To Catch A Duke Read Online Free PDF Page A

she
simply stopped asking.
    There was one other person she
could ask, but she wouldn't.   She
couldn't and had never been able to even broach the subject around him.   For all that she and Benjamin shared, she'd
never asked him about how she'd acquired her scars, and he had never offered
the information on his own.   She was,
however, certain that he knew the truth as well.   She could see it in his eyes as he took in the horrible markings
each time they met.   There was a sadness
and anger that made no sense to her, but those emotions were there, revealing,
to her at least, that the duke knew the truth.   Still, in many ways, he was the only true friend she had, and she didn't
want to push him away by pestering him about the issue.   Perhaps her mother had been right.   Perhaps it was best to leave well enough
alone, especially if finding the truth might cost her the one thing she held
dear - her friendship with the duke.
    Benjamin Sinclair was the
wealthiest duke - some even said the wealthiest man - in all of England, and,
for some strange reason, a true friend to her.   He always had been.   He'd been at
Seldon Park nearly every day while she'd been growing up, their country estates
bordering each other closely.   No one
had ever indicated that the duke had no right to sit at the dinner table or
take a horse from their stables as if he was family.   In turn, she had never questioned his presence.   She had never thought to.   He was simply Benjamin.   Ever present and ever welcome.
    He was also responsible for her
season, even though he was unaware that she knew.   She'd overheard him and Nicholas discussing the details one day,
and rather than embarrass him, she'd kept silent.   For whatever reason, it was important to Benjamin that she have a
year in London, and, despite everything, she was grateful to him.   No one else knew how stifled she'd been in
Sussex, not even her brother.   No one
else had, quite frankly, cared.   But
Benjamin had seen.   And he'd done
something about it.   He'd given her an
amazing gift, and she had no way to repay him other than with her silence,
continuing the pretense that her time in town had been all Nicholas's idea.
    Julia had told Meggy that she felt
safe with Benjamin, which was the truth.   She did.   But she'd also told her
maid a lie as well.   Julia had told
Meggy that she didn't want to marry Benjamin, that she wasn't like the other
women of the ton , grasping and clawing for his affection.   That was a lie.   In a way.
    In general, Julia didn't allow
herself to want things that she could not have.   There was no point to it.   She'd learned at an early age that hoping and wishing and wanting accomplished
nothing.   She could wish all she wanted
that the dratted scars didn't mar her face, but she couldn't change the fact
that they were there.   The lines would
be there every morning for the rest of her life.   There was no escaping them.   Just as there was no escaping the reality that no man would ever be able
to look past those scars long enough to see Julia for who she really was - a
desirable woman with much to offer.   A
woman who would make a good wife and mother, if only she'd have the chance.
    Benjamin, however, did see Julia as
she truly was.   To him, she was more
than a collection of scars and marred flesh.   She had laughed with him, cried with him, and confided in him, secrets
that she'd told no one else.   Except for
one.   She had never told him of her
desire to marry, for that was a line that she could not cross.   She knew that even though she treated the
duke as family, in truth, he was not.   And once those words were spoken, things would change.   She did not want that.   In many ways, he was all she had, and she
was not about to risk that friendship.
    Still, sometimes in the silent
depths of the night, Julia allowed herself the tiniest of wishes, let her heart
long, just for a moment, for something it could never have.