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“Lily?” A voice called from the stairwell. It was deep and masculine, causing shivers to trail down Giulia’s spine. Lily shot her a look full of fear before glancing around the tower in haste.
“Quick!” Lily said in a rushed whisper, “to the roof! He must not find you alone.”
“I thought you came alone,” Giulia said as her mother grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the ladder.
Lily shook her head, and Giulia scrambled up the ladder as quickly as her feet would carry. But the wooden hatch was stiff from years of neglect and it took a couple of hard shoves with her shoulder before it gave way.
“Lily,” the voice called again, sounding strange and yet familiar. “Have you found it?”
Giulia nearly made it out of sight before the man came into the tower, and she caught a head of dark brown hair before she quickly closed the latch. She backed slowly toward the edge of the tower wall and stopped, glancing down the sheer stone wall. Fear gripped her as she realized she had nowhere to run.
Light poured onto the earth below from the brightly lit ballroom and shadows jumped and swayed on the lawn as the dancers inside moved, blissfully unaware of the woman standing high above them and her deadly predicament. She pulled the elephant from her bodice and kissed it once for luck and then again—for an extra dose, of course—before shoving it back away from view.
The hatch slowly raised, sending prickles down her spine as light seeped from the opening and onto the stone floor of the tower roof. Fat, cold drops began to fall from the sky, landing on Giulia’s bare arms and sliding down her neck.
A dark head rose from the floor, an eerily joyful smile crossing the face of the man who’d stood by her side for weeks while she had nursed his master back to health.
Jack.
Giulia straightened up, calling forth every ounce of courage and strength that she could either summon or feign.
“Well,” Jack said, climbing onto the roof of the tower as rain began to fall harder. He looked taller, broader than before, and his eyes darker. “Lily tells me you don’t have the key. But you know what I think?” He leaned down, pulling Lily by the hand and dragging her onto the roof. “I think that you do have it.” Jack threw Lily to the floor and she slumped in a heap. Fear trickled down Giulia’s spine as she swallowed, trying to hide her anxiety.
“You’ve heard us searching, Jack,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “We trusted you. Do you not think you would have known if we had it? Are we not friends?”
He came toward her, eyes narrowing, and she stepped back, bumping into the wall.
“I am not in your confidence,” he argued. “And we are not friends. I was good enough to share your company while you nursed Nick, while the earl treated you as a servant. But the moment Nick healed, and Lord Hart accepted you, I became scum.”
“You were never scum—”
“When did you spare me a glance, eh? When did you find a minute to converse with me? Am I not a man, too, worthy of consideration?”
Giulia gawked at him. She feared for her life, the way Jack was leaning toward her with a wild look in his dark eyes. She needed to tread lightly. “I believed myself engaged to a servant, Jack. I never thought myself above you.”
He shook his head, sorrow reflecting in his eyes. “But you did. When the earl started paying you attention, and Nick decided to play with you—”
“Nick never—”
“I am speaking,” Jack spat, his face coming within a hand’s width of her own. “Nick never cared for you. He never cared for anyone. He just chases women for the fun of it and leaves me to tend the broken hearts. When we first came to Halstead, Nick dallied with a dozen women, all in the first year. His new position got to his head and he cared nothing for the lives he wrecked.”
Jack’s chest was heaving. “And then you arrived, and I figured you would be different. I thought you were a strong woman who could resist him, but you let me down. And still, when I tried to comfort you and Nick disrespected me, you let him.”
It took a moment for Giulia to recall the situation Jack referred to. But when she did, shame fell over her. She hadn’t corrected Nick in Jack’s hearing, but she had been bothered by the way he’d spoken to his friend.
If she had spoken up, would all of this have been avoided?
Lily moaned from the floor a few paces away.
No. Giulia had to think that nothing would have been different, regardless of how she had acted. Jack knew her mother; he had said her name. Something was clearly afoot here, and she did not have all the information.
“Let me tend to my mother,” she said, “and then I will do whatever you wish.”
“It is too late for that,” Jack said, stepping closer and running a finger along her jaw. “You will take me to the key, and you will hand it over, and then you will distract the household until I am safely away. Or, you can die up here on this tower and no one will know until morning. What sounds more appealing?”
Giulia swallowed. The rain began to fall harder, and she glanced to the hatch and then to Lily, lying in a lump on the floor. She wished she had not searched out Lily alone and wondered whether or not anyone had noticed that she had not returned to the ball yet. Surely someone would notice, wouldn’t they? Perhaps if she simply stalled for a while, then…
Jack cut into her thoughts. “What is it going to be? I will not wait all night. I have been patient long enough, and it ends now.”
