“Why?” she whispered.

His lips parted and he shifted slightly. “Because I…” He broke off and shook his head. “You’re my wife, Thomasina. And I want us to be happy together.”

She wrinkled her brow, wondering what it was he was going to say before he shifted his tactic. Too afraid to ask him. Too exhausted to be rejected one more time.

“Right now,” she said. “I despise my father. He forced Anne into the marriage bargain with you and he must have known it wouldn’t be a good match. He didn’t care about her, just as he proves he doesn’t care about her now. She’s lost her value by running away and he has moved on to his next plan.”

“That must be difficult,” Jasper said. She saw his hand flutter like he wanted to touch her, and part of her wished he would. Part of her was glad he kept the distance between them.

“You would know, based on your own past,” she said.

He nodded. “I do understand, I suppose. Though I can’t say I know, because your situation is different.”

She blinked. He took no ownership of her pain. He didn’t try to erase it or hurry her through it. He just stood there, offering her his ear and nothing more.

She shook her head as the pain heightened. “I have never been without my sisters,” she whispered. Her voice broke with the depth of her heartbreak at that thought. “Never for more than a night at a time. And now they will both be gone.”

“Should I go with him to Scotland instead and leave Juliana here with you?” he asked.

She gasped as she stared at him. “You would do that?”

“I think Gretna Green is likely a waste of time because I don’t think Anne and Maitland ever truly went there,” he said slowly.

“Nor do I,” she agreed. “But why send my father there, then?”

“In order to cover that faint possibility and perhaps even shock him into understanding the gravity of this situation beyond the damned scandal.” His fingers flexed at his side. She could see he wanted to touch her. Console her. He didn’t out of respect to her. “But if you’d like to keep Juliana here, I would go in her stead.”

She reached out and caught his hand, lifting it to her lips and pressing a brief kiss on his knuckles. “The fact that you would offer such a boon is meaningful beyond measure. But no. Juliana would go wild here, waiting for information. And the two of us wouldn’t know what to look for in any search we made. It is better for her to go with my father and keep him on task. For you and I to remain and do whatever real work there is to find Maitland’s prize.”

He stared down at her, nodding slowly at her words. But she saw the shift in him. The desire that fluttered into his eyes just because she’d touched him. She felt a faint desire of her own calling back to him. A knowledge that if he touched her now it would erase the pain for a moment. It would begin to reforge the bond that had been damaged when she found those letters hours ago.