“Gilroy.” Her right eye closed and she drew a shuddered breath. “The wedding—it unleashed something in him. The monster. The monster that he’d only ever had thin control over is out.”
Juliet exhaled, all of her breath leaving her. “No. No.”
Ness’s right eye opened, visceral panic shining in her amber iris. “He’s going to kill me, Juliet. And I cannot stand it another second, not knowing when death is coming.” Her voice lifted, shifting into a hysterical screech. “Don’t you understand? This is all I have left—the only thing I have control over. Death—at least I can decide that for myself. I can choose it. He cannot.”
Her hand tightened on Ness’s knee. “Death is not coming.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” She leaned closer to Ness, making sure Ness was looking directly at her with her good eye. “I’m not in your mind, your beaten body right now, so how could I understand? But I do know what this is.”
Her head dipped down for a second as she drew a deep breath. “Believe me, I do. I understand the hopelessness you’re feeling. The loss of everything in your life. I’ve lived that loss. And I’ve seen countless women come to me looking as you do in this moment. But this is the moment when you need to breathe. Breathe for another minute. Another hour. That is all I ask. Another breath. And before you know it, it’s another day. Then the next. Keep breathing and don’t stop.”
Ness shook her head and Juliet saw it deep in her soul.
Utter, heart wrenching defeat.
In that instant, Juliet knew what she had to do, no matter what it cost her.
She squeezed Ness’s knee. “I will help you leave.”
“What?”
“I will sneak you away from the castle. Now. This moment. I will get you out of here. This is the exact right time.”
Juliet got to her feet, stepping to the side of Ness and she threaded her hand under Ness’s right arm, lifting her friend to her feet. “There are so many cousins here, the stables are a mess with all the horses. I can easily steal one and I will get you out. I will see that you’re protected far away from here. You will disappear from this land, never to be heard of again and Gilroy will forget about you.”
Ness swayed on her feet. “But he—he will never forget. He’s mad—obsessive. He’ll never leave me be.”
“He’ll leave you be for he’ll never be able to find you. I swear it.”
Ness shook her head, still fighting the true possibility of an escape. “But how? Where will I go? I have nothing—no money—no one to turn to that will hide me from him.”
Juliet lifted her right boot, pointing at the heel of it. “I always have money on my person. Coins and a dagger.”
Ness looked down, confusion in her eye. “Coins and a dagger? But why would you do that? Who are you that you would carry that with you?”
Juliet’s mouth pulled to a tight line. “I have reasons. And the result of those reasons is the very thing that is going to get you away from here. All you have to do is trust me.”
A garbled squeak came from Ness’s mouth. “But I don’t think I can.” Her right hand moved from clutching her left arm to grip Juliet’s forearm. “I fear I cannot believe you.”
“Except you can.” Juliet caught her chin gently in her hand and stared at her with a soft smile, trying to impart as much calm and hope as she possibly could. “You can say no to this—no to the pain in your arm. No to the eye you cannot see out of. No to the beatings. All you need to do is say yes to me. Please, Ness, take what I’m offering you.”
“What are you offering?”
“Hope.”
Ness’s swollen bottom lip pulled inward as a tear slipped out of her right eye. With a gasp, she nodded.
Juliet inclined her head to her and smiled. “Good. Put on solid boots and a heavy cloak with a hood the best you can and go to my room to wait for me. You can bring nothing else.”
“I have to tell Gertie—”
“No. She cannot know. I will come back and tell her and send her to you when it is safe. The only way we are going to escape without being followed is if we leave together, one horse, tonight. It is the only way I can make you disappear.”
Juliet held her hand out to her and Ness took it. Juliet squeezed it and the painful wince on Ness’s face with the movement struck Juliet to her core.
She had to get Ness out of there.
{ Chapter 24 }
“Juliet—dear lass, is that you?”
The earl’s gruff voice into the darkness of the corridor made her jump.
With the only light far off from the one lit sconce in the hallway, Juliet looked to her right into the opening of the solarium. Just past the dining table area and the walls made of glass, she peered into the area where plants filled the space. For as many times as she’d dined in the solarium, this area of the tall octagonal glass structure was cordoned off with a half wall and was the domain of Cook and the groundskeeper as far as Juliet had been able to tell.
Juliet had already been to the stables and nudged the stableboy awake to saddle a sturdy horse for her. She’d had him put on the longest saddle available, for Ness was going to have to ride with her—there was no way Ness could handle a horse on her own with her beaten body and broken arm.
The last thing she needed at the moment was the earl requesting her attention. But she also couldn’t create any suspicion about her plan to get Ness out of Whetland.
Juliet moved past the table into the far back end of the solarium, searching among the waist-high rows of plant beds. Beans and peas curled up along tall twine-wrapped stakes that hovered over plush rows of cabbage, lettuce, herbs and radishes.
There, off to the far right, the glow of a smoking pipe moved in the air. Her eyes adjusted to the light of the moon streaming down from above and made out the earl’s figure on a bench along an outer glass wall.
“What are you doing out here alone? There are still a few of your family standing and celebrating—they moved into the great hall for feats of strength, I believe.” As she moved toward him she hoped the darkness hid her cagey eyes. She didn’t need the earl to suspect she’d just confirmed the pathway to the stables that held the least possibility of running across anyone.
He chuckled, waving his pipe in the air. “Let the young whelps roar about. I needed some quiet.”
Sudden concern wrinkled her brow. “You are not feeling well?”
“No—nothing as silly as that. I am well enough.” He patted the empty bench next to him. “Come, sit, lass.”
She needed to get back up to Ness, yet couldn’t resist moving over to the earl and sitting down next to him. For as much as she hoped she could return to Whetland—to Evan—after this, she knew full well she couldn’t count on anything. She needed to make what she was about to do as right as she could for Evan, even if it was through his grandfather.
She looked up at the angled glass above them, the dark sky with the stars and the moon glimmering through the panes.
“This is pretty. The stars look like twinkling fire bugs lighting the air.”
He pointed upward with his pipe. “It was always my sweet Lettie’s favorite place at this time of night. The dark sky, the sweet smell of earth and plants growing.”
“I can see why.” Her head dipped and she stared at her hands folded ever-so-composed on her lap. She had to get this over with as quickly as possible and the truth was the most direct route to that. “Evan never should have married me today.”
“No?” He drew a long breath of the pipe, the bowl of it glowing orange in the dark. “It seemed quite the right thing to do in my eyes.”
“But I am not who you think me to be.”
“And just who are ye, lass?”
“My father was a baron and I was trained to be a lady, yes, that was not a lie. But that was when I was young. Since that time, I’ve been a mistress and the madame of a brothel. My past is nothing but scandal. It’s not what you deserve in a
granddaughter-in-law. Not what Evan deserves.”
His head bobbed slowly up and down, taking in her words. “And just what is it that ye think my grandson deserves?”
“Happiness. A wife he can be proud of.” Her shoulders lifted. “I just wanted you to know when Evan moves forth with a divorce or an annulment, it is for a just cause.”
His weathered eyes centered on her. “Why are ye telling me of this now?”
“So he doesn’t have to.”
He paused, setting the pipe to his lips but not drawing from it. “He knows about your past?”
“He does.”
“For how long?”
“Since we met.”
The earl harrumphed and shook his head. “Then your past doesn’t matter to him.”
“That’s because Evan is a fine man. But even if it doesn’t matter to him, it will matter to everyone else and that is the devil in it.”
“Nonsense. It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to him.” He lifted his gnarled hand to her cheek and patted it. “Everyone will follow his lead—no matter what they think they know or don’t know. If Ev loves ye, everyone he deals with will love ye as well.”
She watched the sincerity in his face and a hard lump formed in her throat. “How do you not care? Everything Evan told me was that you wanted a proper English lady for him and I am so far-removed from that it is laughable.”
“Lass, ye are the first woman to make my Ev see even a glimmer of hope past that imbecilic oath he swore to his brother. Not marry—ballocks!” His hand flew up in the air. “So I dinnae give a damn about your past. All I care about is the future.”
Her head snapped back. “You know about the promise he made Gilroy?”
“Of course I ken.” He stopped, his gaze going up to the stars above. His voice dipped into a whisper. “I ken, Lettie, I ken. Don’t get after me, woman.”
Juliet’s eyebrows lifted as he talked to his dead wife.
His look dropped to her. “Ye need to know how I failed Ev.”
“You failed him?” Her lips pursed. “I think not—you are the one person he adores above all others.”
The earl chuckled and he patted her leg. “It seems as if I’ve recently made some room up here on that pedestal for ye.”
“I don’t think—”
“I do.” He leaned toward her, his voice dropping a timbre. “No, I failed Ev long ago. I failed as a father so I failed as a grandfather.”
“How?”
“His father, my son, Ranell, would tell Evan every day that he was the reason his mother died. He killed her. The words hissed. Vicious.” He held his hand up before Juliet could say a word. “Hear me out. I was torn—the love of my child for the love of my grandchild. Ranell was destroyed when his wife died giving birth to the boys. Destroyed—distraught—he was never well, never again right in the head after she died and he spewed all of that upon Ev. Blaming him for her death—he was too big of a babe. That he tore her apart from the inside out. A demon babe. That he should have been the one that was buried. Ranell would repeat those vile words to Ev every day until he died when the boys were eight. Eight. I thought Ev was still young enough that he wouldn’t remember all of it, but by then the damage was done.”
Juliet gasped, her hand over her mouth. “He doesn’t believe he has any right to this world?”
“Aye. He’s lived with that guilt his entire life. Killing his mother. Nearly killing his brother. Gilroy was supposed to have been the firstborn, but got stuck coming out with Evan pushing from behind. It went on for hours. Ranell finally had to decide—tell the surgeon to cut his wife open to get the babes out. So, Evan breathed the air of this world first. Gilroy was pulled out after him.”
With a heavy sigh, the earl curled into himself, his shoulders rounding, shrinking his entire form. “First born. Second born. Not as nature intended, but how man determined.”
“But if the surgeon hadn’t cut her…”
“All three would have died.” His weathered hand reached out to pat hers. “But truth does not ease the burden of guilt. Ranell made a decision to kill his wife to save his boys. I could never fault him for the drunken stupor he was in for the next eight years. Nor could I ever stop him from berating Evan, for calling him a monster.”
Her heart shattering for the boy Evan once was, her head shook, tears brimming in her eyes. “Why not? He was your son, you could have stopped him.”
His shoulders lifted and he exhaled a long breath. “Ranell was my only child.”
“And Evan your grandson.”
“Aye. I ken I was weak—I heard Ranell say those revolting comments to Ev time and again and I never stopped him. Never told Ev his father was wrong. After Ranell died, I thought if I loved Ev enough for both his parents—he would move on. Not think on them. Not think on what never was.”
She exhaled a long sigh. “Except he never forgot.”
“No. That he did not.” He looked directly at her. “Ye see, lass, we all have things we regret doing or not doing. We all wrong people, even if we don’t intend it. Even when it’s obvious what the right path should be.”
“My lord—”
“Rubbish on that. I’m a grandfather to ye now, lass, and ye shall be addressing me as such.”
Her lips pulled tightly together, the breath caught in her throat. With those words, the earl had not only just invited her into his family, he’d also invited her into his heart. After what she’d just told him about her past, what should have been exile was unconditional acceptance.
Tears suddenly brimmed along her lower lashes and she quickly swiped them away, then grabbed his hand, holding it between her palms. “Grandfather, are you even sick?”
For a long moment he stared at her, and she could see exactly where Evan got the formidable look that scared all around him.
She refused to look away from him and he suddenly smiled, a distinct twinkle in his left eye. “I do have a cough I’d rather not have.”
Her eyes went wide. “Evan said you’ve felt it in your bones—death coming.”
He lifted his hand with the pipe, circling it in the air. “I feel lots of things in my bones. Rain coming. Cook’s stew weighing me down. Death coming.”
“When is death coming?”
He sighed. “It may be a stretch of time out.”
She exhaled a breathless chuckle, her head shaking. The wily bugger.
He smiled. “I’ll keep your secret if ye keep mine?”
She laughed. “You are a better bargainer than your grandson.”
“He still has a few tricks to learn. I imagine you’ll be the one that will cover his back until he does.”
Her mouth opened to say goodbye, but the words didn’t manifest and she clamped her lips closed. Cowardly, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him she was leaving.
She stood, a sad smile on her lips as she cupped the side of his face and kissed his cheek. “Sleep well tonight, grandfather.”
He patted the back of her neck. “My lad is finally on the right path, so I intend to, dear lass.”
Juliet left him to his stars and his wife. She needed to get to Ness.
At the bottom of the stairs, with her hand on the newel post, she paused. Her breath heavy in her chest, she weighed the battle between the promise she made to sneak Ness out of Whetland against the marriage vow she’d made to Evan and the possibility of a real life with him.
Her eyes opened wide.
Except one didn’t need to fight the other.
What was she thinking?
She needed to find Evan.
{ Chapter 25 }
“Here you are.”
His head heavy, Evan looked up from the fire only inches away from his feet, crisping the tips of his toes.
His wife.
His wife had found him.
Wife.
He chuckled to himself. Silly thing, that. A wife. Demons didn’t care if one had a wife.
His right hand lifted, the edge of the f
ull tumbler of brandy landing on his lip and he swallowed a mouthful.
Juliet appeared in front of him, a sorceress for how quickly she’d moved across the room. His eyes lifted to her, but not his head. That would entail a lot of work.
Her look went down to the almost empty bottle of brandy sitting on the floor next to the chair and then back to his face. “Your chat with Gilroy did not go well?”
He lifted his glass, finger pointing to her, not saying a word. Of course it didn’t go well. Was that even a question? He was dealing with his brother. Nothing ever went well where Gilroy was concerned.
“I am sorry you have to deal with him as you do.”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug and he took another full swallow from his glass.
Before her skirts caught aflame, Juliet moved away from the hearth to the wingback chair adjacent to his and sat. “I had trouble finding you because you never showed me this room.”
He didn’t look up at her, his eyes on the flames in the fireplace licking high. “No, I did not.”
“Whose room is it?”
“My mother’s.”
Her whole body shifted, twisting as she looked around the chamber. She stilled suddenly, her stare landing on him. “I talked to your grandfather. He told me of what your father used to say to you.”
“He did that? Bloody blubberer. He had no right.”
“No. But he clearly wanted me to understand what has set you on this path.”
Evan closed his eyes, his head shaking. Damn his grandfather. Damn his father. His right hand holding the glass lifted, his forefinger flicking out to jab at the air around him. “He—my father—used to drag me in here. Make me sit staring at the bed where she died.”
Silence.
He glanced at Juliet only to find she’d visibly paled.
He didn’t want that. Want her to be sad. Not over him. He wanted her happy. Always happy.
“No. Ye don’t understand.” His right hand dropped to balance the glass on his thigh. “I ken my father did it to punish me, to shame me for even existing, but it wasn’t that—punishment. I liked being in here. Liked imagining how she was, how she might have loved me. Everyone always said she had the most bountiful heart—she adored everyone, even the most asinine of the cousins.”
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