The landau turned off noisy Fleet Street and on to quiet St Bride’s Lane. The steeple from St Bride’s Church cast a thick shadow over the houses facing it. Behind the high wall encircling the churchyard lay the graves of her parents. Failure whipped around her like the breeze. She’d failed her parents years ago, now she was failing them, and herself, again.
I won’t be a spinster.
Another rejection wasn’t an appealing prospect, but neither was the future stretching out in front of her like a dusty dirt road. With each passing year her prospects for making her own life were diminishing. Yes, Jasper might ridicule her for proposing this scheme, but if he accepted...
She sat up straight and tried not to shift in the seat. She’d have her freedom and a life, home and business of her own at last. It might not be the loving marriage like the one Philip and Laura enjoyed, or the grand passion she used to dream about while reading the scandalous books Mrs Townsend, her sister-in-law’s mother and Jane’s old mentor, tutor and confidant, used to slip her, but one could never be disappointed by something one had never expected. Besides, she didn’t need Jasper’s heart, only his hand in marriage.
‘You’re undressed! Why are you not up already? It’s past noon!’ Jane waved her hand from the top of Jasper’s head to the rippled and exposed stomach, and the dark line of hair leading her gaze even lower. She was already out of breath from running up the Chartons’ massive front stairs, but catching Jasper in his bedroom without his shirt was suffocating. His toned chest tinged with a honey hint of a tan nearly knocked her away from the closed door. She’d known Jasper Charton and his family her entire life. But she never thought she’d see quite this much of him.
‘I wasn’t expecting company.’ Jasper wiped the last of the very musky and, if she was not mistaken by the scent, expensive shaving soap from his face and haphazardly hung the towel on the washstand bar. He made no move to take up the rumpled shirt sagging over the foot of the bed, and perched one fist on his hip as though it was every day an unmarried young lady burst into his bedroom unannounced. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘We must speak about the building.’ She fiddled with the key in the lock of the door but her shaking hand wouldn’t co-operate and she gave up.
Concentrate! This was no time to be distracted. With her brother and Mr Charton downstairs, and Mrs Charton distracted by one of her grandchildren, Jane had precious little time alone with Jasper. ‘I have a plan for it, but I need your help, as a friend. We’re still friends, aren’t we?’
His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Even after what Milton did to you?’
‘You had nothing to do with it, and he isn’t pertinent to the matter I wish to discuss today.’ Actually, proving to everyone, including herself, she could catch a husband was very much a part of this, but he didn’t need to know it.
He cocked one eyebrow. ‘You want to talk business, in my room, alone?’
She picked up one of the pair of diamond cufflinks in the dish on the table beside her, then put it down. It did seem foolish when he pointed it out, but speaking here was better than trying to whisper downstairs and risking someone overhearing their negotiations. For this to work, everyone, including Philip, must believe they were marrying for the right reason. ‘Of course. We have privacy.’
‘Which makes me wonder if business is really all you want?’ With a wicked smile he slipped the top button of his fall through its hole. He was teasing her as he used to do and the easy familiarity of their old friendship slid between them. It was more potent than the pulling of her pigtails and she adjusted the top of her spencer, breathless once more as she stared at his long fingers on the button, waiting to see what he might reveal. Offering him her innocence wasn’t an unpleasant bargaining chip, especially since she was dying to finally experience the deed she’d heard Jasper’s sister whispering about at so many parties. If she got with child it would certainly force the matter.
When the fall slightly opened she snapped out of her stupor. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to undress or suggest more than business, even if what she was about to propose involved exactly that. ‘Yes! Well, sort of.’
‘Sort of?’ He let go of the button, but failed to fasten the one he’d already undone. It revealed more of the dark hair leading from his navel to places unknown.
‘I have a building and you need one for your new enterprise. We can become...partners in your endeavour.’
The word ‘marriage’ twisted her tongue. She still couldn’t believe she was doing this. One would think she’d learned her lesson nine years ago. Apparently, she hadn’t.
‘Your brother won’t be happy about you wading so openly into business. Or being up here.’
‘I don’t care what Philip thinks and I wouldn’t be single when I share in the trade.’ Jane took a deep breath, the portion of the negotiation she’d spent the better part of the night and this morning contemplating, and dreading at last upon her. ‘I would be your wife.’
Jasper’s smug amusement dropped like the towel off the rail of his washstand. ‘My wife?’
‘It’s perfect, don’t you see?’ She hurried up to him, drawing close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. She took a cautious step back, acutely aware of how much taller and wider he’d grown since he’d left. She tried not to be distracted by the more intimate terms of marriage, but with the sunlight caressing the angles and sinew of his shoulders it was difficult. ‘You want the building and I want my freedom. There’s only one way for us to get both. We’ll get married.’
‘Married?’
‘We’ll work together to build up your whatever-it-is.’
‘A club for merchants.’
‘Excellent.’ She had no idea what that meant, but they could discuss the details later. ‘You’ve been gone from London for so long, you lack connections. My connections through Philip, combined with my keen managerial sense, the property I purchased—the one you wanted—along with your particular expertise in this kind of venture will make us quite a force. And you know how good I am with negotiation.’
He smothered a laugh. ‘Yes, I remember.’
But he wasn’t rushing to agree. The same tightness in the pit of her stomach as when she was thirteen and begging him to offer her some promise of a future together knotted her insides again. Anger began to creep along the edges of her confidence. ‘You remember what good friends we were, though you never troubled to write me a single letter the entire time you were in Savannah. Do you know how much I could’ve used your friendship, even from across the ocean?’ She winced at this slip. What in Heaven’s name was she thinking saying such a thing?
‘I do.’ Regret flickered in his eyes and he raised his hand as if to graze her cheek, the ruby on his small finger glinting in the sun before he lowered it again. ‘But marriage is different from children scampering through the Fleet in search of a shilling or eavesdropping on the adults.’
‘You sound like my brother.’ She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘And I’m perfectly aware of the seriousness of a union, which is why I think one based on friendship is the best kind. Don’t you agree?’
‘No.’ He didn’t even hesitate in his answer.