middle hadn’t been a choice she’d made so much as a compulsion that ruled her, forcing her to close the gap as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Her mind had emptied save for one theory that begged to be proven true: she belonged in his arms, as he belonged in hers, and she wouldn’t deny either of them any longer.

Emboldened, Jane had taken what she desired greedily, bringing her hands to his chest, not knowing if she’d ever get the chance again. He had felt so hard against her softness, so steady, as if an earthquake could not shake him. And when his arms had wrapped around her waist and he’d pulled her tight against the firmness of him, her sanity had left her.

No, Jasper Maycott did not do things by half.

Sitting in the parlor, Jane wondered if the Earl of Belhaven knew how close she’d been to erasing what little distance had remained between them and pressing her lips to his. She had spent sinful moments imagining how it might feel to be in Jasper Maycott’s arms, but the reality had been all the more tempting.

He’d been right, it was madness. But she couldn’t bring herself to regret it, even though she knew he did.

And so, Belhaven needed to stop coming to her rescue before the debt between them became impossible to repay. Or perhaps she was the one who should stop needing to be rescued. After all, Jane had first awoken in Mulgrave Hall with one essential truth woven into her bones: she was not the type of woman prone to setting off into the unknown without a plan. Whatever had befallen her on the road to Wrayford had been an anomaly. An aberration from her normal course. That knowledge had been the first thing she could cling to.

And yet she now had ample evidence to the contrary. Perhaps she was that kind of woman.

Or perhaps the Earl of Belhaven brought out the absolute worst in her.

She felt the heat of his gaze before she knew he was looking at her, as though he knew the very nature of her thoughts. Can he read me so easily? Does he think of me the way I do him?

She met his eye boldly. How could she not, after the embrace they had shared?

The truth was, she wanted so much more than an embrace from Jasper. She wanted everything he had to offer—the wicked heat of his gaze, his soft lips trailing across her skin, his hands exploring parts of her she hadn’t considered sharing before…

Jasper cleared his throat and studiously returned to the papers before him, breaking whatever spell had taken hold of her. Jane was shocked to discover she had been touching her neck, tracing the line she desired Jasper’s lips to take. Suddenly, the room was intolerably hot. She needed a gulp of water or a plunge into an icy bath if the mere thought of Jasper had her behaving like a wanton.

He had made his own feelings abundantly clear, and she could not blame him for setting a boundary. It didn’t matter what either of them wanted when so much of Jane’s life remained a mystery. She would simply have to stop thinking about how it felt to be held by him, or imagining what could have happened if she hadn’t brought up her minor, inconsequential discomfort.

“Well, I think we’ve learned a thing or two about jumping to conclusions,” began Isobel, thereby dousing the heat that threatened to consume Jane.

“Couldn’t agree more,” replied Jane too brightly.

“You’ve never been more right, Izzie,” replied Jasper at the same time.

She sat up and looked at them both suspiciously, seeming to piece entirely too much together from their brief exchange. “What exactly happened—”

But they were spared by the sudden reappearance of Viola, who clutched a heavy red book in her arms.

“Oh, Viola,” said Isobel, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think any of us are ready for another treatise on the decline of the aristocracy—”

“I haven’t brought it out for that,” Viola interrupted defensively. “I thought we might read through the D s, see if Miss Jane recognizes any of the names, seeing as we’ve yet to identify who JHD is.”

Isobel narrowed her eyes at her younger sister. “How do you know about that?”

Viola shrugged. “You all speak over me as though I cannot hear you. It isn’t my fault that I pay attention.”

“Indeed,” Jasper added. “Rather it is ours for underestimating you.”

Viola preened and then noticed Jane’s bewildered expression. “This is Burke’s Peerage . It’s an exhaustive list of all the aristocracy. Family trees, ducal lineages, things like that.” She placed the heavy book on the side table and opened it with practiced ease, landing on a page with the name “Renwick” emblazoned in the top left corner. Sensing Jane’s hesitation, Viola continued. “It’s really quite interesting, you can trace families—”

“Viola, Jane does not care for the utility of Burke’s , I assure you,” Isobel interrupted. “Surely no one cares for it as much as you.”

Viola gave Jane a sheepish look. “I like to know things.”

Jane leaned in conspiratorially. “Speaking as someone who currently knows very little, I understand completely.”

Viola brightened. “I care little about rank or titles. I simply like to know how it fits together. The Ton is a puzzle, you see. A lot can be learned from the pages in this book.”

Jane imagined it would take weeks of dedicated study to get through the weighty tome. “Have you read it all, then?”

Viola nodded. “This is our most recent edition, probably obtained by my grandmother, who cared very much about rank and titles.” She closed the book and pointed to a gilded 1843 on the cover.

“You mean to tell me they publish this annually?” asked Jane.

Isobel gave her a sardonic stare. “A book listing the blue-blooded lineages of the Ton? I’m surprised they don’t publish it seasonally. Better yet, immediately after an advantageous match is made. Why, the impatient mothers of American heiresses would be overjoyed if they didn’t have to wait an entire year to see their daughter’s names listed beside the titles their fortunes bought for them.”

By then, Viola had found the beginning of the D s. “Shall I begin reading them aloud?”

Jane hesitated, and the ever-observant Jasper noticed her discomfort. “You needn’t take part, Jane, if you don’t think anything useful will come of it.”

But Jane suspected that hearing her surname would knock her memories back into place, and she was keen to test the theory. She just didn’t know if this was the best way to do so. “I only worry that you won’t find my surname in there. It is for aristocrats, after all.”

“Well, it’s not as though you’ll be punished either way,” Isobel assured her. “Read away, Viola.”

Jasper caught Jane’s eye from across the room and gave her a small but reassuring smile. It was a welcome departure from his previous impatience to see her memories restored. The smile suggested to Jane that there was time to discover who she really was. Time she hadn’t felt like she’d had before.

“Stop me if something sounds familiar,” said Viola before clearing her throat and beginning. “ Dalhousie, Dalrymple, Darnley, Dartmouth .” She paused and looked up at Jane, who shook her head. “ Dashwood, Davy, De Bathe …”

On and on it went, with none of the names sparking a single memory. Mr. Darcy was up and about again, causing mischief and seeking more milk from the saucer. Viola soldiered on until the very end, never wavering in her dedication to solving the mystery of Jane-without-a-surname.

“ Dunmore, Dunraven, Dunsany, Durrant, Dyer , and Dynevor .” She looked at Jane once more, who gave her customary shake of the head, before closing the book rather firmly, waking Isobel from her stupor.

“Any progress?” she asked blearily.

“I’m afraid not,” Jane confessed. Wanting to end on a more productive note, she looked to Viola. “Will you show me your family’s entry?”

Viola lit up and opened the book at once. “You won’t find our names in it, we’d need a later edition for that, and even still they’d likely only name the eldest son, but our father’s name is listed as the heir…” She trailed off, having found the right page. “I suppose the most recent edition would name Jasper as the earl.”

She turned and pushed the book toward Jane as the rest of the room failed to acknowledge the heaviness of what she had said. At the top of the left-hand column was the name she had been seeking.

BELHAVEN, EARL OF, (Augustus William Maycott,) Viscount Belhaven and Baron Wrayford, of Wrayford in the county of Surrey, m. in 1824 to Caroline Helena, daughter of John, 4 th and late Earl of Lorraine, by whom he has issue Stephen Augustus, Viscount Belhaven, b. 17 th March, 1826, and one daughter. Succeeded to the family honors upon the demise of his father on 11 th June, 1820.

This ancient and illustrious house is descended from

ROBERT DE MORTAGNE, who, in the eleventh century, was Lord of Mortagne, in Normandy. The successor of this nobleman was his son,

RICHARD, who accompanied the Conqueror to England, and distinguished himself at the decisive Battle of Hastings, subsequently obtained a large portion of the spoil, in numerous English lordships.

Jane’s vision blurred at the exhaustive lineage that followed, but the most pertinent information stood out starkly. “The earldom dates back to William the Conqueror?” she asked, unable to keep her voice neutral.

“Conferred upon our ancestor by King Henry II himself,” Isobel replied, her own tone sarcastic. “Our grandparents never let anyone forget it, whereas our father made sure we understood it didn’t mean much.”

“No?” asked Jane. “I would have thought such a lineage would mean a great deal.”

“To the wrong kind of people,” said Jasper, not looking up from his papers.

“Our father was something of a radical,” said Isobel with a grin. “The Ton didn’t know what to do with him, but our mother ensured that they always had a place in the ballrooms of Mayfair. People loved her a great deal, you see.”

Viola sniffed at the mention of her parents. Jane placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, not caring if the gesture was improper, especially when the girl leaned into her palm, seeking comfort. “Do you have any portraits of them? I’d dearly like to see them.”

“Oh, but you haven’t been to the gallery!” exclaimed Isobel.

“You simply must see it!” cried Viola, clapping her hands together in glee.

“Will you take me?” Jane asked, but before they could reply, Battersby appeared at the door, his face looking particularly pinched, like he had sucked on a lemon before entering the room.

“Lady Isobel, Lady Viola, Lady Adelaide has requested you attend tea in her chambers.”

They both wilted, but they could not refuse a summons, especially not one from Lady Adelaide. Jane was immeasurably relieved to have been left out.

“You can take me another time,” she reassured them.

“Nonsense,” replied Isobel, her grin alight with mischief. “Jasper can take you.” Jasper grunted behind them, but Isobel was undeterred. “Who knows how long we’ll be stuck at tea? Taking Jane on a tour of the gallery is the least you can do after calling her an unworldly—”

“That is quite enough, Isobel,” Jasper interrupted. “We were all there.”

“I wasn’t,” argued Viola.

Isobel gave her a look that suggested she’d fill her in shortly, before continuing. “And besides, you so enjoyed seeing the Ferg and the other paintings in the rest of the manor.” Battersby cleared his throat and Isobel and Viola moved to depart. “Did you know Gainsborough was induced to paint some four of our ancestors long after he’d transitioned to landscapes? Think of the cost!”

It was true that Jane desired to see the gallery, but she didn’t wish to force Jasper into it.

But it seemed she wouldn’t have to. He set down his papers and looked right at her. “I need to see to this list of supplies for Charlie Smithfield and his mother, but then we shall visit the Gainsboroughs.”

“Don’t forget the van Dycks!” called Isobel over her shoulder. “And the Dobson, and the Lely!”

“The tour will be robust, Isobel, I assure you,” Jasper called absently after her, already penning his list.

As Jane waited for Jasper to finish, her eyes drifted back to the lineage of his family. It seemed to go on forever, spanning more than two columns and spilling over to the next page. It wasn’t every aristocratic family that could trace the roots of their nobility back to the days of William the Conqueror. At last she came to the end of the entry, where something other than a man’s name caught her eye.

Motto—We endure.

When she thought of everything the Maycotts had been through, she couldn’t help but find the maxim apt, though she wondered which came first, the words or the lived reality. Had generations of ill-fated Maycotts suffered innumerable tragedies? Or had the adage been adopted as an aspiration, only to become more cruelly fitting as time went on?

She looked up at Jasper, his head bent over the desk, the perfect image of endurance. He was a man who knew how to keep going, how to forge ahead through adversity. But what good was endurance if one forgot how to live?

She looked back at the Earl of Belhaven entry and wondered what the entry looked like in its most recent iteration, with Jasper’s name etched permanently as the earl.

Succeeded to the family honors upon the demise of his father.

So simple a phrase for something so tragic. Again, she found herself wishing she had met the old Jasper, the one without an earldom on his shoulders, the one who wasn’t left to raise his siblings at so young an age. But by the same token, she felt lucky to know this version of him, too.

“Ready?” She jumped a little, startled by his sudden closeness. He laid his hand on her shoulder to steady her, managing to send a wave of calm through her. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You didn’t.” Her hand rose to cover his without conscious effort. Neither of them wore gloves. He pulled away first, almost reluctantly, and when he dropped his hand to his side, he flexed it as though she had burned him.

“Shall we?” he asked, his voice rough.

Her cheeks heated. “The supplies will be procured, then? For Charlie Smithfield and his mother?”

He nodded. “They won’t go without coal again; I’ve made sure of it.”

“Among other comforts, I’d wager,” she added.

He didn’t disagree. Jane imagined a much-overburdened wagon would be making its way to the farm at the earliest possibility, which gave her a sense of relief for the boy and his mother. He had seemed so small there in the road, with his quarry hung over his narrow shoulders. She hoped he’d lit a roaring fire when he got home, knowing the Earl of Belhaven would be replenishing their stores of fuel the next day. Seeing Jasper’s unconscious generosity on display had warmed her heart. It wasn’t often a nobleman concerned himself with the plights of the less fortunate.

The silence between them stretched rather thin while Jane pondered his virtues. She cleared her throat, desperately seeking a new subject for them to broach. In that very moment, Mr. Darcy scampered up the leg of Jasper’s trousers, clinging precariously to the front of his vest. Jasper looked at the creature bemusedly as he wailed the world’s squeakiest wail.

“He does not wish to be left out,” Jane translated.

Rather than depositing the kitten on the nearest cushion like she thought he would, he simply perched Mr. Darcy upon his shoulder and began to walk.

“What if he falls?” Jane asked, scurrying to catch up.

“He’ll learn quickly not to.”

They walked in somewhat strained silence all the way to the gallery, which was mercifully not very far. Mr. Darcy adapted quickly to Jasper’s cadence and looked quite cozy there on his shoulder.

Jasper paused at the threshold and beckoned her to enter before him, bowing slightly as she passed, stilted, so as not to disturb the kitten. It was rather formal for them after the events of the storm, but perhaps formal was the direction they should be heading in. They needed to build back the walls that had come down between them. She passed him with a straight spine and a polite nod. So very proper.

But Jane’s breath caught in her chest the moment she stepped through the doors. The gallery was immense, its proportions difficult to take in all at once. Her eyes flew from painting to painting, not sure of where to settle first.

Where the rest of Mulgrave Hall was for the paintings acquired by the former earl—the storied works of Dutch Masters or masterpieces crafted by penniless apprentices—the gallery was its living, breathing history, a room dedicated to the Belhaven lineage, dating back centuries, as far as she could tell. It was a stark reminder of what Jane sorely lacked.

She pushed that feeling aside in order to devour the visual feast that was before her, terribly overwhelmed as she was.

The storm clouds outside did nothing to add to the light of the room, but Jane imagined that sunlight would have painted the walls and their blanketed canvases brilliantly. Some were the length and width of the walls themselves, depicting past earls in the heat of glorious, bloody battles or breathtaking portraits set against pastoral landscapes so real she could smell the summer wind in the air.

After depositing Mr. Darcy on a plush armchair and dutifully pointing out the Gainsboroughs, the Lely, the van Dycks, and the Dobson, Jasper seemed content to let her wander, and so she did, from painting to painting, ancestor to ancestor, some bearing the same title as Jasper, others marrying into the bloodline with even grander ones behind them. All of them connected, bound together by the blood in their veins.

It wasn’t long before a queer feeling of loss came over her. Jane had believed there were things that tied she and Jasper together, things they felt more acutely than others, things that could not necessarily be put into words but could be sensed, perhaps. A shared understanding of grief, of feeling adrift.

It almost seemed a betrayal to discover how very rooted he was. How, if he ever felt unsure of his place in the world, he could simply walk to this gallery and be reminded of the centuries of solidity that held him up. Jane didn’t have anything like that to lean on, and she felt that disparity to her core.

It was the most alone she had felt since arriving at Mulgrave Hall.

Eventually, she came to a dominant portrait of three men positioned menacingly above her. One had Jasper’s chin, the other his nose, all three possessed his eyes, though none had his warmth. Ancestors, to be sure, but she didn’t think any of them were his father, a man purported to have been kindhearted. None of these men could claim the attribute, if the artist had painted them honestly.

Jasper came up behind her and spoke over her shoulder. “Remember the Belhaven entry?” he asked, his breath warming her neck. She nodded, not sure if she’d be able to speak. “The youngest is Augustus, my grandfather. That’s his father, Bartholomew.” He pointed, his arm coming around her. “And the oldest is Bart’s father, Laurence. All of them were, by most accounts, cruel, indifferent men.”

“The painting all but screams that,” she remarked as she studied their expressions, noting the peculiar, haughty angles of their chins, the way their shoulders were braced as if for attack, and how the artist managed to convey disdain in the lines of their mouths. It was a painting that most likely pleased its subjects and spoke the truth of them to those who chose to see it. A masterful work, really.

Jasper hadn’t moved away, formality be damned. She felt his presence as though they were pressed together like they had been in the storm. Her body remembered everything about those stolen moments, and the aching need that had accompanied her since they’d parted.

“My father rejected the things that my grandfather valued most. My mother was the daughter of a well-to-do landowner, but my grandfather expected nothing less than a viscount’s daughter for his son. It didn’t matter that my mother defied his predictions and was embraced by the Ton. In his mind, the Maycott name had been tarnished, and it fractured his relationship with my father. Even my aunt Adelaide treated my mother poorly at first, and my father never forgave her for it.” He let out a bitter laugh. “The irony is my grandfather’s cold dismissal is likely what made my father so determined that we would have a place in Society.” He let out a small huff, as though coming to a realization. “I do believe if my grandfather had lived to see my father’s successes, he would have been proud of him.”

Jane paused, unsure if she should speak the words on the tip of her tongue. In the end, she decided she had nothing to lose. She turned her head, not quite looking at him. “I suspect the same could be said of your father and your successes.”

Jasper did not speak for a long while, though he likewise did not move from her side. Eventually, he sighed. “I’m not sure he’d agree with you, and besides, we were never fractured like they were. I was the spare, after all.”

It seemed a prevarication to Jane, but she wasn’t about to quarrel with him over it. He stepped away at last, and Jane turned to face him, noting that Mr. Darcy was playing rather violently with a curtain’s tassel over Jasper’s shoulder.

He held his arms out and gave her a grin that did not quite reach his eyes. “Well, Jane, was it all you wished for? I know Isobel did her best to sell it to you, but it is merely a farce designed by my ancestors to justify our place in the world.”

She knew he spoke lightly, almost teasingly of the grandeur around them, but she found she could not jest in return. She took a deep breath, letting her lungs empty entirely before speaking. “In truth, I find myself somewhat disturbed by the inequity between us, my lord.”

He frowned. “Because of your missing memories?”

She tilted her head at him. “You cannot deny that I am at a disadvantage.”

“And why is that?”

She gestured to the vastness of Mulgrave Hall’s gallery. “You know exactly who you are and where you came from. Your bloodline has doubtless imbued you with an ironclad sense of self.” Jasper might like to pretend that he was different from the Ton, not so absorbed in pedigree and lineage as the rest of them, but he still benefited from it. “Your family fought at the bloody Battle of Hastings.”

Jasper stepped a bit closer, his brow furrowed. “And who is to say you don’t possess a similar blood in your veins, Jane? Who is to say that the woman who is veiled from you is not as sure of herself as you perceive me to be?” He leveled her with his hard gaze, his sternness back in full force. “And how can you hold it against me?”

A part of her wanted to assure him that she didn’t, but Jane was tired of his dogged persistence in believing she was secretly a noblewoman, and how she had begun to suspect that he needed her to be, and that everything would change when they discovered otherwise. “I am a mere woman in a world built by men,” she began. “The women in these portraits held little value beyond what they could offer their husbands.”

He nodded. “A sad truth, but that is the way of the world.”

“But what if a woman has nothing to offer the man she loves?” she asked, her voice a bit smaller than it had been before.

“What if the same could be said for the man? Surely you know the inequity can work both ways, Jane.”

She hadn’t expected that response. “Why, then true love would be separated, I suppose.”

He paused, taken aback. “Do you believe in it?”

“True love? Of course,” she replied incredulously. “How could you not, when your own parents were said to be a love match?”

He grimaced at her words. “Their love did not protect them. True love could not save them.”

It was then that she understood his hesitance. Jasper may have been born into a prestigious bloodline, but it was loss that shaped him. And Jane was familiar with loss; it was what they shared, the feeling that tied them together. But as relieved as she was to find the connection again, she was all the sadder for them both.

“I’m not sure we can place the blame on love, Jasper,” she replied softly.

“Where, then?” he asked, drawing his mouth to a firm line.

She searched her mind for an answer to a philosophical quandary that neither man nor religion had fully satisfied yet. “The indifferent stars? The cruel hand of fate?” she offered. “Humanity has spent millennia fighting both, Jasper. I daresay it is love that makes the fight worthwhile.”

She hadn’t meant to speak so passionately with the Earl of Belhaven about matters such as love, but Jasper had looked at her in such a way that she found herself desperate to make him believe that love was a gift, not a curse. She needed him to understand that the risk of losing it was not reason enough to avoid it altogether.

“Will you take me to the portrait of your parents?”

It was placed in the brightest part of the gallery where it hung alone opposite the largest window, bracketed by plush velvet curtains and with a settee laid out before it, so the observer could stay a while.

“The Earl of Belhaven and his loving wife,” Jasper presented, not sarcastically, but perhaps bitterly.

Lady Belhaven was a beautiful woman with ink-black hair and kind eyes of deep indigo. Jasper might have inherited eyes the color and shape of his father’s forebears, but he inherited the kindness of his mother’s. The painter had also captured the gleam of mischief Lady Belhaven shared with Isobel. They looked remarkably similar, more like sisters, though Jane supposed the painting was likely decades old by now.

Lord Belhaven was a bear of a man with auburn hair and warm brown eyes. She saw so much of Helena in him, and Lady Adelaide. There was no mischief in him; instead the painter had captured his steadiness, and so she saw Jasper in him, too, despite the obvious differences.

Unlike similar portraits of noblemen and their wives, Lord and Lady Belhaven were not posed stiffly; instead they bent toward each other, his mother’s head resting on her husband’s shoulder in obvious affection, his hand wrapped around her waist protectively.

“It is plain to see they loved each other deeply.” She looked back at Jasper, whose gaze was locked upon her rather intently, avoiding the portrait altogether. “You may not believe in true love, Jasper, but you are the product of it.”

“You speak of love as though intimately aware of it,” he said, stepping closer. Was that jealousy in his tone? “Have you loved someone, Jane?”

“I—I could not say,” she stammered, surprised by the question. “Without my memories, I—”

“But what do you feel ?” he interrupted. “Is love as familiar to you as grief?”

Her heart thudded in her chest, to hear him speak so openly of the truth she had been trying to avoid. “How do you know grief is familiar to me?”

“Having experienced so much of it myself, how could I not recognize it in you, Jane?”

“I do not know who I lost,” she whispered, eyes on the floor. “I only know the ache of their absence. It is like a physical pain. Something I cannot forget, even when the origin of it is hidden from me.” She looked back up to find Jasper studying her, scarcely even breathing, as though he needed her answer more than he needed the air that filled his lungs. “But I did not love them, not like that,” she concluded with a sigh.

By then, he had come to her, tentatively reaching for her hand. She took his, and as he rubbed her palm softly, the touch was as intoxicating as a glass of champagne rushing to her head.

“I did not mean to upset you,” he said, inclining his head to meet her gaze.

“I’m not upset,” she replied. Being aware of her loss was not the same as feeling it, at least not in that moment, when she had so much more to think about—like the man standing before her, holding her hand as though it were the most delicate thing in the world. “I would accept even my unhappy memories if it meant gaining some clarity. I suppose that means I should not flinch away from the subject. But—”

“But?” he echoed, one hand encircling her wrist now, the other cupping her chin, tilting her head up slowly.

“It does not seem to be the time,” she whispered, losing herself rather steadily in the warmth of his gaze. “Does it?”

“No, I do not wish to talk about grief any longer,” he agreed with a tempting smile.

“Is there a subject you’d prefer?” she asked, her voice a mere rasp as he ran his thumb along her jawline.

“I can think of a few,” he said, pulling her to him until their bodies notched together, both hands on either side of her face now, cradling her. She felt his touch over every inch of her body, felt herself blush beneath his hands. “The most pressing being that I cannot seem to loosen your hold on me, Jane, however much I may wish to.” She understood his meaning. She felt the same pull in her, and the same reluctance to be free of or to give in to it entirely.

“I’m not sure if I should apologize—”

“I don’t want an apology from you, Jane. I want…” His thumb was on her bottom lip, tugging gently downward as he weighed his options carefully. All she wanted was for him to be reckless, but she couldn’t push him or beg him to give her what she desired. Nor would she be the one to save them both by retreating. The earth could have opened up around them and Jane would have stood her ground, daring him to take what he wanted, what they both needed.

In the end, the decision was made for them.

“My lord?” came the butler’s voice from very far away.

Jasper did not move, did not tear his eyes away from Jane’s. “Yes, Battersby?” he replied, his mouth mere inches from hers.

“Your guests have arrived.”

Between their legs, Mr. Darcy howled his displeasure, reminding them both that they had never truly been alone.