Julia appeared by her side, cloth in hand. She removed Markham’s letter from Katherine’s fingers and dabbed at the ink on Katherine’s cheek.
“Are you truly so infamous?” she asked.
Julia’s tone suggested her eighteen years had not been sufficient time for her to appreciate the difference between famous, as in widely celebrated, and infamous, as in universally condemned.
“Yes,” Katherine replied.
Julia’s gaze remained skeptical as she returned the rag and crumpled missive to the desk. “Surely other ladies have recovered from a broken betrothal.”
“Twobroken betrothals, Julia.”
Though, on a fine point, the first had not been broken. That one had merely left her shattered.
“Besides,” she set aside the pain, “it’s not that simple. I recovered.” Mostly. “My reputation has not.”
“You truly cannot return to London just because some ghastly friend of the prince called you the most unmarriageable woman in the kingdom?”
“Not the kingdom,” Katherine clarified, “just England.”
Julia smiled, granting Katherine a glimpse of the woman Julia would become. With her unstained hand, Katherine picked up Julia’s long braid and then smoothed the brown coil over her sister’s shoulder.
Not yet, she prayed.
Next year, Julia would be presented. But Julia was too free with her trust. Too open in her manner. And far too willfully certain that every day would be an improvement on the last.
In short, too much likeshehad been.
“Were it just for the unfortunate betrothals,” she continued, “I may have been able to quietly rusticate and then return to Society in a few years. However—and please let this be a lesson—with just one quip, Beau Brummell destroyed any hope of restoring my reputation.”
“I do not believe it,” Julia replied staunchly. “You cannot be ruined by a quip.”
“If said quip amplifies speculation already surrounding something scandalous, like a broken betrothal,”—or, say, two—“I am afraid youcanbe ruined by a quip.”
Julia caught her lip between her teeth.
Katherine knew that look. She knew that look only led to—
“What if,” Julia’s eyes grew wide, “this visitor changes everything—just like the princes in the fairy stories you used to tell?”
“I am long-past wishing for change.” Katherine raised her brows. “And long-past believing in fairy story princes.”
“Katherine,” Julia pleaded, “what if Markham’s friend is dashed good-looking?”
“Good heavens, Jul—”
“Shhh.” Julia put her fingers over Katherine’s lips. “What if the two of you fall madly in love, and he asks you to marry him? If you married, wouldn’t you prove the prince’s friend wrong?”
Katherine removed Julia’s hand from her mouth. “Impossible,” she said, her chest contracting. She’d been in love once. Madly. He’d died. And if the debacle with Viscount Cartwright that had followed her first love hadn’t been enough to prove she did not deserve a second chance, what would?
As for third chances, well, no one believed in those.
“Why is marriage impossible?” Julia argued. “If you were to marry, people would have to change their minds about you. The gossip would end! And if the gossip ended, you would be able to be with me in London when I make my curtsy to the queen.”
Ah.Katherine smiled halfheartedly. The conversation usually did come back to Julia. “We’ve discussed this before. I cannot be there.”
Julia folded her arms. “You could be there if you were respectably married.”
Katherine groaned. “Your logic is solid, but—”
