Chapter Eight

J asper was not a coward, but neither was he a fool. Any confrontation involving Vanessa would sink her.

He called for his carriage, and they waited in silence. Although her fingertips were light upon his arm, he felt her trembling. When his carriage drew up before them, one of the footmen opened the door and Jasper handed her up. Then he mounted the block and directed the driver.

“The Bleeker Street house. The long way. Through the park.”

He climbed in and settled on the bench across from her. The carriage rolled away from the theater. He waited for her to speak first.

Finally, she said, “You deserve an explanation.”

“Vanessa, no. This is not about me. Except to say that my support is fully yours.”

She sighed, a hitch catching in her throat. “I am acquainted with the Marquess of Hilyer. We were—at least in my father’s eyes and Hilyer’s—betrothed.”

Jasper ground his teeth to keep his jaw shut.

“My father being,” Vanessa continued a little breathlessly, “Frederick Culpepper.”

“Culpepper!” He nearly choked on the name. He had guessed Vanessa’s family had money, but not to that degree. Not Culpepper wealth. The man owned half the cotton mills in the North. He had a reputation, among the worst of his class, for abusing his employees. Of bribery. Corruption. And boorishness. The sod could not understand why his money could not buy him, at the very least, a baronetcy. A man’s own greed did not make him a worthy servant to the Crown!

The devil. The bloody devil. Jasper could draw a straight line. Culpepper had sacrificed his daughter to his futile ambition. He’d promised her to that disgusting lecher.

Jasper had not thought to close the curtains. Enough lamplight shone inward for him to see Vanessa was crying, making no sound. He moved to the bench beside her and pulled her against his shoulder.

“You don’t have to say anymore.” Jasper had never before wished to ruin a man. Now he wished to destroy two.

She wept. Not loudly or long, but she wept, and his heart wept along with her. When she sat back, he handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes, then drew another deep breath.

“I’d like to explain about Henry. I did not…we were legally wed. I did not run off with a soldier.”

Jasper’s mind had not yet drifted to that conclusion, but admittedly, it might have. “Of course not.”

She said, “But we were wed in Gretna Green. It was not the most respectable marriage, but it was a marriage. Henry was the most honorable man I have ever known.”

That included him. Or excluded him, as it were. But he could not resent Henry Wardrip. He could do nothing but admire him.

“I told you I had few friends when I was young. Henry was one.” She paused and blew her nose, then made a sound of dismay. “I beg your pardon.”

“Vanessa, all ladies’ noses drip when they weep. Tell me about Henry. I wish I’d been privileged to know him.”

“I had no female friends because my father feared I would be polluted by them. Instead, I had more governesses, tutors, instructors, stylists—oh, anyone he could think to hire. My days were full. And I had things , Jasper. So many things. So many useless, hideous things . I used to lie awake at night on the Peninsula, oppressed not by the lack of them but by the memory of the appalling weight of them.”

The story bothered him because he understood, deep in the dark recess of his soul, that he owed Frederick Culpepper a debt of gratitude. Had the father not molded Vanessa into the form of a lady, Jasper would not have taken to her so immediately. Perhaps not at all. Had Crispin sent some costermonger into his care, he would have given her money and sent her on her way.

“He did not banish Henry?” Or Will Collingsworth? “What idiot father banishes female friends but allows young men?”

“Not at first. Henry was—oh, I was not allowed to associate with the sons of my father’s business acquaintances. God forbid. Can you imagine the designs upon, not my person, but my father’s mills?”

“You’re an only child?”

She shook her head. “I have a brother. We were close once, but I suspect Freddie has become a copy of my father.” She grimaced. “My father insisted upon it.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. He could not envision being so at odds with one’s brothers. Well, he could not envision any of this, truthfully.

“I did not stand to inherit any of the business, of course. But the connection would have been enough. That and the dowry my father advertised to anyone who would listen.”

“Don’t tell me.” How disgustingly crass. “But Hilyer is flush. Why…oh, God. Never mind. I know why.” Young, virginal, pretty, without significant connections or a father who cared. Hilyer would be slavering.

“I didn’t associate with men of my father’s ilk. But I wasn’t locked away in a hidden room. I knew some of my father’s more elevated associates. His attorney for example. And Will often accompanied his father. We had occasion to speak from time to time. Not often. But enough to grow an affection between us.”

“An affection?”

“A casual friendship. Jasper, please don’t—” She reached to touch his arm.

“I won’t. I’m sorry. Of course, I won’t.”

He clamped down hard upon the teeth of jealousy that had begun to gnaw. He would not sully her friendships with coarse suspicion of men’s motives.

“And there was Henry. His father was Dr. Wardrip, my mother’s physician. My mother considered herself an invalid. I don’t know what her malady was. It seemed to be constantly changing. But the point is, Dr. Wardrip was a frequent visitor to our house. Henry accompanied him from the time we were children. Little children. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Freddy.”

“I see. But he was not banished when he became old enough to be viewed as a suitor?”

“Well, no. Because he did not need banishing. He went away to school at St. Thomas’s. I hadn’t seen him for three years, and then he returned as his father’s assistant.” She pulled her hand away, fluttering. She was not a flutterer. “The story grows so sordid from here, I…”

“Nothing you have done is sordid.” He turned her chin until she looked him in the eye. “Vanessa, nothing .”

She blinked. Nodded. “I don’t know when it dawned on me that Henry was falling in love with me. I didn’t love him. I recognized that much. But I didn’t go out of my way to discourage him because I liked him. I considered him a good match and assumed my parents would think so as well.”

“You were unaware of your father’s intentions?”

“I was aware, but I thought them to be ridiculous. He had money, but not the connections. I could see that, even if he did not.”

The carriage hit a rut, jostling them against one another. Jasper used the opportunity to slide an arm across her shoulders, to reassure her—seeing what was coming—that he was on her side.

“But then he managed, somehow, to gain an introduction to the marquess. Hilyer declined an invitation to supper, but Frederick Culpepper never takes no for an answer. He made me dress up like a ladybird. It was not the first time. He liked to parade me about. I hated it, Jasper, hated it so much. I didn’t know he meant to waylay the marquess in the street. He even managed to work a mention of my dowry into the conversation. The marquess looked at me as though…”

She flushed deeply. Jasper blanched. He could not find words contemptuous enough.

“Within a week, my father had his offer. It didn’t matter that I refused.” Her voice thinned. “Contracts were drawn.”

“My God.”

“I resorted to the airs of a gothic heroine. I threatened to kill myself. I refused to eat. My father scoffed at first, but eventually, it alarmed him. I suppose he recognized he could not deliver a corpse to the marquess.”

“Vanessa,” he murmured. He kissed the top of her head. He didn’t know what to say. Only that men were brutes, and he was ashamed to be one. Look at Carleton and Stevenson. Look at Crispin. Look at himself.

“Father called in Dr. Wardrip. He was appalled by me. He warned me that I must eat. He told my father that if I had taken nothing in three more days, he would return, and force feed me. He described the process to me in detail. Henry was in the room, but he would not look at me. Jasper, that night I prayed for hours that I would die before the doctor returned.”

More tears rolled down her cheeks. This time, she brushed them angrily away.

“The next morning, Henry appeared without his father. He carried a sugared loaf and explained that Dr. Wardrip had sent him to try to tempt me to eat. My mother followed him up to my bedroom. She watched him tear off a large piece. He pressed it into my hand. Then he took a smaller one and said, ‘Open your mouth, Miss Culpepper.’ I don’t know why, but I did. He put a piece of bread into it along with something else. I pretended to swallow. He said, ‘Promise me you will eat the rest.’ I could only nod. He suggested to my mother that they leave me alone, and she was so impressed with him that they did.”

“What did he put in your mouth?”

“A note. It said he would be outside my window at midnight. He said if I was willing, he would take me to Gretna Green and marry me. He said I must know that he loved me and that he only hoped that one day I would feel the same. That night, we eloped.”

“Thank God for Henry Wardrip.”

“Yes.” Then she burst into heaving tears. “I killed him, Jasper. I killed him.”

*

They rode twice through the park, stopping once when Vanessa needed air. Well, frankly, she needed to cast up her accounts, and then, she needed air.

She hadn’t killed Henry, of course. That was done by Boney’s soldiers. And Jasper laid the blame for that squarely at Frederick Culpepper’s door.

Crispin wrote that she was the widow of a fine British soldier. Jasper had no doubt that was true. But the boy was a bacon-brain.

From what she’d said, they had been two eighteen-year-old children. Children, because they knew nothing. Even Jasper, at eighteen, had understood more of the world. They had scarcely a few pounds between them. Vanessa had not thought, before lowering herself from her bedroom window, to stuff a few necklaces into a reticule to pawn. Despite her father’s vast wealth, or more likely because of it, she had no concept of money. Not then.

Henry may have been less na?ve, but not much less. His father earned a good living by doctoring. Henry apparently believed they would return home blissfully wed and all families involved would simply adapt.

The stupidity of it all galled Jasper. Because of course, the families did not adapt. Accusations flew. Either Henry was a serial seducer, introduced by Dr. Wardrip into the homes of his wealthy patients to snare an heiress by means most foul, or Vanessa was a harlot who ruined young Henry’s budding career. Both families cut them off. The marriage had been consummated. It could not be undone. Not unless Vanessa accused Henry of forcible abduction. He would be arrested. A divorce could then be arranged. Hilyer was still willing to have her.

It was at that point in the tale when Jasper had to stop the carriage. He had not thought to bring brandy. Why would he have? He could do nothing but kneel beside her and rub her shoulders while she retched. As they remounted the carriage, one of the footmen passed him a flask. The man could be fired for drinking on duty. He could be fired for even acknowledging he’d overheard anything being said. But when Vanessa gratefully took a few sips, Jasper vowed to himself he would raise the man’s wages.

She managed to continue.

Henry had enlisted. There had been no other option. He thought he might serve as a surgeon, but they needed cannon fodder. The only blessing in the whole horrible narrative was that she had been one of the few wives chosen to accompany the new recruits. And so, she’d followed the drum.

After the story’s conclusion, they finished the ride in near silence.

Upon their return to the townhouse, Jasper ordered a bath for her. He waited for her to reappear. He had undressed but kept on his shirt, with his banyan on top for good measure. She came to him, finally, still damp, a little pink about the eyes, wearing a clean shift but nothing else. He knew she was drained. He was.

He tucked her into bed.

He said, “Vanessa, they can no longer touch you. I won’t let them cause you any more pain. You must know that.”

“I am already ruined, Jasper. They will hurt you .”

“You cannot believe that.”

“But—”

He brushed a few damp, stray curls from her forehead. “Trust me.”

She sighed. He continued stroking her hair until the tension eased from her and she started to drift to sleep. Just before she fell, she murmured, “I do.”