Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“Because I convinced myself it was … What did I say to you this morning? ‘Animal curiosity’?” He sighed, shaking his head.
“You were a pretty girl. I liked pretty girls. Not my fault. That’s all it could possibly be.
And I’d remind myself so many times it sounded like a chant: She’s not a girl, she’s Libba. ”
“Oh, well, that’s flattering,” she said flatly, making him laugh again.
“You know, I wasn’t sure, though, until you came back here,” he said. “I knew I loved you because you were my friend, because you were important to me, but I wasn’t sure, since you left so long ago, if it was always that general pretty girl, base impulses thing or if … Well. It wasn’t.”
“But you thought about it,” she pressed, and he could feel her eyes on him. “You thought about those things, even back then?”
“Not on purpose,” he said weakly, a soul-deep cringe tapping at his ribs. “Often, it was just dreams or … or my … erm … mind was compromised.”
“Oh?” she said, sounding actually pleased this time. “Oh! You did that while thinking of me?”
“Lib,” he pleaded, his eyes watering, jaw aching from how he had clenched it.
She gave a little giggle, a girlish, dainty thing that was very unlike her.
It made him finally pull away from their melded, shared shape and reared up over her with his eyes narrowed. “Is that funny?”
“It is extremely pleasing to me,” she corrected. “But yes, a little.”
“I take it the sentiment was not reciprocated,” he said, raising his brows.
“Well, no.” She blinked at him. “It never even occurred to me as a possibility until recently. But that has nothing to do with how pretty you are or aren’t.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction more. “Which is how pretty, exactly?”
She grinned at him. “Do you have any idea how distressing it has been for me realizing that you’ve been …” She trailed off, her eyes trailing down to his bare chest, to the curling hair over his heart. She gestured. “You’ve been that … all this time.”
“Not the whole time,” he said, frowning down at his physique.
“It just didn’t occur to me,” she said again.
“Until recently, when it began to do so at a volume I cannot even define. I’ve never had trouble separating men into neat categories in my life.
In one bucket sits the men for romance and lust, and in another the men I care for as deeply as family.
Malcolm, Errol, Rhys, Lem, and you. You are not supposed to be able to straddle both. I did not know that was an option.”
He was watching her curiously, surprised to hear this.
His parents had always come across to him as best mates. Best mates who’d gotten married.
That was the idea, wasn’t it? The dream? The whole reason people who didn’t need to do it for treaties or inheritance got married?
But he supposed she had never lived with a married pair, or at least not until …
“Elias and Hattie were friends and lovers, weren’t they?” he pointed out. “They got married the instant everyone came back to Brighton.”
“Because they had to,” Libba said, smirking. “Elias and Hattie were never what I would call friends, anyway. He was a little demon to her, in fact. Probably because she was in the wrong bucket. And she pestered the absolute patience out of him, too. Hm, perhaps for the same reason.”
“But they seem so happy,” he protested, deflating a little.
“They are!” she said, laughing openly now. “It was exhausting to watch, but they are. Now.”
“What about Errol and Ruby?” he returned, still frowning.
“Ah,” she said, a feline smile curling at the corners of her lips. “Noticed that too, have you? You can join the betting pool on if and when they ever will.”
“‘Betting pool’?” he repeated, scandalized.
She nodded, chortling. “Malcolm started it.”
“So, Malcolm stays in the family bucket,” Jasper said, turning around her reasoning in his head, “but now I’ve moved. What about the others?”
“What about them?” She blinked, wrinkling her brow. “You think after sampling you, I want to go have a scoop of Rhys to test some yet-unawakened curiosity?”
He winced at the concept. “No. That doesn’t seem likely. But that Lem fellow. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he also has an arse on him.”
She gave a short, sharp laugh. “I have noticed. It interests me not a whit. And keep your eyes off other arses, Townsend. At least for a while.”
He was still frowning. “But why not consider Lem that way? He’s very good-looking. You understand one another. He clearly is loyal to you.”
“No,” she said again, shaking her head and giving a little shudder. “Not ever. He is too much like family. Actual family. If you think Rhys is unlikely, then by necessity, Lem is too.”
“And I’m not?” he asked, raising his brows.
“You are …” She trailed off, tilting her head to the side like she was considering it. “You always were Malcolm’s, above anyone else’s. You have been a constant in my life, but there was always a stair between us because of that, and because you are older.”
He wanted to argue about Lem a little more, but he couldn’t think of anything he could say that wouldn’t just sound petulant, so he resisted.
“Why do you always stay in the parlor?” Libba asked, puncturing his glower. “Mal and I were debating that recently. Why did you never take a guest room?”
“Because I was half convinced that if I let Lady Selwyn turn a bed down for me, I’d end up a ward too,” he said without thinking. “I like my parents. I didn’t want them to think I’d do that.”
“They don’t know whether you’re sleeping on a feather mattress or the floor when you stay at the Rest, though,” she pointed out, looking amused. “Did Willa offer that to you?”
He hesitated. “Not specifically, no. That baroness always scared the soul out of me, but she was good to me too.”
“She had a formidable presence,” Libba agreed wistfully. “All right, talk of my dead foster mother has sufficiently worsened my parch. If you would?”
“But you cannot move,” he said, checking with her, in both of her glittering, brown eyes. “There is more to … to say.”
“Jasper,” she said fondly, giving him a caress and then a little smack on the cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”