“The boys and I go on quite happily without Lord Hawke, I assure you. They’ve no manners, of course, and the pair of them are as wicked as demons from the underworld, but aside from that, they’re dear, lovely little things.”
“Dear, lovely little demons? Only you would say such a thing, Helena.”
“Indeed, but you didn’t come here to talk about Adrian and Etienne.” Helena plucked up the plate of cakes and deposited them on a table next to the bed. “What’s happened, Juliet?”
That… well, that was a question with no satisfactory answer. Therewasa perfectly foolish, humiliating answer, however. She’d indulged her silly romantic fantasies, hoped for a thing that could never be, and now her heart was broken. “It’s quite dreadful, really, Helena. I, ah… well, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Her sister said nothing, only waited, a trick she’d picked up from some psychological text of their father’s. It never failed to loosen Juliet’s tongue. “One can never keep a secret from you, Helena. It’s excessively trying.”
Helena raised a brow. “You came all the way to Hawke’s Runnotto tell me your secret?”
“It’s not as if I came from the other end of England. Steeple Cross is only eight or so miles from here.” That wasn’t the point, of course, but how did she broach such a subject? One didn’t blurt out a thing like this.
“Steeple Cross? What, you mean Lord Cross’s estate? I hear the grounds are lovely, though I haven’t heard much about Lord Cross himself. Is he—”
“I’m in love with him!” Well. It seemed one did blurt it out, after all.
Helena didn’t blink at this outburst, but only regarded Juliet with calm blue eyes. “In love with Lord Cross? Is he—”
“He’s awful, Helena! The most stubborn man imaginable—more stubborn than Emmeline, if you can believe it, and then he’s terribly arrogant—that is, all earls are arrogant, but he’s more so, and he’s handsome, like a dark-haired pirate with lovely eyes, but he doesn’t smile nearly often enough, which is a great pity, as he has a wonderful smile, and he’s… really, Helena, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a more dreadful man.”
“My goodness, Juliet. Youarein love, aren’t you?”
“I am, and I’m terribly disappointed in it. I always imagined falling in love would be rather like… like, well I don’t know, exactly—something with rose petals, perhaps—but instead it’s like diving into a patch of nettles. They sting, and stick in unmentionable places, and once they’ve got into you, there’s no getting them out again!”
“Yes, that does sound like love.”
“What am I meant to do, Helena? How am I ever going to extricate myself?”
“Er, well, perhaps if we approach it scientifically, we can—”
“It is my lady, O, it is my love!”
Helena paused, frowning. “Do you hear shouting?”
Juliet sat up, listening. “It sounds as if it’s coming from the garden. You don’t suppose the boys have got out, and are running about in the dark?”
“When it comes to the boys, anything is possible.” Helena hopped down from the bed, crossed to the window, and peeked through a narrow gap in the draperies. “No. It’s not the boys.”
“With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls
For stony limits cannot hold love out.”
“Come here, Juliet. There’s a man standing in the garden, shouting some nonsense about love.”
“That’s not nonsense. That’s Shakespeare.Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, where he sees her on the balcony.” But… a man in the garden, reciting lines fromRomeo and Juliet?
It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, could it? But it must be, unless…
No, surely not.
Juliet stumbled to her feet, hardly daring to move lest she somehow upset the order of the universe, and crossed the bedchamber to the window, her breath held.
“Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.”
