He nodded. “I felt much the same after Reynolds left me. Perhaps we could…”

He trailed off and she wrinkled her brow at what was his obvious discomfort. That felt so different from the confidence he normally exhibited in front of her. It felt like an opportunity.

“What would you like to do?” she asked as she took a long step toward him.

His gaze flowed over her again, this time more charged with sexual energy. Her body reacted of its own accord, brought to life by him as was always true, it seemed.

“Walk with me around the estate,” he said.

She drew back in surprise, for that didn’t seem to be the message his look was sending. But she didn’t mind. Walking and talking together felt as intimate as making love to him. And there would be plenty of time for that later.

“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand and taking what she hoped would be the next step toward the relationship she wanted.

Chapter 15

Jasper watched her hand for a moment, almost as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Or that taking it meant something he wasn’t ready to share. Thomasina held her breath, feeling the importance of the moment, even though it seemed so casual on the surface.

But at last he drew her closer as their fingers folded against each other. When he smiled, it lit up his face, and she nearly staggered at the way it changed him. Made him lighter and younger and even more attractive. He so rarely shared that expression, and yet he gifted it to her more than anyone else.

Like his pleasure was hers and hers alone.

A foolish feeling, but one she would cling to in the fog of her love for him and her desire for something more than just a surface relationship.

He guided her down the long hallway and to a back parlor. They exited the house through a pair of French doors and out onto the terrace that wrapped around the back of the home. The same terrace where he’d almost kissed her when she’d been pretending to be Anne what felt like a lifetime ago, though it was just a week.

There was a set of stone stairs in the far corner of the terrace, and he took her down their length and into the pretty garden behind the house. A maze of flowers and trees and perfectly trimmed hedges greeted them, and she smiled at the beauty of her surroundings.

“You approve?” he asked, and sounded as if he truly wished for the affirmative.

She nodded. “How could I not? It’s beautiful. I do love a garden and this one is very fine. I’ve walked in it a dozen times or more since we arrived and always find something new and lovely. Did you mother oversee it during her time as countess?”

He frowned at this question, and she felt the wall going up between them immediately. “The dowager does not garden,” he said at last. “I don’t think she would want to be bothered by such a mundane thing.”