“Ididdo wrong. I didn’t betray Prue, no, but my past wrongs were bound to catch up to me sooner or later, and now they have.”
And the worst of it was, they’d caught up to Prue, as well.
But his grandfather was shaking his head. “No, Jasper. That’s not so. Do you remember that day at Basingstoke House, after the, er . . . shooting incident? I told you that day that Prudence Thorne would be the making of you, but I didn’t—”
“And so, she has been. But what of Prue, Grandfather? Did you ever think of what marrying me would do toher? You didn’t see her this morning. Her face . . .” As long as he lived, he’d never get over how devastated she’d looked, how her breath had caught when she’d begged him to let her go to Montford Park.
This, and they’d only been married for two weeks. What would he see in her face after a year? After ten?
“You didn’t let me finish, lad. I told you marrying Prudence Thorne would be the making of you, but what I didn’t say was that you’d also be the making ofher.”
Jasper let out a harsh laugh. “That’s a lovely thought, Grandfather, but I think we can both agree the evidence doesn’t bear out your optimism.”
“Not yet, perhaps, but it will.”
“How? My God, for the better part of my life, I’ve made one misstep after the next. Being sent down from Oxford for fighting? The wagering, the drinking, the mistresses? Don’t say you’ve forgotten all that.”
“None of that matters now. Listen to me, lad—”
“It does matter.” Bitterness welled up inside him, the force of it pressing with such insistence on his chest, a stream of words he’d never intended to say spewed from his lips. “I . . . I never meant to . . . I tried to . . . I’m sorry I’ve been such a disappointment to you, Grandfather.”
Silence fell between them, thick and fraught, until at last his grandfather broke it, his voice soft. “Don’t ever say that, Jasper. Don’t youeversay that again.”
The words fell between them, fierce and throbbing with some emotion Jasper couldn’t explain. He jerked his gaze up to meet his grandfather’s. “I thought . . . I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t, and that’s my fault.”
His grandfather crossed the room and rested a gnarled hand on top of Jasper’s, and it was . . . God, it was strange, the touch of that thin, papery skin, the bony fingers gripping his.
He couldn’t remember the last time his grandfather had taken his hand.
Not since he was a child.
“You’ve never been a disappointment to me, Jasper.Never. I should have told you that more often. Every day, even. I never wanted you to think . . . I never should have allowed you to believe for one moment that I’ve ever been anything but proud of you.”
Proud of him?Jasper stared. “But the wagering, and the mistresses, and the—”
“Yes, yes.” His grandfather waved a hand. “I haven’t forgotten it, and I don’t deny there were times when I wanted you to take a different path than you did, but I’ve never once felt ashamed of you, Jasper. Whatever failings you may have, they mean nothing when weighed against your heart. You’ve got a good, honorable, loving heart, lad. You’re a good boy.” His grandfather’s voice broke. “A goodman.”
A good man. Of all the things he’d always believed of himself—that he was a rake, a blackguard, a wastrel, and a scoundrel—never once, in all of his twenty-eight years, had he ever thought of himself as a good man.
Not once.
But Basingstoke thought so, didn’t he? He’d said it on more than one occasion, and Grantham had as well, and the Duchess of Basingstoke, who’d always maintained he was one of her favorites.
Why hadn’t he ever listened to them?
“You’ve always been guarded with your heart, Jasper.” His grandfather swallowed. “And that’s my fault. I—I blame myself for that.”
“Yourfault? How could it be—”
“Hush.” His grandfather held up a hand to quiet him. “Let me speak, lad. When you came to me as a boy, after . . . after Eugenia and your father died, you were such a sad, lost little thing. You were small for your age, you know, Jasper, though one wouldn’t know it to look at you now, and you had those big dark eyes, just like Eugenia’s.”
Jasper stilled, listening. In the twenty-two years since his parents’ death, his grandfather had only ever said their names a handful of times, and he rarely spoke about Jasper’s boyhood. He hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for it, but to hear his grandfather now was like a cup of cool water raised to his parched lips.
“You used to sit and stare at their portraits. Do you remember, lad? You spent hours in that deserted portrait gallery, just staring up at them.”
“I remember.” So much about that first year after he’d come to live with his grandfather was lost to him now, like a dream he could only half remember, but hedidremember that. “One day, the portraits were gone.”
