He was becoming careless.

It had been three days since they’d returned to Yorkshire. Three long days of working alone in his study during the morning hours and courting his wife in the afternoon and evening. It was the latter that had thrown all his cautious habits out of balance.

Thoughts of Julia permeated his every waking hour. And most of his non-waking hours, too. Lying beside her in their bed, attempting to maintain some semblance of detachment as she snuggled against him in her sleep, he was fast approaching a permanent state of distraction.

This morning, anxious to leave before she awoke in his arms, he’d washed and dressed so quickly, it wasn’t until he was downstairs, halfway through his breakfast, that he’d realized he’d forgotten both his pocket watch and his study key in the bedroom.

Obliged to go back and retrieve them, he’d ended up walking in on Julia sponging herself in front of the basin.

She’d looked up at him with a start, her ruffled nightgown drawn partway to her waist and the wet sponge dripping in her hand.

Jasper had frozen on the threshold as the door snicked shut behind him, standing there like a great bewildered lummox who’d just received a blow to the head.

The moment he’d regained his wits, he’d averted his eyes. “Forgive me. I should have knocked, but . . .” He’d willed himself not to look as she righted her clothing. “I didn’t wish to wake you.”

“Do you require something of me?” she’d asked.

“No. Nothing like that.” Regaining some small measure of composure, he’d stalked to the chest of drawers, sweeping his pocket watch and key up in his hand, aware all the while that she was watching him. “Forgive me,” he’d muttered again before taking his leave. And then—rather lamely: “I’ll procure a screen.”

Jasper had been replaying the encounter over and over in his head all morning. “I’ll procure a screen.” Good God.

A screen wasn’t going to solve his problem. Nothing would except for having her. And he was a fair way from attaining his goal.

The most he’d achieved was that she was giving him a chance. An opportunity to court her. To show her who he really was, even if he couldn’t tell her.

And he’d been trying to show her in dozens of different ways. Talking to her and listening to her, accompanying her out on the grounds with the children every afternoon and brushing her long raven tresses every night.

Setting down his quill, he raked both hands through his hair.

How was he to convince a gently bred lady to give herself to a monster? To vouchsafe her heart—and her body—to a man whose reputation was as black and irredeemable as that of Hades himself?

A true villain would simply have taken her. Affection could come later. Perhaps even love.

But Jasper didn’t believe it would. Not with Julia. Real life wasn’t, after all, a myth or a fairy tale.