Jasper paused beside his carriage, careful to keep his panic under control. ‘What are you doing skulking about warehouse doorways in the middle of the night?’
‘I went to your building in Fleet Street, but you weren’t there. I’m glad you decided to come here tonight to play. I must speak with you.’
So Chester was the one Mark spoke to. What he wanted remained to be seen, but as long as Chester believed Jasper was another gambler, it lessened the risk of him seeing him here. Jasper could think up a thousand ways to explain his presence to his parents if need be, more lies, more deceit. It came too easily to him, even if it still stung his heart like a punch. ‘There’s no reason for us to speak. We aren’t associates or friends.’
‘I know we’ve had our differences, but I need your help.’
‘You insulted my fiancée.’
Chester shrugged, trying to appear humble, but it further distorted his already rodent-like appearance. ‘A lapse in judgement on my part, but you didn’t catch me at my best. I must play tonight. You said you were connected here. Perhaps you can speak with the owner. I need to win before my creditors force me abroad.’
The fever lighting up his small eyes made Jasper take a step back. He’d seen this look in a hundred other men’s eyes before they’d lost everything. That moment was when Jasper should have stepped in to stop them, to save them from being consumed by their habits. As much as he disliked Chester, he wouldn’t give him the chance to ruin himself.
‘No, I won’t help you. Go home and speak with your father about work, tell him about your debts and find an honourable way to pay them before it’s too late.’ He was a desperate man which explained why he’d approached him. Desperate men were capable of anything, except walking away from the cards.
Chester’s greed turned to hate and he clutched Jasper by the lapel. ‘You think you can look down on me because your father refused to give me a loan?’
Jasper knocked his hands away and pushed him back, ready to pummel the man if it drove him from here and saved him for the mistakes so many, including Mr Robillard, had made. ‘I don’t care who my father extends money to or not. His business isn’t mine and if you’re smart, you won’t rely on luck to save you. Only hard work and legitimate effort can do that.’
Chester pulled back in disgust as if Jasper had suggested he accept the King’s shilling and enlist to escape his debts.
Then the door to the warehouse opened and Mr Bronson stepped through it, a number of credit notes in one hand. He failed to notice Chester. ‘Jasper, good you’re here. I need you to sign for Mr Portland’s credit. He isn’t so lucky tonight.’
Jasper flicked his glance to Chester and Mr Bronson caught his mistake too late.
Chester was all triumphant smiles while he glanced back and forth between the two men. It made Jasper wish he had struck him.
‘No wonder you knew about my debts,’ Chester hissed with gloating realisation. ‘This is your place, isn’t it? It certainly explains the clientele and all the expensive things you can afford.’ He jerked his thumb at Jasper’s carriage.
‘What are you doing here? You were told not to come back,’ Mr Bronson growled with an authority to help cover his mistake, but both he and Jasper were acutely aware of it.
The cheesemonger’s son tugged at his collar before he regained his nerve. He turned his beady eyes on Jasper. ‘I’m glad I did. It seems tonight will be more lucrative than I originally imagined. What will you pay to keep me from telling everyone what you’re up to here, especially your sanctimonious father? Imagine how he’ll feel when he learns his progeny runs a gambling hell, especially after giving me a lecture on the evils of cards? He’ll be the laughingstock of the Fleet.’
‘I won’t give you a farthing.’ This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to blackmail him. He’d learned from Uncle Patrick long ago never to give in. If he did, Chester would own him and every night it would be a new and larger demand until he ruined him, then eventually told his secret anyway. He was already a slave to the hell, his past and all his lies. He wouldn’t become one to this fool. ‘Say what you like to who you like, it makes no difference to me.’
Chester’s smug smile dropped like his jaw. Jasper brushed past him, Mr Bronson falling in step beside him as they headed inside.
‘You’ll regret not paying me,’ Chester yelled after them before the door swung shut, leaving him outside in the mist.
Jasper stopped in the darkness, pressed his fists to his hips and took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Bronson offered, his voice as tense as Jasper’s insides.
‘It’s not your fault.’ It’s mine. Try as he might to avoid complications, they seemed to be seeking him out.
‘What are you going to do about him?’
‘I don’t know. With any luck, he’ll flee abroad before his desire for revenge outpaces his good sense.’
‘We could handle it the way Patrick used to,’ Mr Branson suggested.
‘No.’ He was too much like his uncle already without sinking to the level of common street thug. ‘We’ll leave it be for now.’
Jasper rubbed his chin, his many mistakes piling up on him, along with those of his uncle. Uncle Patrick no longer had to face them, but Jasper did, every day. He had a sickening sense that his carefully constructed world was about to come crashing down around him. There was nowhere else for him to go if things fell apart here and this time so many more people would suffer.
* * *
The bark of a dog on the street outside startled Jane out of sleep. Her back was cold and she turned over to find Jasper missing, again.
He must have gone to the gambling room. She pulled the coverlet up to her chin and snuggled into the soft mattress, but the sound of a bird outside announcing the coming dawn, and the front door opening and closing downstairs, made her sit up. She listened for the fall of Jasper’s boots on the stairs, but heard nothing except a slight noise in the sitting room beneath their bedroom. It wasn’t like him to linger downstairs when he came home.
She twisted the sheets between her fingers, wondering if she should go down or leave him alone. He hadn’t come up for a reason and she feared her questions would revive the awkwardness of their previous early morning encounter. However, if he was suffering she didn’t want to leave him alone. In the weeks after Philip’s first wife had died, Jane had caught Philip up at night many times. The helplessness Philip had experienced over his wife’s death had haunted him and robbed him of sleep. He hadn’t been any more forthcoming about his reasons for being up than Jasper had been the other morning, but she’d guessed. Then Laura had come into Philip’s life and helped him to open his heart and leave the tragedy of his wife’s death behind. It had brought them closer together and uncovered the love developing beneath their marriage of convenience. Jane wanted to do the same for Jasper and be to him what Laura was to Philip.
Unless it wasn’t Savannah keeping him up, but guilt. She turned the diamond wedding ring on her finger, hesitant to risk rejection again, but she didn’t want to sit here in the darkness with so many questions about the letter and his sudden reserve torturing her either.
She rose, tugged on her robe and left the room.
The wood of the stairs was cold against her bare feet. Outside, a few voices of men making their way along the street carried in through the closed windows. In another hour or so light would fill the sky and more people would join them to begin their long day.
Once downstairs, she crept up on the sitting room, pausing outside to listen to the steady fall of Jasper’s feet as he paced inside, her courage wavering. It was