She considered this news with considerable surprise.
“Oh … I thought servants in high society homes were prohibited from marrying?”
Julius chuckled out loud, his lean face lit like a candle. Audrey caught her breath—he was devastating now that he was awake. She was finding it hard to believe she had had the audacity to treat him, but yesterday the situation had focused her attentions as a healer.
“Aunty Gertrude is traditional. It is a secret that they are married.”
Audrey frowned. “So they married, yet live apart in the men’s and women’s quarters?”
“No, they have a room in the attic.”
She shook her head, trying to make sense of his words. “So Aunty Gertrude knows about them?”
Julius shook his head with a smile on his face. “Aunty Gertrude is a traditional peeress who would never allow such a thing.”
“Then how?—”
He shrugged. “It is the way of high society. If no one acknowledges it, it is not true. Rose and Patrick enjoy their marriage, while Aunty Gertrude is willfully ignorant but ensures that they share a room. She is kind, after all, and would not stand in the way of love.”
Audrey groaned. “These rules make no sense!”
Julius grinned in agreement. “You might be a simple country lass from Stirling, but I believe you begin to understand.”
“God help me if that is the case! I do not wish to understand this nonsense.”
Julius’s levity dissipated. “I could not agree more. It tries one’s sanity to know how thetonthinks. Logic has little place in thebeau monde.”
Audrey experienced immediate regret, wishing to see him in good humor again, but she supposed this was not the time and place for that. Returning to the bedside, she sat down in the armchair and contemplated him with great solemnity, careful tokeep her focus on his face despite an urge to glance down at his bared chest.
Sadly, the distance she had created between them while he was at risk had vanished and she was all too aware that this was the older boy she had been infatuated with as a young girl. From a distance, of course. They had had little reason to interact, given their age difference. Julius must be a good seven years older than her. Except for a few words at dinners and other gatherings at the earl’s country seat, they had conversed more in the past twenty-four hours than they had in a lifetime of knowing each other.
“While we wait for our breakfast, could you inform me of what this is all about? You mentioned a murder?”
Julius turned away, gazing out the window. Audrey’s gaze traced the line of his profile, the straight nose and firm chin that spoke to his superior lineage. Taking in his tousled curls, she yet again wondered why, for so many years, Julius had dyed part of his hair a different color. The brown part, she now knew after observing him in his semi-naked state.
“My chum, Brendan Ridley, his father was murdered a few weeks ago. On the night of the coronation.”
Audrey gasped, her musings over his appearance forgotten. “I am so sorry.”
The corners of his mouth lifted as he glanced her way, then turned back to the window where morning light revealed the clear sky beyond. Yesterday’s storm had abated, and the day was bright with just a few puffy clouds to serve as a reminder of the merciless rain that had pummeled them the morning before.
“Brendan was not close with the baron. It was the fact that he was to be accused of the murder that was my primary concern. As a consequence, a young lady braved scandal to provide him with an alibi. Brendan and her were forced to take their vows, and the true killer is still about. Since the wedding, the killer’shired men have been attempting to gain access to Brendan’s home for evidence, which is how the baroness came to be attacked.”
Audrey’s mouth fell open. Julius had stated after the violent incident out on the street that his assailant was brazen, but hearing the details of a baron being murdered and a baroness being attacked made his claim all the more real.
“We found the evidence. It was a letter that the late baron had composed to the Home Office, but much of the words were obliterated by dripping ink. What we could read led to a list of six suspects, and over the weeks this was narrowed down to four contenders.”
“What was the note I delivered?”
“It was to inform Brendan that it was one of the three men whom I was investigating who had done the deed. The attack out on the street confirmed that the fourth man must be innocent, so it was imperative I inform Brendan, in the event …”
In the event he did not make it through the night.
Audrey breathed a sigh of deep relief that her father’s training and Julius’s strong physicality had led to success. What would they have done if Julius had expired?
A knock on the door announced one of the servants had returned. Audrey called for them to enter and was pleased when Rose did, bearing a tray. It was high time Julius ate, and her own stomach was rumbling.
They ate where they were, Julius sitting up in bed to gingerly fork ham and eggs into his mouth. Audrey commiserated. It was obvious he was forcing himself to eat, and she appreciated his good sense in doing so. One needed food in one’s belly to heal because it took a lot of physical energy to repair a body. As inquisitive as she was to hear the rest of his story, she allowed him to eat without interruption.
