Oh, he had a big stick all right, Jasper thought smugly. But he hadn’t used it to get Lady Neville pregnant. In fact, if he recalled rightly, he hadn’t even penetrated her. She’d said they must dootherthings only. For all he knew, she had been having an affair with another man.But why blame the babe on him?
“My wifeknewI would leave her,” Neville vowed, “if she was ever unfaithful.”
And there it was, Jasper had his reason. Perhaps she’d fallen in love with someone else, a man who would stay in the shadows. She could get rid of her husband on her own terms, put the blame on Jasper, and end up with her lover who would seem innocent as snow.
At Jasper’s silence, Neville seemed to get wound up again, perhaps imagining a scene of passion. He took a step toward Julia, who unflinchingly stood her ground.
“Look, miss, I don’t know who you are,” Neville declared, “another one of this lech’s doxies or someone’s misguided trollop of a wife, but you’d best stand aside because I aim to take Marshfield’s head off.”
Jasper didn’t like the sound of that. Neither did Julia. She stomped a slippered foot before fisting her hands on her hips.
“I assure you, you’re making an error,” she told him. “Your wife may have pulled the name of the most convenient rake out of her hatbox, but the Earl of Marshfield could not have caused your wife’s condition.”
“Why the hell not?” Neville demanded.
“Don’t swear in front of her,” Jasper ordered the man. Then he realized what she’d said.
“Yes,” he chimed in. “Why not?”
“The earl is utterly impotent,” Julia declared.
“What?” Jasper realized Neville had said the word at the same time.
“Naturally, he doesn’t want anyone to know he has alobcock, if I have the correct term. Thus, he cultivates the reputation of a reprobate wastrel.”
“That’s harsh,” Jasper began, but she interrupted him, still addressing Neville.
“In truth, Lord Marshfield’s private life is quite the opposite. Would I, a fine, upstanding woman be here in his home if I weren’t perfectly safe around him?”
Neville frowned, darted a questioning glance at Jasper, and then nodded as if it made sense.
Julia nodded back at him while Jasper digested the harsh annihilation of his virile character.
“Either the babe in question is actually yours,” Julia said to the man, “or it belongs to another, butnotto the Earl of Marshfield. I’m sorry to say Lady Neville must be lying, perhaps to protect someone else. Or perhaps simply to test your love for her.”
Silence met her words. Jasper knew he’d best keep his mouth shut while Neville pondered. No point in defending his manliness or his skilled abilities to the cuckolded husband. But it grated on his pride all the same.
After a moment, Neville looked past Julia, catching Jasper’s gaze.
“Man-to-man, is my wife carrying your child?”
Jasper was pleased to answer, “I promise you, with the honor of my forefathers, my earldom, king and country, she is not.”
Lord Neville nodded again and looked very sad, even sparing a pitying look at Jasper, which he didn’t appreciate. In fact, he couldn’t help returning with a pitying glance of his own.
Watching the man leave wordlessly, he hoped never to find himself in a similar situation, in love with someone who so cold-heartedly betrayed him. On the other hand, Jasper fervently wished he had never touched Lady Neville or any other man’s wife.
***
JULIA HAD REPAID HERdebt to the earl, and she’d done so by a furlong.
At the same time, she had felt the slap of reality when listening by the open dining room door. Jasper had casually and carelessly slept with another man’s wife. All her pleasant thoughts of him as chivalrous and kind had vanished in an instant.
“Thank you for that,” he said, smoothing his jacket and tugging at his coat sleeves, probably not realizing how his mussed hair and battered face ruined his perfect appearance. “A clever defense, if a little embarrassing.”
Julia lifted a shoulder in dismissal, but a question came springing to her lips.
“Are you the babe’s father?”
