the truth, but it wouldn’t be tonight. She couldn’t hope to maintain any sense of composure if Jasper confirmed her suspicions. She must keep her concerns from everyone, including Jasper, until she could find a moment and a way to face him and discover at last what was going on. It made her feel more alone and isolated than when she’d lived with Philip.
This wasn’t the way her marriage was supposed to be.
Jasper sat across from Jane in the coach as it carried them to his parents’ house and the dinner party awaiting them. He hadn’t seen Jane since their encounter in their bedroom. Even after he’d come home from the jeweller’s to dress, she’d been so occupied with Mrs Hodgkin there hadn’t been a moment for them to talk. He’d been secretly relieved, in no mood for a fight before they left for his parents’ house. When at last he could no longer put off facing her, he’d braced himself and come down from dressing to find her waiting for him in the sitting room. She’d been polite and sweet, peppering him with innocuous questions about his day and allowing him to escort her to the carriage, her small hand on his arm, her copper-coloured evening dress whispering against his legs as they walked. Yet for all her pretence to everything being well, the stiffness of her gait and the shallowness of her smile told him it wasn’t and, like him, she was doing her best to hide it.
It was time for him to make amends and bring the light back into her expression.
‘I have something for you.’ He removed a long, slender velvet box from his coat pocket and held it out to her.
She eyed it and him with suspicion. ‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’ He perched on the edge of the squab, eager for the smile his gift would bring to her red lips. He needed her good humour. He didn’t have enough of his own.
She pushed back the lid, her eyebrows rising at the gold-and-diamond necklace inside. ‘It’s stunning.’
Her response wasn’t. There were no effusive thanks, no squeal of delight or the throwing of her curving arms around his neck like she’d done before their visit to the theatre. With his gift he’d tried to recapture the joy of their first week together, just as he’d strived to maintain the connection between them this afternoon when he’d kissed her. He hadn’t been manipulating her into agreeing to his plan for separate rooms, only searching for the connection which had bound them together over the last few weeks, the one he’d severed with his foolishness. He should have known better than to think he could do it with jewellery.
She lifted out the necklace and the diamonds flashed in the carriage lantern light as she held it out to him. ‘Will you put it on me?’
‘Of course.’
She turned her back to him and he took both ends of the cool metal and slipped it around her neck. Her perfume encircled him like the gold did her neck, the arch of it tantalising beneath his fingertips. He wanted to press his lips to the tender skin, to make her sigh and tilt her head back to rest on his shoulder, to draw her closer and banish the discomfort between them. He fastened the clasp, then rested his hands on her shoulders. Her skin was soft and warm and as familiar as his own. When he slept in the mornings, he would miss the heat of her beside him and the ease of laying his palm on her firm thigh. The nights would be colder, too, without her in his bed. He thought he’d needed space, but he was fast learning what he needed was her. He was about to admit he’d been a fool to leave her room when the carriage rocked to a halt.
She turned her head, her eyes catching his, the uncertainty in their blue depths as strong as in the pit of his stomach. If he’d never gone to America, if he’d rejected Uncle Peter’s vices instead of embracing them, if he’d kept his promise to redeem himself, he’d be worthy of Jane’s heart.
Let her help you and make everything right again. He couldn’t, not when they were moments away from facing his family.
He removed his hands from her shoulders and she slipped back across the carriage to take her seat and wait for the driver to open the door and hand her down.
* * *
Jane held Jasper’s arm as they climbed the wide staircase to reach the sitting room and the party waiting for them. The necklace sat heavy around her neck. She wanted Jasper’s whole heart and the respect he’d promised her, not expensive gifts. She wasn’t as convinced as Mrs Hale of her ability to draw him out, and feared the distance between them would continue to grow until it could never be overcome. One day, she might walk into the Charton home alone the way she had after her failed engagement. She never wanted to face such humiliation again.
Voices and the melodious notes of Lily’s piano playing drifted out of the upstairs sitting room, adding a warm cheeriness to the house which could not penetrate her and Jasper. She’d been here a thousand times, but this would be her first as a wife trying to pretend everything with her marriage was well when it wasn’t.
They reached the sitting room, and Jasper’s sisters surrounded her in a flutter of oohs and ahhs over her new necklace. A week ago Jane would have tossed back her head to display her gift and revel in their admiration. Tonight, she wanted to hide it and herself. She should be grateful he’d thought of her and wanted to make her happy, but it was all on the surface, as false as the sets on the Covent Garden Theatre stage. Beneath the sparkle of the gems were so many questions and troubles she had no idea how to untangle. There’d been no time in the carriage, even during the moment when, with his hands on her shoulders, she’d wanted to reach out to him and ask if he still cherished and cared for her as he’d promised he would.
While Jane spoke with the Charton sisters, Jasper remained beside her as stiff as a horsehair cushion. He did what was expected of him, greeting his twin brothers with his usual charming smiles and jokes, his clothes impeccable as always, but she caught the tension around his eyes, the subtle avoiding of her questioning glances. It made it difficult for Jane to hold her smile and pretend, like him, everything was splendid.
She believed she was fooling everyone until Mrs Charton approached them, studying them with motherly regard. ‘Jasper, Jane, you both look so pale. Tomorrow night you must come with us to Vauxhall Gardens. The distraction will help you both.’
‘I think it would be lovely,’ Jane lied, adding another to the many already accumulated. Jasper was right, it ate at her like the distance between them did.
‘Perhaps another evening, I have some business to attend to,’ Jasper refused his mother with an apologetic smile, but it did nothing to ease the tiredness in his eyes. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one being worn down by this charade. How he’d managed it for so long while living in his parents’ house she couldn’t imagine.
‘Jasper, come here. Giles wants to talk to you about something called a railway.’ Mr Charton drew Jasper away, while Mrs Charton occupied herself with her grandchildren.
Jane was left to the sisters who dragged her to the arrangement of sofas in front of the fireplace, sat her down and peppered her with questions about how she and Jasper were getting on. Jane twisted herself into knots making up the imaginary life she lived with Jasper, the one they should be enjoying instead of this half-marriage.
Camille, Milton’s wife, sat across from her, listening intently and saying very little. More than once she caught Jane’s eye with a solemnity to make Jane wonder if the woman suspected Jane’s unease or if it was lingering discomfort over what had happened between them. For the first time Jane didn’t care about the
