Once Upon a Marquess (The Worth Saga 1)

This is your final notice. I have been entirely too understanding, but your rents are two weeks in arrears. If you do not have the payment for me by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have the constables put you on the street.

Daisy looked at her defiantly.

Judith felt a lump in her throat.

Here she’d been, mentally bemoaning her own problems—hundreds of pounds missing, Christian causing trouble. Daisy’s father was dead, her mother was ill, and she was going to be homeless tomorrow.

“Daisy,” Judith said slowly. “I… We… That is, I could… If hosting the queen would be a strain on your household,” she managed to say, “I have some room over my way. We could make space.”

“We don’t need help.” Daisy’s hands tightened on her basket. “We only need—that is to say… Nothing. We don’t need anything.”

Judith swallowed the lump in her throat. She thought of the wilted carrots her friend had purchased and the soup bones she had not.

Daisy nodded. “Well, then.” She took the paper back. “I suppose I should make sure the silver gets a proper shining for her arrival, then.”

Judith set her hand over her friend’s fingers. “Daisy. I can help. Isn’t there one thing I can provide?”

Daisy swallowed, appearing to think this over. “Do you have a room where I might be private for a moment? Before I return home?”

Judith nodded, and the two of them walked down the street.

When Judith had first moved here, everything had seemed so impossible. So crowded, so messy, so noisy. Now, when she’d visited Christian’s household, Mayfair seemed unconscionably bright, everyone so spread out.

This place had become home.

It wouldn’t be home without Daisy.

She opened the door to her rickety row house and led her friend up two flights of stairs to her attic. “There,” she said. “We’re private.”

Daisy nodded, sat on the chair in front of Judith’s clockwork arrangement, and burst into tears. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask for anything. She just wept.

Judith could hardly blame her. She’d have wept, too.

“Daisy.” Judith handed her a handkerchief and put her arm around her friend. “Let me help.”

Her friend sniffled. “It wouldn’t serve. We have a flat with two rooms—far too much space for us. We should have moved houses a year ago. When my father…” Her voice caught. “It’s simply that I grew up in those rooms.”

All of the emotions Judith had refused to feel these past weeks—the aching, gnawing hurt of seeing Christian again, the sharper piercing despair at discovering that Camilla had been handed about like an unwanted parcel, the knowledge that her childhood home was lost to her… It all seemed suddenly overwhelming. She could suppress her own tears. She couldn’t hold back the ones she had for Daisy’s loss, too.

“I know.” Her eyes stung and she wiped at them. “I know. It’s too much.”

Daisy buried her head in Judith’s shoulder.

It was too much. Anthony. When it came down to it, there was a part of Judith that hated him. She always would. She hated him for staying silent on the witness stand, hated him for not defending himself, hated him for not shouting that he wasn’t a traitor, for not explaining anything. She hated him.

She hated him most because deep down, she feared that Christian was right. He’d betrayed his country. He’d betrayed her. He’d left her like this, to make do for their entire family under this terrible burden.

He was dead, and she didn’t want to hate him. She loved him.

But she hated him, too.

Minutes passed. A good weep was like a spring storm: all hard rain lashing the windows until the sun came out. Daisy gave a little hiccough and sat up straight. She wiped at her eyes, inhaled, and then managed a tremulous smile.

“Stupid emotions.” She shook her head. “There. Thank you. I needed that.”

Judith folded her own handkerchief back into her pocket. “I have five pounds for you.”

“No, you don’t.” Daisy shook her head. “No. It won’t serve. We need to move anyway. If you loan me money, I don’t know when I’ll pay it back.”

“It’s not a loan.” Judith opened her drawer and counted out coins. “I won’t sleep at night if I’m worried over you. I can’t solve any of my problems. Let me solve one of yours.”

Daisy exhaled. “I can’t. Judith…”

Judith set the coins in her friend’s hand and closed her fingers on the money. “You can.”

Daisy let out a shuddering sigh. But she didn’t say no.

Sometimes, Judith regretted that she had never told Daisy the full truth. That her friend believed that she’d been born minor gentry, and her family had suffered a minor reversal. Sometimes, she wished she had told her everything.

Now was not the time to make a grand declaration. Her friend would feel hurt that she hadn’t been trusted, betrayed even. She didn’t need more emotions on top of everything.

Judith gave a little nod. “Do let me know where we should meet.”

“Of course.” Daisy gave her a tremulous smile and lifted her nose in the air in exaggerated pride. “Who else will I be able to complain to about the queen’s terrible manners?”

The letter arrived two days later. It had been so long since Judith had written that she’d almost forgotten to hope. But this time, the envelope that had come was thick, not thin, and all the hope she had tried not to feel rose up in her.

She’d finally found her sister. This must be a letter from her. Everything would be well. She wasn’t going to lose another sibling. She would discover that Camilla had been living a life of luxury with an aging woman, who would have loved her so well she had left her all her worldly goods.

She’d been traveling the globe, perhaps, and…and…

And there she went again. She was rather too apt to make a once-upon-a-time story of the world. Still, her fingers shook as she opened the letter.

The envelope, it turned out, was thick because it contained her own letter folded inside it.

An additional piece of creamy paper was on the very official letterhead of Darvin, Darvin, and Darvin, Solicitors at Law in Bath.

Miss Worth, the letter read. Miss Abigail Troworth passed away five years ago. We have no records of your sister. She was not left a bequest. Upon inquiry to Miss Troworth’s executor, her sister, Mrs. Harbough, we are informed that a Camilla or possibly a Camille did accompany Mrs. Troworth at some point in her later years, but she believed the girl was sent away after Miss Troworth’s passing. Mrs. Harbough does not know where, or if, she obtained a further positio

n.

Yours truly,

Irwin Darvin

Judith wasn’t sure when the paper crumpled in her hands. It made an excellent ball, one that she almost lobbed into the fire before realizing that she might need the solicitor’s direction at some later time.

Once-upon-a-time thinking indeed. She might as well have imagined that the queen would visit. After all this time she was still telling herself lies. Everything would turn out right if only Judith worked hard enough. If she never quit. If her brother went to Eton, if she kept smiling, if she never gave up.

If she did all those things…then what? The wicked witch would bring her sister home, as if hard work were a magic wand that she could wave over the world?

No. There were no once-upon-a-times. There was only reality. Her father had killed himself. Her brother had refused to defend himself and disappeared without a trace. She would never know how he died, or what cause he perished for; all she would ever have was aching emptiness.

Her sister, who she had believed to be safe and well cared for, was missing, God knew where. She had to be alive; even now, even with bitterness filling her thoughts, Judith couldn’t contemplate Camilla’s death.

She couldn’t bear the loss of another sibling.

But she couldn’t even take care of her own little brother. If she had ten thousand pounds, she’d go in search of her sister. But she didn’t have even a thousand pounds, and so…

Right at that moment, a great crash came from downstairs—the shriek of wood splintering, the sound of dishes crashing.

Judith shoved the letter in her skirt pocket and dashed down the stairs. As she descended the steps, she could see the carnage. The hutch in the parlor that housed all their dishes—plates, bowls, crockery—had fallen over. A mess of broken wood and shards of china met her.

As did her sister.

“It’s all right,” Theresa said, waving her hands. “It’s all right! Don’t worry!”

“Theresa.” Judith could hardly speak. “What—how—”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Theresa said swiftly. “The cats are unharmed.”