instead of cursing it, and it was all thanks to Jane. It was hard to be around her and not view potential and possibility in everything instead of ruin.
I should have allowed her to wait for me, written to her and continued what she’d tried to start during our last night together. When she was old enough, she could have gone to him in Savannah, perhaps helped him see the pitfalls of his life and leave it, or at least been there with him through the darkest days.
She laughed with the rest of the audience, her eyes sparkling with her amusement, and he was glad she hadn’t come to him. It would have killed him to see the hollowed-out disbelief mar her expression as it had everyone else’s during the awful summer. He rested one ankle on his knee and settled back in his chair to enjoy the performance. He’d been at the hell the last few nights, but tonight he’d be home in bed with her. He squeezed her hand and she flashed him a smile to chase off his concerns.
Then Jasper glanced across the theatre. A few boxes below the King’s he noticed Lady Fenton seated near the edge of her box with her noticeably wan eldest son. Jasper withdrew his hand from Jane’s and took up his champagne flute to enjoy a bracing sip. There’d been no inkling Lord Fenton intended to involve himself in Captain Christiansen’s debt, but it didn’t mean either the Earl or his son weren’t planning something. He wouldn’t know until they sprung it on him. Until then he continued to search for someone in the Admiralty who could tell him when the captain had resigned his commission, but he’d found no one. It undermined the peace he found with Jane tonight, one to both settle and scare him. He’d been content in his life once before and Mr Robillard had stolen it. He wondered who might take it from him this time.
The curtain rustled behind him and the footman appeared again.
‘Sir, this arrived for you.’ He handed Jasper a note.
Jasper took the note, his enthusiasm for the evening dropping. It was from Mr Bronson telling him to come to the hell at once.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jane asked.
He folded the paper and tucked it in his pocket. ‘Mr Bronson needs me.’
‘He can’t handle whatever it is?’
‘If he’s asked me to intervene, it must be bad. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’ He rose and kissed her on the forehead, irritated to be pulled away, but the hell paid for every aspect of this evening and their life. No matter how much he wanted to stay here with Jane, he couldn’t ignore business.
* * *
Lord Fenton stood across from Jasper in the warehouse. Mr Bronson had insisted he wait here instead of upstairs and Jasper was glad. The less Lord Fenton knew about the Company Gaming Room, the better.
‘To what do I owe the honour of this visit, Lord Fenton?’ Jasper asked, even though he could guess.
‘I wish to discuss my son’s debts. I understand he lost a considerable sum here.’
‘Not as much as he would have if I hadn’t asked him to leave.’
‘A gambling-hell owner with a heart, how quaint.’ The aristocrat sniffed.
‘A father coming to discuss his grown son’s debts, what filial love,’ Jasper shot back.
‘Mind how you address me,’ Lord Fenton sneered. ‘The very existence of this lowly club hangs on my good graces. With a few words placed in the right ears I could see this establishment closed for good.’
Mr Bronson shot Jasper a wary look over the Earl’s shoulders.
‘With a few equally well-placed bribes I’m sure I could keep catering to a clientele far below the notice and interest of a lord. After all, I wouldn’t want you to sully your hands dealing with mere merchants.’ He might be preparing to leave the club, but he wouldn’t see it closed and Mr Bronson and all the employees left without wages or employment. Let the man mortgage some property or do an honest day’s work to meet his commitments.
‘I won’t have the Fenton name sullied by allowing some third-rate hell to take a substantial part of my son’s settlement. I want the two thousand pounds he lost to you returned at once.’
Jasper imagined Lord Fenton wouldn’t dare to march into a club in St James’s and demand the return of money, but he had no compunction about doing it here.
‘He understood the rules of wagers as well as you do, my lord, and he paid his debt like a true gentleman.’
‘It wasn’t his money to gamble with,’ Lord Fenton continued as if it made a difference.
‘That is a matter for you and him to discuss, I have no part in it.’
‘You will give me back the money.’ Lord Fenton banged his walking stick against the floor as if sheer will could move Jasper. It couldn’t.
‘Our discussion is now at an end. Good evening, Lord Fenton.’
Lord Fenton clasped the handle of his walking stick so hard Jasper thought he heard the wood crack. ‘You will regret this.’
The man turned on the heel of his polished shoe and stormed out of the warehouse.
‘What charm these lords have.’ Mr Bronson pulled out his red handkerchief and wiped his brow.
‘And an aversion to scandal and having their debts made public, especially when they have a wastrel son to marry off. It may keep him from troubling us further.’
‘Seems a slim string to hang our peace of mind on.’
‘It is, but it’s the only one we’ve got.’ Overhead, footsteps made the rafters rattle. Jasper looked up into the darkness. Everyone above him seemed so sure of their lives, but he understood how fast everything could fail. Disease wouldn’t undo him in London, but his own mistakes and weaknesses might. He’d already lived through complete ruin once. He couldn’t bear to endure it again.
* * *
The click of the bedroom door closing pulled Jane out of a deep sleep. She rolled over, confused about where she was until the gilding of the four-poster bed glimmering in the light from the grate caught her attention. With a contented sigh she turned to tempt Jasper into the exertion they’d been denied by his being summoned away from the theatre, but he wasn’t beside her.
He stood by the window, staring out at the darkness just beyond it. The languid man who’d poured champagne was gone, replaced by the serious one who’d told her of Savannah in the carriage the other night.
She sat up. ‘Jasper? Is everything all right?’
He turned his back to her as he undid his cravat. ‘Yes, it’s fine.’
‘You don’t appear as if everything is fine.’
‘There were some things I had to deal with at the club.’
‘What things?’
‘Nothing you need to worry about.’
‘Of course I worry about it, especially after you leave me at the theatre and then come home looking like the devil.’
He
