Page 83 of The Heart of an Earl

This was a dream. An awful dream that she would wake up from. Wake up at any moment. Any moment. Surely the Duke of Wolfbridge had sourced absinthe and slipped it into the punch. Wasn’t that what was supposed to happen with the drink? Hallucinations? Fairies? Dead lovers?

Except she wasn’t foxed. She was wholly and fully—and painfully—sober.

Jules stared at a dark corner of the carriage, the rocking of the coach grating on her nerves for far too long a stretch of time. She wanted to be far—far away. In a room where she could hide, hide away under blankets until the nightmare of this night was over.

Lady Hewton’s estate was two hours away, and they’d only travelled an hour’s worth of the distance at most.

Jules seethed in a breath, her skin starting to crawl. Then the coach started to slow.

The pounding of the hooves of the team of horses waned and the coach drifted into a crawl.

Jules sat upright, scooting along the bench to lean forward and pull the dark curtain aside. She couldn’t see anything in the moonlight ahead of them from her angle. They were definitely coming to a stop. But they were still far from Lady Hewton’s estate.

Prickles spiked along the back of her neck and Jules looked around the interior of the coach, her eyes desperate. A box for liquor, but she’d already peeked inside of it on the journey to Wolfbridge. What should have held weapons—at the very least a pistol—for just such an instance only held varying bottles of brandy and wine.

Damn that she had only one dagger strapped to her leg. It’d taken her a year back in England to break the habit of attaching three blades to various parts of her body. And now that she truly needed it, she was nearly defenseless. The short blade on her calf was good to ward off overly zealous gentlemen in shadowy corridors—not to truly injure someone.

“Lady Julianna—is she in the carriage?” Des’s voice, loud and commanding, cut into the interior of the coach.

Damn.

She froze, her fingers pulling the curtain back into place.

Please don’t tell him. Please.

“I’m not at liberty to impart any information, sir,” the driver said.

Thank you. No. No, I’m not in here.

“I’m Lord Troubant and I do need verification from you, good sir.”

Lord Troubant? Who the hell was Lord Troubant?

“Yes, m’lord, the lady is inside,” the driver said. “She requested to be brought back to Lady Hewton’s estate.”

“Yes, well, Lady Hewton needs her carriage back at Wolfbridge immediately,” Des said. “I was sent to fetch you and then accompany the lady onward to Lady Hewton’s estate.”

Jules’s fingers clutched onto the corner of the back curtain as her forehead scrunched. Escort her onward? What madness was Des thinking?

“Well, that…is unusual. Of course, Lady Hewton is an unusual sort.” The driver’s words paused for a long moment. “On horseback? You are positive? Perhaps the lady can accompany us back to Wolfbridge.”

“We could ask her,” Des replied far too casually.

The bugger. Jules dropped the curtain and sank back into the corner of the carriage. What could Des possibly imagine she would say?

Please, oh please let me climb onto your horse so you can swoop me away and ravage me again while your wife waits for you back at Wolfbridge.

The door of the carriage opened and the footman peered in at her.

“M’lady?” He opened the door further.

Des sat on a horse behind the footman, his look finding her instantly, the glare in his eyes skewering her.

The carriage jostled as the driver scampered down from his perch and came to the door of the carriage. “Did you hear what Lord Troubant said, m’lady? Do you know this gentleman?”

No. No, she knew no Lord Troubant.Her head shook, but her blasted mouth opened. “Yes.”

The driver glanced over his shoulder at Des, his gloved hands twitching as he looked back at Jules. “Would you like to ride back to Wolfbridge with us? It is advisable, m’lady.”

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