Read Online Loving Julia by Karen Robards - Free Book Online Page B

not enormous principal and promptly ran through every last shilling of it. But Timothy had been furious, and had stormed out of the house in high dudgeon. That had been some six months ago, and as Timothy had his own bachelor lodgings Sebastian had not seen him since.
    But there was one thing that Sebastian could do for Timothy, and he had already set the wheels in motion to do it: He could see that the boy’s killer was hanged from the highest tree at Tyburn. Already he had a pair of Bow Street runners on the job. Now that Mistress Jewel Combs—no, Julia Stratham, how could
    he have forgotten?—had turned up they would have far more to go on than they had before. The girl’s story had enough holes in it to drive a carriage through, but he was sure somewhere in her web of lies lay the truth.
    He opened his eyes and reached for pen and paper, scribbling a brief note, then sanding the missive, folding, and sealing it. He got to his feet, moving over to the bell pull and tugging it impatiently. When Smathers answered his summons, he handed the butler the note.
    “Have this taken around to Bow Street if you please. At once.”
    “Yes, my lord.” Smathers bowed himself out, and Sebastian stared at the closed door for an instant. He found himself hoping that the stupid little chit had not been the one who had knifed Timothy. For all her vulgarity she was scarcely more than a child, and a hungry, frightened one at that. It would sit ill with him to have her hanged.
    Sentimental nonsense, he told himself harshly. Moving abruptly toward the door, he decided he would go out after all.

VI
    “I tell ya, I will not do it!” Jewel glared at the assembled trio of women who were regarding her with varying degrees of exasperated contempt.
    “The master said you were to have a bath, Miss Julia, and a bath you shall have.” Mrs. Masters advanced on Jewel with a martial light in her eye. Jewel, an equally battle ready gleam in her own eyes, crouched slightly and raised her clenched fists into fighting position.
    “C’mon, then, ya fat sow,” she hissed. “I’ll dump ya and yer gang in this contraption if ya like, but that’s as near as I’ll come ter it! And ya may take those words as ’oly writ because I mean wot I say!”
    Mrs. Masters stopped in her tracks, glaring at Jewel as she seemed to think better of her plan to strip the girl and place her in the steaming porcelain tub by main force. Behind her one of the young maids put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. The other one merely watched goggle-eyed.
    “Very well then, Miss Julia, I will see to it that the master is informed of your wishes,” Mrs. Masters said stiffly, a light that promised retribution in her eyes. With a martial nod of her head and a swish of her ample black skirts, Mrs. Masters swept from the room, leaving the two maids to follow.
    The door closed with awful gentleness behind the three of them. Jewel slowly allowed herself to relax. Mrs. Masters’ threat of going to the earl was an empty one, she guessed. The housekeeper would not dare bother her master about such a matter. Even if she did, Jewel thought, it would make no difference. The earl could have no notion of the dreadful thing that that woman expected her to do in the guise of carrying out his orders.
    A peremptory knock at the door made Jewel start. She whirled to face it just as it swung open. To her horror she found herself looking at the earl. He wore a fine topcoat of soft dark wool and a white silk scarf around his neck. Obviously he had just been about to go out. He entered without waiting for her permission to do so, moving with a deceptively lazy stride, his eyes narrowed as they ran over her person. Jewel took an instinctive step backwards at the coldness of his look, knowing from her short experience of him that it meant trouble. As she sternly tried to control her quailing insides, she caught just a glimpse of a smirking Mrs. Masters in the hallway outside before the earl