“What does that mean?”
“It means your correspondence with your sister’s paid companion exceeded what was respectable.”
“You opened my letters?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Augusta continued.
“I instructed household correspondence addressed to Miss Hartwell to be delivered to me for review.”
“That is opening my letters.”
“They were in your house.”
“They were addressed to her.”
“She was under this roof.”
Julian laughed once.
Disbelief.
“You do understand the post does not become your property when it crosses the threshold?”
“Do not be theatrical.”
“I am asking a legal question.”
“You are asking like a child.”
Beatrice stepped forward.
“Mother.”
Augusta looked at her.
“No.”
Beatrice’s face hardened.
“You kept mine too.”
Julian turned.
“What?”
Beatrice stared at her mother.
“I wrote to him six days ago.”
Augusta said nothing.
“I told him you were planning to dismiss Eliza.”
Julian looked at Augusta.
“Did you send it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your sister was emotional.”
Beatrice laughed bitterly.
“I was accurate.”
Augusta stood.
Enough softness.
“Julian, if you intend to behave like the head of this family, then behave like one.”
“I am.”
“No.”
She pointed toward the street.
“You are prepared to compromise the Vale name for a woman who has neither fortune, family connection, nor social standing sufficient for you.”
Eliza outside.
No privacy.
Thin townhouse walls.
Julian lowered his voice.
“Be careful.”
Augusta’s eyes narrowed.
“Of what?”
“Speaking about someone with less power as though that makes them less worthy of accuracy.”
His mother stared.
Julian continued.
“Miss Hartwell is the daughter of a respected solicitor.”
“Her grandfather was a magistrate.”
“She is educated.”
“Honorable.”
“Financially independent through her own labor.”
“More useful in this house over six months than half our relations have been in twenty years.”
Augusta’s face reddened.
“That does not make her a duchess.”
“No.”
Julian nodded.
“My asking her would.”
Silence.
Beatrice covered her mouth.
Augusta stared.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I have never been more serious.”
“Julian.”
“You wanted ambiguity removed.”
“So do I.”
His mother’s voice dropped.
“You would marry her?”
“If she will have me.”
Beatrice laughed through tears.
Augusta turned on her.
“Do not encourage this.”
“I did nothing.”
“Exactly.”
Beatrice’s face changed.
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“I did exactly what you taught me.”
“Nothing.”
“Wait.”
“Obey.”
“Say nothing while you dismissed the woman who sat with me through fever because speaking would make things unpleasant.”
Augusta looked stunned.
Beatrice continued.
“I am done being praised for good manners when what you mean is silence.”
Julian looked toward his sister.
There was another reckoning coming.
Not today.
He turned back to Augusta.
“Where are the letters?”
She hesitated.