The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery by L.C. Sharp (i have read the book .TXT) 📗

He turned a curious gaze on to her. “Do you not know London? I thought you had spent several seasons here.”

“I have, but I only know the fashionable parts, and the rest I have only seen in passing. I have read a great deal about it, though, and followed imaginary routes on the map.”

“Ah, I see. No, it is not far. Why, would you rather hail a cab?”

“Oh no! I’m enjoying this enormously!”

“You are not too fatigued?”

He was talking about her injuries. Swallowing, she glanced away, pretending to be fascinated by a minor commotion on the other side of the street. Two women were shouting at each other, something about a length of fabric. “That was no more French silk than I’m a Dutchman!” one cried, as clear as could be, despite a carriage rumbling down the cobbles and a dog barking further up the road. “Good Spitalfields stuff, that is. I’m not paying French prices for that!”

Juliana would have lingered to hear the end of the dispute, but Sir Edmund hurried her along.

Her conscience made her uneasy. “We should have brought my father with us when we left the house in Mayfair.”

He grinned, but without humor. A mere tightening of the lips. “Do you think he would have fitted in that narrow alleyway? Would he have decided to run, or would he have called for help, and drawn attention to us? That is even if we could have reached him.”

She had to concede he was right. “But they could have killed him.”

“If he has any sense, he’ll barricade himself downstairs with the kitchen staff, or upstairs with the servants there. He is not their quarry. They might even take pity on him, having such a wicked daughter.”

Although she could never have imagined such a thing, Ash jolted a laugh from her. “Will we send word to him, if he survives the mob?”

“Indeed. I’ll send a runner when we return. Can your father be trusted not to tell anyone where you are?”

She nodded. “My father might cast me off entirely,” she continued happily.

The notion lifted her spirits. Her husband’s family were hardly likely to take her in now, and society would turn its back on her.

What would she do? For the first time she faced the possibility of making her own living. She was trained for nothing. At a pinch she could take a position as a governess or even a housekeeper. If she survived the coming weeks, which was unlikely.

At least her father’s title would surely be lost, and the struggle over. She should not be relieved at the prospect of losing so much, but she was. Enormously relieved. She must not think like that. She had to persevere, be the person she deserved to be, would have been had she not been born to such a high degree of privilege. Time to turn, to be strong, not to hide behind, “Yes, Papa, of course, Mama.”

“Madam—”

She interrupted him. “My name is Juliana. Nobody uses it, but I would like to hear it more often. It is who I am.” Who she wanted to be.

“Juliana, then. My friends call me Ash. I’d be delighted if you would do so. After all, we are to be cousins.”

She liked that notion, both of discretion and playing a new role. Part of a large family, someone normal, treated as a person, rather than a representative of wealth and privilege. She might even learn who she truly was, and what she really wanted. “I have two brothers, and I am the daughter of a squire from a small village in—in Lancashire.” That county was as far from her father’s holdings as she could recall.

“You have a facility for invention,” he remarked dryly.

Oh lord, she did not want him thinking that. Did he think she’d made up her version of events? Surely not. She had the bruises to prove at least one part of her story. But he was the only crack of light in the dark corridor that led to her inevitable death in a month or so. She had no choice but to trust he was as he said.

But it was true. In her static, marionette-like life she’d had nothing else to do but watch and listen, and create stories from her own imagination.

They turned a corner. Without her hooped skirts, they still had room to walk side by side. She recalled something he’d said. “You have a sister?”

He huffed, as if muffling a laugh. “Several. Brothers, too.”

A large family. “Are they all like you?”

Another laugh followed, this one merrier. She liked the sound of it. The first time he’d smiled, back at Mr. Fielding’s house, she had paused, arrested by the way the expression transformed his face. His eyes crinkled at the corners and positively shone, and his mouth relaxed into a broad smile. Everything about him was transformed. “Hardly. I have a brother serving in the Navy. He will soon become a captain, I believe.” A sense of pride infused his words. “Prudence looks after my house in the country. A small manor house that has been in my family for generations, so don’t be getting ideas that I have a country seat or anything like that. It is the house where I grew up, but I came to London to train for the law in my father’s office.” He turned his head and regarded her drolly. “Where you had none, I have an abundance of brothers and sisters.”

“Oh.” At an early age she’d learned the trick of memorizing names and relationships. She would manage these, as she always did. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Five.” The brisk tone returned and an icy sheet seemed to build between them.

What had she said? The friendliness had disappeared with that one, sharp word.

“Once six.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. So one had died.

“So am I.”

They were walking along a quiet street, as if nothing unusual was happening anywhere. People went about their business, going in and