“Your presence will be gift enough,” he said gallantly.

She gave him an amused look. “If that’s what you think, you must not remember your own childhood very well. A new toy or a book means the world to a child.”

“They have books,” he said.

If only she knew how many.

A part of him was eager as a lad to show her. To share it all with her—this remote, ramshackle place that would soon be her home. A place where she would remain, to be his own and to live with him for the rest of his life.

“You can never have too many books,” she said. “That’s a fact.”

He refrained from comment.

Julia didn’t notice his lack of reply. She was too busy straightening her skirts and smoothing her hair.

He watched her with possessive attention, learning all her various fidgets and idiosyncrasies. Committing them to memory.

She had nothing to be concerned about. Wearing a carriage dress of lobelia blue silk, her ebony hair swept back in a black velvet–trimmed net, she looked beautiful, just as she always did. It was a beauty that shone out of her like a beacon, irrespective of outward trappings, warming whoever was fortunate enough to fall within its proximity.

It warmed him, even now. Even though he was fully aware of what was to come.

But there was no prolonging his pleasure.

Inevitably, the carriage turned the familiar corner, advancing up the sloping drive. The same corner Jasper had turned six years ago, the future stretched before him, seemingly endless with possibility.

He pulled back the curtain once more. The great stone house loomed ahead against a slate-gray sky, as hateful to him now as any fairy-tale castle might be to the creature cursed to exist within its walls.

“There it is,” he said grimly. “Goldfinch Hall.”

Twenty-Two

Julia held tight to Jasper’s hand as he assisted her out of the carriage. It took an effort not to gape at the house.

The monstrous edifice was built of granite that had severely weathered in places, giving the surface a look of perpetual shadow. A mad tangle of heavily thorned wild roses climbed the high walls, encroaching on the arched windows and doorways in an oddly sinister fashion. Only a few rain-battered blooms were evident among all the prickly leaves and spikes, their overblown petals as red as freshly spilled blood.

No wonder people said it was haunted. With its imposing facade and air of derelict grandeur, it appeared like something from a gothic story. All gloom and decay and lingering mystery. A castle under an evil fairy’s curse. Heavens. There was even a tower!

Stepping down onto the muddy drive, she took Jasper’s arm. He shepherded her through the rain and up the moss-covered stone front steps. An aged gentleman awaited them at the top, sheltered beneath a stone outcropping. His eyes were keen with intelligence; his gleaming bald head complemented by a profuse white beard.