“Do you wish to sleep as you are?” he asked, scarcely recognizing the sound of his own voice. “Or would you prefer a nightgown?”

“A nightgown, if you please. There’s one in the brown carpetbag.”

He retrieved it for her. It was the same nightgown she’d been wearing when he’d rescued her. A ruffled white cotton garment, as primly virginal in its construction as anything he’d ever beheld.

“You can leave now,” she said as she took it from him. “Or at least . . . turn around.”

He obliged her. As he stood facing the fire, he heard the frantic rustle of soft garments coupled with the sound of her quickening breath. “Are you certain you don’t need my help?”

“No, thank you.”

He waited awhile longer before inquiring again.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I’m finished now.”

He turned back to her. He’d seen her in her nightgown before. But she hadn’t only changed her clothes. She’d taken down her hair. It tumbled loose over one shoulder in a thick ebony spill.

Regarding her from across the room, Jasper felt a disconcerting mix of emotions. Not only desire for a beautiful woman, but affection, compassion, and a deep thread of masculine possessiveness.

“Would you like me to brush it for you?” he asked impulsively.

She blinked. “Would you?”

His mouth hitched in a sudden smile. “Why not?”

As Julia angled herself on the edge of the bed, a cashmere shawl wrapped around her in lieu of a dressing gown, it occurred to her that having her new husband brush her hair was very different than having her maid do it.

For one thing, she hadn’t anticipated how trembly and breathless it would make her feel. And she was already quite trembly and breathless enough after Jasper had helped to undress her.

He’d removed her corset, for heaven’s sake. And he’d touched her bare legs and even her naked feet.

Butterflies rampaged in her stomach to recall it.

In other circumstances, the whole experience might have left her mortified beyond permission, but Jasper had done nothing to exacerbate her embarrassment. He’d been both gentle and ruthlessly efficient. Just as he was being now.

As he sat next to her, running her brush through the length of her hair, Julia was plagued by a gnawing sense of guilt.

Her new husband might be a fortune hunter, and theirs might be a marriage of convenience, but he was still a man, and this was still his wedding night. Doubtless he hadn’t expected to spend it caring for an invalid bride.

“I’m not always this frail,” she informed him.

Jasper continued plying the hairbrush. “I realize that.”

“In a day or two, I shall be myself again.”

“I trust you will, providing you get enough rest.”

She glanced back at him, struck by a sudden suspicion. “You aren’t going to insist I remain in bed, are you?”

His countenance was stern. “If that’s what it takes to recover yourself.”