Page 76 of Unmasking the Earl

When she’d finished with the ointment, she wiped her hands on a handkerchief, then looked over her shoulder.

Julian still lay with his back to them, apparently asleep. Now might be a good time to ask Ned what he’d meant by saying he was planning to “make her his own” when they were in the churchyard. Whatever his offer, she’d like to have time to prepare her answer.

“Ned—”

“Cassie, is that you?”

Blast.

She turned to see Julian sitting on the edge of his bed, supporting his head in his hands and looking decidedly unwell.

“Julian, you’re so pale! Excuse me,” she said to Ned, grabbing up her basket and hurrying across to examine her childhood friend.

Julian wasn’t just pale, he was positively green. There was a nasty gash where his head had struck the tombstone, and his shirt collar was dyed dark with blood.

“I’ve felt better,” he declared weakly.

Ned gave a derisive snort. “I’d say we both have.”

Could he be jealous because of Julian’s proposal at the churchyard, worried she might prefer Julian to him? She smiled. Perhaps it would do him good. He was always so cocksure of himself. And of her.

She dabbed a cloth in the water and set about gently dabbing around Julian’s wound. It felt so odd to be this close to him, closer than she’d been since they were children, closer even than when they’d last danced together. She could appreciate the high cheekbones, the light, waving hair, the aristocratic nose and brow. Despite the pallor of his skin, he was no less handsome than she’d ever thought him.

What an ironic twist of fate that he would suddenly wish to marry her, and she would no longer want him as more than a friend.

Julian seemed a stranger to her now. She had known another man’s touch—Ned’s touch—and the thought of Ned sitting just a few feet behind her affected her infinitely more deeply than Julian’s nearness.

“Are you going to take all day about that?”

Ned again. Yes, he was definitely jealous. And absolutely no good at hiding the fact. Did that bode well for his feelings for her? He had been ready to call Julian out, before all hell broke loose at the churchyard…

She smiled again. “I’ll just put a bandage over this to keep the wound clean,” she said, “and then I’m done.”

She thought she was done, and was about to turn back to Ned again, when Julian suddenly slid from the bed onto one knee and seized her hand between his.

“I know this isn’t a propitious moment, with me being accounted a felon, and us having an unwelcome audience, but… Please, Miss Cassandra Blythe, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Oh no. Not again!

There was a deep choking gasp from the other side of the room, and she could feel Ned’s eyes boring into her back. Curse Julian Carnforth! What an insult to offer an earl! And to herself.

This was absolutely not the place and most certainly not the time to be proposing marriage.

“Julian, you are concussed,” she told him sternly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he refused to release it.

“I know exactly what I’m saying.” His words sounded a little slurred. He was definitely not in his right mind, but continued regardless. “Your father wishes it, my father wishes it, and I know you love me.”

It was hardly a shock that he’d somehow discerned her feelings for him. She’d made them clear enough over the years. She just wondered why he’d chosen this exact day to declare for her. It was maddening of him, really, to wait until the precise moment she’d changed her mind.

But had she? Changed her mind?

The uncertainty of Ned’s feelings returned to plague her.

She said stiffly, “I will not deny that I once had…strong feelings for you, Julian. But I was very young when they began, with no idea what love truly is. I do love you as a friend, though—”

“Do not think of rejecting me, Cassie—”

“I didn’t say I was—”