The Secret Life of Lady Julia by Lecia Cornwall Read Free Book Online

sight of him, and he blew her a farewell kiss as he opened the door silently and slipped out.
    “T wo earrings? Is that all? They don’t even match!”
    Thomas opened his eyes the next morning and glowered at his valet.
    Patrick Donovan wrinkled his nose. “And you reek of perfume. What kind of flower is that?”
    “Jasmine,” Thomas muttered. “Or roses. Get me a bath.”
    “I should say I will,” Donovan grunted.
    “Then you can break up the earrings and sell the stones. They should fetch enough for breakfast at the very least.”
    “Bread, cheese, and olives yet again,” Donovan muttered. “I miss a good English breakfast. A beefsteak and some sausage—”
    “Then go back to England, my friend, by all means,” Thomas snapped.
    “And leave you to hang for your crimes? Which you will, if some husband doesn’t shoot you between the eyes first, or between the—”
    “Is this the part where I say you mean far more to me than a mere servant?” Thomas asked, pushing back the sheets. They positively stank of cologne. He didn’t much care for the perfumes ladies drenched themselves with—rose, lavender, lily-of-the-valley, gardenia, jasmine. In his opinion, the artifice of cheap scent mocked both the flower and the lady who wore it.
    Except violets. Violet perfume smelled like a garden after the rain, sweet, innocent, yet tantalizing, and . . . He rubbed his eyes, trying to remove the image of the one woman he knew who wore violet scent from his mind. The lovely Julia Leighton had been a lady to her fingertips, and she was probably married by now, a lofty duchess who had forgotten him entirely. He’d be willing to wager she was enjoying a fine English breakfast at this very moment. His mouth watered—but for her, not the beef.
    He got up and crossed to the basin, wanting the insipid scent of his almost-lovers off. He would never see either lady again.
    He sank into the bath while Donovan busied himself preparing the shaving kit. The silver handles and leather case were still monogrammed with Thomas’s family crest. He’d pawned it and redeemed it a dozen times, but couldn’t let it go permanently. It reminded him of who he’d been on the days he could not bear to think of what he was now.
    He shaved himself while Donovan pried the jewels out of their settings and held them up to the light.
    “The diamond is nice. So are the pearls with it. You should have taken both earrings.”
    “Against the rules,” Thomas muttered as he drew the razor over his cheek.
    “Your rules,” Donovan muttered. “We need a necklace, or a tiara, or both, if you’re to end this.”
    “It will end when I say so,” Thomas said, and hissed when he cut his chin.
    Donovan tossed him a towel. “You’re the one always going on about finding a better life, not me. Ah, well. I should be back within the hour, since there is so little to haggle over.”
    Thomas dressed himself and stood in the open window, looking out over the city of Paris. It was touted as the most magnificent city in Europe, filled with everything and anything a man could want, if that man had the price, the guile, or the right friends to get it.
    He had the guile, and when that succeeded, the price, but he was friendless, except for Donovan, and that’s the way he liked it. Still, he’d been in Paris long enough, and he couldn’t wait to leave. But where he might go next was the problem. He couldn’t go back to London, and he had no interest in joining the Grand Tour of Europe or seeing German spa towns. He was a man without a home, like a mongrel dog.
    He looked down at the street below and watched a coach drive by, the horses’ hooves clattering on the cobbles. If he leapt from this window, he could land on the roof, knock the driver off his box and steal the vehicle. He’d drive it to the sea and take the first ship going to—
    It was a game he played, like sticking a pin in the map. He imagined traveling to the first place that came to mind, but