“By rail!” Daisy echoed gleefully.

Julia’s mouth tugged into a smile. The little girl’s laughter was contagious.

If that wasn’t enough to warm her heart, there was the way Jasper interacted with his daughter. He was steady and patient. Stern at times, but ultimately kind. The same way he was with all his children. A man they could rely on.

A good man.

Julia had daily evidence of that fact. She never failed to notice it.

Jasper stood. “All right,” he said, gazing down at Daisy. “No more foolery. Swimming is a serious business. You know the rules. Stay close to your brothers and venture no further than the blackened oak. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Papa.”

He pivoted her small body toward the pond. “Go on.”

She burst into a run the second he released her, leaping into the water with as much exuberance as the boys had. They greeted her as she paddled out to them, splashing and cheering her in equal measure.

Jasper raised his voice. “Charlie, Alfred, look after your sister!”

The boys answered in unison: “Yes, sir!”

Julia observed the interaction as she unfastened the hidden hooks at the front o f her bodice.

Jasper turned back to her. “She has a vivid imagination. I don’t usually discourage it.”

“‘An imagination is nothing to apologize for,’” she quoted back to him. “You told me that at Lady Holland’s dinner. Do you remember?”

“I remember everything we’ve ever said to each other.”

Her cheeks warmed. “That’s very flattering.”

He shrugged. “It’s the truth.” His gaze dropped briefly to the front of her bodice. She’d unfastened it almost to the waist. “Do you need help?”

“No, thank you. I can manage.” She focused on removing her own clothing, first endeavoring to ignore the intensity of his regard, then attempting to ignore the fact that he was disrobing, too.

As she stepped out of her skirts and petticoats, she cast him a cautious glance through her lashes.

He’d already removed his top boots and stripped off his shirt.

Her breath caught in her throat. She’d never seen him shirtless before—or any gentleman, come to that.

He was impossibly large and powerful. All broad shoulders, hard muscles, and sun-burnished skin. A picture of raw masculine power, rather like the Grecian friezes and sculptures in the British Museum.

One of them in particular: the reclining Dionysos. She remembered admiring it once in company with Anne, the two of them staring wide-eyed at the god’s nude torso, every plane and groove of his chest chiseled in perfect relief.

Jasper’s naked chest was as mightily defined as the sculpture, but there the similarities ended. Unlike the marble flesh of Dionysos, her new husband’s skin was riddled with scars. Raised scars that resembled the slash on his face, and other scars, too—small and puckered, as if he’d been scorched or burned.

“Bullet wounds,” he said.

Her gaze leapt to his, her face flaming with mortification. She’d been staring at him like some silly schoolgirl. “You were shot?”