She whipped her head away as if his touch repelled her or frightened her. “No! No, my lord, please. I promise you that I’m quite all right now. I’m sorry to have awakened you. Forgive me. I won’t do it again.”
“Bloody hell, that’s quite enough.” He sounded angry to her, and she closed her eyes tightly, turning back within herself. But there was only a vast, lonely emptiness there. She heard him rise from her bed. She could feel him looking down at her as he stood beside her. Dear God, what was he thinking? Would he go back to Lady Sarah? What would he do?
“Good night. You know very well you have but to call if you have need of me.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak, and so she lay in stiff silence until she heard his retreating footsteps. She opened her eyes, and unbidden tears welled up and rolled silently down her cheeks. She tried yet again to piece together the nightmare, but as always, it escaped her, drifting in vague shadows back into unknown depths of her mind, waiting there; she felt it would never be gone from her. She took an edge of the covers and wiped the tears from her face.
Sleep didn’t again come to her, and she pushed back the covers. She eased her feet into her slippers and padded to the windows. She curled up in the window seat, her face pressed against the blue-brocade curtains.
It was some hours later that Eliza found her, huddled and shivering, asleep in the embrasure.
32
“Dammit, Julien, you’re a fool, and if you weren’t my friend— and a better shot— I’d bloody well call you out.”
Hugh looked just as angry, only his anger was cold and still. He said finally, “I’d be his second— if he were a better shot.”
The three men stood outside White’s, their overcoats buttoned high to their collars to keep out the blistering winter wind.
“You must have known that Constance Haverstoke would take the first opportunity to fill Kate’s ears with Sarah. And you, damn your hide, you had to parade her in front of everyone onto the dance floor!” As a gust of wind threatened to whip Percy’s beaver hat from his carefully pomaded locks, he momentarily shut his mouth.
“It’s quite true, Julien,” Hugh said. “Kate’s so young, you should have realized that she would find out and what she would feel.”
“Kate assured me that she quite understood my motives.” But he knew it was a lie, he bloody well knew he’d hurt her badly, but he hadn’t meant to.
“Besides being young, she is quite proud.”
Julien threw up his gloved hands. “All right, that’s enough from both of you.” He raised haughty brows and added sarcastically, “You’re acting as if Kate were your sister. I was on the point of telling you both, before Blairstock here ranted at me like a madman, that I intend to leave London with Kate on Friday. We go to St. Clair. Does that satisfy your chivalrous meddling?”
“And Sarah?” Percy said, his eyes dark, for once undaunted by Julien’s show of sangfroid.
“Neither of you has further need to trouble yourselves about that lady.”
“Ah, so you came to an understanding with her when you took her outside to the balcony, is that what you’re telling us?”
Julien jerked his head around. “It appears that my actions are quite common knowledge.”
“Lord, Julien. You may be a fool, but Kate isn’t. As I told you last night, Lady Constance gave her an earful. And enjoyed every minute of it, the old besom.”
Julien’s anger died as he pictured Kate in the dim morning light, silent and withdrawn from him. He raised weary eyes to his friend and said quietly, “The matter is settled. Do not, I pray, call me out, Percy,” he added with a glimmer of a smile. “Now, I suggest, if you gentlemen are quite through telling me what a fool I am, let’s go inside and have a glass of sherry.”
It was strange, Hugh thought, as they were divested of their greatcoats in the cloakroom of White’s, how very serious life had become since Julien had got himself wed. And to see Percy so impassioned over something that didn’t involve his personal pleasures made him wonder uneasily if he knew more of the situation than he had disclosed earlier that morning when he unceremoniously burst in, most effectively dampening Hugh’s appetite for his breakfast. He gazed from beneath hooded lids at Julien and noted the tense lines about his mouth and eyes. No, he decided, finally, Julien was too closemouthed and, like Kate, too proud to unburden himself to anyone.
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