The Worthington Wife. Sharon Page

more, she thought. “Please don’t be harsh with her.”

      “I must be harsh, or we’re ruined. I suppose she is balking at her duty. She is behaving like a foolish modern girl who wants to marry for love. I suppose she has fallen in love with someone unsuitable, just to spite me.”

      “How—?”

      “Aha! I thought as much.” The countess fixed Julia with a penetrating gaze. Julia was astounded at the rapid change in the woman—she had been on the verge of collapse, now she was sharp and angry. This must be what sheer fear did to a person. And it appeared Cal hadn’t told her of his plan. Lady Worthington did not know the worst of what Cal wanted to do.

      “Who is she in love with?” the countess demanded.

      Julia swallowed hard. She believed in honesty but she had to lie for Diana. “You are wrong. She is willing to marry him. For all your sakes.”

      “Do not sound so disapproving with me, Lady Julia Hazelton. I will protect my family at any cost. Remember that.”

      “But Cal is in pain, as well,” Julia said. “I do not approve of what he is doing, but it comes from a place of great hurt. Was there a horrible thing that was done to him? If I knew what it was, I could—”

      “It is none of your business!” The countess’s voice crackled like ice. “Now go. Please.”

      “I will. I will go to see Cal and try to put a stop to this.”

      She must do so—just as she had promised Anthony she would look after his family. He couldn’t have known such a disaster would strike, and it now seemed so sad and eerie that he had begged her so passionately to take care of them all.

      She marched out of the room, but as she reached the hallway, she heard the countess erupt into violent sobs. Julia hesitated. Did the countess need her?

      She paused just outside the door, her hand on the door frame.

      “I will lose everything,” the countess gasped, through choking sobs. “John, you wretched fool. I would have protected you. You didn’t have to take your own life.”

      Julia was stunned. Lady Worthington had lost her eldest son, Anthony, at the Somme. And her youngest son, John, in a motorcar accident. But surely, John’s accident had not been deliberate? It had been a foggy night. It was assumed John had taken a wrong turn—the gate to the lane leading to the quarry had been left open. In the poor light, he must have mistakenly gone that way, expecting the gate to be closed, as it usually was. He had gone over the edge—

      Julia knew she should not go in now. The countess would be appalled to think her words had been overheard. But if she had kept such a painful secret for years—one Julia wasn’t sure how the countess could know—she had suffered greatly in silence. Julia wished to help.

      She paused a moment, hoping to cover her eavesdropping, and knocked lightly on the door. Stepping back into the room, she saw Lady Worthington set down her cup. With a frightening calm, the countess said, “The curse is true. There is nothing left for me but tragedy.”

      “Lady Worthington, please don’t say such a thing,” Julia began.

      “Why should you care about us? You could marry the new earl and become mistress of Worthington after all.”

      The woman spoke with such bitterness, Julia recoiled. “No. I don’t want that at all. I want only the happiness that comes from love—”

      “Happiness? What utter madness! Who would aspire to happiness? Who would chase such a fleeting and horrible thing? No one is happy, Julia. Life is about perseverance. I have to protect my girls. That is what is left for me. Protecting them. Settling them. Then nothing can touch them. Nothing.”

      “Let them find happiness. Please.”

      But the countess’s eyes blazed. “I know what is best for them. Now please go. I wish to be alone.”

      Julia left, drawing the door closed firmly this time. She was going to leave, but not without confronting Cal over what he was doing.

      She knew the countess had spoken the truth in those unhappy moments. The countess believed the crash had been deliberate, not an accident.

      But what had driven John to do it?

      * * *

      “Yes, milady,” the Worthington maid replied, in answer to Julia’s question. “His lordship has gone upstairs, to the attics.”

      “The attics? Are you sure?”

      “Yes, milady.” The girl tried to maintain a dutiful expression but then it failed, and her eyes were wide with excitement. “We’ve all been talking about it downstairs. Lord Worthington went belowstairs to speak with Mrs. Feathers. Then he wanted to know how to go up to the attics.”

      “Is it true he has let go his valet, a footman and a hall boy?” Julia asked.

      The girl nodded. “It is true, milady. He said they are to find better employment. He told the valet that having a man button his shirt was demeaning to both of them. Mr. Wiggins was right shocked—oh, I didn’t mean to be speaking out of turn, milady.”

      “I will not say a word to the housekeeper, I promise,” Julia said.

      As soon as she turned away from the maid, her patient smile died. She’d already heard Mrs. Feathers’s account of events. To ensure the cook stayed, she needed Cal.

      Who was in the attic. For what purpose, she couldn’t imagine.

      Julia hurried to the stairs that led to the upper story of the house—here were the servants’ rooms and the nurseries. Sunlight spilled out into the hallway floor from a room at the end of the corridor and she smelled a strong odor, like potent alcohol.

      Was Cal up here drinking?

      Julia reached the doorway of the unused nursery—

      And stopped in her tracks. A wooden easel stood in the middle of the room, a table set up beside it. A painting stood on the easel, but all Julia could see was Cal’s back. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to bare his forearms. She’d never seen arms tanned to a dark copper on any man but a laborer or farmer. Wide shoulders filled out the linen shirt, and the tails hung out of his trousers. His feet were bare.

      He balanced a flat board covered in blobs of oil paint and mixed it with a long, black-handled brush.

      The muscles of his broad back moved under his shirt.

      She was rooted to the spot—warm, breathless and feeling as if everything had fallen away.

      Then Cal moved and she saw the picture.

      “But that’s me,” she gasped.

      It was a painting of the terrace where she had stood last night. The picture was only partly finished. It was sketched with lead pencil and her face was filled in, as was some of the background of the night sky.

      It was a wild, modernist painting—the sky was rendered in vivid slashes of black and indigo and violet, with gray layered upon it to show moonlit clouds. The sky truly looked as if the clouds were hurtling past the moon. And against all that darkness, she seemed to glow like a candle’s flame.

      Cal turned. “I don’t let anyone look at my unfinished work.”

      “The door was open,” she pointed out.

      “I was told nobody comes up here in the daytime.”

      She looked past him at the intense, vibrant portrait. The woman’s face was definitely hers, but more perfect. Her lips even looked as if moisture glistened on them. The blue eyes seemed to burn with inner fire.

      “What do you think of it?” he asked.

      “You’ve made me much more vivacious and interesting than I really am.”

      “I paint what I see, angel—but tempered with