It had taken a scandal for him to come to his senses, and realize she didn’t belong there.
She hadn’t then, and she didn’t now.
The sooner Juliet Templeton was gone from Steeple Cross, the sooner he could forget she’d ever been here at all.
ChapterFour
That night, Juliet was tormented with frightful nightmares, which was quite a feat, considering she never once shut her eyes after the housemaid closed the bedchamber door behind her.
These were waking nightmares—nightmares where she risked life, limb, and the last shreds of her sanity to attend a house party she hadn’teven been invited to, given by a man she now suspected had fled London specifically to escape her.
She desperately needed a word with Lady Fosberry, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to disturb her ladyship’s sleep after their dreadful ordeal. So, there was little for her to do from dusk to dawn aside from stare at the ceiling and try to determine how she could have ignored every sign warning her to stay far away from Steeple Cross.
If she hadn’t believed in portents and ill omens before this ill-fated trip to Oxfordshire, she didnow. She’d done something to earn the wrath of the universe, and it must have been very wicked, indeed, because as dreadful as these past few years had been, none of it had given her as much pain as that scene in Lord Cross’s study last night.
When he’d appeared out of the darkness just when she was most desperate for him, like a guardian angel, or some sort of romantic hero, there’d been a fleeting moment when she’d been certain that he… that they…
Well, it didn’t matter now, did it?
She’d been wrong, and it was just that sort of silly, starry-eyed foolishness that had led her into this predicament in the first place. If she could flee Steeple Cross without laying eyes on Lord Cross again, she’d climb out the window right now, and never venture as much as a toe into Oxfordshire ever again.
But she couldn’t vanish without a word to Lady Fosberry, and she didn’t have a carriage at her disposal, in any case. There was nothing for it but to wait for Lady Fosberry to wake, and consult with her about what was best to be done.
So, she waited, the minutes crawling by with the same maddening sluggishness as the long winters at home in Herefordshire, until she could stand it no longer, threw the coverlet off and slipped through the connecting door between their bedchambers. “Lady Fosberry? Are you awake?”
“Mmmphh,” said the blanket-covered lump in the middle of the bed.
“My lady? I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but a difficulty has arisen.”
“Mmmphh.”
Juliet crept closer, and nudged at the lump’s shoulder. “It’s Lord Cross, my lady.”
“Mmmphh?”
“Yes.” Juliet leaned closer to the lump, raising her voice. “He’s, ah… he’s asked me to leave Steeple Cross at once.”
“Mmmphh!”
“It seems I wasn’t invited to attend the house party after all, and—oh!” Juliet leapt backwards as Lady Fosberry bolted upright with such violence a silk cushion flew off the bed and tumbled onto the floor. “My goodness, my lady, you scared the life out of me!”
“Not invited! Why, what utter nonsense! I was invited, and you came as my guest!”
“Yes, but Lord Cross sayshedidn’t invite me, and he…” Juliet swallowed. “He doesn’t want me here.”
“Not want you? Not wantyou! Open the draperies this instant, Juliet.”
Juliet rushed to do as she was told, while Lady Fosberry snatched up a handful of pillows, pummeled them into submission, then thrust them against the headboard behind her. “Give the fire a poke as well, will you? Yes, there’s a dear girl. Now, come sit here, and tell me all of it.”
Shehadtold Lady Fosberry all of it—being flung out of an earl’s house wasn’t a terribly complicated thing, after all—but one didn’t argue with Lady Fosberry when she was in a fit of outrage. “Lord Cross informed me last night that he—”
“Last night! You mean to tell me that wicked man had the audacity to demand you leave Steeple Cross not an hour after you werenearly killedin a carriage accident?”
That was a bit of an exaggeration, but she wasn’t in any mood to defend Lord Cross. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“I can hardly believe my ears. I’m fond of Cross, despite what people say about him. I’ve always believed he hid a tender heart under all that brusqueness, but perhaps I’ve been mistaken all along.”
Juliet said nothing, and kept her gaze on the fold of the coverlet she was worrying between her fingers, but her heart was sinking.
