But Jasper always had those words in his mind when he looked at her. That his mother would never be satisfied.

He’d worried he might find the same in a wife once he had gotten to know Anne Shelley. Her hesitations about him and their future had become very clear over the weeks and months, even before she ran into the night with a villain to escape him.

Now it was different. Now he was married to Thomasina.

His gaze found her in the crowd. She was standing with her sister and another friend, smiling and laughing. She looked pleased and she was always pleasing. Her father had described her that way, and Jasper had felt it, her drive to make him happy and comfortable, even at the sacrifice of herself. But was that better than a lady who disregarded his comfort? He didn’t feel like it was.

She must have felt his stare, for her gaze flitted toward him. Her smile broadened as she tilted her head in acknowledgment.

And for a moment, everything else fell away. His worries about her quieted and the world was…right. It was right even though there were whispers in the room about the scandalous switch in brides. About Anne not being here to wish her sister well.

About everything Jasper had fought to keep secret and private and failed at miserably. Even his own thoughts about the situation with Maitland and Anne faded a bit. He was able to forget the news he’d received from Reynolds earlier in the day.

He forgot everything but Thomasina.

“It looks as though some friends are coming to wish you well,” his mother said. “I will leave you to them.”

She walked away without a backward glance, and Jasper sighed and forced a smile as two of his acquaintances from neighboring shires reached him. Lord Barnaby and Thomas Walker had been friends of his in school and in London. They were wilder than he was, of course. Everyone was.

“Many felicitations,” Barnaby said, his words just a touch slurred as he pounded Jasper’s back a bit too hard. “You’ve landed a Shelley sister—that comes with a fine prize of a dowry.”

Jasper pursed his lips, although the man was only speaking the truth. Still, it seemed uncouth and potentially hurtful to boil down his new marriage to such terms when it was hardly a few hours old. “And the bride is winsome, as well,” he said softly.

Walker stared across the room at Thomasina and shrugged. “She is quite pretty, yes. Always were a bit of an oddity, those Shelley sisters. It’s hardly natural for three women to be identical in every way.” He shuddered. “Twins are bad enough.”

Jasper glared at him, but before he could retort Barnaby was talking again. “Of course, it made switching one out for the other easier. They’re interchangeable and so is that lovely pile of money that goes along with them, eh?” He laughed. “Makes the peculiarity of their birth a little more palatable.”