Chapter 19 #2
“Lord Cartwright,” Jude greeted him formally in case someone lurked close. “Lovely of you to call.”
He bowed before her—a little too stiffly and a bit too low. “Miss Judith.”
When he said not another word, his eyes roaming the entry, Jude continued, “I had expected word from you a few days ago.”
“Ah, well, some things take time,” he replied.
As like at the library, something was not right with Cart.
“We can talk more in here.” Jude swept her arm in the direction of Marce’s private receiving room. “Right this way.”
“Of course, Miss Judith,” Cart said, taking the first step in the direction Jude had motioned. He began to talk as they walked toward the room, a bit of normalcy returning—whatever normal was for Lord Cartwright. “My sincerest apologies for not calling sooner—“
Abruptly, his words cut off and he stopped in his tracks, focusing on the small painting hanging on the wall.
“My lord?” Jude asked as his eyes narrowed on the landscape and his hand rose to touch it.
“This painting…”
“It is breathtaking, is it not?”
“It was not here on my last visit.”
“No,” she confessed. “It is newly acquired.”
“I..cannot…where…”
He seemed as captivated with it as she’d been when she’d taken it. “Can you imagine a place so beautiful in all of the world?”
Jude’s unease grew as he clearly recognized the painting—the one she’d taken only the night before.
“I can,” Cart replied.
“And to think, it is in England.” Jude stepped to his side, taking her eyes off him and looking at the painting that held his complete attention.
She would be lying if she said it didn’t bother her to have mere objects overtake his attention so completely, but she sensed it was more than just the beauty of the painting that captured him.
It was as if he were looking at something entirely familiar to him while she’d become something he didn’t recognize.
“I came here to try and save you, Miss Judith.” Sadness crept into this voice, as if he’d lost something truly valuable. “But I see I cannot.”
“What do you mean, my lord?” He could not know that she’d taken the painting only days before in an attempt to salvage their plan to help Marce.
The air around them electrified—and Jude felt their attachment unravel.
What good would it do to deny stealing the painting? Instead, she would say nothing.
They stood side by side, neither looking at the other, their voices kept even as if they spoke over tea. Panic infused every limb in her body.
“You are a thief.” If she hadn’t locked her knees at the accusation, she’d have been knocked over by the hushed fury in the statement.
“A common thief. I should have sounded the alarm on you at the first warning sign. I should have known you for what you truly are when I’d seen Lord Gunther’s stolen vase in your possession. ”
Jude sucked in a breath, unable to speak as her heart about pounded out of her chest.
“You knew?” she asked. He’d known all this time, yet he hadn’t called the magistrate on her and had even offered to purchase the vase.
“Where did you get this painting?” Venom dripped from his every word, a rage Jude had never thought him capable of.
She could only shake her head—in denial, in remorse, in utter disbelief that all the good she was trying to do was being brought down in this manner, by the one man she thought could one day understand her.
“I said, where did you get this painting?” His voice rose with anger, bouncing off the walls and traveling deeper into the house.
If she didn’t calm him soon, Garrett and her sisters would come running.
“Lord Cartwright, please…”
“Please, what?” He finally turned toward her, the painting forgotten. “Please do not expose you for the thief you are? Please do not send for the authorities? Please do not ask how a painting—commissioned by my father before his death—came to reside on your wall? You ask much of me, Miss Judith.”
“I did not—“ Thankfully, he cut off her, stopping yet another lie from crossing her lips.
“You are not the victim here.” His chin lifted and he glared down his nose at her as if expecting her to disagree.
But all of his words were true.
Cart was shaking—not outwardly, but internally he’d been shaken to his core by the depths of her deceitful nature.
He’d prayed her possession of the vase had some other reasonable explanation.
Something his rational mind could grasp and reconcile; anything that would enable him to process and understand her devious activities and return to the time—not that long ago—when he thought her a woman of perfection.
He glared into her moss-green eyes, noticing for the first time the hazel flecks sprinkled within. But he couldn’t allow this new discovery to dim his fury. He wouldn’t allow it to take away from the hurt he felt at her treachery.
“Do I even know you?” He kept his stare intense and she seemed to wilt before him. “Has it all been a ruse to make me look the fool?”
She only shook her head again as water gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill over.
He would not let her feminine tactics dissuade him from gaining the answer he sought, the answers he needed to move forward—in whichever direction those answers led him.
“Are you interested in antiquities or is it only a means to line your pockets?” Cart had witnessed her passion for history firsthand at the museum but even now, he could not trust his eyes. Cart had so many questions rising to the surface. “What more do you have hidden within these walls?”
His hand shot out and grasped her elbow as he pulled her farther from the foyer. He needed answers and shouting at her in the foyer was not the way or the place to attain them. “Come, let us seek a bit of privacy to discuss your felonious behavior at length.”
“No.” She planted her feet and jerked Cart to a stop only feet down the hallway off the foyer. “I did not do this to hurt you.”
Cart tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her close, his face mere inches from hers. “The bloody hell you did not.”
“Cart…” The word came on a sob. “I assure you...”
“Your assurances and promises mean nothing,” he hissed. “Did you think to make me look the bigger fool than I already do to society?”
“This has nothing to do with—“
At that, Cart laughed, a maniacal chuckle that scared even him. It was clear that if he did not rein in his emotions, he’d lose the upper hand with her. “It has everything to do with me.”
He’d been taken advantage of by so many people in his short life: his uncle, his mother, and now, Jude. And he’d been unaware of any of it until it was too late.
She pulled away and he released her arm. “If you will only listen to me.”
He snorted. “Listen to what…your half-truths and outright lies?”
There was nothing more she could say. Nothing she’d ever told him had been grounded in truth. The things Theo had shared about Jude’s family meant nothing to him now. He was wrong to have hoped for the best with her. He’d actually put himself in peril to untangle the mess she’d made for herself.
“Tell me, does your family know about all of this?” When her eyes widened, he continued, “Your twin, very likely. I should call for the magistrate on the pair of you. A bit of time spent locked in a room to think about your actions would do you well, I am sure.”
He should have seen her for what she was long before she’d showed him the vase and certainly before he’d seen his family’s picture hanging upon her wall.
Right out in the open as if to rub her skill in his face.
And he’d been so blinded by her that he hadn’t noticed the painting on his first visit to Craven House.
Cart could not control his feelings or trust his instincts where Jude was concerned, that much was grounded in fact.
And to break into his home and scare Theo so, then try to win her forgiveness—what game did Jude play?
“I suppose you have had your sights set on me for some time,” Cart mused aloud.
“Until Lady Haversham’s garden party, I had no idea of your existence. I swear.” It was her turn to grab his arm, lightly pulling him toward the privacy of a room, but he would not allow it.
A room with a closed door would only lead to a private moment. Cart did not trust himself to be completely secluded with the woman before him.
“You think I can ever trust another word that comes out of your mouth?” He was speaking only in questions and accusations, instead of his usual facts and logic.
Everything about Jude had him throwing reason and caution to the wind.
“I highly doubt you can give me a sensible explanation for how you came to possess a stolen vase or my family’s precious heirloom. ”
“Can you at least give me the opportunity?” she asked. “You owe me at least that much.”
“I owe you?” His voice thundered down the hall and into the foyer, unrecognizable even to him as Jude shrank away from him.
“Let me make one thing clear. I owe you nothing. You are in possession of something belonging to my family with no plausible explanation, you sought to embroil me in illicit dealings, and most of all, you called into jeopardy my integrity. And then, if that wasn’t enough, you pulled my sister into all of this.
Not only have you hurt my standing within the antiquities community but in society as a whole.
This not only harms me—I could care less about my standing with the ton—but you have brought a new kind of peril upon my sister.
Society will judge her by the actions of her brother.
I will not have her life ruined by a scandal she had no involvement in. Do you hear me?”
The offer from Cummings to consult at the British Museum raced through his mind, certainly an offer he’d be unable to accept.
“What is going on here?” a male voice yelled behind him. “Step away from my sister, you scoundrel!”
Cart took a breath, realizing at some point his hands had balled into fists at his sides. As he released them, he held Jude’s eyes, needing her to see his rage at her deceit.
“I said unhand my sister. Now!”
“This is not over, Miss Judith,” Cart spat before turning and removing his father’s painting.
“What are you doing?” the other man asked.
Cart only stared the man down, daring him to stop Cart’s retrieval of his family’s painting. Though he did recognize him as the man who’d departed the night watchman’s house with Jude and Marce. Her brother, certainly.
He paused before Jude’s brother, knowing he owed this man something, even if it wasn’t the complete truth. “My apologies for disrupting your household, sir, but it would behoove you to keep a better watch on your sister.”
“Why…I…” the man stammered.
But Cart didn’t pause for further explanation. Tucking the framed portrait under his arm, he walked to the foyer and directly out the door, ignoring the many people standing stunned at his angry departure.
With finality, Cart slammed the door behind him.
Ending his association with Miss Judith and promising to himself he’d never again speak her name—or embark on a single path that would benefit her in any way.
And there was one thing Cart could trust in…his own promises.