Her eyes went wide. “You really can tell us apart,” she breathed.

“No,” he snapped, his frustration getting the better of him when it shouldn’t. “I can recognize Thomasina. Since Anne has taken off to God knows where…”

He trailed off at how her expression fell, but she nodded slowly. “Ah, so a process of elimination,” she said.

He stretched his back and tried to find some level of gentlemanliness in his ill humor. “Yes.” He sighed and softened his tone. “Were you in need of some assistance?”

“I’d like to talk about my sister,” she said softly.

Jasper squeezed his eyes shut. He had enough guilt about this subject when it came to Thomasina, he didn’t need Juliana’s worries on top of all that. “As I have told Thomasina numerous times, Anne is—”

She moved a step closer. “I wasn’t asking about Anne.”

His jaw tightened, and for a long moment, they just stared at each other across the room. Then he nodded. “I see.”

Her expression collapsed a fraction and she worried her hands before herself gently. “It isn’t that I’m not worried about Anne. But she is resourceful.” She arched a brow. “And I somehow don’t believe you are as cold as you pretend to be when it comes to her safety. So I must believe that she will be found or return on her own.”

“Then your concern is Thomasina,” he said.

She nodded. “Yes. She is…gentle, my lord. She is kind, sometimes even to her own detriment. If her heart were broken…”

“You think I would break her heart?” he asked, and was surprised how much that idea stung him.

“Perhaps not on purpose,” she said.

“Because I’m not so cold as I seem.”

She pursed her lips. “Nor are you immune to her. I’ve seen you look at her. But that is the trouble in the end. She’ll see it too. She’ll want some kind of…some type of fairytale that people like Anne or you or—or me know doesn’t truly exist. But when Thomasina discovers it doesn’t, it will crush her.”

Jasper bent his head. And there it was, the fear he felt spoken out loud by a woman who shared his wife’s face.

“If she loves you, my lord, she will do anything in the world to please you. Anything to find some tiny hope that you might feel the same about her.”

He nodded slowly. He could see that about Thomasina. He had felt it. “I’ve noticed how desperately she wants to please,” he said.

Juliana flinched as if that observation were a pain to her. A heartbreak. “Yes. We all had our way of coping, I suppose.”

He cocked his head as he examined Juliana. He had thought very little of her during his engagement, focusing instead on Anne because he felt he had to and then Thomasina because he couldn’t help himself. Now he found himself curious about this third Shelley sister.

“And what was your way?” he asked.

“I fix things,” she said softly. “But I might not be able to fix this if it goes too far.”