Page 9 of The Insufferable Duke
“Julia, listen to yourself.” Helena dropped to her knees in front of her sister, pleading with her hands clasped together. “You wish to believe in a man who has given us no cause to think he has a good heart. He and his brother are part of foul business practices. Our father has told you as much.”
“Or does our father just repeat tales he himself has heard? After all, our father wouldn’t do business with them, would he? So how would he know for certain?”
“Ah, that is too reasonable to argue with.” Helena stood and walked away from her sister again. She tarried by the window, looking out at the autumnal leaves that were falling from the trees. They marred the grass, making the earth appear a russet red. “Perhaps we do not know it from experience.”
“Exactly, Helena, that is what I am saying.” Julia turned in her seat, so she could keep Helena in sight. “What we know of the Moores is just what we have always been told, and this last year, I have seen who Robert truly is.” She abruptly smiled through her tears.
That smile was such a full one that Helena was captivated by her sister’s enthusiasm.
“You truly believe him to be a good man, don’t you?” Helena murmured in wonder.
Julia didn’t answer at first, for the shouts in the next room grew so loud, they both looked toward the door. Julia cowered in the settee as a wounded dog might hide from its master.
“I know he is a good man. I have seen it time and time again when I have escaped you at balls, just to know him better.” Julia smiled sadly. “I am not a woman whose head has been turned within a week, believing herself to be in love after a few kind words. It is much greater than that.”
“Love.” Helena stumbled away from the window, reaching the back of her sister’s chair and clutching to it with her fingers. Julia looked up at her imploringly, her eyes wide. “You said love.”
“I did.” Julia nodded. “That is because I am in love. My heart belongs to Robert. Completely!” She giggled, delighted by her own words though that sound deadened to silence as the shouts grew irate from the next room.
“I wish I could protect you from those shouts.” Helena placed her hands over her sister’s ears in gentle playfulness before she let them fall. Julia smiled at her and nodded.
“Yet you cannot, I know it.”
“Julia, please, listen to me. If you tell me that you love Lord Robert, then I’ll believe you.” Helena leaned toward her sister. “Yet I do not wish to see your heart broken by a Moore. You have to be certain that you can trust him.”
“I am certain, completely,” Julia said, standing and then kneeling on the chair, so she was closer to Helena. “Nothing could make me waiver in my devotion to him. Helena, I have considered this many times, but I am now more certain of it than ever. If our parents refuse the match, I intend to elope with Robert.”
CHAPTERFOUR
“You will have to vacate that chair, for I fear I am about to fall into it.” Helena rounded the chair just as Julia escaped, and she slumped down into it.
Elope. She talks of eloping with Lord Robert!
A strange tense silence settled between them. Repeatedly, Julia glanced at the door, plainly listening to the worried shouts of their family, but Helena didn’t glance at the door once now. She had other things to think of. She had to think of Julia.
“Good Lord, you truly love him to speak of eloping,” Helena muttered, more to herself than to her sister at all.
She knew Julia had been raised with the same proper values she had. Once when they had been younger, they’d talked of the manner of eloping. They’d even laughed at the women who were so carried away with their hearts as to run to Gretna Green to do such a thing. Now, it proved to Helena just how passionately her sister cared for Lord Robert.
“It’s the truth,” Julia whispered, turning to one of the potted palms beside Helena and fiddling with the leaves, restlessly. “You wish me to be happy, do you not? As I wish the same for you.”
“How can you even ask me that? Of course, I do,” Helena declared vigorously. “It just startles me that the man you are convinced will make you happy is a member of that family!”
“You say that as if he carries a disease.” Julia rolled her eyes. “He is a good man, no matter what blood runs in his veins.”
“Oh, you’re right.” Helena sat forward, hanging her head in his hands. “In truth, most of what I have heard is about the Duke of Bridstone regardless. I’ve heard much less about his brother.”
“He is a good man,” Julia said, her voice strained as she wiped more tears from her cheeks with frantic fingers. “Trust me as I trust him.”
“If you wish it of me.” Helena looked at her sister. Despite her words, she was not convinced. With time, she would see with her own eyes if Lord Robert was a man that could be trusted or not.
If he is a good man, he will come here to propose to save her from scandal. If he does not come… then he is the man that I fear him to be.
“I need your help.” Julia dragged a footstool in front of Helena and dropped onto the cushion, leaning toward her. “Our father would never condone a match between Robert and I.”
“He certainly would not.” Helena agreed with a hasty nod. “He has venom in him when it comes to the Moores.”
“Precisely.” Julia’s hands clasped and unclasped in front of her, an old nervous habit that was now returning to her. “But you could change his mind and our mother’s mind.”
