Chapter 10
“I have met with some of them—very honest fellows, who, with all their stupidity, had a kind of intelligence and an upright good sense, which cannot be the characteristics of fools.”
Giacomo Casanova
Audrey wrapped Julius’s wound in silence, her fingers sure despite the way her thoughts meandered. The earlier kiss lingered in her mind, ghosting across her awareness, no matter how hard she tried to focus.
She stole a glance at his chest, watching the rise and fall of each breath.
He was lean and well-formed, his skin warm beneath her touch, the pale golden hair over his torso catching the candlelight.
A pink line crossed his side, the fresh bandage the only sign of how close they had come to losing him.
She dropped her gaze immediately, heat rushing to her cheeks.
This was not the time. She was a healer. That was her role.
And yet she could not stop her mind from wandering. Was this how temptation began? Not with desire, but with curiosity. With admiration. With fondness.
“You should go,” Julius murmured, his voice rough.
She nodded, her heart thudding in agreement with the unspoken understanding between them. Julius was tempted. She had seen it in his eyes, and if she lingered, they would be swept away by emotions neither of them were ready to face.
With reluctant grace, she gathered her things and slipped from the room, her steps hushed down the corridor.
In the bedchamber she had claimed as her own, Audrey closed the door behind her and leaned back against it for a moment, willing her thoughts to calm.
She crossed to the table and placed her valise down with care, attempting to focus on something—anything—that might steady her fluttering heart.
Certainly not because she feared the wild urge to turn and run back down the hall to Julius. Certainly not that.
She opened her father’s valise, removing the items she needed with practiced hands. The soft clink of the birdcage followed as she brought it to the table and set it down beside her tools.
Lifting Flapper with gentle fingers, she unwound the tiny dressing on his wing, inspecting the healing progress. The starling remained docile, cocking his head this way and that as he blinked at her.
Audrey smiled faintly.
Julius Trafford reminded her of this little creature.
Restless, bright-eyed, and always ready to take flight.
There was something untamed about him, something too vibrant to be held back by convention.
And yet, she had seen another side. Thoughtful.
Loyal. Capable of deep kindness beneath all that charm.
Would he ever be content to stand still?
She did not want to change him. She only hoped that one day he might choose to stay. Somewhere. With someone.
With her?
Audrey shook her head, returning her attention to the bird as it fluttered its uninjured wing. She would not allow herself to dream so freely. There was still too much unknown.
“When you stop resisting, little Flapper,” she whispered, smoothing his ruffled feathers, “you will find your strength to soar again.”
She hoped he would never be fully tamed.
That some measure of his larger-than-life spirit would remain even when he discovered his true path as a gentleman.
It was part of what made him so captivating.
The notion of becoming his bride and journeying alongside him into a lifetime of shared adventures was undeniably tempting.
He would never be dull. He would always surprise her.
Yet Audrey knew it was a foolish dream. Julius Trafford was not a man to be claimed or settled. He was like a wayward star in the night sky—brilliant, unpredictable, dazzling to behold, but always just out of reach.
He was the very spirit of every rakish memoir tucked away in the libraries of the curious and romantic. A gentleman with the soul of a poet, who let the wind carry him from whim to whim, never tied to one course for long.
“I think you will fly soon, little Flapper,” she whispered, her voice barely audible in the stillness.
The thought made her eyes sting unexpectedly. The ache in her chest could be attributed to her parting from the little bird, she told herself. It certainly had nothing to do with the man resting in the room down the hall.
Flapper blinked at her, cocked his head, and ruffled his feathers in a sleepy gesture. Audrey gently returned him to the cage, securing the latch with care before stepping back.
Crossing to her bed, she lay down without undressing, her limbs heavy with weariness. They had passed so many hours in wakeful tension, each moment pressing down on her, and she reminded herself she would need all her strength for the afternoon watch.
In just a short while, she would climb to the grooms’ room above the mews to keep watch, ensuring no one was tracking Julius’s friends.
For now, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
But her heart would not quiet. Not with thoughts of the dashing gentleman who had so thoroughly unsettled it.
At the prearranged time from Lady Abbott’s letter, Julius unbolted the door to the alley and opened it just wide enough to admit two waiting grooms. They stepped in quickly, glancing up and down the passage behind them to ensure no curious eyes observed their arrival.
Without a word, the trio slipped into the mews, Julius leading them into the tack room. The scent of leather and polish lingered in the cool air, and orderly straps and glinting bits lined the walls, though a few hooks sat empty after Aunty Gertrude and Lord Hays had departed for the country.
Julius shut the door firmly behind them, sealing them in the quiet of the low-lit space. Only then did the two men remove their outer garments, revealing Lord Brendan Ridley and Lord Aidan Abbott beneath their borrowed wraps.
Brendan gave his head a shake, his chestnut hair tumbling over his brow as he looked Julius up and down. “It is good to see you, old chap.”
“I missed you, too, Ridley,” Julius replied with a smile.
Lord Aidan Abbott, whom Julius had met only a few weeks earlier when his sister had married Brendan, crossed his arms, his brown eyes narrowing in stern disapproval. “Not this nonsense again. He is Filminster now, a baron of the realm! Still behaving like a … clown!”
Julius’s grin broadened deliberately. Teasing the rather serious young peer was something of a personal delight. If anyone needed a touch of levity, it was Abbott, and Julius considered himself the perfect man for the task.
“Better a clown than a fool,” he quipped.
Abbott’s jaw clenched as Brendan gave a quiet chuckle, clearly well used to Julius’s methods of entertainment.
“We received your note,” Brendan said. “What happened, Trafford? How were you injured? And how, precisely, did you settle on those three as your suspects?”
Julius turned away slightly, clasping his hands behind his back. He resisted the urge to twist the signet ring on his finger—gloves made that impossible. Admitting to what had led to his wounding felt rather mortifying. Audrey had already scolded him with honest brutality. These two would be worse.
“I may have sent each of the suspects a blackmail letter,” he began with exaggerated casualness, “to see which of them might take the bait.”
“Thunder and turf!” Brendan muttered. “You bird-witted chucklehead!”
A moment of stunned silence followed, broken by Abbott’s bark of disbelief. “And which one did it?”
Julius winced and studied the wall, reluctant to confess the next part.
“That is the part where it all rather came apart. I do not know. Each letter directed the recipient to a different location, all of which I visited on the same morning. Someone followed me from one of those addresses and attacked me later that day, outside my father’s home.
Fortunately, Miss Gideon ran out with a sword and frightened the blackguard off.
I was wounded in the scuffle, but she saved me. ”
A beat of silence passed before Abbott exploded. “You fool! You could have been left bleeding in the street!”
Julius exhaled in dismissal of the idea. He was not rejecting the criticism, merely the thought of death itself.
“Better a fool than a clown,” he replied dryly.
The inane remark had slipped from Julius without thought.
A habit of his, designed to provoke Abbott into loosening the rigid grip of his proper behavior.
Abbott’s response was a low snarl. When Julius turned back around, he found Brendan raking his fingers through his hair in agitation, while Abbott had stalked over to glare furiously at the polished tack, his shoulders drawn taut with fury.
No one spoke for several moments. The silence stretched as they each wrestled for composure.
Then, abruptly, Abbott spun on his heel and strode toward Julius with purposeful strides. Julius took a step back, alarmed. He could scarcely credit that the very correct Lord Abbott might strike a fellow, especially one who had only just recovered from being stabbed.
He stepped back again, his body slow to respond under the lingering drag of recovery, just as Abbott reached him and, rather unexpectedly, wrapped him in a powerful embrace. Julius was lifted clean off his feet.
Ye gods … what is this?
As his boots dangled in the air, lungs flattened against Abbott’s broad chest and his sutures twinged in sharp protest, Julius made a curious observation—Abbott was strong. Surprisingly strong.
Julius did not consider himself a weakling, far from it, but no one had ever managed to hoist him off the ground like a sack of oats. The indignity was softened only by the sentiment.
“I am glad you are well, Trafford,” Abbott muttered into his shoulder, voice gruff with restrained emotion.
Julius glanced toward Brendan, who offered a helpless shrug, as if this bizarre demonstration had caught him equally off guard. Trapped in the fierce grip, Julius managed an awkward pat on Abbott’s back.
“Thank … you.”