A frown darkened his brow. His gaze dropped from hers. “I wasn’t well for a time. I was . . . confused.”

“And all the while the boys were in a workhouse? And Dolly was dying of consumption?” Julia’s chest ached with muted anguish. The truth did indeed make her new husband sound monstrous. “Oh, Jasper.”

He winced. Only this morning, she’d called him dearest.

“You can’t forgive me,” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“I haven’t any right to forgive you. It’s not me you wronged. It was your children. It’s to them you must make amends.”

He looked at her again, his frost-gray eyes burning with a furious light. “I am making amends. I’ve been trying to set things right from the moment Dolly appeared on my doorstep. Sometimes it seems as though I’ll spend the rest of my life atoning. You can ask Beecham if you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you.”

He exhaled. “Well. That’s something, at least.”

Julia felt a flicker of guilt. Had she overreacted? Been too harsh in her judgment? The past was the past, after all. She had no right to censure him for it, not when he was so clearly doing his utmost to repair the damage.

And he was right, of course.

Gentlemen didn’t make a habit of taking care of their by-blows. Not that Julia was aware. It was the very thing that had scandalized London society about Jasper’s behavior—his desire to clothe and house Charlie, Alfred, and Daisy as openly as if they were his legitimate children. It wasn’t done. Not by respectable people anyway.

But Jasper had been doing it for six years. Out of love for his mistress, Julia had thought. Admirable as it was, it had pained her to recognize it.

But had he loved Dolly?

He’d claimed he had, but his past conduct indicated not. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have abandoned her to such a fate. He wouldn’t have abandoned his children.

It was all too awful.

Julia couldn’t reconcile any of it with the man she knew today. A man who had come to her rescue, marrying her and whisking her away with no hope of ever obtaining her dowry. A man who had brushed her hair last night, who had held her and kissed her with such passionate tenderness. A man who read novels, for heaven’s sake.

This wasn’t a man who could have done the cruel things Lady Heatherton had described. The even crueler things Jasper had just confessed to.

Julia rubbed her temple. Her head was beginning to ache.

“You’re tired,” he said.

She blinked up at him. How long had she been sitting there, engaged in her grim ruminations? “I’m sorry. My thoughts are running wild. I can’t stop wondering—”

“No more talk of the past,” he said firmly. “Nothing good can come of it. From this moment on, we adhere to our agreement.”

She balked at his directive. How was she to refrain from talking about the past when it permeated the whole of their lives here?