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Chapter 4
Giulia didn’t have much time to lose. She needed to begin perusing her uncle’s newspapers and search for a position so she might have a place to go once the injured man healed. Perhaps as a governess or companion. Or maybe she could find a position as a schoolteacher’s assistant close by.
Nearby would be ideal. She hadn’t money for travel anyway, and would like to remain in Devon, if she could manage it. For as many countries as she had visited, this was one area of the world she’d often dreamed of as she traveled from one place to the next. Her father’s stories hadn’t done the countryside justice; it was a far cry from the busy streets of London that she was used to—for they never left the metropolis during their brief stints in England.
Father would take her to all the ends of the earth, but he had staunchly refused to return to Halstead. To know the land and the people who raised her father was not a chance she would squander. She found herself grasping for any connection to him now.
Perhaps she could visit the shops and learn of a position that way. There had to be a village nearby. In fact, she knew there was. Gordley? Grandon? It started with a G, she remembered that much.
Giulia climbed the grand staircase and halted on the landing, where it split in two. The castle was quiet. She tipped her head back, tracing the gray stone walls that rose on either side of her and met at the top far above. It was a sturdy house, prestigious enough for an earl. And yet, somehow the dignity and grandeur made the castle feel all the more lonely in its silence.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Giulia imagined her father as a boy, running up and down these very stairs. He should have been with her now. He should have been the person to show Giulia her ancestor’s home. But the earl and his anger had forbidden it while Patrick Pepper was alive, and now it was too late.
Questions filled Giulia’s mind. Lord Hart had not sent for her, but someone had.
Someonehad sent her a letter inviting her to Halstead Manor. She had wondered for a brief moment if the earl had written the letter but then decided to pretend otherwise, but he proved that theory false with his conversation in the study.
That left very few people that could have deceived her, and none of them made logical sense. Could it have been Wells? The man was an old family retainer. He had been at Halstead when her father was growing up—Giulia remembered his name from her father’s stories—only then he’d been a footman. Could Wells have written the letter in an effort to mend broken fences?
If it was Wells, he likely had the best of intentions. He could not have known that Lord Hart would not care one whit for his deceased brother’s child.
Shaking her head, Giulia lifted the hem of her plain, gray gown and started toward the next set of stairs.
One direction would lead to the west wing, so she turned the opposite direction. Presumably the east wing.
The room her patient stayed in was easily accessible, near the top of the east staircase—identifiable by a tray sitting on the floor outside the door. She halted beside the tray and knocked softly. Light footsteps approached before the door swung open and a young girl stood on the other side in a maid’s uniform.
“I am Giulia Pepper, and I am going to be taking care of the patient.”
The maid looked equal parts relieved and wary. Had she also been aware of the earl’s plan to remove Giulia from the premises as soon as she’d had her breakfast?
“The earl himself has sent me,” Giulia said. “If you will show me in and explain how the patient has been since the doctor’s call last evening, I would be much obliged.”
The maid nodded and turned back into the room. Large tapestries lined the walls, sandwiching a fireplace so large Giulia could easily step inside it—if a fire were absent. The drapes were mostly drawn, leaving a hand-width’s space open to allow the sun to light the room. The four-poster bed in the center was enormous and dwarfed the man lying on it, further proving its grandeur, for he was anything but small.
There was a plain wooden chair pulled near the bedside and a small table beside it that held some mending. The maid’s gaze flicked to the pile of fabric and her cheeks grew pink.
“I was watching him, Miss Pepper. I only thought I could get some work done while he slept.”
“I see no problem with that.” Giulia smiled. “When the doctor asked us to watch him, he did not mean endlessly. Has he awoken at all, miss…?”
“Tilly, miss. Just Tilly. And no, he hasn’t. I’ve been with him since they brought him in last night.”
Clasping her hands together, Giulia shot a worried glance toward the man in the bed. Perhaps there was no room for panic yet. Head wound victims sometimes took hours, and other times took days before awakening. She wasn’t certain he had a head wound, but if he’d been riding a horse while he was shot, it was entirely possible he hit his head when he fell. And she couldn’t disregard her own mistake in kicking him in the head. “Does his wrap need to be changed?”
“No one told me to do it, miss.”
“Very well, Tilly. That will be all.”
Tilly hesitated.
Giulia tried not to be irritated. “Go on and check with Wells if you doubt me. I have an agreement with the earl, and I am going to be looking after this man for the time being.”
Tilly nodded her head slowly, coming around to the idea. Or at least realizing she had the ability to check with the butler. “Nicholas Pepper, miss. The man is Mr. Pepper.”
“Pepper?” Giulia said, louder than she’d meant to. Her father had been under the impression that Robert Pepper had never married. But had he done so and had a son? She glanced back to the slumbering man but found no immediate resemblance between Mr. Pepper and Lord Hart. “Is this my cousin, then?”
Tilly shook her head, then paused, her nose scrunching in apparent thought. “I suppose he is a cousin of yours, though somewhat distantly. Lord Hart was forced to track down Mr. Pepper when no other heirs were apparent.”
