It wasn’t, not to her. “You’re not suggesting I return home?”

Jasper’s gaze locked with hers. And he no longer looked cold and remote. He looked furious. “This is your home.”

“But my fortune—”

“To hell with your fortune.” He came to her, sinking down on his haunches in front of her chair. “If it must come between having you and having your fifty thousand pounds, my choice is clear. Let your father have the money and be damned.”

His words should have reassured her.

They didn’t.

“What about my choice?” she asked.

Mr. Piggott’s letter had unsettled Jasper deeply. Standing in the drawing room, poring over its contents, he’d recognized at once the very real danger to their lives here. The legitimate risk to the children, and to himself.

And not just to them.

He had a wife to think of now. The mere idea of losing her—of giving her up—was enough to make his blood run cold. By the time he’d finished reading the solicitor’s words, the paper those words were written on had been crumpled in Jasper’s fist. It had taken a herculean effort to bring his anger under control.

And now this.

He stared at Julia, unable to comprehend her meaning. “What choice?”

“It’s my fifty thousand pounds,” she said. “I won’t relinquish it to my father.”

“Do you think I want you to?” he replied. “It’s Piggott who advises it. He believes it’s the only way to get your father to leave us alone. If we don’t let him have the money, he’ll make a nuisance of himself, digging around in our private affairs until—”

“Let him.”

“What?”

“Let him,” she said again. “What care we for his slander? I already know the worst of your history. And it isn’t as though the children will be surprised by it.”

He shook his head. She didn’t understand. She never would, not without knowing the whole of it. And that was something he couldn’t share with her. Not now. Not ever.

“No,” he said. “It’s out of the question.”

“My aunt Elinore left that money to me, not to my father. And we need it, don’t we? We have our plans for the roof and for the tenants’ cottages—”

“None of that matters now. Not when—”

“How can you say that when it’s the whole of the reason you came to London? You were in need of an heiress.”

“I married you believing you penniless.”

“Yes, but—”

“And it’s all beside the point!” He surged to his feet. “If your father insists on delving into my past, no amount of money in the world will be enough to hold on to any of this.”

Her eyes widened. He’d never before raised his voice to her.

He turned from her to move back to the fireplace, feeling like the veriest brute. “Listen to me.” He made an effort to moderate his tone. “I don’t propose this lightly. I know what that money could mean. But no amount is equal to the well-being of our family. If we make a legal dispute out of this, it could ruin us.”