If she wanted him to give in to her desires, she had to use a different tactic than the mere fear for Anne’s safety. That wasn’t enough to tempt him.

“Don’t you worry that if you return without Anne, it will reflect badly on you?”

“How could it? No one knows anything but that your sister was replaced as Harcourt’s bride.”

“But that explanation won’t hold up if she isn’t with you when you return to London. You must worry that it will be said that you abandoned your daughter to some unknown fate? Versus if you stay here—if we are able to find her, you can either pretend that her potential marriage to this…this Ellis monster…was part of a greater plan. Or you can play on the sympathy of your friends for her terrible position.”

He stared at her and she could see her words had sunk in. “I suppose that is true,” he said slowly. “I can play the grieved father, clucking my tongue at how poorly my motherless daughter turned out.”

She flinched once more at his coldness and barely held her rage in check. She would get what she wanted if she could maintain control.

He nodded. “You have convinced me,” he said. “I will stay here at least another two weeks and we will wait for your sister. I’m certain some word of her will come back to us by then.”

“Yes,” Thomasina said, and didn’t have to pretend her utter relief. “Especially if you put some money into the proposition.”

He wrinkled his nose as if the prospect were distasteful. “Seems like throwing good money after bad, but I suppose you’re right. Fine, I will discuss it with Harcourt after supper. Now I want to go examine this piece of flotsam that might be from a ship. You wait here.”

He strode off down the sand, leaving her to wait for him in all his selfish glory. And yet she had obtained what she wanted, even though it didn’t feel like much of a prize.

And it made her long all the more for Jasper, and the comfort she now felt in his arms as they settled into the life that would be theirs for many years to come. She only hoped he would open those arms to her. She needed it.

Jasper cursed as he tossed aside yet another of his brother’s frivolous date books, marked with long lines of parties and games and meetings that couldn’t help him determine anything about Maitland’s claim of a treasure. They only proved how foolish his brother had been as he dragged centuries of their family name behind him through the mud.

“I fear I’m interrupting you.” He jerked his head up and found Juliana Shelley standing at the library door, leaning on the jamb as she watched him through a hooded gaze.

“What is it, Miss Juliana?” he asked as he shuffled the disorganized books on the shelf around and found the next journal in his brother’s collection.