Jasper reached up and snapped the stem with practiced ease. He presented the rose with a bow. “Your rose, Lady Isabelle.”
She took it with a breathy laugh, holding it lightly against her glove. “So gallant, Your Grace. Just as I remember you as a child. Do you?”
“No,” Jasper said simply. He truly did not.
Her smile faltered for the barest instant before she drew it back into place, tilting her head at him. “Memory is fickle. But in time, you will recall. Some things were not meant to be forgotten.”
She leaned in then, close enough for her perfume to reach him, close enough to suggest intimacy, yet her hands remained demurely clasped around the rose, her posture chaste. Bold, yes, but only within the boundaries of propriety that the garden audience would accept.
Jasper stepped back, reclaiming his space with deliberate courtesy. “The rose suits you, Lady Isabelle. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I must return to Robert.”
She dipped her head prettily, the rose poised against her gown like a trophy. “Of course, Your Grace.”
He turned on his heel, striding back toward the lawn. Relief coursed through him, but it was not escape that steadied his pulse. It was the sight, across the tea tables, of Matilda, who was still seated serenely, with her lips curved in that polite smile that revealed nothing.
And yet he saw it, how her fingers tightened just slightly on her teacup, how her shoulders lifted with tension she tried to mask.
Everyone might believe Lady Isabelle had won a moment of his attention.
But Jasper knew better.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Matilda lifted her teacup with steady hands, feeling the coolness of the porcelain against her fingers. She smiled where required, nodded at Hazel’s observation, even laughed lightly when Cordelia spilled a few crumbs of cake upon her gown. To all appearances, she was the very model of composure.
But her eyes betrayed her.
Across the garden, every movement was visible: the stroll to the roses, the way Lady Isabelle tilted her head, ribbons dancing, her expression artfully sweet. The way Jasper reached effortlessly for a bloom and presented it like a knight in some blasted troubadour’s tale.
Matilda’s grip on her cup tightened until she feared it might crack.
“Do be careful,” Hazel murmured beside her. As always, her sharp gaze missed nothing. “The china is innocent.”
Matilda forced a smile, loosening her hold. “Of course.”
Cordelia, distracted as ever, leaned forward. “She is bold, isn’t she? Bold and very pretty. One cannot fault her for trying.”
Matilda’s smile wavered, but she agreed smoothly. “A rose garden is an ideal stage for such displays. Very poetic, I must say.”
Hazel’s brows arched ever so slightly, but she said nothing more.
Matilda set her cup down with deliberate care, arranging her skirts as if all her thoughts were on propriety. But her gaze slipped again to Jasper, just in time to see him step back from Lady Isabelle, bow politely, and turn away. The widow held her rose aloft as though it were a prize. Jasper, however, did not look back at her. His eyes had already lifted toward the tea tables and toward Matilda herself.
Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she dropped her gaze at once, fussing with her gloves. It meant nothing. He was merely surveying the company. He looked at everyone that way.
Everyone.
Still, her heart beat far too fast for the lie to settle easily.
On his part, Jasper returned to the gentlemen’s circle with his usual careless grace, as though fetching roses for insistent young widows were part of the day’s routine. He clasped Robert on theshoulder, laughed at some jest, and drew on his cigar with all the ease of a man unbothered.
Lady Isabelle drifted back to the ladies’ circle, with the crimson rose held delicately against her glove.
One of the village girls leaned forward. “What a beautiful bloom, Lady Isabelle!”
Isabelle smiled sweetly. “His Grace was kind enough to fetch it for me. He does have such a gallant way.”
Cordelia’s eyes danced with mischief. “Gallant indeed! Matilda, how have you never persuaded him to climb walls foryouramusement?”
