Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Sterling!” Jasper called out for Hector embarrassingly loudly in the gentleman’s club. “If this is about Parliament, I intend to be violently unhelpful.”
Hector could see the blurred shape of Jasper’s arms as he raised his drink. He laughed and shook his head.
“It is not, old friend.” Hector walked to the booth, placed the cane aside, and sat with a huff.
Jasper sipped his drink, and Hector felt his friend’s eyes on him.
“Go on then,” he said roughly.
Jasper chuckled. “Is it a woman?”
Hector removed his gloves with unnecessary care. “Must you sound so pleased when you ask that?”
Jasper shrugged. “I am rarely summoned for dull reasons. And almost never by you, which suggests either scandal or murder. Since you look insufficiently bloodstained, I choose scandal.”
Hector took the glass of brandy that was placed on the table and drank it in one gulp.
“I need advice.”
Jasper froze.
There was a blessed silence that came, and the world seemed to have shifted underneath Hector’s feet. He wondered briefly if it would be wise to confess his true thoughts or feelings. Not because he did not trust his friend; he simply did not trust himself with the truth.
“Good God,” Jasper said softly, pulling Hector back from his spiraling thoughts. “It is serious.”
“I should not have come.” Hector made to stand up.
“There is no need for dramatics.” Jasper’s tone lost its brightness. “Speak before you recover your senses.”
Hector sat still. He knew that Jasper would watch him more closely now and pretend not to. They had been friends long enough for certain mercies.
For a while, the drink did its work poorly. It burned and settled, but left him still full of the warmth he felt in the fortress and the closeness of Poppy. Her scent lingered on him, and it was distracting him in his every waking hour.
Jasper waited nearly a minute, which for him was an act of devotion.
At last he said, “Tell me everything.”
Hector looked into the glass, swirling the newly poured amber liquid until it all blurred together and gave him nothing. “It seems that I have made an error.”
“With your wife?” He always went straight to the point.
Hector answered him with silence, and his friend leaned back.
“Have you insulted her, neglected her, or—heavens!—have you finally discovered that you enjoy her company?” Hector had the sudden urge to throw his glass at him.
“Do not be absurd.”
“Ah. So, it is the last one.”
Hector’s jaw tightened. “I said I needed advice, not your constant teasing.”
“I am adjusting to this miracle.” Hector could hear the sarcasm in his tone. “What happened, truly?”
Hector could have described Poppy and her haunting blue eyes or the way her dark blonde hair caught the light whenever he looked at her. He could have described how her voice and smile conspired against him and left him feeling despair.
Instead, he said, “The children are becoming attached to me.”
Jasper frowned. “Well…that is a terrible development. Children in one’s household becoming attached to their own uncle is utterly preposterous.”
“And Poppy.” Hector ignored his jibe.
Jasper’s levity faded again as Hector set the glass down because he did not trust his grip.
“She has changed the house.”
His friend frowned. “Wives tend to do that.”
“Not just the furniture.” He struggled, irritated by the inadequacy of words. “There is too much noise now. And movement and color.”
Hector exhaled before he continued. “Before she came, the house was orderly, quiet and manageable. I knew what each day required. I did not—” he stopped.
“Want more?” Jasper supplied the words for him.
Hector nodded. “Now the children sleep in a fortress made of blankets because she understood what they needed and tried to make them comfortable. Aurora offered to guide me through my own house. Princess quiets when Poppy dances for her, and Mrs. Patterson apparently commits treason at her request. While I—”
He stopped again, but Jasper did not rescue him this time.
Hector’s hand found the head of his cane. Its familiar shape steadied him. “Whatever she had brought with her…it has changed everything in the dukedom.”
“And that would be unbearable for you?”
Hector did not reply right away as he thought about life without Poppy. A quiet sadness enveloped him. It was surprising and new to him. Hector found it hard to understand why he could not picture even a day without her.
Jasper’s voice drew him back again. “Sterling, loving one’s own wife is hardly the end of the world. Uncommon, perhaps, but it is not a tragedy.”
“I do not love her,” he said too quickly.
“No?” Hector perceived Jasper’s raised brow.
“No.”
“Then what name are we giving this fear of losing her, this fascination with her happiness, and this sudden poetic appreciation for too much sound and color in your home?”
That was a good question, but he would not admit it. Especially to Jasper.
“It is merely my responsibility and my duty as her husband.” Hector avoided Jasper’s eyes because his friend would see too much.
Jasper tilted his head back and laughed. “You always were ambitious with lies.”
Hector turned his face toward him. “I know duty, and I know obligation. I know what happens when a household depends on a person and that person fails to consider the consequences. Poppy is good for the children and the house. It is natural that I should wish to preserve that.”
“All right, then explain the fact that you look as if someone has taken a knife to you when you say her name?” Jasper crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for an answer.
“That is your imagination, Jasper.”
“My imagination has excellent eyesight.”
Hector’s mouth hardened at the jab, while Jasper let the silence stand.
“I was content,” he said eventually. “Before this marriage and adoption.”
“Were you truly, Hector?” Jasper inclined his head and listened intently.
Hector thought about the sleepless nights and effort he put into the dukedom by himself. The halls of Sterling House were eerily silent, and he saw no colors, shapes, or movements, no matter how hard he looked around. He was utterly alone.
His gaze met Jasper’s and, at that moment, he appreciated the honesty between them. Jasper was the only man he trusted wholeheartedly.
“Perhaps I was not as content as I imagined being,” he admitted.
Jasper simply nodded in agreement, and Hector accepted his silence because arguing would require energy he did not possess.
“I had a colorless and quiet world which I understood. I did not ask for more, but now there is more. And because I have known it, I cannot unknow it now.” The confession flowed freely.
Jasper’s chair creaked softly as he shifted. “If you cannot recognize that as love, I doubt I can drag you to the conclusion by force.”
He glared at his friend. “Then do not try, because this is not love.”
Jasper held up his hands in surrender. “There is no need to be defensive. I am not accusing you of anything. Perhaps I am simply speaking about your love for your nieces.”
Hector reached for his glass and drank.
Jasper, mercifully practical when sentiment failed, said, “How long has it been since your duchess attended a ball?”
Hector frowned. “What?”
“Have you taken your wife to a party or a musicale? Somewhere there is music, dancing, and women pretending not to judge each other’s gowns. That sort of thing?”
He thought about it for a second, but the answer was clear.
“I have not taken her to a ball…”
“Not since the marriage?”
“No.”
“Not even once?”
“Jasper.” He gave his friend a warning look.
Jasper’s question made Hector feel beyond guilty. Poppy had entered his house and folded herself around its needs and the needs of the children until there was scarcely enough room left for her own.
She handled the children, the staff, her duties and my silences. He could not remember asking her to attend any event with him, and that ate at him.
“She has been occupied,” he said, hating himself for being the cause of her busyness.
“Ah, women often enjoy leaving the house, though. You should consider asking her.” Jasper jested a lot, but this time Hector felt the seriousness behind his words.
He exhaled loudly. “I would burden her at a ball.”
His friend said nothing as Hector’s grip tightened around the glass.
“Hector—”
“What sort of husband cannot escort his wife to the dance floor without relying on a cane? What sort of spectacle would that be? She would spend the evening accommodating my limitations instead of enjoying herself.” He felt the embarrassment and anger rise within him and his own inability to make his wife happy by simply asking her to attend an event with him.
“Have you asked her?”
“No, I did not.” He felt even more guilty. “Are you done making me feel like the most terrible husband in the ton?”
Jasper chuckled. “I am merely trying to help, but if the shoe fits…”
Hector set the glass down too sharply. “Do not jest.”
“I am not.”
The friendly banter left Hector with no immediate defense.
Jasper sighed. “Very well. If not a ball, then perhaps some presents will do? Women enjoy those as well.”
Hector did not know what his wife liked, and that troubled him even further.
What do I truly know about Poppy?
“Your expertise overwhelms me.” He glared in his friend’s direction. “But I am afraid that you are making sense.”
Jasper mockingly bowed his head before him.
“It is always a pleasure correcting you. But jokes aside, you should gift her some jewels, perhaps. A necklace, earrings, or something excessive enough to make other women furious.”
“No.”
“A pony?”
“No.”
“A pianoforte plated in gold?”
Hector’s jaw ticked, but he stopped himself from cracking a smile because that would just encourage him more. “That is not a thing.”
“It could be if you were sufficiently devoted.” He pointed a finger at Hector.
Hector smiled, then lost it just as quickly as it appeared.
“Poppy is not—” He searched for the right refusal.
“She is not a woman who measures care by expense. She would sleep on the floor beside a frightened child without telling anyone the next morning that her back ached. She thanks people for practical kindness as if it is treasure, and she notices what is missing before she asks for what she wants.”
Jasper was quiet, and Hector realized too late how much he had revealed.
Then his friend asked, “What does your wife value?”
The question settled differently from the others. It did not prod at Hector’s feelings. It turned him toward her.
What did Poppy value?
The answer came at once.
“The girls,” he said.
“Good, and what else?”
“Music.”
He remembered the song and dance she performed for Princess.
The memory made his lips twitch into a small smile.
There were days when he even heard her singing lullabies through walls before he had meant to listen.
Poppy’s voice was the sweetest, and it always soothed Princess, but most surprisingly, it always soothed him too.
Her music had entered the house and changed the atmosphere.
“Surely she must like more than that?” Jasper continued to ask him, and Hector completely forgot that he was with his friend.
His thoughts needed to be controlled, or he would spiral. He steadied his pulse and suddenly realized what Poppy liked most.
Jasper noticed the change immediately. “There it is.”
Hector reached for his cane and rose.
“You have a plan already?” his friend asked, wide-eyed with astonishment.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You are most welcome, good sir. Is it romantic?”
Hector froze. “It is practical.”
Jasper groaned. “God help that woman.”
Hector did not answer. He was already thinking through arrangements, permissions, and timing. He thought of Poppy’s face when she saw his plan in action.
At the door, Jasper called, “Sterling. If this fails, try saying something kind aloud. That would be revolutionary, I know it.”
Hector’s hand rested on the door handle.
“I shall consider it,” he said as he left his friend behind to pursue treasures for his wife.