From their devotion…even when she’d deeply disappointed them.
Especially when she’d disappointed them.
“I’m so sorry.” She sniffed. “You must be terribly angry.”
“Angry? No.” Katherine wiped Julia’s cheeks with a clean handkerchief. “I do wish you’d waited. I’d thought I’d attend you on your wedding someday.” She lifted her brows. “And prepared you for what was to come.”
Julia chuckled half-heartedly. “I could have done with some preparation.” Although, could anything have prepared her for Rayne?
Katherine brushed the hair from her face. “Was he good to you? I mean…”
“I understand what you’re asking.” Julia folded her hands in her lap. “He was very good. You wouldn’t believe how gentle.”
“Rayne? Gentle?”
Julia nodded. Her heart panged as she thought of the way he’d held himself still in her pain, murmuring words of comfort. She couldn’t have asked for a kinder introduction.
“I’m grateful for your sake.” Katherine sighed. “I must say, I do find it hard to believe. Giles assured me I’d yet to see him at his best. But what I feel doesn’t matter ifyouhave seen him at his best.”
She thought of the way he’d held her after her nightmare. “His best”—she thought of the blazing anger in his eyes her first night as his footman—“his worst”—she thought of his face in deep, exhausted sleep—“and just about everything in between.”
Katherine nodded. “I had hoped for someone…easier for you. But you didn’t, did you?”
Julia shook her head. “I wanted Rayne.”
Katherine’s brow wrinkled. “I worried the most when you didn’t immediately pay a call. That letter you sent wasn’t like you at all. You’ve been at the Grange almost a week. Why did you stay away?”
Julia threaded her hands together and opened her palms, studying her crisscrossed fingers. “I—I suppose I wanted to give Rayne time to adjust.”
“And I take it, from your tears, he hasn’t yet ‘adjusted’?”
Julia’s shoulders sagged. “He never wanted to return to the Grange. But he went back to a place he hated…for me.” She glanced up. “What do I do? How can I make this right?”
A knock sounded against the doorjamb. Julia knew without looking that her brother and brother-in-law wanted to join them.
Katherine glanced to Julia. “Bromton knows him better than I do.”
Julia nodded.
“Come in, Giles,” Katherine called. “You, too, Percy.”
Julia wiped away her tears and smiled. Her family, complete…but for Clarissa and Rayne.
Never leave a sullen man in silence.
“I shouldn’t have left him,” she gasped. “Especiallyin wrath.”
“Why not?” Markham asked.
“Farring said,” Julia replied, “if you leave a sullen man in silence for too long, he’ll thinkthoughts, and then you’re finished.”
Katherine and Bromton exchanged a glance.
“What else,” Bromton asked warily, “did Farring tell you?”
Julia glanced up and out the corner of her eye. “As I told Markham, if you wish to blame anyone, blame me. Abducting Rayne was Farring’s idea, but I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have gone to the Pillar myself sometime in the night. I would have done just about anything for Rayne. And though the Grange is not how I pictured it, I swear I’d do everything I’ve done again. Loveisinconvenient.”
Markham’s lips twisted. “Farring again, I believe.”
