“This is my study,” he said in a hoarse voice. “When I’m home, this is the most likely place to find me.”
Stunned by the sudden change in conversation and the distance between them, Eliza took a moment to register what he’d said. “It suits you,” she managed.
“Come along.” Jasper held his hand out to her.
He pulled her gently from the room and back out to the visitor’s foyer. There was a longcase clock against the wall, a large console with a lone silver salver atop it, and a rack for Jasper’s cane. It was a purely functional space, lacking any adornments.
“The parlor is here,” he said, steering her across a round Aubusson rug covering the marble floor.
From the threshold, she saw a fire in the grate and playing cards scattered across two separate tables. It looked as if a gathering had recently been there and would be returning shortly. The room was decorated in shades of yellow and cream. There was a large quantity of furniture, all of which was oversized and sturdily built. Still, the space felt sterile and uncluttered.
“At any given hour,” he said, “many of my employees can be found in here. The downstairs is often noisy, filled with bawdy conversations and raucous laughter. This is the first time this room has been empty in many years.”
“Oh…” Eliza understood that he’d sent the men away because of her. “When will they be back?”
“Not for many hours.”
Her palms grew damp, a reaction he couldn’t fail to note with her hand in his. “Were you so certain of my capitulation?”
“Far from it, but I couldn’t proceed as if failure was inevitable.” He tugged her from the room. “There is also a dining room and ballroom on this floor, but I use neither, so they’re unfurnished.”
They moved toward the staircase and started to climb. With every step they took, her excitement mounted. Her breathing quickened and her face felt hot. There was an unmistakable finality to their upward progression, as if her fate had been set and she couldn’t turn back now. Far from feeling trapped, she felt liberated. All afternoon, she’d thought of Melville and Regina and Montague. She had weighed their admonishments and advice. And she’d felt the mounting pressure to conform, to cede to the expected behavior and cast aside any lingering hope for independence.
“The third floor,” he said, “has three bedrooms and a nursery, which has been converted into a room for guests. Sometimes my men stay here, for various reasons. No one is here now. If you would like to see the rooms, I’ll show them to you.”
If he was trying to give her time to change her mind, it wasn’t working. She was growing more agitated by the moment. Impatient. Restless. “Why?”
Jasper glanced at her. “Does anything about my home strike you in an unusual way?”
“It’s lovely,” she said. “Beautifully furnished. However, it is also oddly barren. Nothing adorns the walls or table surfaces. You’ve hung no portraits of loved ones or pleasing landscapes. I had hoped to learn more about you by visiting, but I’ve seen very little that tells a story.”
“One has to want things in order to purchase them. There’s nothing I want. There has been nothing I’ve seen in a shop window or in someone else’s home that I have coveted.” He paused with one foot on the next step. “I think you might understand that lack of wanting. You attire yourself for purpose, not for vanity. You did not refurnish Melville’s study when you commandeered it. You replaced what needed to be replaced and made do with the rest.”
“Many people find that art and sentimental objects provide comfort and enjoyment. I, too, own a few items that are impractical but give me pleasure.”
“Am I such to you?” he asked, his dark eyes shadowed with some emotion she couldn’t name. “An impractical pleasure?”
“Yes.”
He started forward again. They reached the second floor landing and Eliza looked down the lone hallway, searching for and finding a lack of wall adornment. Aside from sconces to light the way, there was nothing to relieve the long expanse of soft green damask covering the walls.
His pace slowed from brisk to a near stroll. “I have only ever wanted intangible things-health and happiness for my mother, justice for wrongdoings, satisfaction in a job well done-things of that nature. I have never understood why others become focused on particular objects. I’ve never comprehended obsession or overwhelming need.”
He spoke without inflection. There was nothing in what he said that betrayed any emotion, yet she felt a deeper undercurrent to his words.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked softly, clutching his hand with both of her own.
“I’m the only one who uses this floor.” He started forward. “Aside from my own rooms, the rest are vacant.”
His repeated evasion of her questions was growing tiresome. She could not understand his mood. With her own emotions a confusing jumble, she didn’t have the wherewithal to translate his feelings, too.
They reached a set of open double doors. Jasper gestured her in ahead of him.
Taking a deep breath, Eliza crossed the threshold. Like her room in Melville’s house, Jasper’s sitting room was predominantly burgundy in tone with occasional splashes of cream to alleviate the dark hue. But unlike her space, his was thoroughly masculine. There were no tassels or patterns to any of the materials, and no carvings in the wooden arms and legs of the chairs and tables.
The air smelled of him. She breathed the scent into her nostrils, finding it calming to her jangled nerves. Then, she looked at the open doorway to her left, the portal to Jasper’s bedchamber, and her stomach knotted all over again.
“There are games women play,” he murmured, his gaze hot enough to heat her skin. “Tests they devise to gauge a man’s interest.”
“What sorts of tests?”
“They make certain a man learns of their favorite flower or color or important dates, then wait to see if he will remember and gift them accordingly.”
Her hands linked together nervously. Should she sit? Or remain standing as he did? She escaped into the conversation, not knowing what else to do. “The objects of feminine and masculine sentimentality are often widely different. To expect a man to assume what might be an unnatural form of sentiment to prove devotion is an unreasonable experiment with a high probability of failure. Why not accept his instinctual gestures of affection in whatever manner they are manifested? They likely mean more to him and reveal more about his character.”
Jasper’s smile curled her toes. “Do you have any notion of how sexually arousing I find your intellect? One day I should like you to expound upon this topic while I’m inside you. I suspect I would find it highly erotic.”
A flush swept over her face.
He shut the door to the hallway and locked it. The soft click of the latch rippled through her.
“I tested you today,” he said, with his back to her. “Considering how irritating I find such ploys, it astonishes me that I did so.”
“Did I pass?”
Facing her, he shrugged out of his coat. “You are in my home, so I would say so.”
He swiftly unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat. Eliza found she could not look away, despite the voice in her head that lectured about privacy and proper maidenly modesty.
She cleared her throat so she could speak. “You sent for me without telling me why.”
“If Montague had sent for you, would you have gone?”
“Of course not. He does not work for me.”
Jasper stiffened. When he returned to the act of shaking off his waistcoat, it was with notable impatience. “If Reynolds had sent for you, would you have gone?”
“No.”
“But he works for you.”
Clearly the expected responses were not the ones he wanted to hear. He wanted the truth.
“I would not have expended the effort for anyone else,” she admitted, her mouth drying as he untied and unwound his cravat, baring his throat. The sight was intensely provocative to her. His skin was darker than her own, firmer. She wanted desperately to touch it, to feel him swallow beneath her fingertips.