Abandoned to the Prodigal - Mary Lancaster Page 0,51
village and the house, Juliet kept intruding into his thoughts. And he liked her there. She was gladness, sunshine…and desire, that too.
It was a heady combination to fill his thoughts, but eventually, his mind gave up and slept.
He woke with the sudden jerk of Gun’s body on the bed. The dog did that frequently at night, and it often woke him. But it only meant some sound or smell had caught the dog’s erratic attention, and when he felt only a thump of a tail on his leg, Dan merely closed his eyes again.
But something moved in the room. A faint, scuffling sound on the wooden floor. Surely there weren’t mice in the bedchambers? Even his easy-going mother would not tolerate that…
But mice did not breathe so audibly.
Dan’s eyes flew open once more, peering blindly into the darkness. Was that a person-shaped patch of deeper blackness? He sat up, reaching for the flint on the bedside table, and knocked the candle off on to the floor.
As it clattered, Dan swore, and the patch of blackness moved, no longer shuffling but bolting to the door.
“Wait, what is it?” Dan demanded. “I’m awake now.”
The bedchamber door open and closed with a sharp click. Dan threw himself out of bed, aiming for the door and all but falling over Gun, who had elected to accompany him. But when he finally opened the door, the passage was dark and nothing moved.
Dan scratched his head and went back to bed. Clearly, it had been no one threatening, for Gun had only looked up and wagged his tail. He had known who it was. But who the devil would come blundering into his chamber in the middle of the night? And what the devil had they wanted? Whoever it was hadn’t even answered him.
Perhaps someone walked in their sleep.
He shrugged and closed his eyes. All the same, he couldn’t quite shake off the uneasiness caused by his silent, unknown visitor, and his dreams for the rest of the night were full of ominous shadows.
Chapter Twelve
For Juliet, the following day was even more difficult.
Her father spent a good deal of time in serious conversation with Lord Alford, and they both rode out with Jeremy during the afternoon.
“Showing Alford and Jeremy what they’ve missed out on,” Ferdy said sardonically.
“Don’t be silly,” Juliet replied. “It’s not as if Jeremy would have inherited any of this if he’d married me.”
“No, but it’s all wealth and power, isn’t it? Wealth and power, they will no longer be connected to if they reject you.”
“They have rejected me,” Juliet said flatly.
“Perhaps not for good, Julie,” Kitty suggested.
Juliet shrugged. “It no longer matters. I can’t bear to be in the same room as Jeremy, which hardly bodes well for marriage.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ferdy said cynically. “Seems to be a requirement for some. I suppose we should go back down to Mama, do the pretty with Lady Alford.”
“I thought you would have gone riding with Papa,” Juliet observed.
“So did I, but apparently I’m too frivolous and am better employed entertaining the ladies.”
“Or he doesn’t want you telling me what they’re discussing,” Juliet said darkly.
“Now you are being silly,” Ferdy observed.
He was right of course, but Juliet could not help feeling tense and oppressed by the Alfords’ presence. Even walking into the room where her mother and Lady Alford sat at their needlework, making quiet and apparently companionable small talk. It infuriated Juliet, who, after the briefest of greetings, sat in the corner with her own embroidery. She could barely bring herself to speak to the woman who had once welcomed her as a daughter. And then turned on her in an hour of need, merely on the word of an unreliable scandal sheet she would never admit to reading.
Everyone makes mistakes. I have made many.
But she has never once apologized for what she did or even acknowledged it.
Juliet hated such bitter, unforgiving feelings, but she could not seem to shake them off. She wanted to see Dan, to laugh it all away, to feel like herself again.
“Oh, Juliet,” Lady Alford said suddenly, laying down her embroidery frame and fussing inside her work bag. “This arrived for you in a bundle of letters sent on to us from London.”
“That’s odd,” Juliet’s mother observed. “Who would be writing to you that didn’t know you had come home?”
Juliet walked across the room. “I have no idea. Thank you, ma’am,” she added, taking the letter. “I don’t believe I know the writing.”