Page 31 of Duchess By Condition
“My mother wasn’t nice to me. She used to scream at me—hit me if I was bad. And one day she told me to wait for her on a corner, and she didn’t come back.” His jaw tensed. “I don’t care. I don’t want to go back with her anyway. I like it much better here.”
“Here is where you will stay,” Violet assured him, and glanced at Jonathan.
“That’s right,” Jonathan agreed. “You belong with us now. This is your home, and no one is ever going to make you say farewell to it.”
But Noah was still frowning. “You saidus.”
“What?”
“‘You belong withus.’ That’s what you said,” Noah said. “But how can I belong with both of you when you aren’t both going to stay here? Once you decide who owns this house truly, one of you will go. I can’t belong with both of you, because you don’t belong with each other.”
He had said this matter-of-factly, as if he was pointing out something obvious and nothing more. But the words struck like a dagger in the pit of Jonathan’s stomach.
The boy was right.
No matter how easy and pleasant things were becoming between the three of them…this wasn’t forever.
And whoever lost the house was going to lose Noah, too.
CHAPTER 17
If I leave this house, I leave Noah in his hands.
Violet tossed and turned, thinking about it. It wasn’t the worst outcome imaginable, as she’d once believed it might be. In fact, it wasn’t even bad. Having seen Noah with Jonathan today and the way the two had interacted, she had no fear of what his future might hold if Jonathan were the one given charge of him.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? In the beginning, I told myself that it had to be me because he couldn’t be trusted. That’s not true anymore…so what do I have that will convince anyone I should be the one to keep the house and to keep Noah?
She didn’t fear for Noah’s future if he was with Jonathan—but she would be grieved to lose him. Already, he felt so much a part of her life.
It had broken her heart to hear him talk about the way his life had been before he had come to live with Aunt Margaret.Just the thought of anyone treating him badly was painful. She wished she knew who his parents had been. They ought to face consequences. That his mother had been cruel to him and then abandoned him was almost more than Violet could bear to think of.
With a sigh, she sat upright. She had been lying here trying to sleep for hours, and it just wasn’t working. There seemed to be no point in it. Maybe it would help to get up for a while and go to the library to read. That always helped to quiet her mind.
She pulled on a robe over her nightgown, stepped into her slippers, and lit the lantern beside her bed. Picking it up, she tiptoed across the floor, avoiding the boards that creaked.
The hallway was dark, the light from her lantern throwing unpleasant shadows on the walls. The way they danced and flickered was spooky to Violet, making her feel more nervous than she would have otherwise. The house seemed larger and more ominous than it did during the day, and for a moment she regretted coming out at all.
I shouldn’t feel that way, though. This is my house. I have every right in the world to walk the halls at night. I’m not doing anything I shouldn’t be.
She reached the library at last, thankfully, opened the door, and went inside, turning to close it behind her. As she pulled it shut, she rested her forehead for just a moment on the thick wood. The fire was still burning in here—perhaps the servants hadn’t reached this room to extinguish it yet—and unlike her lantern inthe hall, the flickering against the walls was soft and pleasant. Soothing.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
She whirled around with a gasp, nearly dropping the lantern in her surprise.
Jonathan was sitting in the armchair by the fire, a glass of amber liquid in one hand and a book in the other. He closed the book and set it down, taking a sip of his drink. “What brings you here in the middle of the night?” he asked.
“I…” she bit her lip. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. I didn’t know anyone would be here.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets—and then, suddenly, she was painfully aware of the fact that she was in her nightclothes. She took a quick step back and wrapped her arms around her body.
Jonathan was watching her. “Would you like to come in?”
“I—I don’t want to bother you…”
“You aren’t bothering me,” he told her. “I was just reading. I couldn’t sleep either, and sometimes spending some time with a book helps me.”
Violet nodded, surprised to realize that they had this in common. “It does me too,” she said. “I came here thinking Iwould read for a while, but…well, maybe I’ll just find a book and take it back to my room.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “If you want to read in here, you certainly can.”
