Page 29 of A Diamond for a Duke
Jemmah alit, wearing a simple blue coat, a trifle too short, and a plain straw bonnet. She reached inside the conveyance, and after withdrawing a battered valise, faced the grand house.
Did her shoulders slump the slightest? The regal column of her neck bend as if she bore a weighty burden?
“Miss Dament.”
His regard never left her as his legs ate up the distance between them.
Never had he beheld anything half as lovely as when she turned, and upon spying him, joy blossomed across her face. All these years of being a sensible, logical sort, and now he felt as giddy as a lad in short pants or a foxed-to-his-gills tippler at being gifted a wondrous smile.
“Your Grace.”
She dipped into a smooth curtsy as he bowed, but not before he saw her red-rimmed eyes, framed by spiky lashes.
And the telltale salty trail across her cheeks once more.
An ink-stained fingertip poked from the gloved hand clutching the valise. Perhaps the drawings she’d promised were tucked within the dilapidated piece of luggage that was older than she, if it was a day.
She’d known deprivation, and a dull ache settled in his gut at the awareness.
Much had happened to his Jemmah in the years since they’d parted ways, most of it not good.
As the carriage rattled away, he took her valise and her elbow, but rather than escorting her up the front steps, Jules directed her ’round back, toward the mews.
Confusion knitting her brow, she cast a glance behind her.
“Where are we going?”
“Where I can have a word with you in private.”
Once hidden from the street, he placed his forefinger beneath her chin and raised her face.
“What has happened, dear one?”
The light faded from her lovely eyes, and the tears pooled there slowly leaked from the corners.
Such anguish of spirit reflected in her soul that he gathered her in his arms.
To hell with decorum and propriety.
She needed comfort.
Simple as that.
Sagging into his chest, she wept softly, brokenheartedly.
Her scent, that light clean smell of soap and lavender and perhaps the tiniest hint of rose water wafted upward as her shoulders shook with her grief.
“My dear, Jemmah. Please tell me. What has caused you such distress?”
Her hat’s tattered edge scraped his chin as she struggled to compose herself.
“Mama has turned me out, and I’ve nowhere to go but to impose upon Aunt Theo’s hospitality.”
“Why would she do such a thing?”
He veered a swift glance around.
Good.
