Juliana (36 page)

“Have another lemon slice, will you?”

He didn’t take one, because he didn’t want to let go of her to do so. Her slight shoulders felt good in his hands, though their stiffness wasn’t easing, which was worrisome. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

Now
she
sighed. “Your last assistant sent in a friend, but I didn’t think you should hire her.”

“Why not? Could the woman not read?”

She bit off the end of a thread and leaned away from him to reach into her basket for a spool, sighing again when he leaned with her. “Yes, she could read. But I feared she’d find herself with child before long.”

His fingers stilled.
“What?”

“You heard me.” She pulled off a length of thread. “You’ve lost two assistants due to pregnancy already. Why do you think that is?”

Actually, he’d lost four assistants to pregnancy, not two—but he wasn’t about to admit that now. “Something in the water?” he speculated.

“Your generosity,” she declared. “You’re too nice, James.”

“Pardon?” He released her shoulders and walked around to face her. “How on earth can a person be too nice?”

“When your niceness allows others take advantage of you,” she said, her fingers not faltering for an instant. “I’d lay odds that last girl sent her friend here with a promise of fifty pounds.”

James’s jaw dropped. “You think they’re getting pregnant on purpose?”

“Or they were never pregnant at all.” She stuck the end of the thread in her mouth to wet it.

He leaned on the counter, shaking his head in disbelief. “It sounds far-fetched to me. But even if you’re right, what am I to do? I suppose I could consider only male applicants, but that seems rather—”

“Certainly not! I think you need to find someone older, more responsible. Someone you can trust.”

“Most older women aren’t seeking work. They’re busy raising families.”

“I mean
much
older women.” Having threaded the needle, she looked up, and he found himself lost in her greenish eyes. “Like your aunts.”

He blinked. “My aunts?”

“Excuse me,” she said, turning away to hand a number to a woman waiting by the counter with two children.

“You’re number forty-two,” she told the woman. “I’ll call you when it’s your turn.”

She turned back to him, meeting his gaze again, looking like she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. Her eyes went even greener. She swallowed slowly and lowered her gaze to her lap, wrapping her arms about her middle. She looked frail.

The chatter of the waiting patients grew louder in the silence that stretched between them.

He whipped out a hand and plucked the scarf from her front.

“Hey!” She snatched it back. “Whyever did you do that?”

“You’re not acting like Juliana. And you don’t
look
like Juliana—not with that silly scarf or whatever it’s called.”

“It’s a fichu,” she informed him primly, stuffing it back into place.

Juliana was never prim. Or so tense and distant. And, most of all, she definitely wasn’t frail. He reached to skim his knuckles along her chin. She didn’t react. “What’s wrong, Juliana?”

Her jaw set. “Nothing.”

“You’re working too hard. You’re exhausted.”

She reached into one of the baskets and handed him a lemon slice. “Eat this, please.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat it,” she demanded in a distinctly un-Juliana-like way. Her gaze flicked to the door, where a footman in Chase livery had just entered. She waved to him, looking relieved. “My carriage is here. But your aunts are bored. They need something to do.”

“They’re both countesses, in case you’ve forgotten. They’re not looking for employment.”

“And I’m not suggesting you pay them. Your mother told me they’re enjoying my sewing parties, and even more significant, they’ve stopped calling on you to examine them. But I’ve only three more parties, and then they’ll be bored again and back to their tricks. Unless they help you instead.” She shoved the fabric, needle, and thread into the other basket. “They won’t think of it as employment or work, you see; they’ll consider it an act of charity. And if they’re busy helping here, they won’t have time to fret about their health.”

It was brilliant. In one fell swoop, Juliana might have solved both his problems, giving his aunts something to do and providing him with permanent, reliable assistants.

Apparently Juliana’s meddling wasn’t
always
an inconvenience.

“How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you figure out what people need and put two and two together? Why
are
you so good at what you do?”

She shrugged. “I just pay attention.”

It couldn’t be that simple. “What if my aunts don’t want to be assistants?”

“They’ll be thrilled at the very suggestion,” she promised with supreme confidence. “Shall I ask them for you?”

“I can ask them. I’ll stop by on my way to Parliament. Thank you, Juliana,” he said, reaching to touch her arm. When she flinched, a shock of hurt rattled him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You were right—I’m exhausted. And overwhelmed. And the dratted lemon slices aren’t working.”

“Pardon?” He looked down to the uneaten slice in his hand and back up, horrified to see tears flooding her eyes. “What do lemon slices have to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.” She inched around the counter and headed toward the door. “Eat the lemon slices, will you? All of them. I’ll see you at the Teddington ball tomorrow. I must go home and sew.”

ON SATURDAY
evening, Griffin watched Juliana scan the Teddingtons’ ballroom. “Where’s Lord Stafford?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for Castleton?”

“He’s in the card room, gambling away his fortune.”

Griffin wondered why she sounded so disapproving. “Castleton isn’t an inveterate gambler. He plays only to amuse himself.”

She shrugged. “He only ever does anything to amuse himself.”

“And you find this objectionable?” He narrowed his gaze. “Since when?” She was supposed to be in love with the fellow! Unless…he was suddenly seized by an alarming notion. “Do you not want to marry him anymore?”

She looked away. “He needs me.”

“I should hope you’d want to marry someone because
you
need
him
.”

She cocked her head at him. “Rachael says people should marry because they want each other, not need each other. It’s remarkable how all the unwedded people I know are so very wise in the ways of marriage,” she added dryly.

Griffin ignored that. “Has Castleton kissed you yet?”

”Would you want to hear about it if he did?”

He supposed he didn’t; there was little more uncomfortable than envisioning one’s sister in a romantic embrace. However, he knew Juliana well enough to know she wouldn’t hesitate to give him the details in all their cringe-inducing glory, so he had to figure her response meant the duke hadn’t kissed her yet.

He’d meant to have a talk with Castleton the next time he came to call on Juliana, but the fellow hadn’t been coming around lately. “I think I’ll go play cards,” he told his sister.

“Just don’t lose thirty guineas.”

Wherever had
that
caustic comment come from? he wondered as he made his way to the card room. He rarely gambled, and never for high stakes.

Castleton was playing whist. “Yes?” he asked when Griffin walked up.

“I heard from my stableman yesterday. Velocity has been running well. You still want him, don’t you?”

He shifted, tossing a card on the table without meeting Griffin’s gaze. “Very much.”

“Excellent. You might try kissing my sister.”

Griffin turned to go and ran smack dab into Rachael, who was wearing a dress the same sky blue color as her eyes. She looked like she might have a slight cold—red nose, glassy eyes—though it didn’t dampen her appeal.

But for once, he wasn’t flustered by Rachael’s sultriness; he was too busy panicking over what she might have heard.

“What are you doing here?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“At the ball or in the card room? My sisters dragged me to the ball. And I followed you in here.” She glanced around at all the people uneasily. “I have something I’d like to ask you. In private.”

He relaxed. It seemed she hadn’t overheard his conversation with the duke. “Let’s find Lord Teddington’s library.”

“All right.” She walked beside him from the room. “What does Velocity have to do with the Duke of Castleton kissing your sister?”

Blast it.

He hesitated, but another explanation wasn’t springing to mind. “Ah, yes, well…I promised him Velocity if he married her.”

“You promised him a
horse
for marrying Juliana?” Her glassy eyes looked incredulous. “How could you do that, Griffin?”

He looked away, turning down a corridor he hoped would lead to the library. “She wants to marry him. I want to see her happy.”

“How happy do you expect she’ll be when she finds out her husband married her for a horse?”

He peeked in an open door to see a music room. “Whyever would she find that out?”

“Perhaps because I told her?”

“You wouldn’t.” He turned to her. “Tell me you wouldn’t.”

“I’m not sure I shouldn’t.”

“Rachael, please tell me you won’t say anything. It would only hurt her feelings.”

“You should have thought of that before you made the offer.” She stared at him for a moment while he shifted uncomfortably. “All right. I won’t tell her. Unless she ends up engaged to his grace, at which point I think it will be in her best interests to know, whether it hurts her feelings or not.”

“Thank you,” he said, not sure he was actually all that thankful, since the duke and his sister would likely be engaged quite soon. But maybe not. And at least Rachael wasn’t running to Juliana just yet.

They tried the next room, but it turned out to be a small family dining chamber. “Whatever made you think of offering a horse for your sister?” she asked, continuing down the corridor.

He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Perhaps I was a bit foxed.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you’re not often drunk.” She stopped before another open door. “Ah, the library.” Taking a deep breath, she entered and walked over to a long leather sofa. She turned and sat carefully, folding her hands in her lap. “A few weeks ago you suggested I try to find my father. I was wondering how you’d propose I do that. Seeing as he’s dead, I mean.”

Griffin frowned, noting a trace of anguish beneath her businesslike tone. Leaving the door open, he joined her on the sofa. “He might not be dead.”

“In the letter I found, Mama referred to herself as a widow.”

“The letter could have been deliberately misleading,” Griffin pointed out, and then, seeing hope leap into her eyes, hurriedly added, “although it probably wasn’t. But in either case, I may be able to help you discover his identity.”

“How?” She coughed, then sniffled. “Mama left no other letters that mentioned anything about an earlier marriage. Her parents died young, and after her sister died when I was but a child, she had no family left. She never even had any close friends other than your folks—Mama always kept to herself, do you remember?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Her things? Did she keep nothing to remind her of her previous husband?”

“Nothing at all. I went through everything when I cleaned out her rooms to ready them for Noah.”

Noah, Rachael’s younger brother, had recently come of age and taken responsibility for the earldom—a responsibility Rachael had borne on her own since the tender age of seventeen. She was intelligent and competent. If she’d found nothing, there was likely nothing to find.

But now that she was willing to pursue the subject, Griffin didn’t want to give up so easily. “Perhaps you missed something. Or saw something but didn’t recognize it as a clue.”

She looked dubious. “There was nothing, Griffin.”

“Would it hurt to look again?” If he could judge by her expression, it very well might. “I’ll go through your mother’s things with you,” he offered. “I might notice something you missed.”

She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her nose. “All of Mama’s things are at Greystone,” she said on a sigh, referring to her family’s country estate. “Perhaps we can go through them at Christmas.”

As much as Rachael clearly wished to put this off, he wasn’t willing to see her misery last until Christmas. It was so against her nature. “Christmas is six months away—”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, standing suddenly. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going home.”