“I wrote him,” Vale said.
Melisande stared suspiciously at her husband. “Did he reply?”
But Vale pretended not to hear her, and then they’d rolled to a stop in front of the massive building. There was a shout outside and some scrambling, and after a pause, the carriage door opened.
Mr. Pynch held a lantern high, the light casting ominous shadows across his gloomy face. “No one answers the door, my lord.”
“Then we shall just have to knock louder,” Vale said.
He jumped from the carriage and turned to help Melisande out. Suchlike climbed carefully down, and Mouse scrambled out and ran to some bushes to relieve himself. The night was very dark indeed, and a cold wind was whistling across the drive, causing Melisande to shiver.
“Here.” Vale reached back inside the carriage and took out a cloak from under her seat. He wrapped it around her shoulders and then offered her his arm. “Shall we, my lady wife?”
She took his arm and leaned close to whisper, “Jasper, what shall we do if Sir Alistair isn’t at home?”
“Oh, someone will be about, never fear.”
He led her up wide, stone steps so old they had a worn dip in the middle where countless feet had trod before. The door was a massive thing at least ten feet high and bound with great iron hinges.
Vale pounded his fist on the door. “Oy! Open up! There’s travelers without who want a hot fire and a soft bed. Oy! Munroe! Come and let us in!”
He kept up this racket for a good five minutes or more and then suddenly stopped, his fist still raised in midair.
traightened and looked at him, her chin up, her back stiff, as if she faced a firing squad. “I was engaged to him.”
He simply looked at her. He’d known there was something—someone—but she’d never mentioned an engagement before. Stupid, of him, really. And now that he knew . . . He realized he felt a rising swell of jealousy. She’d set out to marry another man—Timothy Holden—once upon a time. Had she loved pretty Timothy Holden with his red lips?
“Did you love him?” he asked.
She looked at him a moment, then bent to finish putting together the pallet. “It was over ten years ago. I was only eighteen.”
He cocked his head. She hadn’t answered the question. “Where did you meet?”
“At a dinner party like tonight’s.” She picked up a pillow and smoothed the cover. “He sat beside me and was so kind. He didn’t turn away, as most gentlemen did back then, when I didn’t immediately fall into conversation with him.”
Jasper pulled his shirt over his head. He had been one of those ungallant gentlemen, no doubt.
Melisande laid the pillow down on the pallet. “He took me for rides in the park, danced with me at balls, all the things a gentleman does when he courts a lady. He wooed me for several months, and then he asked my father for my hand in marriage. Naturally, Father said yes.”
He sat to shed his hose and shoes. “Then why aren’t you married to him?”
She shrugged. “He proposed in October, and we planned to be married in June.”
Jasper winced. They had been married in June. He went to her and gently helped her out of her wrapper. Then he took her hand and lay down on the pallet with her. She shifted until her head was on his shoulder. He stroked his fingers idly through her long hair. Funny how much more comfortable a pallet could be with her in it.
“I had shopped for a trousseau,” she said quietly, her breath brushing his bare chest. “Sent out invitations, planned the wedding day. Then one day, Timothy came to me and told me he loved another lady. Naturally, I let him go.”
“Naturally,” Jasper growled.
Holden was a filthy ass. To lead on a young, gentle girl and then leave her nearly at the altar was the work of a swine. He stroked {e. s ahis sweet wife’s hair as if soothing her for hurts over a decade old and thought about their marriage and their marriage bed.
At last he sighed. “He was your lover.”
He didn’t bother phrasing it as a question. Still, he was almost surprised when she didn’t deny it.
“Yes, for a while.”
He frowned. Her tone was too flat. He stirred uneasily. “He didn’t force you, did he?”