The Gentleman's Bride Search (The Glass Slipper Chronicles Book 4) by Deborah Hale

Author:Deborah Hale [Hale, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

What had he done? Jasper chided himself that evening when his temper had cooled. The last thing he wanted was to have Evangeline Fairfax leave Amberwood after having managed its nursery so capably for the past six years. He wished she did not have to go two months from now to open her charity school. He could not abide the prospect of her leaving immediately.

Throughout the afternoon, as his children and guests amused themselves in the garden, he had done his best to stay away from Miss Fairfax. Part of him feared he might say something that would provoke her to pack her bags that very night. Another part worried that he might back down and grovel in an effort to persuade her to stay.

He could not avoid her when he’d gone to the nursery to hear his children’s prayers and tuck them in for the night. Yet somehow she managed to maintain a safe distance between them without betraying any hint of their discord to her young pupils. He expected the children to besiege him with more pleas to go to Manchester, but no one said a word about it. Jasper wondered if Miss Fairfax had spoken to them on the subject and what she had said. But he would rather have jumped off the roof than ask her. He left the nursery and headed to dinner in a fog of bewilderment.

He was grateful not to have to talk much during the meal that evening. He allowed Miss Anstruther to drone on, with occasional caustic interjections from Mrs. Leveson, while he nodded at appropriate intervals. Meanwhile, his thoughts returned to his unsettling interview with Evangeline Fairfax.

He had been unduly severe with her, which he regretted. A month ago, it would not have surprised or troubled him to disagree with her. They might have argued over their difference of opinion, but he would not have felt the sting of personal betrayal. Nor would he have lashed out at her so fiercely.

Back then, Miss Fairfax would not have presumed to comment on the most painful experience of his life because she would have known nothing about it. Had he been foolish to trust her with such a sensitive confidence, giving her ammunition to use against him if she chose? Jasper’s caution and sense of privacy agreed it had been a mistake, but part of him was still not convinced. Confiding about his past, with someone capable of understanding its effect on his present character and choices, seemed to lighten a burden he had not realized he was carrying.

But if Evangeline Fairfax understood him so well, his conscience challenged, did that mean she was right about his reasons for wanting to keep his children away from Manchester? And were those reasons good enough to justify it?

While his guests ate and conversed around him, his thoughts continued to spin, always coming up with more questions than answers. He went through the motions of dining, scarcely noticing what he put in his mouth. It came as a surprise when his mother-in-law rose and led the other ladies away.

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