Skirts that were even now bunched against the side of his leg.

A peculiar warmth pooled within him. It was all mixed up with this bloody sense of powerlessness, leaving him cross, and restless, and damnably hot under his cravat.

“Miss Wychwood . . .” His every instinct demanded action.

She gave him a wary look in the torchlight. No longer sapphire blue, next to the rich amethyst of her silk gown, her eyes had taken on a violet hue.

A bewitching sight. It provoked a thrum of longing in Jasper’s veins.

“Yes?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “Did you, ah, finish your book?”

“Mrs. Marshland’s novel?” She brightened. “Yes, I did, actually.”

Some of the tension in his muscles eased.

This was how he could help her. Not by holding her. Not by carrying her off to safety somewhere. But by talking to her. By engaging her on the subject she loved most.

“What did you think of it?” he asked.

She replied without hesitation. “I enjoyed it immensely.”

“You disagree with Marshland’s critics, then.”

“I suppose I must. Though I don’t know anything more about what the critics said than what the clerk at Bloxham’s told me. Something about the story being tripe or treacle?”

Jasper grimaced. “That about sums it up.”

She turned to face him. “You read Mr. Bilgewater’s column in the Weekly Heliosphere?”

“Sometimes.”

“And follow his recommendations?”

“The critics and I rarely agree when it comes to popular novels.” He regarded her in the light of the torch. “I’m more interested in what you think.”

Her eyes were wide and guileless, but her expression wasn’t without intelligence. Indeed, there was a kind of earnest passion in her gaze. The look of a true devotee of romance. “I told you,” she said. “I enjoyed it. Which should be evident enough, given how fast I finished reading it.”

“What did you enjoy about it?”

“So many things.” She warmed to the subject, more animated than he’d seen her all evening. “Mrs. Marshland’s work isn’t as thrilling as it once was, but her prose is beautiful. She writes with such a depth of emotion. As if she’s felt it all herself—the love and the yearning. Even the romantic disappointments. One can feel it right along with her.”

A surge of secret pride made him stand a little taller, a litter straighter, even as he leaned into her, craving more of her favorable opinions. He warned himself to tread carefully. Romance was a dangerous subject to discuss with a lady.

And not only romance.

“You assume J. Marshland is a woman.”

“Naturally,” she said. “No man could write about romance in such a way.”

“And yet . . . I’ve heard that Marshland is, in fact, a man.”

She drew back, skeptical. “Who says so?”

“I read it somewhere,” he said vaguely.

“Where?”

“I can’t recall. But it’s true nonetheless.”

Her soft mouth tugged into a frown. “Well . . . I don’t suppose it matters overmuch. A good writer is a good writer, no matter their sex.”