She tilted her head. He seemed very uncomfortable but she couldn’t place why. “Just say it, Jasper. I’d rather have you tell me something I do not like honestly than to hide the truth from me.”

Once again he shifted and then shook his head. “I’m talking about our expectations of each other when it comes to our…our connection.”

She blinked. “Our connection.”

“I did not seek love in a marriage partner, is what I mean,” he said, smoothing his hands along the front of his jacket. “I certainly have seen love matches work out, but they can be messy. I do not wish for a life that is messy—I’m trying to get myself out of just that sort of thing right now, thanks to my brother’s bad behavior.”

That was an entirely unexpected admission. Jasper had never spoken to her or in front of her about his late brother, nor of the persistent rumors that surrounded him and his untimely death. But there it was, blurted out as he ran a hand through his hair with an uncommonly wild expression to his dark eyes.

“The notion of love is fine, of course,” he continued. “For fairytales. But I do not want to go into this arrangement with you misunderstanding why I am doing it.”

She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the sting his words created deep within her.

“My lord,” she said, folding her arms. “I am well aware of why you are marrying into my family. My dowry will refill your coffers, your title will please my father’s desire to be linked to an important family. It is a business arrangement, just as it was when you chose my sister for your bride. I am not a fool.”

Relief seemed to wash over him, and once again she was stung by how happy he was that she accepted his lack of affection for her. As if she had a choice in the matter.

“Of course you aren’t,” he hastened to say. “You are, in fact, wonderfully intelligent. It is one of my very favorite things about you.”

She stared. He had a favorite thing about her? That was very confusing given what he’d just said about not wanting an emotional bond.

“You know, you could have simply taken me aside tomorrow and had this conversation,” she said. “You didn’t have to slip into my bedchamber and wait for me to tell me you couldn’t love me and only wanted the barest connection with me when we wed.”

She went to turn away and he caught her arm, pivoting her back. “You have misunderstood me,” he said, his voice quiet, his breath warm and sweet. “I tell you that I do not seek love so there will be no confusion. But I don’t want the barest of connection with you, Thomasina. What I would like, what I want more than perhaps I should, is far deeper than that.”

She shook her head. “I’m very confused.”

“I know, because I’m bungling this,” he said with a tiny hint of a smile. Such a rare thing on his normally serious face and she was struck silent by it. “The night you pretended to be Anne, when I almost kissed you on the terrace…you wanted that, didn’t you?”