Page 78 of The Lady is Trouble

She and Humphrey had argued about this very topic at breakfast this morning, right before she snuck past her guards by telling them she was returning to her bedchamber with afemalecomplaint.

For once in her life, she marveled with a humorless smile, Humphrey was on her side.Agreed, Julian should not have left.You scared the life out of him, and the like. He hadn’t been able to look her directly in the eye, this bizarre occurrence making her wonder what he and Julian had up their sleeves.

Why did she have to love the noblest man in all of bloody England?

His motives were admirable, but she wanted more than saving.

She wanted to beloved.

When Julian was not capable. His fear too great. His affection too weak. His walls too high. She wrenched another rose off the bush, sick of trying to rationalize the situation.

Weary, perturbed,finished.

This time, the mess was his fault, his doing.

Although the episode in his studyhadbeen a disaster on every level.

Petals drifted from her fingers to the ground. That dashed brooch, she thought even as she dipped her hand in her pocket and curled her fingers around it. When the madwoman found her, and find her she would—and soon, Piper suspected with a spike of dread—she wanted the piece on her person. For reasons she could not define.

They had located the woman’s London hotel from details contained in one of Finn’s dreams, but she was gone when Julian’s men searched her room. Nothing there except the brooch, tucked beneath a wrinkle in the carpet. It was delivered to Harbingdon for Julian to read, although he’d hesitated for days to touch it.

Until she’d forced him to.

When he was drinking and troubled, not in the best form. Too, Piper had forced her way into the otherworld, stepped right past him, then promptly fainted when the woman touched her. Humphrey didn’t understand, and she couldn’t properly explain howpowerlessJulian had felt, unable to reach her in the unsettling space between past and present. His aura had been clear on that score, flaring the color of a pearl freshly pulled from the sea.

It hadn’t helped that she’d cracked her head. Blood a bright spill over her bodice, Julian’s face matching his colorless aura when she awoke to find herself cradled in his arms. Neither Finn nor Humphrey could talk him out of his desolation.

Do you see? This is what her grandfather warned me about.

As soon as the doctor proclaimed her injury one she would fully recover from, he’d saddled his horse and left for London. Solicitors to meet. Papers to sign. Gaming hell to purchase.

Running, she’d shouted from her bedchamber window as he galloped down the drive, Minnie tearing at her sleeve to pull her inside.

Piper sighed and approached the cottage. The door was unlocked and swung wide, the little-used hinge squealing.

Exposed beams, a lovely stone hearth. As charming inside as out.

She lost herself to the fantasy of walking the gardens with Julian before dawn, making love in the bedchamber she could see down the hall. Maybe he wouldn’t be angry when he returned. Time usually restored an agreeable mood.

Then she heard the hinge’s protest. And realized she should have let one of the Duke’s soldiers accompany her after all. Stubborn, lovesickfool.

Sneaking out hadn’t been wise.

The man blocking the door wore unfamiliar livery, a glorified mercenary similar to one of Ashcroft’s soldiers. Pistol drawn, knife strapped to his hip, he fashioned an intimidating portrait. When another man joined him in the foyer, Julian’s words shot like a bullet through her brain.

If they come for you, for once in our life, play along.

No tricks.

No rebellion.

He’d covered the possibilities more than once, often while their bodies were tangled and spent. So, she didn’t resist when the brute crossed to her, when he took her wrist in a damaging grip.

She would follow through on her promise even as dread sent her skin tingling and her heart racing.

“The beautiful boy, the dreamer,” the man whispered in accented English as he shook her so hard her hair whipped her cheeks. “Whereis he?”

Finn. “I’ll die first,” she vowed.