Page 28 of The Spinster’s Stolen Heart (Willenshires #5)

Stonehaven Manor, Sixteen Years Previously

“Look at the board, boy, look at the board. What does it say ?”

That tapping noise, which was the sound of a long, thin switch against the blackboard, was starting to appear in Jasper’s dreams. He’d dreamt about it just last night, along with Mr. Fyre’s thin, cadaverous face, with those awful bulging pale eyes.

“Look at the board, boy!” the schoolmaster repeated, tapping the switch again. Swallowing hard, Jasper forced himself to stare at the blackboard.

The board was full of markings, shapes and lines which he knew were meant to represent words. Other boys his own age could interpret them with ease, he knew that from his humiliatingly brief time at Eton. In moments of desperation, he had asked a few of them how they learned so easily, but they only stared at him, blinking in confusion, and replied that they just did .

Mr. Fyre took a step towards him, and Jasper flinched.

The schoolroom was icy cold. Mr. Fyre said that it helped to “cool” the mind, whatever that meant, and since winter was well along, there was a thin film of ice on the inside of the windowpanes. Jasper’s hands were numb with cold, the nail beds faintly mauve, which had done nothing to improve his efforts at writing on his slate.

He curled his fingers into fists and forced himself to stay still as the schoolmaster stalked towards, whipping the switch to and fro in front of him.

“There is a single sentence written on that blackboard, sirrah,” Mr. Fyre said, his voice deceptively cool and calm. “You will do me the honour of reading it aloud. At once.”

Jasper swallowed dryly. What time was it? It seemed like an age since breakfast, but he was terrified of glancing at the clock behind him and learning that it was barely ten o’ clock. Schooldays dragged, painfully so. The palms of his hands still smarted from yesterday’s lessons.

He stared at the blackboard, fear tasting acrid in his mouth, and willed the letters to make sense. The first word he could just about recognize – it was his name, with the characteristic J at the start, and a swooping P halfway through. The next two words were short, only three letters between them.

Perhaps it would be easier if Mr. Fyre’s handwriting was a little simpler, something bold and easy to decipher, like the print in a book. Instead, the man insisted on curling, looping words that even experienced readers struggled to decipher. Or so Janey said, and she could read and write just fine, even if she was only the head housemaid.

“J-Jasper,” he began, gasping a little, “Jasper i-is a… a… st…. sta…” he stammered and stuttered, the longer fourth word refusing to make sense at all. The more he squinted, the more the letters jumbled themselves up. He swallowed hard, aware of Mr. Fyre prowling closer and closer. Jasper stuttered for a few minutes, and then eventually fell silent.

The words weren’t going to come. They never did when he was frightened or under pressure. Mr. Fyre was behind him now, circling him slowly like a predator rounding its prey.

“Very disappointing, sirrah, very disappointing indeed,” he murmured, voice low. If Jasper hadn’t known better, he might have thought that the man was disappointed, truly.

Fortunately, Jasper did know better. He clenched his fists tighter and tighter, staring ahead at the blackboard until the words blurred, becoming even more unintelligible.

With a sigh that might have sounded as if he almost regretted what must be done, Mr. Fyre came to stand at Jasper’s side, testing the strength of the switch. He glanced past Jasper, to the shadowy corner behind them both.

“You see, Your Grace? I do my best, but the boy simply does not want to learn. However, I shall persist. Hold out your hands, sirrah.”

Jasper numbly held out his hands, palms up, in a practised motion. His skin was already stinging in anticipation. Mr. Fyre lifted the switch.

“Wait a moment, Mr. Fyre,” came a deep voice from the corner. The schoolmaster was already bringing the switch down, and nearly lost his balance in an effort to halt his own momentum.

Taken aback, he glanced over at the third occupant of the room.

“Your Grace? Discipline is vital in these matters, especially when…”

A tall, broad-shouldered man came stepping forward, his black hair flecked with premature grey. He yawned, looking bored.

“I will handle this, Mr. Fyre. Go to the kitchen and request a cup of tea. I’ll summon you back when lessons can resume.”

“But, Your Grace…”

“I said,” the Duke of Stonehaven responded, ice creeping into his voice, “that I would handle it. I am not used to repeating myself.”

Mr. Fyre quailed at that. Mumbling something and dropping his gaze, he hurried for the door, stopping only to set the switch down across Jasper’s desk.

The door closed, and a heavy silence descended on the room. Jasper let his hands drop to his side, and fixed his gaze on the blackboard.

“You truly can’t read it, then,” the Duke said, voice clipped.

“No, Father. I cannot. I… I have tried, truly.”

“There is no such thing as trying in this world, my boy. One either does a thing, or one does not. That is all that matters.”

The Duke heaved a sigh, raking a hand through his hair. Jasper bit his lip and tried to stand as still as possible.

“I’m sure you cannot believe it, but I was remarkably pleased when you were born,” the Duke said suddenly. “A baby within the first year of marriage, a son . I was thrilled. Little did I know that there would be no more children, not even daughters, and that my son would turn out to be little more than simple-minded. My son would, at the age of twelve, be unable to read !”

On the last word, he brought his fist down onto the desk in front of Jasper with a resounding crash . It echoed around the room, and Jasper fought not to flinch.

It is not fair. I am trying. I am trying. It’s not my fault the words jump about. They don’t make sense.

“I am not simple-minded,” he said. To his horror, he spoke aloud.

The Duke turned his head slowly to look down at his son.

“I beg your pardon?”

Sucking in a breath, Jasper forced himself to look up. His father did not like to be looked in the eye, everybody knew that, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. They had the same eyes, everybody said so. A clear blue – true blue, not tinted by grey or gold or even green, but a pure, sky-blue – fringed with black lashes and framed by heavy black brows.

As far as Jasper could tell, their eyes were the only similarities he and his father shared. He was entirely happy for it to remain that way.

“I am not simple-minded, Father,” Jasper forced himself to say. “I am not. I can’t… can’t read and write very well, and I don’t understand why not, but I am not simple-minded.”

The Duke only stared at him, unblinking.

“Then read out the sentence on the blackboard.”

Jasper’s eyes blurred with tears. He fought not to let them fall – crying only made the Duke a hundred times more angry.

“I can’t.”

“Shall I read it to you?” the Duke said, although it was not really a question. He turned to look at the board, and read out, with perfect diction: “Jasper is a simple-minded fool, but may yet excel with careful tutelage and discipline. There. That is what it says.”

He could have chosen an easier sentence for me to read, Jasper thought sourly. He said nothing, of course.

The Duke stood in front of him, arms folded behind his back, head cocked.

“I do not know what to do with you, Jasper. I even heard a rumour that some brainless housemaid was meddling in your teaching, which might explain why Mr. Fyre’s methods are not working as well as they should.”

“Nobody else is teaching me, Father,” Jasper lied at once. Janey would be dismissed, no doubt, if their secret lessons were revealed. People could be cruel, like the parents at Eton who had called Mr. Pippin a milk-and-water-master, whatever that meant, even though his careful, gentle methods were the only thing that had seemed to help Jasper learn at all.

Mr. Pippin was gone, of course, and no amount of begging could convince the Duke to hire him as a private tutor, instead of Mr. Fyre.

The Duke stared down at his only son, anger and disappointment fizzling in his eyes. Jasper forced himself to look.

“Well, we must persist,” the Duke said at last. “Mr. Fyre is a good teacher, and an excellent disciplinarian. I have no doubt that your inability to learn stems from your own obstinacy. I am confident that you shall endeavour to improve in the future. Now, extend your hands.”

Jasper held out his hands again, palms up, and his father picked up the switch.

***

His palms throbbed and stung, but at least he had been granted the rest of the day off. It wasn’t out of kindness, but because his palms and fingers were now too swollen and raw to hold a piece of chalk.

Jasper hurried along the endless, dark hallways that criss-crossed Stonehaven Manor.

When I’m grown up, he thought for the thousandth time, I’m going to leave this place forever.

He wasn’t a fool. His father would not live forever, and when he died, Jasper would become the Duke of Stonehaven. And then his life would change.

I will dismiss that awful Mrs. Price, he thought gleefully, and have Janey Nettle as housekeeper instead. Everybody likes her, and she’s kind and clever. I shall have Mr. Pippin come here to instruct me in the art of reading – I am certain I would make good progress under his tutelage – and all shall be well.

He rounded a corner and found himself in the largest parlour in the house, face to face with his parents’ portrait hanging ten feet high. It was a stark reminder that he was not the duke, and was not, in fact, anyone important at all.

The Blue Parlour, as it was called, was near the front of the house and was generally used to receive guests. Privately, Jasper hated how each room had to have a specific purpose. Why couldn’t rooms just be rooms? Some of the tenants on their land only had a handful of rooms in their entire home, perhaps even one or two!

A shape stirred on the chaise longue, underneath the tall, glaring portraits.

“Jasper, darling? What are you doing out of the schoolroom? You may come here and kiss me, if you like.”

Jasper went forward obediently to kiss his mother.

The Duchess had always been a thin woman, pale and delicate, as the fashion required. Her portrait was white-skinned and elegant, large dark eyes peering out of a beautiful, dainty face. In recent years, her thinness had turned to something almost skeletal, the sort of frame that made doctors glance meaningfully at each other and whisper in corners.

Jasper knew that his father raged at his mother, infuriated at her refusal to either die – and therefore allow him to marry again – or produce another child. These days, she seemed closer to dying than producing a sibling for Jasper, and yet she held on.

He kissed her cold, papery cheek, and she smiled tiredly up at him.

“You look very much like your papa, Jasper. Now, go on and finish your lessons.”

“I have no lessons today, Mama. Mr. Fyre said so.”

“Oh?” the Duchess yawned, disinterested. “Then go and play.”

“I want to talk to you, Mama.”

She shifted, turning her head away from him. “I am too tired for that, my dear. Go and play.”

He didn’t move. “Mama, do you think I am simple-minded?”

She opened her eyes a little wider. “Who said that you were simple-minded?”

“Papa.”

“Oh,” the Duchess rested a little heavier against her pillows. “Well, I hate to say it, but your papa is generally right about things.”

Jasper’s cheeks burned. “I am not simple-minded, Mama! I was very good at many subjects at Eton. I could do mathematics much easier than the other boys, and geometry. Not Latin, but I could remember all sorts of things, if somebody would read it out to me. Once, I…”

The Duchess waved a languid hand. “I am very tired, Jasper. Why don’t you go and play? Or do some lessons with Mr. Fyre?”

He bit his lip. “I told you, Mama, I have no lessons today. I thought you might talk to Papa and tell him that I am not what he thinks I am. I thought you might help me.”

The Duchess shifted to look at him again, and her dark eyes were blank and flat.

“If you do not want your papa to think of you as simple, Jasper, then you must learn to read and write. I am sure that if you apply yourself, you will find that it is not hard at all. Now, off you go, I am very tired.”

Jasper hesitated, and some of his reluctance must have transferred itself to his mother. The Duchess opened her eyes wider again.

“Jasper, do not be stubborn. Already you have gotten poor Janey into a great deal of trouble, over those secret lessons you were having.”

He sucked in a breath. “She… she was only trying to help, Mama. With my reading.”

“What use does a maid have for reading?” the Duchess muttered, seeming peevish all of a sudden. “I liked Janey very much, but the housekeeper said that she was getting above herself , and so she has been removed from being head housemaid and sent back down into the kitchen. She is nine-and-twenty and thus it shall prove a most arduous undertaking for her to navigate such circumstances, with little prospect of advancement thereafter. That is your fault, Jasper.”

His face burned. Tears pricked at his eyes, but Jasper bit his lower lip until the pain distracted him from crying. He could not cry. Men did not cry. Dukes did not cry, not even if their hands were switched until they could not close their fingers into fists. His father’s words echoed in his head, taunting in their accuracy.

Nobody will help you in this world, my boy. Better keep your feelings to yourself and concentrate on not being left behind. If you shed another tear, a single tear more, I shall have to give you ten more strokes.

“That is not fair,” Jasper heard himself say. “She didn’t deserve that.”

“We never get what we deserve in this world,” the Duchess responded at once, closing her eyes. “I am very tired, Jasper. Go on back to the schoolroom and carry on with your lessons.”

He swallowed, feeling bone-tired all of a sudden. “I have no more lessons today, Mama.”

“Don’t you? You should have told me so, then.”

“I… I did tell you so.”

“I am tired, Jasper,” the Duchess repeated, feeling for a thin blanket tossed over her lower body, and hauling it up to her chin. “Go and play.”

After a moment, it was clear that there would be no more conversation from his mother. He turned and tiptoed silently away, leaving the still, stale air of the Blue Parlour behind.

Nobody is going to help me, he thought suddenly, the idea landing in his head like a cannonball, stopping him in his tracks. Mr. Fyre does not care about helping me. Father only cares about his reputation and that I am his only son. Mama… Mama never thinks about me at all, I think. Anybody who does want to help me – like Janey or Mr. Pippin – are only taken away from me.

If I want to be helped, I shall have to help myself.

He squeezed his hands into fists, nearly crying out aloud at the pain. The pain was good, though, making him angry and staving off the sudden, ice-cold sadness the bloomed up inside and threatened to make him sick.

He had known, deep down, that nobody was ever going to help him, or understand – except perhaps poor, demoted Janey – but now, the knowledge had bloomed and taken root. It was no longer a feeling. It was a fact.

Jasper Demeridge, heir to the dukedom of Stonehaven, was entirely alone in the world, and would have to make his choices accordingly.