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He nodded in understanding and leaned forward on his own hands. Though she doubted that he really understood at all. “He looked at me tonight.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, he looked at me and sat me beside him at the table.”
“He did, did he?”
“Yes. He looked at me, he sat me beside him at the table instead of far away in no man’s land, and…”
Nick looked at her expectantly and she dragged the moment on a little further. There was nothing as satisfying as dangling the expectation of a piece of information before Nick, especially when it was obvious that he really wanted to know what it was.
“And…he talked to me.”
“About?”
“Oh, this and that.” Giulia waved her hands around before clasping them in her lap. “Basic things, really. Inane conversation. But—”
“Not normal,” Nick finished for her.
“No.” Giulia smiled at her mystery-solving partner. “Not normal at all.”
“I think we have another piece to the puzzle. Or, perhaps,” Nick said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his ankles, his hands folding over his chest, “another step toward softening up our informant.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if he is willing to speak with you, perhaps he can explain what happened between your father and the rest of the Pepper family himself.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
She turned toward the fire and watched the glowing embers fade between red and black. She could easily cut out the earl and simply read her father’s journal, but there was no guarantee that he mentioned anything about his family within its pages. Besides, reading it would be too difficult. The idea alone caused her pulse to quicken.
She had tried to read the journal, numerous times. The farthest she had gotten was opening the cover and examining the beautiful charcoal drawing of Halstead Manor. The manor that was, in all actuality, a castle.
“You’re hiding something.” Nick’s deep voice cut through her reverie and caused Giulia to flinch.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
He studied her. “I can tell.”
She stared at the man. He had the strangest ability to read her, and whether or not she wanted to admit it aloud, he was usually correct. That day when he had offered her use of his given name, he’d known somehow that she could not bring herself to say Mr. Pepper aloud, for that had been her father’s name and it would have tasted bitter on her tongue. When Nick called her Jules, she had reveled in hearing the name her father had given her.
Originally, going by Giulia seemed like the right thing to do, it was what she was known by outside of her father’s world. Yet somehow pushing away Jules was not as triumphant as she’d expected. She began to feel like she was pushing away her father as well. She enjoyed hearing her given name, but she had missed Jules and Nick had somehow sensed that. Just as he could tell she was keeping the journal from him.
She searched his deep green eyes and focused on their pure, forest-like hues. How much could she trust the man? In matters of the heart, she was sure he was a careless flirt, stealing kisses and playing with women’s feelings as though they mattered little. But in regard to this, Giulia had the odd sense that the man could be trusted. It was unclear exactly how she knew, but she felt the truth of it in her chest.
Regardless of how much she trusted him, however, she was not ready to delve into the stories and truths and hand-drawn pictures that filled her father’s journal. The bitter reality nettled her like an unexpected bee sting. The truth was that she was afraid of what she would find. If her father had lied about his own mother being alive for most of Giulia’s life, what else had he kept from her?
“It is nothing,” she said with a laugh, trying to lighten the thick mood that settled over them, her gaze trained firmly on the embers blanketing the hearth.
“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Nick said softly. “It is clearly troublesome for you, and I would not call that nothing.”
His soft tone melted her resolve and she glanced at him, giving in as she locked in on his caring face. He was not pitying her, and she loved that.
She let out a soft sigh. “I have my father’s journal. I am uncertain if it can answer any of our questions, but it is a resource we have yet to examine.”
Nick’s face softened further. “I take that to mean that you have not yet read it.”
“No.” She looked down at her hands and watched her fingers play with the skirt of her gown. “I have not.”
