Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,125
take hold of Julia’s.
“I’m pleased to welcome you to the family, my dear.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
“Let’s go upstairs and sort through the outrageous gowns you’re wearing. We’ll find something special for the party.”
“All right.” Julia looked back at Jasper before she was pulled from the room by her future mother-in-law.
He nodded encouragingly, even kindly. Her stomach did an odd little flip of excitement.
Her husband, the Earl of Marshfield.
Then, with amusement in his eyes, he winked saucily at her before he turned and sauntered out the way they’d come.
Her husband, the rake of Marshfield.
JASPER HADN’T EXPECTED Julia to be able to wait so long, not believing she had the patience. Finally, after they retired and he’d been having another go at reading the naughty bits of Tom Jones for a good half hour, he heard her tap at his door.
“Come in,” he said, at the same time snapping closed the book.
As expected, Julia entered. But she wasn’t wearing a silky, inviting dressing gown he could easily remove. Rather, she was fully dressed in the stiff silver and black dress she’d worn for dinner, with her hair still up, and walking rigidly like she had a stick wedged in her pretty—
“I thought you might come to my room,” she said, stopping a few feet from the bed.
In truth, he’d considered it but hadn’t wanted to scare her off or give her the impression he would expect to have immediate access to her person now they were engaged.
They were engaged! That thought didn’t elicit an ounce of fear or trepidation. In fact, he’d felt happy ever since he had the inspiration while speaking to the Bow Street clods and then declared it to be so.
“I didn’t want to force myself upon you.” Jasper rose from his chair by the fire. Unlike her, he had undressed and wore only his banyan. “I imagined you would want to talk, but I thought we would find a private place to do so in the morning.”
He hadn’t thought any such thing, but it sounded sensible.
Julia merely nodded. He was dying to know if she was as pleased about the arrangement as he was, even though he knew his own emotions were out of character and somewhat irrational. And he knew it wasn’t merely because, after their wedding day, he would have that unfettered access he was trying purposefully to deny.
He and Julia could make the two backed beast any damn time they pleased.
“You’re grinning,” she said.
“Am I?”
“Yes. Frankly, I’m surprised by all of this. While I appreciate what you’re doing, you have gone beyond what anyone else would.”
“I am not anyone else,” he pointed out, feeling proud of himself.
“I know,” she agreed and walked away from him, pacing around his chamber. “You’re a notorious libertine of the first order.”
True, but did she have to keep bringing that up?
He nearly protested and said he was reformed, but that year, he’d been with a widowed lady at the end of last winter, then Lady Georgiana in the spring, as well as the loose-lipped, conniving Lady Neville, using him against her husband. But he had enjoyed himself with her, too. And then, he’d tested the waters with Miss Louisa Tufton and with Lady Arabella, and more recently with Lady Violet, and sometime during the year, he knew there’d been another baron’s daughter and a French countess.
No, reformed was too strong a word, but he liked to think he was mature enough to pledge himself to only one woman for the rest of his life. On one condition.
“Are you glad about our engagement?” he asked.
“Is it real?” Julia stood in front of the curtains, the candlelight flickering over her, looking ethereal.
“Meaning?” he prompted, rudely lounging against the end of his bed and stretching his feet out in front of him, arms crossed. He supposed this was one thing he could do in the company of his fiancée, almost sit while she stood.
“Did you say we were engaged simply in order to get rid of those men?”
“It was spontaneous genius, don’t you think?” He practically patted himself on the back.
“Do you intend to follow through?” she asked.
Is that what worried her? That she would be made a fool of?
“I told my mother we were engaged,” he reminded her. “I wouldn’t have done so if I didn’t intend to marry you.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Jasper waited, while she chewed her bottom lip. She didn’t sound thrilled at the notion of becoming the next Countess of Marshfield. What was wrong with the minx?