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Chapter 11
When Giulia reached her room after another silent dinner, there were letters stacked in columns on her writing desk. Funny, the earl hadn’t mentioned them that evening. Of course, he hadn’t mentioned anything at dinner, so that was not really a surprise. She had hoped the few encounters they’d had would cause Lord Hart to soften up enough to at least glance at her this evening. But her hope had been in vain.
She lowered herself onto the chair and began sifting through the mail, searching for one scrawl in particular. She got to the end of the first pile and frowned. At least there were two more piles. Sifting through the second column, Giulia noted the same handwriting a few times. It was the oddest thing; the wax was sealed with the image of a rooster. A very familiar rooster, though she could not place where she knew it from.
Abandoning her quest for a letter from Ames, she plucked a rooster-sealed missive from the pile and ran her thumb under the wax before unfolding the paper. It was short, but she jumped to the bottom to read the signature before finishing the note.
How could this be? She went cold all over as her hand absentmindedly fished the elephant from her bodice before putting it to her lips. She pursed them into a kiss but did not move the elephant away, as if she could siphon courage from the object.
The elephant dropped from her fingers and she scattered the piles of letters in a frenzy, pulling out the offending missives containing the rooster-sealed wax until she had a neat pile before her. Three. There were three more unopened letters sealed with the rooster and directed to her. Not to Father, but to her. How had they been thrown into the lot with the rest? Surely the servants knew that her mail could be delivered.
She was still alive.
Giulia’s fingers hovered over the rooster as a memory came unbidden to her mind. An unfinished cross stitch secured in a hoop, the image of a rooster—this rooster—in its center and a name half-stitched above the animal. Now that she could see the rooster before her so clearly, her mind filled in the blank. Cattaneo.
Her mother’s family name.
Father had thrown the cross stitch into the fire with no uncertain rage when Giulia had found it and presented it to him nearly a year after her mother had left. She recalled being hurt by the action and had gone to retrieve the last memento of her mother when Father had picked her up and tossed her in bed, growling that that woman was no longer welcome in the Pepper family and neither were her things. The next day Father had apologized, but his temper was forever etched on her brain. Not that it needed to be. In all of her subsequent fifteen years she had never seen evidence of it again.
Still, she had never fully moved on from the guilt she felt regarding her mother’s departure. If her mother had loved her, she would have stayed, wouldn’t she?
And now, this.
Her finger broke seal after seal until all four letters were opened, read, reread, and then lined up in chronological order.
“My Darling Giulia—”
“...sorry to hear of your father’s passing…”
“If you would be so kind as to help me.”
Thatwas the fudge. Sixteen years of silence and now her condolences were riddled with pleas for a favor. Giulia’s stomach soured and she pushed away from the desk. Her eye caught on the fallen notes scattering the floor and she bent to retrieve them. It only took a moment to gather and sort the remaining letters and discover that nothing had come from Ames.
Plopping on the edge of her seat, Giulia huffed a breath, blowing a stray hair out of her face. She had been gone from London for weeks now. Was Ames not wondering how she fared, at the very least? How her uncle received her? No, he probably wasn’t. He was under the same illusion as she that the earl had invited her to Halstead.
The room grew unbearably stuffy and her pulse raced as anxiety clenched her stomach. The last month had turned her world upside down, then sideways, and then kicked her in the stomach for good measure. And that was not counting the grief she continued to struggle with over losing her father nearly nine months ago.
She grew angry at her situation. She should be Mrs. Giulia Ames right now, far away from this horrid castle and grouchy uncle and too-attractive invalid.
Nick. Her throat went dry. A wry laugh slipped out and she sunk onto the floor, covering her face in her hands. She could not help that he was the most attractive man she had ever seen. She had no control over her rapidly beating pulse whenever he was within an arm’s reach. And she really could not help the overwhelming guilt that clouded her whenever she had such thoughts.
Ames should be with her. She wouldn’t be thinking of other men if Ames was present. His lack of correspondence wasn’t helping the situation, particularly when he had to be the person forwarding the letters to Halstead Manor; her father’s readership knew of her new direction at her uncle’s home, but her mother did not. She had directed her letters to the London house.
Giulia gathered the rooster-sealed letters before folding them as one and leaving the room. Her feet led her through the dark corridors and over the landing of the main staircase toward Nick’s room of their own volition. She had not intended to go there but felt as if she was watching her feet move instead of telling them where to go. The disconnect was disconcerting.
Her fist paused above the door and she let out a whoosh of breath before knocking ever so lightly. A moment later the door swung softly open and Jack stood on the other side.
“Is he awake?” she asked.
“Yes.” Jack hesitated momentarily, his gaze flicking to her eyes before he stepped aside.
“Would you stay?” Giulia asked.
Jack smiled knowingly. Not only was the hour late, but she had no nursing business to complete at this time and if she and Nick were discovered alone it would be bad for both of their reputations.
“Of course.” Jack let her in and closed the door behind her. She crossed the room, watching Nick’s curious gaze as it flitted from her to the stack of letters in her hand.
She raised the letters and sighed. “I have received a clue.” She fanned them. “Or four.”
