When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,98
having tea?” she asked, eyeing the cakes.
“Good morning, Lucretia,” Julian said dryly.
Lucretia waved a hand at him, probably because she’d snatched a cake before the maids had even laid down their tray and her mouth was full.
The maids finished arranging the tea and asked if there was anything else before leaving the room.
Lucretia plopped down on the settee next to Messalina and poured herself a dish of tea, adding half the pot of cream before leaning back and sipping. “What are you doing here, Jules?”
Julian winced at the nickname and took the seat opposite. “As it happens, I came to talk with Messalina, not you, urchin.”
“Really.” Lucretia took another cake, although this time she at least put it on a plate. She showed no signs of leaving the sitting room despite the heavy hint.
Messalina sighed and poured tea for Julian and then herself. “Why are you here, Julian?”
“Your husband has been following me,” he replied, hesitating over the sugar bowl before sitting back with his tea.
Messalina busied herself selecting a cake as she thought furiously. “Oh? When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
Damn Gideon for his secrets. He certainly hadn’t mentioned that he’d been following her brother when attacked. Messalina paused for just a beat, her gaze sliding to Lucretia’s. Her sister had stopped eating. “Where?”
“In Whitechapel.”
Messalina looked at her brother.
Julian was a Greycourt—cold and ruthless when it served him, which in the last decade or so had been all the time.
She held out a plate with one of the cakes. “Two men attacked Gideon yesterday in Whitechapel. His shoulder was dislocated and he was badly beaten. He’s in bed upstairs now.”
Julian waved away the plate and crossed his legs, looking bored. “Is that so?”
Messalina narrowed her eyes. “Did you try to kill my husband, Julian?”
Beside her Lucretia carefully set down her plate.
Julian’s thin lips curved into a cold smile. “Had I wanted your husband dead, he would be.”
Messalina abandoned her dish of tea and leaned back, examining him. Impossible to tell if he was lying or telling the truth. “Oddly, I don’t find that reassuring.”
“Actually”—Julian carefully set down his untouched teacup—“I came here to ask your husband if he wanted me dead.”
“What?” Messalina stared at him, her heart beginning to beat in double time. She wanted to say that Gideon would never hurt a member of her family. That he wouldn’t betray her so.
But she couldn’t.
“I can think of no other reason for Hawthorne to follow me but the most nefarious,” Julian said quietly.
Messalina tilted her chin and said desperately, “There could be any number of reasons he was in the same place as you.”
“Indeed,” Julian replied calmly, still holding her gaze.
She could only hold his gaze, knowing she was on the losing side. Gideon might have any number of reasons to follow Julian, but none of them were good.
Julian looked away for a moment and then back to her. “I don’t trust your husband.”
“Do you trust me?” she asked softly.
He stared at her, handsome and as chill as a marble statue. When they’d been children he used to bring her sweets when he returned on the holidays from school.
She sighed.
He stood. “Why are you taking his part, Messalina? The bastard forced you into marriage. He’s the duke’s man. He’ll hurt you far more than I in the end.”
With that pretty comment he bowed and swept from the room.
Lucretia sat up and poured herself a dish of tea. “Do you truly think Julian was behind the attack on Gideon?”
Messalina shook her head. “What else am I to believe—despite Julian’s protests?”
“Jules is very hard to read,” Lucretia said musingly, “but I don’t know that he’d have Gideon killed.”
“He’s an ass.”
Lucretia looked at her. “Jules or your husband?”
“Jules.” Messalina waved her hand irritably. “Both.”
“Jules may be an ass,” Lucretia said softly. “But that doesn’t mean he was wrong when he said Gideon would hurt you.”
Yes, she’d thought about that. She was prepared for whatever mental and emotional pain he might give her.
But she wasn’t prepared for Gideon attacking her brother.
* * *
By afternoon Messalina had calmed herself—mostly. She’d taken a very long walk in Hyde Park and poured herself a medicinal glass of brandy afterward. All of which made her serene enough to visit Gideon.
The problem was she’d begun falling under his spell again. Seeing him bleeding, laid out on that litter, had terrified her. She couldn’t imagine a world without his savage grin or knowing gaze. She didn’t even want to think about it.
But now…
Was he trying to hurt Julian? Could she believe him