“Mina—.” The familiar voice held more disappointment than warning. Her maid, Bridget, had found her.
“Your Grace.” Her maid nodded to Julian.
Apparently, his bear costume hadn’t fooled Bridget either. Whenever an adult addressed her brothers’ friend with his formal title, Mina had to bite her lip to keep from bursting into laughter. The tall, thin Duke of Montfort was only thirteen, a mere eight years older than Mina.
“Right,” he answered. “Miss Rumsford must have escaped the nursery whilst no one was looking.”
Bridget dipped a curtsy and grasped Mina’s hand with a tight squeeze. “We’ll make sure she’s tucked in proper, Your Grace, with a hot drink.” The maid turned and hurried her to the servants’ staircase, squeezing her hand more tightly.
Once they were well out of Julian’s hearing, Bridget added in a loud whisper. “You could have caught your death of the snuffles, my girl.”
“But I was dancing, Bridget. I was dancing. Julian taught me to dance.” She did a little pirouette and a skip in the slippers her maid had brought with her and made Mina put on her bare feet.
Bridget shook her head sadly but said nothing. Her young charge had many years ahead of her to learn how the likes of the young duke were not for her. She feared John Taylor’s beloved daughter had a lifetime of heartaches to come.
2
Julian made his way carefully down the winding staircase entrance toward the mad whirl of dancers crowding the masque ball below the balcony. He explained away the weird flutters in his chest evinced by his friends’ bratty younger sister by his outrage that no one ever seemed to care what the child did.
He tried not to notice how Mina’s lonely existence closely mirrored his own. His father had died when he was no more than two, and his mother, the dowager duchess, having done her duty by providing an heir to her much older husband, now spent her life in London, leaving Julian to the spotty care and guidance of the elderly ducal estate retainer.
“Julian—.”
And for the love of God, did everyone see past his bear-like disguise? Perhaps he should have his valet add some padding to his shoulders and stomach.
“Julian—down here…”
Now he spotted George and Wills. They were dressed like Don Quixote and his faithful squire Sancho. His two school chums were taking advantage of their disguises’ sweeping hat brims to hide their faces while they quaffed more champagne than they’d normally be allowed.
Julian slowly made his way down the wide, curving staircase, taking care not to topple the heavy, stifling bear’s head, and threaded his way through the whirling dancers to join his friends.
“Look, look over there.” Wills pointed toward a couple dressed as Aphrodite and Zeus. Although yards of fabric swathed each of them in the traditional Greek costumes, the sheerness of the woman’s dress left little to wonder about what might lie beneath.
At that moment, Julian was thankful for the hot, smelly bear’s head. It hid the burn of embarrassment sweeping across his face. His mother must have returned from London for his friends’ father’s annual masque. God only knew who “Zeus” might be. The eyes behind the man’s mask glittered and seemed to devour the sight Julian’s mother offered.
At the odd times when Julian yearned for a family of his own, like that of his friends, he realized he did have a sort of extended family, but outrageous behavior of his mother, the dowager duchess, made the thought of close familial ties utterly repugnant.
He vowed he’d have a family of his own. Someday. And he would never allow his children to feel as outcast and embarrassed as he’d felt over the years. They would be loved and protected. Someday. But that meant he’d have to take a wife, he realized with a jolt. Someday.
Although he’d never known his father, he’d come to feel close to the man through the vast library Simon Jameson, the previous Duke of Montfort, had left behind at Edgewood House. His father had been a scholar who’d spent most of his life seeking answers to the mysteries surrounding the Templar Knights. On many lonely evenings, Julian had sat in his father’s old chair by the fireplace in the library and tried to imagine what the devil the man had found so blasted fascinating in the dry, boring historical texts.
His mother Arial, on the other hand, the Dowager Duchess of Montfort, was not at all difficult to understand. She wanted to enjoy life to the fullest, in London, as far away from Edgewood House as she could get. In the unlikely event he needed her counsel, she could always be found at their London townhouse on Hanover Square, as long as he sought her out sufficiently late in the afternoon. She’d been only seventeen when she’d married his father and given birth to Julian, the heir, as decently fast as possible thereafter.
She had no interest in the country life and even less in her scholarly husband who conveniently died soon after Julian’s appearance.
Any truly serious counsel he needed from time to time had to come from their ancient family retainer who had overseen the vast country estate and other Montfort holdings over the years. Most of the time, he and the ancient man rattled about cavernous Edgewood House, rarely even encountering one another.
However, on one notable occasion, Julian had dared ask the question that had nagged at him for so many years. “Why? Why did my father marry my mother?”
Harwood Beesley’s reply was guarded. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, it just seems, it’s hard to fathom…”
When he’d stopped overcome with embarrassment, Beesley continued for him. “Are you asking why a reclusive scholar like your father married a woman, erm, like your mother?”
“Yes, yes, I guess that’s what I was trying to say…” Julian had choked into silence at that point, too flummoxed to continue.
After a long silence, the older man had continued. “I rather think your father’s reason was simple. It was his duty.”
