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Jasper needed to leave London before he lost his mind. So, the following morning, he drove out to visit his aunt and cousins.

The two-story cottage stood on a parcel of land situated among grassy hillocks and woodlands just outside of Notting Hill.

Though not even half the size of the house they’d had before Uncle Jacob had died, it was clean and had room enough for three

women and their cook to live without breathing down each other’s necks. He tried to be thankful for that. But it was difficult

when he knew the roof over their heads was one of Redcliffe’s properties.

Hefting the crate from the boot of his carriage, he ambled toward the kitchen entrance. The whitewashed door flew open before

he could call out a greeting.

Standing beneath the lintel was a fiery-haired termagant with her hands perched on her hips. An army of one. A single arching

eyebrow rose in her freckled heart-shaped face as she surveyed him from brim to boots. “And just who might you be, stranger?”

“Tempest, let me in.”

“And how do you know my name?”

He rolled his eyes at his cousin. “I apologize. I know it has been a few days...”

“Ha!”

“More than a week,” he amended. “But I’ve been taking care of a few matters. Contrary to your belief, I do have a life.”

“ Jasper? ” came a soft voice from behind the she-devil. Then a little blonde beauty peered over her shoulder, her face splitting into

a grin. “Jasper! Mother, Cousin Jasper’s here!”

It was Tempest’s turn to roll her green eyes as she stepped aside. “Fine. You may enter. But wipe your bloody boots.”

“Tempest, language,” came the thready voice of his aunt Clara from the other room.

“Apologies, Mother,” she called out, then muttered under her breath, “But Jasper’s the one you should blame for teaching me

all the words I get scolded for speaking.”

He chuckled and stepped sideways through the door. But the instant Tempest glared at him, he stepped back again to wipe his

boots on the mat, making a good show of it for her benefit. For a young woman of only one and twenty, she was far too crotchety.

Walking to the center of the snug kitchen, he set the crate down on a scarred table. “Where’s your cook?”

Jasper didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t afford to have them keep more than a cook and a groundskeeper. A maid-of-all-work

came twice a week to help, but that was all.

He would much rather keep an army standing by in case Redcliffe should want to look over the property, which he had been known

to do on occasion.

“It’s her off day,” Iris said, standing on tiptoe to peer inside the crate and comb through the straw. At fifteen, she still

possessed a girlish roundness in her cheeks and petite frame, and her eyes held a childish innocence that he hoped she would

keep for many years to come. “What did you bring this time?”

“Mutton, ham, eggs, cheeses, fruits, nuts, sweetmeats and so forth. There might even be something in there for you.”

“For me?” Her pale eyes brightened as if he didn’t bring her something special every time. “Where is it?”

Tempest chimed in with a huff. “I suppose you’ll have to help me unpack the crate if you want to find out.”

“Why are you always so cross?”

“Why are you always so lazy?”

“Am not.”

In that same moment, Aunt Clara began to cough. “Girls”— cough —“try to love each”— cough —“other.”

His cousins exchanged a worried glance. Then Tempest stepped forward and pressed a kiss to her sister’s cheek on her way to

pour a glass of water from a waiting ewer before rushing out of the room.

Jasper could hear Tempest’s voice soften as she helped her mother through another one of her coughing fits. The physician

assured him that it wasn’t consumption. Her frailty was a result of a prolonged bout of lung fever shortly after her husband’s

death six years ago. Back then, there had been times when she’d regained her strength for weeks or months, but those episodes

were fewer and farther between. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her able to walk more than a few steps at a time

without exhaustion claiming her.

Turning his head, he caught Iris’s worried expression and tried to reassure her. “I brought more medicine, too, in case the

doctor hasn’t been by.”

“Mr. Lowen won’t be stopping by anymore. I heard him telling Tempest that he is needed in Bath and that he was not able to

refuse the offer.”

Jasper’s hands curled into fists. He had no doubt that Redcliffe was behind this. The very same thing had happened to the

two previous doctors hired in the parish.

The earl liked to keep people desperate. Desperate people were willing to agree to anything.

Unfortunately, his uncle Jacob had been a desperate man. He’d made some poor investments that took everything he had.

Then he made the error of striking a bargain with the Earl of Redcliffe.

It had been a generous proposition, of course. With Redcliffe they always were. At first. But Jacob had ended up selling his

debt to the devil and the devil had taken everything in return.

In the end, they’d lost their home and were forced to live in one of the properties owned by Redcliffe.

But ever since the death of Uncle Jacob, Jasper had done what he could for his aunt and cousins. He made sure they had enough

food and money to pay their servants and rents. Rents that Redcliffe raised more often than not.

Clara, Tempest and Iris were the only family Jasper had left. And they were one of the primary reasons he pretended to be

an addlepated oaf, lumbering around town. It was the only way to protect them.

Redcliffe could never know the truth. Whenever he felt threatened, unappreciated or undermined in any way, he could lash out

and do the most despicable things. To him, other people were merely objects whose sole purpose was to feed his ego’s ever-constant

appetite.

“Fear not, Iris,” Jasper said. “I’ll find a doctor and bring him here.”

She offered a tremulous smile, then began unpacking the crate.

He walked into the sparsely furnished yellow parlor and saw his aunt, her chair in a wedge of sunlight streaming in through

the window. Tempest sat on the threadbare settee, darning a pair of wool stockings.

Pressing a kiss to his aunt’s cheek, he decided to add another log to the fire. “You’re looking well, Aunt.”

“And you are a terrible liar,” she said with a fond smile, her face drawn with violet-tinged hollows beneath her eyes. Her hair, once a vibrant red like Tempest’s, had gone gray from worry. “How are you, my boy? There’s something different about you.”

As he tended the fire, he lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

For reasons beyond his understanding, a vision of Althea swam to the forefront of his mind. Then again, she was always treading

those murky waters in his skull, popping up when he least expected it.

“You’ve met someone!” his aunt announced, her expression brightening. “That’s it, isn’t it? My mother had the gift of sight.

Did I ever tell you that? Well, now I must know, who is she?”

“There isn’t—” He broke off as Tempest looked up expectantly and even Iris swept into the room. He felt the weight of those

six eyes as if they were six thousand. And he was glad that the members of the ton weren’t as perceptive as his own family. After a moment, he expelled a breath. “I might have met a certain Miss Althea Hartley.”

As soon as he spoke her name, a jolt of electricity shot down his spine as if he’d been struck by a stray bolt of lightning.

Aunt Clara gasped. “Roxana Hartley’s daughter?”

He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I believe so.”

“Ah,” she said with a smile, practically singsonging an aria from a single syllable. “Then she must be beautiful. During my

first Season, Roxana was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. Most of the gentlemen in London were half in love with her,

your father included. Of course, that all changed the moment he clapped eyes on your mother. After that, no other woman existed.

I remember the way John stared at your mother whenever he saw her entering a room or walking down the stairs. Your uncle Jacob

used to call him a trout because he’d just stand there, mouth agape for a full minute as if all the words had fallen out of

his head.”

Well, at least Jasper understood the reason he turned into a driveling sapskull around Althea. It was in his blood.

“Was that the way it was for Father when he met you?” Iris asked, sinking down to her knees beside her mother’s chair.

She nodded, her eyes reddening around the edges as she sniffed. “If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that when a

Trueblood falls, they fall hard.”

Then all eyes turned back to Jasper again.

He held up his hands in surrender. “There has been no falling. There never will be. Miss Hartley is destined for greater things

and I have no place in her life.”

His aunt frowned. “I don’t like hearing you talk like that. She would be lucky to have you. Any woman would be. And if she

happens to have a brother...”

Tempest scoffed when her mother’s gaze shifted to her. “Then that would make him a gentleman, and no gentleman worth his salt

would be interested in marrying a penniless spinster who does her own laundry.”

Iris made a pfft sound. “You? Doing laundry? My pinafore looks like it was washed in rocks and mud when you’re done with it. I do a much better

job.”

“At least I know the difference between a potato and a turnip in the garden.”

“Well, I don’t like turnips. So I won’t pick turnips.”

“Girls,” Aunt Clara said on a sigh, closing her eyes as she rested her head against the back of the chair. “Go into the kitchen

and make a pot of tea.”

Tempest bowed her head in regret, setting her needlework aside. Standing, she took her sister by the hand. “Come along, brat.

Let’s see if there are any biscuits in that crate.”

“Nan baked some fresh for you,” Jasper said as they disappeared. “There’s plum cake, as well.”

Seeing his aunt’s frailty, and their struggle with this paltry existence they’d been reduced to living, made Jasper so angry that he didn’t know what to do with it.

He had been doing everything he could. But his uncle kept a tight rein on his allowance.

It was just enough for him to keep up appearances.

And Redcliffe demanded that, at the very least, he keep up appearances.

So Jasper had been forced to become creative in making money to help his aunt and cousins.

There was also a part of him that feared Redcliffe’s true intentions.

Once, a few years ago, the earl had magnanimously invited Clara, Tempest and Iris to his grand estate for a picnic. A towering

maze of boxwood hedgerows twisted and turned in the back garden. The sight had thrilled both Tempest and Iris and they’d been

invited to explore it.

Eager, they had ventured in and ended up deciding to take different paths to try their luck, calling out to each other merrily

as they went along.

That was when Jasper noticed Redcliffe, watching their progress from one of the balconies of the house, his lips curving into

a disturbing smile.

There had been rumors about guests invited to tour the earl’s pleasure gardens. If the young woman was pretty, her chaperone

might find herself ill from a purgative that had been slipped into her tea. Not too ill to rouse suspicion, just enough to

cause embarrassment... and to leave their charge unaccompanied and unaware.

Shortly after that particular visit, the earl offered to have Clara and her daughters live beneath his roof. When she refused,

he doubled the rent. And that wasn’t the last time. He also had enough connections that made it impossible for her to live

anywhere else.

But Jasper was determined to do all he could to keep them far from Redcliffe’s reach. Even if that meant he would have to

continue with his charade as society’s clumsy oaf.