Page 100 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
“You won’t change your mind?” Juliet asked him. “You won’t decide the next time I catch a cold or fall down that the curse is real after all?”
“No.” Harry looked at her longingly. “I was a fool to believe in it as long as I did, Juliet. I shouldn’t have needed the things that happened tonight to prove to me that it wasn’t real. I should have known by simple logic. Now that it’s been proven, I feel a fool for having believed it as long as I did.”
“You’re not a fool,” Juliet said quietly.
“Is this really how this ends?” Lord Stickland asked. “After everything?”
“Well, now that you mention it,” Juliet said. “Thereissomething I’d like answered.” She reached out and touched Harry’s hand gently. “Not that I don’t want to address your question, Harry, because I do. Very much. But before we move forward, I need to know how Lord Stickland knew everything he did about us.”
“Someone was spying on us that night,” Harry explained. “The night we—were out on the patio together.”
“You can say it,” Juliet murmured. Daniel knew all the secrets now. “We kissed.”
“Youwhat?” Daniel demanded.
“Don’t get angry.” Juliet raised her hands as if to placate her brother. “It looks as if the two of us are about to become engaged. And we didn’t think anyone was going to see us.”
“But someone did,” Harry said. “And it must have been him if he knows so much about our activities.”
“It wasn’t him.” Juliet shook her head. “At least, he says it wasn’t. He says he got the information from somebody else.”
“And you believe him? He’s hardly trustworthy.”
“No, I agree, he isn’t,” Juliet said. “But think about it, Harry. He’s told us the truth about a lot of things he didn’t have to be honest about. It’s clear he’s decided to be genuine. He’s hoping that it will work for him.”
“Nothing else has,” Lord Stickland growled. “You’re an impossible person to win over, Lady Juliet.”
“Not so impossible,” Harry sneered. “All you really had to do was treat her with decency and kindness, Lord Stickland. That worked for me.”
Juliet smiled. “He wouldn’t have had a chance no matter how he treated me. He’s right about that. I would always have seen the kind of man he truly is.”
She turned to Lord Stickland. “Tell us who spied on us that day. If you do, I won’t report your threats to my father or the constables, and we can all just walk away from this.”
She could tell that he didn’t want to. But she could also tell he was smart enough to know it was the best choice.
“Very well, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But perhaps we could all sit down and speak like civilized people.”
Juliet nodded, and the four of them moved towards the chairs.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
“Before you begin,” Harry said, “I have my suspicions about all this. Was Lady Annie involved?”
Juliet gasped. “Of course! Of course she was. She must have been.”
“What makes you say that?” Daniel asked, looking from one to the other.
“She was the one who sent me to the library in the first place,” Juliet replied.
“She did?” Harry asked. He had not expected that. “Why did she send you up here?”
“She said she wanted to discuss something about you. I didn’t know what she wanted, but I wanted to find out, so I agreed to meet her. But when I arrived, it was Lord Stickland here instead. They must have been in cahoots, but I never realized it. I was so distraught over what was happening with Lord Stickland that I forgot all about my conversation with Lady Annie.”
“She was pulling all the strings, then,” Harry murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“She wrote me a note,” Harry explained, pulling it out of his pocket and handing it to Juliet.
