Chapter 13 #2
I also want to say that I think your Duke must care for you deeply. A man does not marry a woman in quite that fashion unless something more than convenience is at work. Write to me when you are ready. I will be spending my honeymoon in Scotland.
Your devoted friend, Catherine.
Juliana set the letter down and sat with it for a moment. Catherine, who never failed to find the most generous interpretation of any situation. She thought about writing back. She would, she decided. When she had something to say that was not entirely composed of confusion and longing.
She folded the letter carefully and tucked it into her writing desk.
She thought of her husband’s words.
The West Tower is forbidden. Nobody is screaming from there.
Do not speak to your brother. He is a terrible human being who sold you.
Obey me. I am your husband.
Some of the words might not be exact, but they were Cassian’s rules, and she would have to find ways to break them.
She also knew her brother’s weaknesses. He was always chasing after the next unwise imagination or business venture like a moth to a flame.
He believed one miracle could fix everything.
No wonder he was a gambler who lost their fortune.
Hopefully, he would not lose his life over his folly.
Juliana stood by the window, peering at the stables. A plan was forming in her head, even though she knew it was not the wisest. Not at all.
“He will either kill me for this or shackle me to the tower,” she murmured, as she thought about the screaming in the West Tower.
Juliana waited for the perfect moment, just as the sun was about to dip below the horizon. Its rays were still peeking out, enough to let her maneuver with ease, but she also needed the cover of night to make her little escape.
In her bedchamber, she changed quickly, trading her silk morning gown for an older woolen dress, dark enough to avoid notice and sturdy enough for wherever the night might take her.
London after dark was no place for pale silks.
She added a simple velvet mask, took one breath to steady herself, and placed her hand on the handle.
“Dorothea?” she whispered urgently, hearing footsteps outside her door.
“Your Grace?” her new maid at Stonevale whispered back.
“I am going out. I will not be long,” the Duchess promised.
“Your Grace, you cannot! His Grace will have my head if he finds out,” the maid protested.
“I will take responsibility if that happens,” Juliana said with a firm voice. “But do not worry. He will not even know that I was gone.”
“But, Your Grace! Why would you be going to London alone at this hour? It is not safe.”
“The coachman will come with me,” Juliana replied.
Then she slipped out of the room, trying her best not to make a sound. She did not take the usual passages to reach the stables. She was breathing hard, even though she was not tired, inhaling the aroma of damp earth.
Juliana bribed the coachman to take her for a ride in one of the carriages. While she knew the importance of stealth and secrecy, she was realistic enough to know she could not simply walk around London to find Kit.
She climbed into the dark interior of the coach before she could change her mind.
As the carriage moved away, she could not help but turn back to look at the formidable silhouette of the Stonevale estate.
Her eyes were drawn to the window where she expected Cassian to be.
There was barely any light in the study. Where was he?
Perhaps he had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position, but she hoped he had an ottoman to rest his leg on.
Remorse tightened her chest. She had been so consumed by her anger and suspicion that she had not accounted for his lack of balance.
She could still hear the sound of his solid body hitting the floor.
He had groaned but not complained about her weight.
Instead, he had made a jest about it, though it must have hurt. The pain must have been excruciating.
What do I care, anyway?
She almost believed it. Almost.
“Forgive me, husband,” she murmured as the carriage continued on its way. “But I am not the obedient wife you would have hoped to have purchased.”
The carriage picked up speed, and Stonevale shrank behind her into the dark. She should have felt the full weight of what she was doing, the foolishness, the danger, and the near certainty that her husband would be furious when he discovered she was gone.
But Kit was out there somewhere, and he was her brother.
Reckless, infuriating, catastrophically poor at protecting himself from his own worst impulses, but her family, nonetheless.
Whatever Cassian had forbidden, whatever rules governed this new life she had been thrust into, she could not sit in a gilded drawing room, stitching, while Kit stumbled toward a disaster she might still prevent.
She had always been the one to pull him back from the edge. She would have to do this one more time now.
She faced forward and folded her hands in her lap, and tried very hard not to think about what her husband would say when he found her gone.