Page 12 of Regency in Color

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Because you don’t deserve to feel better about what you did to me,” she hissed. An irritating crop of tears formed on her lashes, but she wiped them away angrily. “You asked me to run away with you to Gretna Green, but didn’t show up the day we were supposed to leave. I waited all day. I waited hours after the sun had set. In the darkness. Alone. You abandoned me. I will never give you my forgiveness. You can never redeem yourself from that.”

Juliana spun around and broke into an unladylike run.

Why here?

Why now?

Of all the times Colin could have shown up over the years, why did it have to be now, when she was trying to navigate her uncertain future. He was ruining everything. Dredging up emotions she didn’t have the time or desire to confront.

She’d be damned if she took his help, even if it meant a life of spinsterhood. Anything would be better than groveling to that scoundrel.

* * *

Juliana draggedher weary body up the last few stairs and internally cheered when she saw the door to her bedchamber. The emotional strain of fighting with Colin had stolen all of her physical energy. She felt as if she could crawl beneath her covers and sleep for an eternity.

“You ca—t be se—ous? Bar— Crom—l?”

Lady Roxburrow’s disgruntled voice carried from the open door of her sitting room. Juliana couldn’t make out exactly what she was saying, and normally she’d never listen in on their conversation, but something propelled her forward. She stopped outside the door and listened closely. Her vantage point gave her a clear view to read their lips, though neither of them could see her.

“He’s nearly three times her age. She’d be miserable.”

“She’d be fed and provided for. That’s all that matters,” Lord Roxburrow countered sternly.

“But—”

“No arguments. I’ve given you time to do it your way. I let her have a season, bought her a new wardrobe to prance around in as if it would make any difference. The girl is deaf and from distasteful origins. No one wants her.”

“She’s not deaf. And your brother married her mother. She is a legitimate subject of the Crown. There is nothing distasteful about that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Surely, there must be another option. Perhaps I can speak to—”

“You can waste your breath speaking to whomever you choose, but it will not change my decision. At the end of the season, if she is still unwed, as I know she will be, she will marry Baron Cromwell, and we will be done with her.”

“Very well,” Lady Roxburrow conceded.

Baron Cromwell?Lord Roxburrow intended to marry her off to that miserable old man?

She doubled over, placing one hand on her knee, the other clutching her stomach. Her entire body began to tremble. Bile rose in her throat, forcing her to work to swallow it down continuously.

Rumors abounded about the way Baron Cromwell had mistreated his first wife when she’d failed to produce an heir. Some even suspected foul play in her demise.

Juliana would rather die than marry that villain.

Or—She could humble herself before Colin and accept his offer.

She needed to lie down. Juliana crept away and hurried to her room, but not quickly enough.

“Juliana,” Lady Roxburrow gasped, catching her as she opened her door.

Their eyes met over the distance, one set filled with guilty remorse, the other with anguish. Both of them understood the helplessness of the other. Juliana stepped into her room and quietly closed the door, severing the tether of understanding all women of marriageable age understood: your life was not your own.