Much to Augusta’s disgust, the two of them engaged in talk about horses and bloodlines, while she tried to speak to the Whitington ladies over the men’s loud and boisterous voices about English society and the upcoming ball. Throughout, Maximilian observed Wilmot had barely touched his supper but drank copious amounts of wine. Concerned, he surreptitiously watched his brother.
Wilmot seemed more withdrawn than ever. Noticing that he flicked his glance toward his mother with a strange and frightful look in his eyes, Maximilian began to worry. He had not forgotten that night in the garden when Wilmot confessed to hating her.
Wilmot, I know you are not the brightest lamp in the house, but please do not do anything stupid.
Chapter 28
“Iam not going to do anything stupid,” Eugenia said to Lady Helena the next morning. “But I have to do something, or this assassin – or whatever he is – will finally kill the Duke.”
Lady Helena crossed the room and flounced on the couch with a sigh. “What do you have in mind?”
“Outside of setting myself up as bait?” Eugenia asked, pacing around the chamber. “I have no idea.”
“Perhaps you should drop it,” Lady Helena suggested. “After all, did you not say His Grace would not allow it?”
“What he does not know will not enable him to stop me.”
“Oh. So, you are going behind his back.”
Eugenia stopped pacing. “If we succeed in catching this madman, then surely the Duke will thank and forgive me.”
“Provided you are not dead.”
Setting her hands on her hips, Eugenia glared at her friend. “I thought you were going to help me.”
“I am having second thoughts. This is dangerous, Eugenia. Even His Grace forbade it.”
“This is the only way to lure this lunatic from hiding,” Eugenia insisted, resuming her pacing. “What if he succeeds in killing the Duke?”
At the thought, Eugenia’s throat closed up.
Max dead?
She could not visualize her life without him. Though she knew she liked him, enjoyed his company, and until now, she never truly understood her own feelings. When Lady Helena brought word to her of the robbers’ attack on Max, she remembered how the news brought her out of her own fears, terrors.
Only Max mattered. If keeping him safe meant she gave up her life, then she would do so, willingly.
Is that not love? To love someone means sacrifice, even of one’s life.
She now realized she loved him above and beyond her own life.
I love him. Oh, how I love him.
“I love him, Helena,” she said softly. “God help me, but I love him. If he is killed, my life is over. I cannot live without him.”
Lady Helena sat up straighter. “I suspected all along you loved him, but to hear you say it – it’s incredible. I know I said I think you two were meant for each other, but now – now it’s really real.”
Eugenia sat down in a chair. “It is real. I have never felt like this before. But I am serious, I cannot sit here and do nothing while the man I love is stalked like some bloody deer.”
Bursting out into shocked laughter, Lady Helena covered her mouth. “Oh, dear. Eugenia, you just cursed. I have to tell my mother.”
Eugenia giggled. “You better not. She might take to her bed again, and she just got out of it.”
“Maybe I should tell the Duchess,” Lady Helena said, squealing with laughter. “She will inform you at great length how ladies of quality never curse but sit at their sewing and talk about other people.”
“I never claimed to be a lady of quality,” Eugenia replied. Holding her ribs, she laughed.
“Why is it gossip is supposed to be a sin, yet that is all some women like the Duchess ever do?”
