Chapter 5 - A Seamstress in the Sovereign’s ShadowSilence settled over the private study, vast, heavy, and absolute.
Camilla wept into her ruined lace, her shoulders shaking with dry, rattling sobs, while Bennett lay motionless against the mahogany desk, his empire and his freedom completely vaporized in thirty minutes.
Julian stood up from his chair.
He didn't look at the traitors on the floor. He walked around the massive desk, his tall, imposing frame moving with an unhurried, terrifying power that made the floorboards vibrate beneath his boots.
He stopped directly in front of me.
I looked up into the dark obsidian eyes of the man who commanded the Gulf of Mexico.
My black uniform apron felt paper-thin against the tailored wool of his suit.
“Clara Ward,” Julian said softly.
“Yes, Mr. Cross?”
“You stood on that staircase before forty armed men and two municipal judges and spoke the truth without a single tremor in your voice.”
“I only spoke about what my hands had sewn, sir,” I whispered, my fingers tightening in my apron pockets.
Julian reached down.
With extraordinary, breathtaking gentleness, his large, calloused fingers caught my right hand, lifting it from the pocket of my uniform.
He turned my palm over in the warm lamplight, his thumb gently smoothing across the faint silver needle calluses on the tips of my index finger and thumb.
“Hands that sew gold into lace do not belong in service pockets, Clara,” Julian murmured, his deep baritone carrying an unshakeable, eternal gravity. “You saved this house from signing away its bloodline to a cartel of thieves. In my world, that kind of courage is answered with an empire.”
He reached into his breast pocket and produced an antique leather portfolio stamped with the golden seal of the Port of New Orleans.
He laid it flat in my palm.
“What is this, Mr. Cross?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.
“The master title deed to the French Market textile exchange and the historic Gardere cotton warehouse on the riverfront,” Julian answered softly. “Purchased in full, free of all municipal liens, registered under your name in perpetuity. Along with a five-million-dollar executive grant to establish the Clara Ward Atelier of Historical Restoration.”
My knees gave out.
A gasp of pure, disbelieving shock tore from my throat, and I would have hit the floorboards if Julian’s strong, unyielding arm hadn't wrapped around my waist, lifting me effortlessly against his broad, solid chest.
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“Mr. Cross... no... five million dollars? The cotton warehouse?” I wept, pressing my trembling hands against his lapels. “I was only doing my job!”
“You were doing what forty men in tuxedos were too terrified to do, Clara,” Julian whispered into my hair, his thumb gently smoothing over my temple with astonishing tenderness. “You protected my family’s name. You will never clean another banquet floor as long as there is breath in my body.”
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