“The Viscount?” The Duke turned his gaze back on Julia, his eyes so wide that Julia flinched. “Your father really intended to marry you to that man? He could shoot me for this. He could demand a duel and cheat at the rules. There is cruelty in him.”
“Then you understand why I was so desperate not to marry him,” Julia explained. The Duke didn’t agree with her, but he muttered something angrily under his breath, looking back to his friend.
“Can you tell Lady Julia’s parents where she has gone?” the Duke asked.
“Yes. Lady Julia, I’ll send them out to you in the carriage, but you must both go now. Circle the house, and do not go anywhere near that ballroom. I fear what the aftermath could be.”
“But…” The Duke looked ready to argue, but Julia didn’t give him a chance.
“Thank you, Lord Rutley,” she said quickly to the Baron and made her escape, running off across the garden. It only took a few steps for her to realize that the Duke was following her, his heavy boots rustling the fallen leaves.
“You do not have to stay by my side whilst we make our escape,” she muttered to him, walking fast between the trees.
“Perhaps not, but you have already been wronged by one man tonight, I would not leave you alone to risk being wronged by another.” His words caught her interest. She glanced up to him, seeing the side of his face in the moonlight, and those eyes that still look black in the darkness of the night.
He did not wrong me. I wronged him.
Yet he seemed to be taking some responsibility for it all the same.
“What do you mean?”
“As I said, Lord Gillet is a cruel man. I do not want him to see you now when he is in the throes of his anger.”
Julia fiddled with her shawl on her shoulders, unsure what to say.
Should I delight in my escape from the Viscount? Or fear what I have now condemned my future to be?
When they stepped through a bush and moved out to the driveway, the Duke led the way to her carriage and opened the door, ushering her inside. When he made no move to step back from the carriage, she pushed her head through the window.
“What are you doing, Your Grace? Leave now before my father sees you.”
“I will come to see you tomorrow. Our conversation is not yet over, My Lady,” he said, holding her gaze.
“I cannot marry you,” she said darkly. “I am sorry, but I cannot. You do not want to marry me. No more than I wish to marry you.”
“Then let us save that conversation for tomorrow.” He glanced behind him as the door to the house opened. “I will watch from the bushes and ensure Lord Gillet does not approach. Once you have taken your leave, I will take mine.” He stepped away, retreating into the shadows.
“Your Grace!” Julia hissed in a whisper, trying to call him back to her, but he was already gone, hiding in the shadows at the side of the driveway. She fidgeted as she saw just who was escaping the building. It was her parents, and they were hastening toward her, with the Earl waving a mad hand at his wife, and Susannah practically in tears.
When they reached the carriage, Julia sat back, retreating as far as she could to the other side of the carriage. She lifted her shawl another time and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, somehow imagining she could use that flimsy silken material like a shield, to block out the inevitable anger that was about to come her way.
Susannah hurried in beside her, reaching for Julia’s hand, as the Earl moved to the bench opposite and slammed the door shut. He struck the door three times, ordering the driver to set off.
Julia braced herself for the shouts and reprimands, but they did not come right away. It left her reeling, looking between the teary face of her mother that was occasionally lit by the lantern that swung back and forth from where it was attached to the roof of the carriage, and the face of her father. He was staring forward, as if at nothing at all, breathing so heavily that his nostrils flared and the skin leading up to his white hair beaded with sweat.
Only when the carriage had left the drive of the house did he speak. His voice wasn’t loud, but deathly quiet.
“I never thought you would betray me like this, Julia,” he muttered, the venom in his tone clear. “To destroy yourself so. To kiss a man out of wedlock, and to beseen.What were you thinking?” At last, he looked at her, but Julia did not reply.
Father, you do not want to know what I was thinking.
“Must we talk about this now?” Susannah pleaded softly, lacing her hand with Julia’s own. “Perhaps he forced her, we do not yet know otherwise –”
“Mother, he did not force me.” Julia shook her head. She knew how wrong it would be to let her mother think such a thing. It would feel cruel to allow her mother to cling to such an idea.
“Perhaps there is still an explanation we could offer? A trick of the light, you were outside, were you not, Julia –”
“Susannah, enough!” the Earl’s voice was loud. It boomed so loudly across the carriage that Susannah cowered back. Julia sat forward, ready to sit between her mother and her father.