Kathryn Smith - [Friends 03] (33 page)

Julian went to her. He set his hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged them off. "This is not about faith. This is about wanting to see you happy. Wesley is a fine man, but he cannot afford to marry you."

Fixing him with a look that could freeze Hades itself, his sister replied, "If our father were alive he would care more about my happiness than money."

With that charge ringing in the air between them, Letitia turned on her heel and opened the door. Julian caught a glimpse of Mr. Wesley standing there waiting before Letitia slammed the heavy oak shut behind her.

His shoulders sagging, Julian went back to his desk and dropped into his chair with a heavy heart. If their father were alive it would be him making this decision, not Julian.

What was he doing wrong? Was there something he just wasn't seeing? Because while he could understand Letitia's anger, he just didn't understand why she couldn't see things clearly. Was she so in love with Wesley that her judgment was completely altered? She had to know as well as he that right now, Wesley was a bad match. She just wanted him so badly that she refused to see the truth.

Normally he would be proud of her for being so determined, but she was only deluding herself.

Who was he to make that decision?
A voice in the back of his head demanded. Perhaps Letitia and Wesley could make things work. Perhaps his sister could learn to economize for the sake of love.

No. Despite what the poets— and that included Julian himself— often said, it was impossible to live by love alone. The lack of money and Letitia's inherent extravagance would lead to problems for the two lovers, despite the depth of their regard for each other. The realization did little to ease his guilt.

What if he hadn't been allowed to marry Sophia? What if someone had prevented him the chance to win her love? She made him so whole, so happy.

What if Wesley was the only man who could ever make Letitia happy? Did he have the right to deny her that? But what if Wesley made her miserable instead? How was he to determine the difference? It had taken Sophia and himself seven years to come together. In seven years Letitia would be one and thirty. She couldn't afford to wait that long.

Leaning his head back against the soft padding of the chair, he closed his eyes and wished for Sophia to appear. She would tell him whether or not he was in the wrong.

He could always count on Sophia to be honest.

After arriving home from shopping with Letitia, Sophia went up to her bedroom to sort through her purchases. She would much rather join Letitia in Julian's study to share in her friend's happiness, but she thought brother and sister would appreciate the privacy.

And so she waited a good twenty minutes before going downstairs to her husband's study. She found him at the window, staring out at the back garden, a tumbler of amber liquid in his hand.

"See anything interesting?" she asked lightly, crossing the carpet toward him.

He turned and smiled at her. There was an odd sadness to it. "Not until you appeared." He held out his hand to her.

Blushing in pleasure at his flattery, Sophia took it. His fingers were warm and strong around hers as he drew her to his side.

"Are Letitia and Marcus Wesley still out there?"

Sophia raised her brows and smiled. It wouldn't be right of her to pretend complete surprise, but she didn't want to reveal how much she knew either. "Marcus Wesley, hmm? No. I would imagine they would want to celebrate in private."

"Celebrate?" Julian scowled as he took a sip of his drink. "Commiserate, more like it."

She couldn't hide her confusion. "But this morning, when you said a young man was coming to see you, you acted like it was going to be a pleasant visit."

Julian set his empty glass on a small table near the window. "It was— with young Lord Rutherford. I had no idea Wesley was going to call as well."

Sophia gazed at him with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. The watery sunlight streaming through the window fell across Julian's face, accentuating the tension around his mouth, the tiny lines around his eyes. He suddenly looked much older and much more tired than a man his age should.

She led him to the dark green brocade sofa in the center of the room. He put his head in her lap as he laid down.

Sophia smiled as she began combing her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp as she did so. "What happened?" she asked when the furrow between his brows was completely gone.

"I made a mess of things, Fe," he replied without opening his eyes. "As seems to be my habit as of late."

She rubbed his forehead with her thumb. "Tell me everything."

He told her how Letitia's exuberance that morning had pleased him, how he believed she knew it was Rutherford he spoke of. After all, she had agreed to spend more time with the young lord and she seemed to enjoy his company. What else was Julian to think?

Yes, Sophia agreed silently. What else was he to think when neither his sister nor his wife had told him the truth?

He had been so pleased when Rutherford left, thinking he had secured his sister's future happiness, only to find out he hadn't. And now he was torn between what he knew Letitia wanted and what he thought was best for her.

Sophia wasn't certain what to say. If she had betrayed Letitia's trust and told Julian the truth they might have been able to avoid this. If Julian knew how much his sister loved Marcus, then he might have tried to find a way to allow a marriage to take place. Certainly he wouldn't have accepted Rutherford's suit had he known his sister's heart was engaged elsewhere.

"Did Letitia never even try to tell you about Mr. Wesley?" she asked instead. Letitia had often insisted that she had tried to talk to Julian about her lover, but Sophia wondered just how honest her sister-in-law had been.

"She mentioned him once or twice. I knew she had a partiality toward him, but I told her how unsuitable he was and that was the end of it. Had I known that she loved him…"

"Would it have made a difference if you had known?" Sophia asked when he trailed off. She wasn't certain she wanted to hear his answer.

Julian shrugged, his shoulder blades rolling against her thighs. "Probably not, but at least I might have handled the situation more appropriately. As it is, I would not be surprised if Letitia did not speak to me again for a week."

His words both soothed and worried Sophia. He assauged her guilt by saying the truth wouldn't have changed things, but his dismissal of Letitia's anger worried her immensely. What if Letitia didn't stop at simply not speaking to her brother?

"You do not think she will do something foolish, do you?" she asked, unable to keep her fears solely to herself.

Letitia was an emotional girl, given to mood swings and flights of melodrama. Sophia wouldn't be surprised if this latest episode played directly to the younger woman's theatrical nature and drove her to do something worthy of a farce on the Drury Lane stage.

"You mean other than locking herself in her room, sobbing and threatening not to eat until I relent?" her husband remarked, his tone rife with mock gravity. "I doubt it. Letitia likes being able to use my credit about town too much to risk losing it."

Sophia feared he was quite wrong. Letitia was more spoiled than Julian ever had been— the fault for which had to rest mostly on Julian's own shoulders. It wouldn't occur to her that Julian would ever turn his back on her completely. Letitia would believe that Julian would pay her bills and take care of her even if she did marry Wesley, and she would be right. Julian would never disown her, no matter what she did.

And that included running away with her lover.

She moved to stand. "Perhaps I should go check on her."

Julian's weight on her legs stopped her from rising. Opening his eyes, he gazed at her with an expression that made her heart crack against her ribs. It was an expression of loving amusement. It was the loving bit that broke her heart.

"You do not have to do that, Sophia. It is what Letitia will want— someone to sympathize while she rants about her evil brother."

What could she do? She couldn't very well tell him that she thought he was wrong, could she? That she expected to go up to Letitia's room and either find her gone or preparing to leave?

"This has obviously been going on for some time, Julian," she said, her voice carefully measured. "Letitia came to me because she believed you were going to force her to marry. She risked your wrath then. What do you think she will do now that she thinks you have actually chosen a husband for her?"

Stupid, maddening man, he didn't even look concerned! "She knows I would never force her to wed against her will."

Her patience fraying badly, Sophia jumped to her feet. Julian's head bounced back against the sofa cushions.

"I think you are underestimating your sister," she informed him. "And I think I am going to go check on her."

Julian sat up, a confident smile on his face despite his tired eyes. "Go check on her, then, but I reserve the right to gloat when she decides to use you as an audience for her 'My Brother is a Despot' speech."

Sophia wished she could share in his humor. Really, he was so incredibly thick when it came to Letitia.

"I hope you have reason to gloat, Julian. I truly do."

She left him sitting there on the sofa, shaking his head as she hurried from the room.

Hiking her skirt up around her calves, Sophia ran down the corridor and up the stairs. By the time she reached the top she was out of breath, but it did not stop her from running the rest of the way to Letitia's room.

She knocked on the door. "Letitia?"

There was no answer. No sound of crying from inside either. Her heart pounding, Sophia turned the knob and opened the door. As it swung open, she peeked inside.

Letitia's room looked as it always did. The ivory bedspread was neatly smoothed over the mattress of the large four poster bed. A pile of peach-and-white pillows was artfully arranged near the top.

Sophia stepped inside, her gaze searching the rest of the room for any sign that something wasn't right. The vanity drawers were closed, and although the top of it looked a little bare, Sophia couldn't tell if anything was missing or not.

The wardrobe door was open ever so slightly, just enough that Sophia wanted to go open it and look inside. Why she was so compelled, especially when everything else looked normal, she didn't know, but she went and looked all the same.

The wardrobe was filled with some of Letitia's newest gowns,
some
being the operative word. Many of Letitia's gowns were gone. Sophia knew this because she had seen this wardrobe filled with gowns just a few days earlier, and now empty hangers dangled where those gowns had once hung.

Below the gowns, almost an entire row of footwear was gone as well.

Heart thumping, Sophia turned from the wardrobe, leaving the door hanging open as she whipped across the room to Letitia's dressing table. There were empty spots where several items had once stood, and when Sophia opened her sister-in-law's jewelry box, her worst fears were confirmed.

All of Letitia's jewelry was gone.

Back downstairs she flew, as fast as her feet could carry her. She almost fell halfway down, but managed to regain her footing just in time. She ran into Fielding at the bottom.

"Ah, Lady Wolfram," he said, his tone as warm as his smile. "Would you be on your way to his lordship's study?"

"Yes, I am," Sophia replied gasping for breath. "But I— "

"Then would you be so good as to give him this note from Lady Letitia?"

Sophia froze as the aging butler held a folded, unsealed sheet of paper to her. She took it with numb fingers. Letitia had left a note for Julian. Notes were never a good sign.

"It was very good of Mr. Wesley to offer to take her to Lady Wickford's like he did," Fielding went on. "I so dislike seeing young ladies travel unaccompanied, even if it is just around the corner."

Sophia could only stare at him. Poor, misguided, gullible Fielding. Letitia was going a lot farther than just around the corner, and since the person taking her wasn't in Julian's employ, there would be no way of knowing exactly where she went. One thing was for certain: Her destination was
not
Lady Wickford's.

"Thank you, Fielding," she heard herself say. "I will take this to Lord Wolfram at once."

As soon as the butler bowed and left, Sophia spun on her heel and ran to the study, Letitia's note crumpling in her sweating palm.

Julian looked up as she burst into the room, his expression of expectant amusement giving away to something much more raw and worried when his gaze fell upon her.

"She is gone," she said, offering him the note as she stumbled toward him. "Letitia has run away with Mr. Wesley."

D
umbfounded, Julian opened the note Sophia gave him.

Gone
. Letitia couldn't be gone. Even
she
wouldn't do something so stupid as to run off with Marcus Wesley. Would she?

The words on the paper confirmed his fears. He could scarcely breathe as he read.

No, of course she wasn't.

That's what she thought. Julian wasn't about to sit back and let Letitia make the worst mistake of her life. He would go after her. He'd start this instant if she hadn't written more that might give him some clue as to where they were bound. Gretna Green, no doubt— to be married by a blacksmith in Scotland.