Loving Julia Read Online Free PDF Page B

listen to another bout of creaking springs, she had seen Mick. And he had seen her. She had started to run, on instinct, and he had chased her through the tangle of dark alleys, the look in his eyes confirming her very worst nightmares. Terrified, knowing with terrible certainty how little her life was worth if Mick should catch her, she had fled to Father Simon’s small house after giving Mick the slip at last. But the scrawny old woman who answered the door in response to her frantic pounding said that Father Simon was “indisposed” and couldn’t be disturbed. Jewel had known that meant drunk. Of course, she hadn’t really expected to be rescued that easily, had she? Life wasn’t like that.
    With a proud stiffening of her spine, Jewel had turned from the priest’s door even as the woman had closed it in her face. There was no help for her here—or anywhere. She was on her own, just as she had been nearly all her life. It was up to Jewel to take care of Jewel.
    She had to get right away, she knew, where Mick and Jem could never find her. What better place was there to hide out than a mansion in the fancy part of town? Anyway, it was time she found out if Timothy’s claim of being cousin to an earl was air or truth. She had been squeamish to put it to the touch before, but now she felt that the choice had been taken out of her hands. So she had slunk back to Cilla’s flat around noontime when she knew the other woman would be sound asleep, and the street people who might be willing to give her up to Mick for a farthing or so would be in their daytime hidey-holes. She had cleaned herself up as quietly as she could to the tune of Cilla’s resonant snores. Then she had taken her courage and her marriage lines—as well as Cilla’s Norwich silk shawl and best bonnet—and gone to present herself in Grosvenor Square, the most posh address in the city. To her new cousin. A bloomin’ belted earl, if Timothy had been telling the truth. And what his worship would make of Mistress Timothy Stratham, there was no telling.
    The knot in her stomach twisted again. Cor, she was goin’ to lose the measly bit of bread that had been her dinner if she wasn’t careful. How could she, Jewel Combs, go up those curving white marble steps to that elegant front door and ask for a bleedin’ earl? They would likely spit on her. The notion stiffened her spine. Jewel looked up at the imposing facade of the three-storied brick structure and felt her throat go dry. Surely she was not afraid of a house ? It was getting dark, the rain had settled to a cold drizzle, and her growling stomach reminded her that she had not eaten at all that day. Looking around at the nearly deserted park, Jewel knew that she had to do it now . She had to make herself known to the people inside that house—to the earl. But knocking on that door with the brass lion’s head growling at her was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.
    “They be people jest like me, even that bloody earl,” she told herself with determination. Then, before she could change her mind, she clutched the beaded and spangled reticule—another “loan” from Cilla—that held her marriage lines and stepped into the road. Her foot immediately sank into a puddle that was calf deep, immersing her whole foot and the hem of her dress in icy water.
    “Bloody ’ell!” Jewel muttered under her breath. Annoyed color mounted in her cheeks as she hitched up her skirts and stomped across the cobbled road and up the rain slickened steps. Some impression she was going to make, her grand hat drooping like a soused whore’s, her silk dress so wet it was clinging to her like was indecent, and her nose running from the wet and cold.
    “Them that’s inside be no better than me,” she said aloud, then sniffed mightily to give herself courage as she let the knocker fall. The resounding boom was louder than she had expected, but despite the sudden quiver in her knees—it was