On arriving, Mrs. Major had accompanied Julia into the hall to leave a note for her father. While writing it, she’d fretted loudly over Lord Gresham’s drunkenness, Julia’s sickness, and the prospect Sir Eustace would blame Mrs. Major for both.

All the servants had heard her.

“You are pale,” Mary acknowledged as she set aside the silver-plated brush. “Is there anything I can bring you? A cup of chocolate? Or some warm milk?”

“There’s nothing you can do for me,” Julia said bleakly. “Not unless . . .”

Once again, she thought of Miss Throckmorton and her boundless fortune.

Was that the reason Captain Blunt had chosen her instead of Julia? Not because of Julia’s personal failings but because of her financial ones?

There was only one way to find out.

“Not unless you can discover how much Miss Daphne Throckmorton is worth,” she said.

Mary’s brows shot up. “That toffee heiress everyone’s talking about?”

Julia wasn’t surprised Mary had heard of her. As the longest-serving servant in the Wychwood household, Mary prided herself on knowing all the fashionable comings and goings in Mayfair.

“Hmm. I suppose I could find out.” She gave her a quizzical look. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because,” Julia said, “the information might make me feel better.”

Or not.

Either way, at least she’d know the truth.

“The state you’re in, you don’t need information.” Mary examined Julia’s face in the mirror. “What you need is bed. Or a doctor. You sure you don’t want Jenkins to send for one?”

“No. No doctors.” Julia didn’t wait for her maid to plait her hair, or even to draw back the coverlet on her bed. Rising from her dressing table, she crossed the room and climbed up onto the mattress, slipping beneath the covers to burrow her head in her pillow.

Mary followed after her, her brow creased with uncharacteristic worry. “What’s wrong, miss? It’s naught to do with the earl, is it? I heard as how he was in his cups.”

“He was.”

“Did he take liberties?”

Julia made no reply.

Mary tsked and shook her head. “There’s some men made foolish by drink. You can’t judge ’em too harshly.”

“What does it matter?” Julia grumbled. “He could be the drunkest man in Christendom, and if he proposed, I’d still be obliged to marry him.”

“You’ll be a countess,” Mary reminded her.

“I don’t want to be a countess.”

“What do you want, then? To stay in this room all day? In this bed, reading your romances?” Mary cast a disparaging glance at the teetering stack of J. Marshland novels on Julia’s bedside table. “Much more of that and people will say you’re an eccentric.”

“They already say that.”

“You want them to say worse?”

Julia turned over onto her back. “What I want is for a gentleman to love me like a hero in a story. Someone who doesn’t care about my dowry or my pedigree or whether or not I can give him an heir. I want a gentleman who’ll take me in my underclothes, exactly as I am.”