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Chapter 20
Giulia closed her door and turned the lock before leaning against it and sliding to the floor, lowering her forehead onto her knees. She wrapped her hands around her legs as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She was shaken—completely and utterly rattled. She felt like she had seen a ghost. Except this being was fully alive and well and holding a gun. Sixteen years may have passed, but no amount of time could erase the face of one’s mother. No, that was an image that was burned into her brain, regardless of whether or not she cared to remember.
Her tears slowed and she raised her face, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her riding habit. She pulled in a slow, shaky breath before releasing it just as slowly. Maybe she had not seen what she thought she had. Perhaps her mother was simply in the area and happened to be standing in the trees along her uncle’s property just before a gunshot rang through the air.
Another convulsion shook her frame and she shivered. She should go downstairs immediately and tell the earl what she saw. She should tell someone, she knew that much. But how exactly was she supposed to do that? When Dr. Mason had found her and asked what had happened, she wanted to explain it then, but she could not find the words. It seemed too absurd.
Giulia shook her head and scoffed quietly. It was absurd. Her mother? It could not have been her mother. Her mother lived in Italy.
Giulia got to her feet and began removing her soiled dress. No amount of wariness diminished the reality of her situation. She knew what she saw. It was unbelievable, but that did not change that it had happened. And the earl would want to know.
Taking off her dress, she folded it over a chair in front of her vanity and pulled on her other gray gown. She needed to examine the letters her mother had sent. What had the woman wanted? A key, wasn’t it? If she could discover more about this key, then she might know what her mother had crossed an ocean for.
Perhaps she would need to swallow her hesitancy and read through her father’s journal sooner than later. She could skim it for any mention of a key without really delving in.
And then there was Ames. Was he in danger too? Thinking of the dark-haired man who had owned her heart for the last five years, she felt a new pang of hurt. How could he leave her alone when she needed him so dearly?
Her eyes slid shut. Unless, of course, Ames no longer cared for her. Why else would he fail to write to her?
The revelations and possibilities hit her like a bag of bricks. One after the other. She felt bruised and broken, lost and grasping for something solid to cling to.
She wiped her eyes. A thorough evaluation of her face in the mirror showed that she was no worse for the wear, and she steeled herself to return downstairs for dinner. If she was going to get through this evening without falling apart, then she would have to remain neutral. It had worked when they found her stumbling through the dark along the fence, and it could work again.
Giulia left her room, practicing her neutral face as she walked down the hall. She would have to stay alert and prepared if she was going to fool Nick. She had succeeded earlier, which had been shocking. He could usually read her so well. And what was he about, running outside? Either he’d had a rapid and miraculous recovery, or he had been hiding how well he was truly feeling from her for quite some time.
She was no longer surprised to enter the parlor and find the earl waiting for her prior to dinner, but tonight there was another man standing beside him and Giulia sucked in her breath. Nick, standing tall and elegant in his evening clothes, looked powerful and composed. His sling was absent, replaced by a well-cut black coat covering a crisp ivory waistcoat. Shirt-points of a reasonable height—but not so tall as to be dangerous to his cheeks—were surrounded by an expertly tied cravat, and his blond hair had been dampened and combed into a neat style.
The man was handsome in shirtsleeves and a dressing gown as an invalid. In full dinner dress he was a force to be reckoned with. She suddenly wished she did have an engagement with Ames to force her thoughts away from Nick.
There was no agreement, no secret engagement holding her back. Ames had not written to her once since she had left him, even while he’d taken care to forward the letters from her mother.
Giulia went cold all over, the sensation as uncomfortable as it was foreign. Her father had always taught her to face her fears, to look strangers square in the eye and not back down from discomfort. She was raised to be proud, strong, and independent, yet she had held onto this image of Ames building a life for her, Ames protecting her, Ames taking care of her.
Well, Ames was not here.
A barely audible scoff escaped her lips as she discovered that she had turned into exactly what her father had raised her not to be. She squared her shoulders and approached the men, desperate and determined to pass herself off as unaffected. Unaffected by the discovery that Ames did not care for her, by the fact that she had seen her mother, that she had been shot at by someone—potentially by her mother—and that Nick, the biggest flirt in all of Devon, looked unfairly dapper this evening.
Nick and the earl were enveloped in a deep conversation and Giulia paused, watching them. She could not hear what they were saying but found their closeness and camaraderie interesting. It appeared that the earl was not opposed to close relationships as a rule, for he clearly shared one with Nick. Lord Hart was just opposed to a close relationship with her, specifically.
“Dinner is ready,” Wells announced before stepping out of the room. Nick and the earl both looked up, their gazes simultaneously landing on Giulia. She smiled at the sour-faced earl and took his offered arm before walking into the dining room with Nick on their heels. Lord Hart took his customary seat at the head of the table, with Giulia on one side and Nick on the other.
“Perhaps it is best if you do not leave the castle again,” Lord Hart said into his bowl. Giulia wondered which of them he was speaking to before he glanced at her and continued, “At least until we have apprehended Nicholas’s attacker, or have a better idea about who is after him.”
Giulia nodded. Did they think that the shot today was meant for Nick and not her? She had tried to describe a bang that could be interpreted as a multitude of things, but apparently she had not fooled the earl. “If you think that is best.”
She felt suspended, as though she was floating above the table. Nick was nearly healed—in truth, he looked perfectly well this evening—but Lord Hart was not going to make her leave yet. She did not quite know what to think about the situation.
“I do,” he grunted.
“I agree,” Nick said. “As long as we are unsure who is orchestrating these attacks, it may not be safe for any of us outside of these walls.”
She looked into his concerned eyes and yearned to tell him the truth, to explain that she knew exactly who was behind the gunshot. But the words would not come. Was it a displaced sense of loyalty keeping her mouth shut, or had she simply not come to terms with the truth herself yet?
Either way, words would not form in her mouth and she merely nodded again. It was a far cry from her usual demeanor, and she needed to rectify it quickly or Nick would surely figure out that something was amiss.
“I was able to see a lot of your property, my lord,” she said to her uncle, “on my impromptu journey. That is, I was able to see quite a bit before the horse let me go. And I must say, this is such a beautiful land. The Green’s property gave me a wide view of the surrounding area and I cannot think of a more peaceful place than the English countryside.”
