Chapter Eight #2
Sensing her, Jasper turned. He was formally dressed tonight, his coat and breeches a rich forest green that brought to mind pleasing autumn evenings. He looked wearier than Thea had seen him before, his dark gaze distant and unfocused.
Something was clearly vexing him. Thea’s stomach sank faster than a rock through water. He knew she’d been breaking their bargain. He must. And now he would punish her for it. But what punishment could be greater than the loss of her heart?
Before she could ponder what best to say, how to defend herself, he glanced at her hair. And did not look away.
Setting her cloak on the counter, Thea removed a twig from her hair, which was a tangled mess after running through the forest, though come to think of it, she suddenly wasn’t sure why she had been running?
Frowning to herself, she smoothed her woollen dress, ignoring the mud staining her hem, her boots, the leaves still clinging to her skirts.
She was too aware of him, conscious of each breath she took, how the air bent and flowed around the two of them.
His power was quiet tonight, reined in, but she knew what lay beneath the still surface: power enough to take her heart without killing her, to have forged the spell that sat in her ribcage in its place.
Her missing heart pulsed as she looked at him.
Jasper jerked, as if coming to his senses, and dragged his eyes away. They landed on the dress box, still sitting on her counter. ‘I see you have requested Fleur’s services,’ he commented. ‘That’s an expensive gown.’
‘Don’t fret, you’re not paying me enough to fritter my earnings away there,’ Thea retorted without thinking.
A frown flashed across the storm of Jasper’s face. ‘I did not intend . . . Are your earnings insufficient for your needs?’
‘No no, they’re fine,’ Thea said quickly. In fact, they were more than generous considering that they came with a free home. ‘It was only a joke, a bad one—’
‘I shall raise them,’ Jasper said at the same time, their words crossing like swords.
‘Why bother to pay me at all?’ Thea was seized with curiosity. ‘I am contracted to work here anyway.’
Jasper cast her a baffled look. ‘I wouldn’t have you starve under my roof.’
‘Oh.’ Thea fiddled with her sleeve.
Silence rang between them, sharp enough to cut. ‘It was a gift,’ she told him, somewhat awkwardly. ‘The gown, I mean.’
Jasper hadn’t been smiling before – had she ever witnessed him smile? Such an event must be rarer than an eclipse – but he was certainly not smiling now. His habitual frown had settled deep into the planes and grooves of his face like a grudge. ‘From the acquaintance I met before?’
‘Yes, actually.’ Thea raised her chin, high and defiant. ‘A beautiful gown in midnight blue.’
‘Dark blue is not your colour,’ Jasper ground out.
Thea blinked. Of all the things he might have said, this would have been her last guess. ‘I was not asking for your opinion.’
Jasper stalked towards her. ‘You should be in gold, as radiant as the sun. As your hair.’ He reached out towards her hair as if he wanted to run his fingers through it. ‘Your hair looks pretty tonight.’
Thea clutched her sleeves. ‘What?’
‘Your hair.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The way the candlelight is cast across it, it looks like spun gold.’
Thea’s heart-spell caught in her throat. Jasper closed his hand in the air, but he did not step away, did not reclaim the distance between them. His voice lowered, so close and intimate she could have tasted his words. ‘You ought to spend your time with someone who knows you.’
Anger spiked Thea’s pulse. ‘Nobody can know me,’ she hissed. ‘Not when I have no heart nor any memory prior to the day I began working here. Not even my own name. If I don’t know who I am, how can anyone else be expected to?’
Jasper’s face was expressionless. It was disorientating, standing this close to him. She’d always registered his height but his shoulders were broad too, a hidden strength playing through his form that she hadn’t noticed before.
‘As I said, I was not asking for your opinion,’ Thea added. ‘And it’s none of your concern who I spend my time with, romantically or otherwise.’ She folded her arms and glared.
A vein ticked in Jasper’s jaw. ‘You’re right. It is none of my concern. But this is.’ He reached for Thea.
She sucked in a breath before registering he was reaching past her, towards the records log that Thea had not noticed, lying open on the counter beside the dress box. ‘The entries are sparse.’
‘I told you, business has been slow.’ Panic tasted like a rancid wine, more vinegar than grape. It burned Thea’s tongue.
‘Thea.’ Jasper stared at her as if he could taste it too.
‘I know you . . . disapprove of the payments,’ he began, looking as if he wanted to say something quite different but was restraining himself.
‘But let me remind you, they are necessary. You cannot simply toy with fate: each alteration requires a balance in kind. If you do not take payment, you will destroy that balance and there will be consequences—’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Thea interrupted.
Jasper reeled back. Horror and sadness filled his eyes. Thea had never seen him like this before. It was haunting. Like looking into a lake with no bottom, an unending ocean. Beautiful in a way she’d never considered.
Before she could muster any words, his expression froze. Shutting her out so thoroughly she wondered if anyone had ever been permitted inside. Jasper did not wear a mask but a suit of armour. He was unknowable.
‘I would consider it if you were not so unbelievably stubborn that I knew it would be pointless.’ His tone skated over the message but Thea received it all the same, with a lick of fear and a blaze of defiance. It swept away any sympathy she might have felt.
He was the enemy, with his own agenda, and she would do well to remember that.
‘As I told you, business has been slow,’ she repeated firmly.
Jasper’s answering look intimated that he did not believe her one bit. ‘I shall leave you to it, then.’
‘Please do,’ snapped Thea. ‘I’ve already wasted too much of this morning quarrelling with you when I could have been having a much more pleasant time elsewhere.’
Jasper jerked back as if she’d struck him. ‘My apologies,’ he said stiffly, placing a hat atop his head. ‘Of course my company is abhorrent to you.’
Guilt chased Thea’s words though she didn’t know why.
She banished it, holding herself tall. Claiming a confidence she didn’t feel, standing there in her simple dress and muddy boots, cold and tiredness and the after-effects of fear puddled in her head.
She was sure that she had something she’d meant to tell him but she couldn’t quite remember what, only that it had been important at the time.
That something had happened in the forest. But the more she tried to recall it, the faster it darted out of reach.
She put it out of mind, craving the comfort of her bed, of hunkering down with Cinnamon and a book and whatever snack she could rustle up.
Jasper turned on his heel and stalked out. He did not wait for Thea to guess her name and this time, nor did she chase him.