Rook’s eyebrows lifted. “Juliana Shelley? You’re certain?”
“Yes.” Ellis bent his head. “Andshe…she came to my house here in London this afternoon.”
“Wait…so she came to the Donville Masquerade and you two interacted?” Rook said in disbelief.
A flash of Juliana arching beneath him, crying out with pleasure, ripped through Ellis’s mind. He pushed it away with great difficulty. “Yes. We interacted.”
“She spoke toyou, the man who all but kidnapped her sister, the man who set in motion all the events that led to her family’s scandal and her own injury.”
Ellis jerked away from those very true words. The accusations he made against himself every time he saw her. They were worse coming from Rook’s voice.
“She did.” He gripped his hands at his sides, gathered himself and faced his cousin again. “She is altered by everything that happened. She’s looking for a way to feel something. I think we both understand that.”
Rook flinched and then nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Thomasina and Anne have both commented on the change in her. They’ve tried to speak to her, to comfort her, but she feels outside of her own family now.”
“Perhaps because she’s beenleft out,” Ellis said.
“Fuck you. You don’t know anything about it.”
Ellis shrugged. “She came to me.That’show desperate she is. So I think I know a little more than you do,cousin. You can hate me all you want, but don’t dismiss me and endanger her.”
“I don’t hate you,” Rook said softly.
Ellis walked away from him. He stood at the fireplace, watching the flames lick at the logs. For a moment, all was silent between them, though not comfortably so. All the unspoken anger and hurt hung there like a wall. Insurmountable. His making.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said at last. “I don’t want to betray her like this and humiliate her. But she needs intervention. She needs a reminder that I’m dangerous, and none of mine seem to break through that marvelously thick skull of hers.”
Rook snorted out a laugh and Ellis turned to watch his cousin scrub a hand over his face. “Shit. Anne is going to be livid.”
Ellis smiled then. “I don’t think there’s much room for her to talk when it comes to making bad decisions.”
“With you,” Rook added.
“Yes. I suppose. Though her heart was never in it. And neither was mine. Anyone can tell just by looking at her that she is in love with you. Foolish girl.”
Rook laughed a little and the tension between them faded a fraction. “They like the bad ones, those Shelley sisters. Even Harcourt isn’t as straitlaced as he might seem.”
A ripple of jealousy tore through Ellis before he could control it. He and Rook had been best friends as well as family. Rook had been his right-hand man for years. Now he was pulling away, separating. It was better for him, but it still stung.
“Well, then you’ve found a new place for yourself,” Ellis said. “One with far less trouble. So why don’t you let me take care of the trouble still here? Give me the code. I know you still have it.”
The softness to Rook’s expression dissipated in a moment and he clenched his teeth. “All this pretending to care about Juliana’s well-being and what you really want is the code. Why are you so set on getting the gem, Ellis? To enrich yourself?”
“No!” Ellis burst out. “You really think that when its very existence threatens you, threatens my brother, threatens—”
He broke off because if he said Juliana’s name, it would be clear he cared about her. After all, the other people he’d listed were the only ones he’d ever loved. While he didn’t lump Juliana Shelley into that category—he would never be that foolish—he certainly could admit he had a stake in her well-being. The woman had all but forced him to.
“I want to take care of Winston Leonard,” he said softly.
“He’s back in London,” Rook said with a groan. “Shit, Juliana saw him at the Donville Masquerade, didn’t she?”
Ellis drew back at that revelation. “She told you she saw him?”
“Reluctantly,” Rook said. “And she refused to say where. I understand why now. What is between you, Ellis?”
“Nothing,” he said, and heard how unbelievable the words were.
“Liar,” Rook drawled, repeating the same slur Juliana had thrown at him earlier in the day.
