Thomasina gasped and the gaze that flashed to him held more of that fascinating and captivating anger. He found himself wanting to provoke it just to watch it burn in her eyes.

“Sir, please you must reconsider,” Shelley said. “If you do not marry Anne, you will damage all our reputations. I have plans for the other girls, you see, and—”

Thomasina caught her breath and her hands gripped in fists at her sides, all the proof Jasper needed that she did not want to be part of her father’s schemes.

Which meant she might agree to be party to his own.

“I don’t care about your plans,” he interrupted. “I am the injured party here, sir. You ought to have brought your daughter under some kind of control years ago, rather than let her be so wild.”

Shelley pursed his lips. “Fine. Then what do you suggest. Money, I suppose. To make up for her lost dowry?”

Jasper flinched, for the words, spoken under the guise of recompense, certainly hit the mark Shelley likely intended. They starkly reminded Jasper that he needed the funds. That this marriage was not something he could end so easily. Others depended on him too much.

“No, money will not fix it either,” he murmured, and found himself looking toward Thomasina once more. “When you and I first met and discussed the idea of uniting our families, you made it clear I would have a pick of any of your three daughters.”

Shelley tilted his head. “And you made it clear you did not care which one you were given.”

“So you gave me the one most likely to destroy your own future. Thank you for that,” Jasper said. “Well, now I think the solution is clear, don’t you?”

Juliana Shelley took a long step forward. “Wait…are you—are you suggesting you would merely replace Anne with one of us?”

He arched a brow at her. “Indeed, I am. After all, I made a bargain to marry a Shelley sister. Marry one I shall.”

Mr. Shelley’s eyes were wide as saucers. “My lord—”

“The wedding is on, sir,” Jasper said, forcing his tone to be hard as nails, unbendable as cold steel. “And since Miss Thomasina Shelley was so eager to take her sister’s place at the ball tonight, I see no reason why she should not do so permanently.”

Thomasina stared at Harcourt, mouth agape, her hands tingling and her knees shaking. All this had to be a dream. Or a nightmare. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be real.

And yet everything around her felt too sharp and present to be anything but real.

“You wish—you wish to marry me?” she managed to whisper.

He met her stare, unreadable as always, and shrugged one shoulder slightly. “I wish to marry a Shelley sister, Miss Thomasina.”

She ought not to have felt a sting at that response, for she knew he didn’t truly care for her. Right now he didn’t even like her. And yet she did feel it, a sharp tug on the heart that made her eyes fill with tears she immediately blinked away. She hadn’t earned those. She refused to let them fall.