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“Fine,” she said, trembling. “I’ll get dressed.”
“Now!” he roared.
John stood and hurried to the balcony doors with Julie. He turned to her as he reached the threshold.
“Let me make all the preparations on the morrow, and we can elope the next morning. All right?” he asked, brushing his palm over her cheek.
“All right,” she murmured and stood on tiptoes to give him a kiss.
He lowered his head to meet her lips and brushed them softly with his.
“I love you.” With these words, he turned and climbed over the balcony railing.
“I love you,” she whispered into nothingness.
“This moment, Julie!” the bellow came again from behind her door.
Julie put on her dressing gown and hurried to open it.
“Why did it take you so long to open the damned door?” Norfolk demanded, charging into her room, looking around.
“I was sleeping,” she lied.
He looked up at her. “I know for a fact that you are lying,” he snarled.
“I am not!”
“Then the boy who climbed up to your balcony was not here just now?” he yelled at her, getting red in the face.
Julie blanched. “There was no one here!” she cried in desperation.
“You lying little whore!” He grabbed her painfully by the arm. “If you think I would let that mongrel anywhere near you, think again!” he snarled in her face. “Do you want to live like a pauper? Or do you want a childlikeMary?” He said the last with disgust twisting his face.
“There is nothing wrong with Mary!” she yelled back at him. “And I’d rather be poor than living with someone like you!”
“You ungrateful bitch.” He threw her toward the bed, and she fell heavily, hitting her head on the bedpost. Sharp pain originating in her skull radiated through her entire body. “We are leaving for London tomorrow.”
“No!” she yelled.
“And if you are carrying that mongrel’s child, I promise you I will find a way to get rid of it!” With these ominous words, he stormed from her room, shutting the door behind him with a slam that made Julie flinch.
She scrambled to sit against the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She hugged her knees, tucking her forehead against them. Julie sat crying for several minutes before her tears dried and simple reason started penetrating the thick fog of despair.
She was wasting her time crouching on the floor, feeling sorry for herself. What she needed was a plan. Yes, she was going to collect her most necessary belongings and run away at dawn.
John always took his morning rides early, before anyone else awoke. She would meet him in the field, and they would run away before her father figured out that she was missing. Julie stood gingerly and went to the washbasin to clean the blood from the injury at the back of her head.
She collected one pair of each, her unmentionables, gowns, cloaks, shoes, and all the coins she had, and put it all in her valise before placing it next to the bed. She dressed hastily into her simplest, sturdiest gown and lay down under the covers, waiting for the dawn to come.
Julie tossed and turned, unable to shut her eyes from the excitement of the night. Instead, she stood and walked over to the writing desk, flipping through her diary. The diary she’d started writing after the worst year of her life. To deal with grief and loneliness, she’d written down all her childhood memories, so she would never forget that at one time, she’d been happy. She flipped the pages absentmindedly, reading silly anecdotes of her and John climbing trees, jumping into the lake, and chasing the dragonflies. Playing with Mary, reading to her—
Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them back. There was no use crying now. She needed to act. Julie picked up a quill, dipped it into an inkwell, opened the diary to a fresh page, and started scribbling. Her brief entry finished with the decisive words:
We are eloping at dawn.
* * *
Julie dozed on and off several times during the night. She couldn’t let herself fall fully asleep and lose her moment of opportunity. As soon as the first light of dawn touched the sky, she scrambled out of bed, threw her valise out the window, climbed over her balcony railing and down the trellis outlining the wall.
