“I was only thinking of your happiness,” Juliana explained, though she ducked her head as if chagrined.

Thomasina nodded. “I realize that. Apparently you do not think I am intelligent or wise enough to protect that happiness on my own.”

“I think you are good and lovely and kind and exactly the sort of woman who wants to love her husband,” Juliana said. She shifted a little and her gaze held Thomasina’s evenly. “Or perhaps already does. Already has for weeks, long before Anne ran away and left this mess to clean up.”

Thomasina felt the color exit her cheeks as she stared at Juliana, her mouth dropped open. “You—you think I coveted Jasper?”

“I know you,” Juliana whispered. “I feel you sometimes. The moment Father brought him into the room and announced he would be husband to one of us, it was as if your world had a new…light. I saw it pass over your face in an instant and then everything was crushed when he announced Anne was to marry the earl.”

Thomasina took a long step back and found her hip bumping the back of a chair. “I would be a terrible sister to feel such a thing.”

Juliana sighed. “No, not horrible. You would be human. It isn’t as if Anne was in love with Lord Harcourt…quite the opposite.”

“No, she didn’t care for him,” Thomasina agreed, though that fact still confused her. If Anne had only tried, certainly she would have come to care for him. It was good, then, that she hadn’t.

Juliana continued, “But you wanted him, I think, and then you suddenly had him. And I know you have told yourself that you couldn’t or shouldn’t or wouldn’t want more than the arranged marriage Father threw at you, but I…I worry. And I should have discussed that with you, not him. Once again, I tell you that I’m sorry.”

Thomasina bent her head as the full power of her sister’s words hit her like a slap across her face. The truth of them.

“Did…” She cleared her throat. “Do you think anyone else saw what you believed you did?”

Juliana took a moment to ponder the question before she shook her head. “No one knows you better than I do or Anne does. We are bound in such a powerful way. No one else could see your heart.”

“But Anne might have?” she whispered, hating herself if that were true.

“Anne was wrapped up in her own dramas. If she could not desire Lord Harcourt, she would have assumed no one did.” Juliana smiled, soft and a little pained. “But it is true, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Thomasina said, and leaned forward on the dressing table with both hands. “God help me, it is true. I wanted him from the very beginning, just as you said. When I realized I could marry him in Anne’s stead, I wasn’t upset. I was afraid, I was uncertain, but I was happy. Worse, I want him even more now that I truly know what wanting means.”