Chapter 18
The door squeaked open and Cart listened without removing his gaze from the paper before him as light feet entered the room. “Simon?”
“What?” Cart glanced up from the letter he’d been writing, glaring at Theo, who stood at the open door of his study, wringing her hands nervously.
He worked hard to remove the frown he knew covered his face and likely frightened his dear sister.
He was unused to such drastic changes in his mood.
Only days ago, he thought himself in love, but now he knew he was the biggest fool in all of England—and possibly abroad. “My apologies, Theo. Please, come in.”
She hurried to the chair before his desk, as if fearing if she dallied he would tell her to leave. For once, there was no book tucked under her arm, no ancient tomes pressed to her nose, no tutor following behind her asking questions of literature, history, or science.
Something was severely wrong, for with all this, she would not make eye contact with him, deeming the scuffed floor beneath her feet more worthy of her attention.
“Where have you been?” he inquired, relaxing his stern tone from a moment before. “When I returned home earlier, it was said you were out ‘on an errand’.”
“I was,” Theo confirmed, stumbling over the words. “But I returned quickly.”
He’d wondered what errand a twelve-year-old girl could possibly undertake, but it was likely their mother had dragged her along to pay another social visit to some matron of good standing.
“Very well.” He would not press her for details—he hadn’t the time.
There was much on his mind, least of which was his female relations’ whereabouts every minute of the day.
Besides, Theo was the one person in his life that he could trust above all others.
He watched over her and showered her with as much attention as possible—and in return, she adored him.
Cart tried to refocus, but Theo’s unnatural stillness before him drew his attention once more. She neither blinked nor fussed.
“What plagues you, puppet?” he asked. It was a name his father had used—not in an affectionate way, but more to do with the babe who used to hang all over him.
She kept her eyes focused on the floor and Cart realized she was far more upset than he’d thought. Gauging another’s emotional responses and cues had never been Cart’s strong suit.
“May I ask you a question?” Her voice was timid, something he’d never wish for her. The meek were often taken advantage of. As Cart had discovered long ago.
“You may ask me anything,” he said with more force than he’d intended.
“Theodora, please, you know that no subject is prohibited with us.” They’d become so close since his return to London—he’d left a mere child, but had returned to find his only sibling had grown to the cusp of womanhood—a beauty with an intellect rivalled by no other woman in his acquaintance, but one.
.. “I am your brother. I care for you and your happiness above all else. You do not appear happy at the moment, which vexes me greatly.”
“I am not unhappy, only concerned.” Theo’s forehead scrunched with unease as she continued to wring her hands. “However, I do not want to upset you by prying into your personal affairs. As you have repeated over and over, they are none of my or Momma’s concern.”
Cart had requested his mother stay far away from his personal life, but never had he said the same to Theo. “I am certain your concerns will not be seen as prying.” He removed his spectacles and set them aside, allowing him better focus on her across the large expanse of his desk.
“Was it Miss Judith you met with at the library?”
“Yes, why?” The question puzzled him. He hadn’t remembered speaking her name to anyone, though he knew his sister’s tendency for listening in on his meetings, especially when it had anything to do with antiquities.
“May I ask where you met her?” Theo glanced down at her hands, sensing she had, indeed, overstepped her boundaries. “It is only…I do not…”
“We met at a garden party not long ago,” he answered. “We had a mutual fondness for all things historical and collectible.”
“Oh.” She stood, keeping her gaze on the floor. “I will leave you to your work.”
“Theo, come back,” he called when she turned to depart.
“Please, sit. Miss Judith and I are only acquaintances, nothing more.” Most assuredly nothing more; their relationship moving from acquaintances to little more than a woman he’d thought he knew at some point in the past. Though watching her traverse the exhibit at the British Museum earlier in the day had shown him a new side to her.
At least, she hadn’t lied about her interest in history.
“But you like her? Enjoy her company?” Theo persisted, still behind the chair she’d vacated.
“Of course, she is an educated person, and you know I am drawn to people of an enlightened nature.” He’d thought Jude educated in academia, but it turned out she was only refined in the art of thievery.
The wound from her duplicity was still too new and too raw for Cart to discuss without his chest seizing in pain and regret—pain due to the loss of someone he’d cared for and regret that it was so simple for others to fool him.
“You risked her encountering Momma when she visited not long ago.”
“Come out and ask what you truly seek to know, Theo.” Cart sighed, folding his hands on his desk, covering the letter he’d been attempting to write to Lord Gunther—wishing all conversation of Jude to cease.
“I should be going.” Theo shuffled her feet and looked at the open door behind her. He’d never witnessed his sister so apprehensive.
“Sit.” His command boomed loudly and Cart’s first instinct was to apologize for his forceful tone, but he would not.
Something was wrong in his household—with his dear sister—and he would find out exactly what it was.
So many things appeared out of his control lately—namely, Miss Judith’s behavior—but members of his family were not. “Explain your troubles.”
Theo drug her feet as she rounded the chair once more, sitting heavily, the chair sliding back a few inches and scraping the polished wood floor. “Do you care for her?”
“That is none of your concern.”
“But it is,” Theo argued.
“It is not, I assure you.” He paused, massaging the bridge of his nose to calm himself.
“She will not come between you and me.” That was Cart’s only guess as to why Theo had taken an interest in Jude—a negative interest that he’d have said was unfounded only a few short days before.
“Besides, ours is not a friendship that will endure.”
“That is sad to hear, dear brother.”
“And why is that?” Cart understood why he would see Jude only once more and then remove the woman and any thoughts of her from his life, but Theo’s interest baffled him.
“It is unimportant if you say your association will not last,” she said matter-of-factly, even nodding her head with the final word.
It never ceased to amaze Cart at how adult-like Theo was at only twelve years of age. She spoke with the grace and manners of a woman twice her years.
“And if our association is extended?” Not that Cart was ready to overlook or forgive Jude her thievery.
In reality, he’d pondered his options for turning her in to the magistrate to stand charges for her crime, but he’d quickly discarded the idea.
No matter her deplorable actions, he would not see her sent to the tower, nor jailed among other common lawbreakers.
He hadn’t even the gall to ask her point blank if she were the one to actually steal the vase from Gunther’s home.
“Not that I am saying it will, but enlighten me as to how that would affect you.”
“I had no intention of telling you after she visited the other day.” Theo paused, making eye contact with him before continuing.
“It’s evident that you care very much for her—and she in return.
” It wasn’t a question but a statement—one he would not refute.
Mainly because he was unsure how he felt about Jude.
And what Theo knew of Jude’s feelings for him.
The rational part of him knew he should cut his ties with her, walk away before he became embroiled in whatever plot was underway. However, the part of him that had been awakened by her—their conversations and their kiss—pled with him to hold fast to her, keep her close.
Cart had never been at such odds with himself.
Decisions—and the path that followed—had always been clear to him. It was not as simple or uncomplicated with Jude.
And if he were honest, Cart wanted nothing less than for Jude to be uncomplicated. It was her complexity that drew him—and held his attention, whether good or bad.
“She is the one who broke into our home,” Theo mumbled.
Cart sat up straighter and shook his head. He must have heard her incorrectly—after everything he’d witnessed with her thus far, and now this? “Please, say that again.”
“It was Miss Judith whom I saw flee through the drawing room that night.”
“You must be mistaken,” Cart hissed. “Never once did you tell me a woman broke into our home.”
“What would the point have been?” Theo asked, pained at the hurt she knew she’d caused her brother.
“Momma ordered me to keep silent on the matter—that nothing good would come from word spreading that we had been victimized once again. She fears we are already the laughing stock of London and that this news would prove the gossips correct in calling us that.”
“Then why tell me now?” he heard himself ask, but his temper was flared to such a severe degree, that he had little control over his words.
“I think there may be more to her than that…though I didn’t know at first.”