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Chapter 17
Giulia descended the stairs for dinner dressed in a plain, gray gown, her hair freshly plaited and her cheeks pinkened from a round of pinching to bring them some life. She was nearly out of mourning, but it didn’t signify. She could not afford to replace either of her gowns, no matter how somber she looked.
Not that Lord Hart ever looked at her. Was she prepared for another evening of being ignored and banished to the far end of the table? Was this really much better than going to the poor house? She paused on the staircase, her hand gripping the rail as her eyes fluttered shut.
What a foolish thought. This situation was without a doubt better than going to the poor house. Forget dignity; she was receiving substantial, hot meals twice a day, tea whenever she wished, and lemon tarts nearly every night after the household fell asleep. She had hardly eaten this well nor this consistently in her entire life. Not that she and her father had always been poor, but as Giulia was the sole person in charge of making dinner for a good portion of the time, and she herself had no training in the kitchen, they had gotten by on very basic recipes. And whenever funds had begun to diminish during their various excursions, so had the food.
She continued toward the parlor and straightened her shoulders. She would get through these ridiculous dinners for two reasons. First, because it was food, hot, delicious, and plentiful; second, because her father would have expected it of her.
She was surprised when she arrived at the parlor to find the earl standing near the fireplace. He had never arrived before her for dinner and she found it disconcerting. Was she late? A glance at the mantle clock told her that she was on time, as usual. She slipped into the room and crossed to the chair she usually occupied, hoping her uncle would not notice her.
Lord Hart turned and faced her. Well, so much for staying invisible. She tried to swallow the dryness that came to her throat when his pale eyes pierced her. His gaze was unrelenting, and she found herself wishing he would return to aloofness. This direct attention was disconcerting.
Rising, Giulia delivered a curtsy and the earl acknowledged it with a slight nod.
Something had shifted between them, and she was unsure how she felt about it.
Before she was called upon to speak, Wells came to the rescue with the announcement that dinner was ready. The earl offered his customary arm and she took it, averting his gaze as he led her into the dining room. Instead of turning left at the table, however, to guide her to its foot, Lord Hart shocked her by turning toward the head. He rounded it and deposited her in the chair to the right of his own. Surprise halted her speech and a quick glance down at the end of the table proved that her usual place setting was absent. This was not a decision made in the moment; the earl had planned it.
A footman with jet black hair and a Grecian nose set a soup bowl before her and she waited, unsure of how to proceed. The earl was watching her closely and it set her on edge. She sat in the high-backed chair patiently and hoped he would dive into his soup and leave her to the solemn invisibility she was used to.
The silence stretched. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere behind her and she wondered what would happen if she simply stood and moved her bowl down to the end of the table and resumed her customary seat.
Another glance at the earl was telling. The man was poised, spoon in hand, waiting for her. Well, maybe not her exactly but he was waiting for something, and she had no idea what else it could be. She shifted in her seat to squarely face him. Maybe he wanted to make up for all of the time he had refused to look at her in the past, all at once.
“My lord, is there something I may do for you?” She heard herself speak and wondered when her brain had decided to address the man. The words seemed to do the job, no matter how unintentional her break of the soundless barrier between them might have been.
The earl blinked a few times, his gray eyes clearing. “Nicholas is healing well, I believe.”
So he wanted to talk, did he? “Yes, quite well. He is slowly regaining his full strength—he still grows quite winded when exerting himself—but his shoulder looks quite good.”
“He is a Pepper man, after all.” The earl preened as if he was the reason Nick was doing so well and Giulia bit back the comment that teetered on the edge of her tongue about how she was a Pepper as well and that did not seem to have any bearing with the earl.
They ate their soup in silence and moved throughout the meal with spurts of polite conversation littering the calm lulls of eating. Inane conversation was hardly more enjoyable than the pure silence she was used to. If this was how dinner was going to be then Giulia would gladly resume their previous positions. Had she truly asked for this?
It was disconcerting having her father’s eyes trained so avidly on her—particularly when they belonged to her uncle. She could feel the earl’s unrelenting gaze through all of dinner.
The meal came to a close and Giulia excused herself, claiming a need to check on Nick. The earl bid her goodnight, his steel gray eyes scanning her own as if he studied a book written in a language he did not understand. She felt stripped and guarded at the same time and the prickles sticking her skin only intensified as she turned her back and fled.
In his bedchamber, Nick was seated in the wingback chair that had remained beside the fire. A tray full of empty dishes and glasses sat on a table beside him and he held a book in his hands.
“You have graduated from the bed, I see.”
“Yes.” Nick placed a finger in the book before peeling his gaze from it and shooting her a smile. “I have found that I feel much more dignified eating my dinner in a chair than I do propped up in bed.”
Giulia crossed to the fire and lowered herself on the footstool just paces away from Nick. “And the aspect of feeding yourself with your own fork has nothing to do with that added dignity, I am sure.”
His smile turned impish. “I would gladly sacrifice my dignity if you wanted to continue to feed me.”
She waved a hand to push away his flirtation and then leaned forward, her chin resting on her knuckles. “I had a very interesting evening.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose and he set his book on the table beside his dinner tray, giving her his full attention.
“We…” She thought for a moment about her evening. It was strange for more than one reason. “We danced, actually.”
Nick’s eyebrows hitched up so high they disappeared under the blond strands that fell over his forehead. “You danced? With the earl?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
