Her Grace leaned in and peered at her face. “You insult me by thinking I believe that answer, my dear.”
“Does it matter?” she asked without inflection. “What should happen to me?”
“Yes,” the duchess murmured in somber tones. “I rather think it does.”
Why was she being like this? Why was she being… understanding? Why, it was actually as though she cared about what happened to Julia.
“I do care about you, girl,” the duchess said with an unswerving and unnerving ability to follow Julia’s very thoughts.
“You don’t know me,” she pointed out.
Adairia’s aunt collected Julia’s coarse palm within her own, earth-stained one and then patted the top of her hand. “No, but I do know that a young woman who showed up here so desperate as to pretend to be someone else certainly has a reason for doing so, and as you were a friend of Adairia’s, so you shall remain a friend to me.”
Why? Why was she doing this? Julia jumped up. “I cannot stay here.” She’d no place continuing to take when Adairia had been robbed of this very experience she’d longed for.
“Answer me this, Julia,” the duchess murmured as she sailed gracefully to her feet. “My Adairia? Her being gone… Will your leaving … Will it bring her back?”
She gave her head a tight shake. She’d have done anything. She would have sold her very soul to Rand Graham himself if it would have brought Adairia back.
“I would have you remain here.”
It took a moment for those words to register.
Stay.
She wanted Julia to remain. There’d be a roof and a warm household and food in her belly and… “Why?” she whispered, desperately confused and trying to understand.
“Why?” Her Grace repeated. “Look around you.” She splayed her arms wide, inviting Julia to assess the space they occupied. “I have a husband whose been traveling for more years than I can remember,” the duchess shared, and with that revealing for the first time where the duke had gone. “And what am I left with here while he galivants about the globe?” Sadness wreathed the other woman’s delicate features. “How much wealth does a woman need?” she asked that question more to herself. “There are no children of my own. When my husband is gone, almost all of this will go to a priggish, miserable excuse of a man who succeeds him. I’d have the money and properties while I am here be used to give you a place where you can be safe.”
Safe…
There it was. Temptation once more.
“Plus,” the duchess continued in an exaggerated whisper as she leaned into Julia, “I enjoy having a young lady about to spoil and keep company with.”
What the powerful peeress suggested enticed. She made it so very easy to want to say yes and yet… “Your godson… Lord Ruthven, he would never allow it.” Nay, he’d send her packing in quick order, and that was only if he didn’t have the magistrate called on her.
“Harris? He doesn’t have to know.”
He didn’t have to know.
Which meant… deceive him. Lie to the gentleman who’d taught her of wishing wells, and who’d given her coins to toss away, and who’d insisted she deserved to believe in magic and have wishes for herself. He’d not feel so welcoming when he discovered the truth about her, and for the oddest reason, she wanted to cry all over again and for entirely different reasons. “I cannot,” she said around a thick throat. She cleared the swell of emotion there and repeated with a greater insistence, “I cannot allow you to lie to him on my behalf. He cares very deeply for you, Your Grace, and is deserving of the truth.”
And once he had it, she’d be gone in an instant.
The duchess looked her over. “Going to force me to take the honest, honorable path, you are.” She grunted. “Leave Harris to me. It is my decision to make.”
Julia stood there, warring with herself, caught between that which she yearned for and the sense of guilt in positioning herself within the household where Adairia belonged. Not her.
In the end, God help her, selfishness won out.
Chapter 13
Years earlier, when Julia and Adairia had been small girls, some fellow on the streets had attempted to kidnap Adairia. Peddling her flowers, never on the same corner but always close enough that she could be there to help her sister, Julia recalled the panic and terror as that man had maneuvered Adairia’s arm in his and begun steering her away.
That had been the first—and only—basket of wares she’d ever abandoned and lost. Dropping them, forgetting them, intent only saving the girl, Julia had run so fast, her lungs threatening to explode, and as he’d bent to pick Adairia up to speed up their journey, only one thing had mattered to Julia—keeping her sister safe.
Julia had found a fragment of a broken cobblestone and tossed it at the man, attempting only to startle him into dropping the girl he was so determined to take. Wanting only to give Adairia and Julia time to flee.
Never anticipating that something so small could fell a grown man. But it had. His eyes had rolled back, and his body crumpled, and as Julia had reached him at last and discovered she’d knocked a man unconscious, she’d known just two things: One, she’d absolutely no regrets, because she’d saved Adairia. And two, when she eventually went to meet her Maker, she was likely bound for hell.
Had there been any doubts as to the afterlife awaiting her, her actions these past few days had confirmed it. Aye, the certainty of it had been cemented this week, not on the ruthless streets of East London, where anything could happen, but in the drawing rooms of a mansion
