Chapter 28 #2
“I’m sorry, the role takes it out of me,” Juliet said, wiping her eyes.
There was a great swell of sorrow. Juliet had long dark hair and eyes that were wide and expressive.
Her cheekbones were high and her lips full.
Her voice was rich and mellifluous, and in this close proximity, the magnetism she possessed was even more palpable.
It was difficult for Lydia to maintain concentration, and she imagined that there had been countless men who had fallen in love with her over the years.
But had Victor been one of them?
“I wanted to say congratulations to you. It was a wonderful performance. I am familiar with the story, but it came to life in a way I have never experienced before, and that is all down to you. It is something I shall never forget.”
Juliet smiled. Her eyes were still stained with tears, but she had stopped weeping for the time being.
Her dressing room was in a state of disarray with various costumes draped over chairs and hanging limply out of a chest. There were pots of makeup on the table in front of her and some scripts stacked in a corner.
“That is so kind of you to say…” She allowed her words to hang in the air and adopted a questioning look.
“I am Lydia Valemont, Duchess of Nightford,” she said.
She watched Juliet carefully and could not fail to notice the widening of the eyes and the tightening of her jaw.
She recognized the name. Lydia’s heart sank, but she was not content to shrink and let this get the better of her.
She was closer to the truth than she had ever been before, and now, she was going to seize it.
“How do you know my husband?” Lydia asked.
“I… I do not think this is the time or place,” Juliet gasped, turning away from Lydia. She began breathing heavily, and her shoulders shuddered, as though the emotion was too much for her to bear. Lydia closed the distance between them.
Lydia struck another hammer blow.
“Did you have an affair with him? Did… did it result in a child?” Lydia asked. Despite her determination, her voice hitched on emotion. Fear clung to the back of her throat because she dreaded the answer. Her whole world might have been about to come crumbling down.
The strength left Juliet’s knees. She slumped against the back of her hair, and a pitiful groan emerged from her throat.
“No, I didn’t. I would never have… not with him.” She ran her hand across her head, pushing lank locks of hair back. Anger, resentment, and pain filled her eyes. “No offence, but your husband is not a good man.”
“He has his faults, but I am still getting to know him. It seems as though you are already acquainted. Perhaps you could tell me how, because at the moment, it seems as though there is some secret between you, and I do not like it.”
“There is no secret between us. There is nothing between us apart from hatred. It’s Lord Harry who I loved. Lord Harry…”
Lydia furrowed her brow, putting the pieces together. “Wait… Lord Harry? Are you the one he loved? The one Victor—”
“Sent away. Yes. The one who wasn’t deemed good enough for the family.
The one who would have tainted everything, even though I loved Lord Harry dearly, and he loved me, and we would have been happy if it wasn’t for Victor.
” Her face took on a dark countenance every time she spoke about him.
Lydia’s skin crawled, and she couldn’t help but feel some responsibility for the situation, even though such a thought made no sense at all.
“What happened?”
Juliet looked guarded. She turned away from Lydia. “I… cannot say. I have already told you too much.”
Lydia closed the distance between them. She reached out with a tentative hand, lightly touching Juliet’s arm.
“You can trust me. It seems we have both found ourselves entangled in a situation because of Victor’s decisions. I do not seek to punish you or bring you before him, only to learn the truth.”
Juliet softened, but still she gnawed her lip. Lydia wore a reassuring smile and led Juliet to a chair, gesturing for her to sit down.
“I will wait for as long as you need to feel comfortable, and I promise I shall not judge you. I am only here to listen.”
Juliet’s shoulders sagged, and Lydia got the impression that this was what Juliet needed most of all, someone to listen to her sad tale.
She had been carrying this secret with her for a long time, and it must have taken so much out of her.
Juliet pinched the bridge of her nose, and with a heavy sigh, she launched into her story.
“Lord Harry and I were planning to have a future together. The Duke would never allow it. There was a terrible argument, and in the end, Lord Harry said that he would be willing to renounce everything for me. I couldn’t let him do that.
I couldn’t allow him to face ruin. Especially because, well, we got a little carried away with our feelings.
” She smiled as she said this. “I found out I was with child, and I knew it would never be tolerated. I took myself away. I left Lord Harry because I knew that it would only ruin him. He’d told me what happened to his father, and how everything was precarious. I would not become his undoing.”
Lydia listened patiently, still processing all the information.
Her stomach churned, and she wrung her hands together.
She had never imagined that the meeting with John’s mother would end up being like this, but the dots were being connected in her mind.
The unexpected child, the resemblance to Victor, why John had been left at the townhouse.
It was as though an artist was painting a picture in her mind, and it was being revealed with every stroke.
“But you were with child. He would have looked after you. Even Victor…”
“I would have been sent away, or the baby would have been taken from me. There would have been whispers… you know what people are like. And Harry… I did not want him to feel as though he needed to be with me because of the baby. I wanted him to be free to make his own decision. I just thought it would be easier this way…”
“But it can’t have been easy. Did you have anyone to support you?”
“No,” Juliet said. “I had friends, but all of them are in the acting profession. It is hardly the most stable life. I moved from house to house, and I kept working until I started to show. It was impossible to cast me after that. I did some odd jobs for people, but it quickly became clear to me that I would not be able to offer the child a good life. I had to watch my friend’s children picking scraps of bread off the street, and I didn’t want that.
Not for my son. Not for Harry’s son. I changed my mind and decided that he would be better off with Harry.
He would have a better life in a noble home. ”
Juliet sniffed, stretching her body and clearing her throat.
She wiped her eyes again. Relating this story was clearly taking its toll on her, and Lydia could not help but be affected by the emotion on display.
However, despite Juliet being a skilled actress, Lydia got the sense of earnestness from her words.
There was something about it that simply could not be faked.
“I took what money I had and enlisted the help of a maid. I didn’t dare approach the house myself lest anyone recognize me.
Even I am not such a good actor to avoid that attention.
I told her to wrap him in a blanket so that Lord Harry would know that the baby was of good breeding.
I wanted him to have something of his own family.
She was supposed to put him in Harry’s room, but she must have become confused. ”
Lydia listened, stunned.
“So, the baby is Lord Harry’s.”
“Yes. How is he? How are they both?” Juliet asked, clasping her hands in front of her heart.
Although she had made efforts to wipe away the tears, they came with such energy that it was impossible to stem the flow.
There was a desperation about her voice and her manner, and it was clear that she had been worried about both John and Lord Harry.
In that moment, almost all of the resentment that Lydia had created towards John’s mother was mollified.
It had been easier to hate a shadow, but now that she knew Juliet’s face and could hear her words and especially hear how Victor had put her in an impossible position…
it was easy to feel compassionate towards her.
“They are both well although Lord Harry doesn’t know that the child is his.”
“What? He… I thought he would know. I thought… I left a message intended for him.”
“That message never arrived. I found the child, and then Victor walked into the room. Soon enough the entire ton misconstrued the situation, and we were forced to marry, passing the child off as our own. It has not been easy.”
“No… no I can’t imagine it has been.” Juliet ran a hand through her hair and started gnawing on her lower lip.
“He is happy though. And he’s healthy. We took him away to Brighton, and the coastal air agrees with him. All the maids dote on him, and even Victor has warmed to him. As for me… well… I have treated him as if he were my own. I called him John.”
“It is a strong name,” Juliet said and seemed to get even small, as though she was shrinking before Lydia’s eyes. “You must think so little of me. You must think I am wretched.”
“I think… I think that you were placed in a difficult position, and you did what you thought was best for you and your child,” Lydia said.
“I never intended to cause trouble. I thought that Harry would find the baby, and it would be difficult for him, yes, but natural. Father and son would be together, and he could do more for him than I…”
“I’m afraid it did not work out that way.”
“I am sorry. I can only thank you for being an angel and looking after my son. I know it must have taken a great deal from your life.”