Or she could tell the truth and face the consequences of what she’d been doing behind their backs. In a way, that option felt like a relief. She’d never been particularly good at subterfuge.
She folded her arms and straightened her back. “Fine. You’ve caught me.” Both her sisters and she ducked her head. “How did you find out? Did someone see me there? Did the driver report my activities even though he was paid so very handsomely to look the other way?”
Anne shifted now, as if she were uncomfortable with the answer. Thomasina’s cheeks were bright with color.
“How do you know?” Juliana repeated.
“Ellis told Rook,” Anne said at last.
It was as if the floor beneath Juliana had opened up and now she was falling. Falling forever as humiliation brought fire to her cheeks and tears to her eyes. Of all the answers to her question, that Ellis had betrayed her was the last one she’d expected.
Yes, he had been trying to stop her from entering his life and his world. Yes, he’d had her banned from the Donville Masquerade. But this was different.
By telling her family, he’d had to have known what it would do to her. By telling her family, he was not only embarrassing her but opening up a world of consequences that would truly separate them.
“Breathe,” Thomasina said softly. She reached out and took Juliana’s cold hand between her warm ones and squeezed gently. “And please,pleasetalk to us.”
Juliana shut her eyes as she leaned against the chair back with a long sigh. Her time was up. Confession was the only way.
“You must understand that my entire life has changed in the past few months,” she began. “I realize your lives have also been altered, but in good ways. You’ve both found love, and of course, I am deliriously happy for you. But it’s not the same for me.”
“Because…” Thomasina trailed off and touched her own cheek at the place where Juliana’s scar would be.
Juliana shook her head. “No. Well, yes, but not just that. My identity is gone. I’ve always been the sister who fixed things for you. The one who could be depended on. And now you have husbands to share your troubles with. Even if I’m pleased for you both, it is a change that happened so swiftly and unexpectedly that I felt…washed away on the tide of it.”
Anne’s expression softened and she took Juliana’s other hand. “Oh, love. I knew you felt left out, but I didn’t know you had gotten so low.”
“I’m on the outside looking in now,” Juliana said. “But I have also lost my future, not just my place. I’ve spent my life under the assumption that Father would match each of us. If I were lucky, it would be to a man I could like…perhaps even love.”
“You still could—” Thomasina began.
Juliana cut her off with an arched brow. “He’s said a dozen times that now I’ll just be his spinster secretary. That I’m so damaged both physically and by scandal that he won’t even consider sending me out on the marriage mart anymore.”
Anne rushed to her feet with a growl of displeasure. “Damn him. He is the most selfish person. I swear, if Harcourt does not arrange your coming to stay with us, I will take care of it myself and Father will like my solution less.”
“Are you planning to kidnap me?” Juliana said, unable to help her smile at Anne’s frustrated desire to go to war for her. It did help to know she still mattered.
Anne pivoted to spear her with a meaningful glance. “If I must. I’m sure Rook would help.”
“Anne, we must focus now. We can kidnap later,” Thomasina said gently. “We understand your feelings, Juliana. But how did that end you in the Donville Masquerade?”
“I saw you both so happy. Heard your whispers about pleasure, thought of that book of Father’s with all the naughty pictures.” Juliana sighed. “If I were going to be saddled the rest of my life planning Father’s dinner parties, I just decided I wanted something for myself first. Just one little thing.”
“You wished to surrender your virginity,” Thomasina breathed.
Anne ducked her head and color flooded her cheeks. “I-I understand that. I had something of the same desire in Scotland after I realized I had ruined my own future. ButEllis, Juliana? How in the world did you align yourself with a man like that?”
Juliana’s hackles rose at the dismissive attitude of the question. She understood it after Anne’s shared history with Ellis, but she still sought to defend him.
Even though he had betrayed her. She was a fool, she supposed.
“I know you have good reasons to dislike him, after what he did. After what you…you shared.”
Anne threw up her hands. “Wesharedvery little. I know I was not his true prize, and in the end what I thought I felt for him was more a terror at marrying someone I didn’t love. He led me to Rook, so I have to…forgive him on some level. But heisa villain.”
“He’s more than that,” Juliana insisted, and frowned as her sisters exchanged a meaningful look. “I was frightened at the very idea of him for so long. But when I met him that terrible day I was taken, I was shocked at how much a man he was. Just a man, not a monster, handsome and funny and flawed. He had me in his arms at once point and it was…comforting. He looked into my eyes and suddenly much more about that book made sense to me.”
Anne’s eyes went wide. “Juliana.”
