Page 44 of The Lion Duke's Proposal
She had known, when she made the decision to speak, that she was handing him the one advantage she had kept for herself. She had known and done it anyway. There was a lightness that camewith it, not relief, not exactly, but something cleaner than the weight she had been carrying.
"I am aware," she continued, "that you now hold every card there is to hold. I hold none. I expect nothing in return for telling you this information. I only wish to have done what is right." She looked at him steadily. "Whatever that costs me."
The Duke's jaw shifted, almost imperceptibly. Something moved through his eyes that was not anger or gratitude.
"He will be expecting money," he said.
"Yes. I rather think he assumed the engagement implied a more generous set of circumstances than currently exists."
"He'll contact you again when you don't respond."
"He will." She turned the sealed envelope in her hands before giving it to him. "I thought you ought to know before he does."
"I see."
Chapter Thirteen
They moved in companionable silence for a time, following the path as it curved gradually inward. He tracked their position, counting the turns, building the layout in his mind the way his father had taught him.
Keep a map of where you are. A man who loses his bearings loses everything else shortly afterward.
He had been keeping his bearings where Julia Norish was concerned since the morning when she stepped out of a broken carriage on Aldgate Street and argued with him in front of half of London.
"I find myself curious," he said.
She glanced at him, waiting. She had the quality, which he had come to appreciate more than he expected, of not filling silences unnecessarily.
"When your carriage broke down on Aldgate Street." He kept his eyes on the path ahead. "What was your initial assessment of the situation?"
A brief pause. She knew exactly what he was doing. "I assessed that the wheel had given way and the carriage was no longer serviceable."
"And of your own position within that situation?"
"That it was inconvenient."
"Inconvenient." He let the word stand. "Not hopeless?"
"It might have felt so at some point, but I did my best not to dwell on those thoughts. Besides, I never used the word."
"You didn't need to." He glanced at her. "You stepped out of a broken-down carriage in the middle of a busy London street, argued with a complete stranger in front of a gathering crowd, and still managed to get yourself, your sister, and what I can only describe as a remarkable quantity of luggage safely to your destination."
She kept her expression composed. It was the expression she used when she was mildly pleased and did not intend to show it. "I had very little choice in the matter."
"Most people, given very little choice, do very little." He looked ahead again. "You are not most people, Julia. I rather think you know that."
She was quiet for a moment. The path split ahead, and she chose left without breaking stride, following an angle he had also calculated toward the center. He fell in beside her and said nothing about it.
"You make it sound like an accomplishment," she said finally. "It was not. It was simply a necessity."
"Most accomplishments are."
He watched the words land. Something shifted in her expression, small and quickly contained, and she looked ahead and did not respond. He did not press her.
The center opened before them. The hedges pulled back into a wide circular clearing with a stone table at its center and three interlocking puzzle boxes arranged on top. Four paths led outward in other directions. All of them were empty.
First.
He moved to the table and took the second box, leaving her the first, which had a sequence of engraved symbols along its face. She picked it up without hesitation and began turning it in her hands, her attention complete and immediate. He had noticedthat about her from early on. When Julia Norish focused her mind on something, she did not apply herself by halves.
