Читать книгу An Independent Woman - Candace Camp - Страница 7

JULIANA FOUND HERSELF brooding over the matter the rest of the evening. She did not believe that Nicholas had merely used her to get an introduction to Clementine. But she was realistic enough to think that he must have noticed the girl’s beauty when he was introduced to her. Nor could she help but wonder if his desire to call on her had as much or more to do with Clementine’s appeal as with his friendship with Juliana.

It wasn’t that she thought Nicholas was interested in her in a romantic way, she told herself. She had long ago given up those girlhood dreams. She was a grown woman and well aware that she did not even know the man; all she had known was the boy. But he had been very dear to her at one time; it hurt to think that his motivation for calling upon her might be only interest in the silly but beautiful Clementine.

All the way home, Mrs. Thrall and her daughter pelted Juliana with questions about the handsome and highly eligible Lord Barre. How old was he? Did he have a London residence? Was he as wealthy as everyone said?

“He is thirty-one. But as to the rest, I really don’t know,” Juliana replied, gritting her teeth. “We did not speak about any of those things while we were dancing. And I have not seen him since we were young.”

“They say he is fabulously wealthy,” Clementine said, her eyes shining.

“I heard that he made a fortune in the China Trade,” Mrs. Thrall said. “Not an occupation for a gentleman, of course, but, then, his lineage is impeccable.”

“And the fortune is great,” Juliana murmured.

“Exactly,” Mrs. Thrall agreed, nodding her head, blissfully unaware of any sarcasm in Juliana’s words.

“I heard he made his money in smuggling during the War,” Clementine put in. “Sarah Thurgood says her aunt told her that he was a spy, as well.”

“Did she say for which side?” Juliana asked.

“No one knows,” Clementine told her, her eyes wide. “He is reputed to be a very dangerous man.”

“Very wild in his youth,” Mrs. Thrall added knowledgeably.

“He has been much maligned,” Juliana started hotly. This was the sort of statement she had heard about Nicholas from the time she met him.

“Everyone says…” Clementine began.

“Everyone doesn’t know him!” Juliana snapped.

“Really, Juliana…” Mrs. Thrall gave her a dark look.

Juliana stifled her anger. Her quick tongue was what had most often gotten her into trouble as a paid companion. It had been a hard lesson, but over the years she had learned not to argue with her employers.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said now. “I did not mean to contradict you. It is just that I know Lord Barre has often been adjudged much more wicked than he really is.”

Mrs. Thrall smiled at her in a condescending way that made Juliana’s fingers curl into fists in her lap. “You must take my word for it, my dear, as one who knows a bit more about the world than you—where there is smoke, there’s fire.”

Fortunately, Juliana’s ready sense of humor came to her rescue, overcoming her anger. The woman stated the old adage as if she were imparting the greatest wisdom.

“Of course,” Juliana choked out, and pressed her lips together to keep from chuckling. What did it matter, anyway, what someone as foolish as Elspeth Thrall thought about Nicholas Barre?

She settled into her corner of the carriage, only half listening to Clementine chatter on about what dress she should wear on the morrow and what hairstyle would look best. When they reached the house, she went upstairs to her bedroom, a small, sparely furnished room at the end of the hallway closest to the servants’ stairs. As a genteel companion, she was not tucked away in an attic room with the servants, but her bedchamber was hardly what one could consider comfortable. Juliana thought with some longing of her accommodations when she had lived with Mrs. Simmons.

Ah, well, she reminded herself, even a small room and putting up with employers like Mrs. Thrall was preferable to continuing to live on the charity of Lilith and Trenton Barre.

With a grimace, Juliana began to undress, her mind going back to her life at the Barre estate. She supposed it was seeing Nicholas tonight that made her think of it, for she had managed to bury such memories long ago and normally did not even think about that time.

Juliana had been eight years old when her beloved father, the scholarly youngest son of a baron, had died. She remembered lying in her bed at night, listening to the soft sounds of her mother weeping in the room next door. Juliana had been too frightened to cry herself.

Overnight, her world had been turned upside down. Not only was her father gone, but the smiling, warm mother she had known all her life was gone, as well, replaced by a pale, sad, anxious woman who paced the floors, twisting her handkerchief between her hands when she wasn’t collapsed on the sofa or her bed, crying. First the maids had left, and then, finally, their housekeeper, and angry men had come knocking on their door at all hours. Those visits invariably left her mother crying.

Finally they had left the small house in which they had lived all Juliana’s life, packing only their clothes and her mother’s jewelry, and moved into a set of rooms in a house where several other people lived. Her mother, Diana, spent her time staring dully out the window and writing letters. Periodically Diana would take out her small jewelry box and open it, then search through the contents, finally selecting a set of earrings or a bracelet. She would leave their rooms, admonishing Juliana to be quiet, and return a few hours later, her eyes red and a bag of sweets for Juliana in her hand.

Only years later had Juliana come to understand the terror that her fragile, pretty mother had faced—a woman with a young child and no money or skills, eking out a living for them by selling her small stock of precious jewelry, aware that before long this source of money would run out, too, and they would be left utterly penniless. The family’s sole source of money had been a small trust left to her father by a grandmother, added to by the small sums of money he brought in from his scholarly articles. Both incomes had died with her father.

One day a tall dark-haired man had come to visit them. He had spoken briefly to Juliana’s mother, who began to cry, sitting down on a chair. Juliana had run to Diana, furious with the man for hurting her mother.

But Diana had reached out an arm and encircled Juliana, pulling her close, and said, “No, no, darling. This is Cousin Lilith’s husband, and he has saved us. They have very kindly invited us to live with them.”

The next day they had traveled to Lychwood Hall in a post chaise, with Trenton Barre riding alongside the coach. Lychwood Hall had been a grand and imposing place, built of gray stone, with alternating narrow strips of black slate. Fortunately Juliana and her mother were not to be living at the estate house itself, but in a smaller cottage on the grounds. Juliana found the cottage rather cheerless and cold, but her mother simply said over and over again how wonderful it was that they had found a home.

Diana had explained to her daughter that her cousin, Lilith, had married Trenton Barre, and that the couple were not only giving them a house in which to live but were also generously allowing Juliana to be educated with their own children at the main house. Carefully she had instructed her daughter on how she was to act around the Barre family—always polite and respectful, never contradicting them or making herself a nuisance in any way. They were there on the Barre family’s sufferance, she had told Juliana, and Juliana must always remember that. She was to play with the Barre children, but only if asked to, and she was to let them have their way in all things, whether in play or at work in school.

Such admonitions grated on Juliana, who had always had a mind of her own. It galled her to be a “charity case,” and the idea of having to always give in to another’s wishes appalled her. However, because of her desire to please her mother and ease her obvious anxiety, she had promised to follow her orders. Then she had been taken over to meet the Barres, who by that time had assumed somewhat legendary proportions in Juliana’s childish mind.

Lilith Barre was an icy blonde, attractive in a long, slender way most unlike Juliana’s small, curvaceous mother. She did not seem, Juliana thought, the sort whose lap one could climb onto to lean one’s head against her shoulder. And she certainly did not display any sort of affection for either Juliana or Juliana’s mother. The young girl found it hard to believe that she was related to them in any way.

Lilith looked at Juliana in a cool, assessing way, then instructed one of the maids to take the child up to the nursery to meet the governess and the other tutors.

The governess was a woman who seemed to be of varying shades of gray, from her iron-colored hair to her charcoal-hued dress. She was, she told Juliana, Miss Emerson, and these were Master Crandall Barre and Miss Seraphina Barre.

Crandall was a sturdy boy a year or two older than Juliana, with a haughty expression and cold dark eyes. “You’re another poor relation,” he had announced and stuck out his tongue.

Juliana, unused to other children, had been rather shocked, but she gave him the polite curtsey her mother had taught her and turned to his sister. Seraphina was about Juliana’s age and took after her mother in looks, tall for her age and slender, with long blond hair carefully woven into braids and coiled on her head.

“Hullo,” Seraphina said in a rather friendlier manner than her brother. “Mummy said that you would play with me.”

“Yes, if you’d like,” Juliana had replied, relieved that this girl, at least, did not seem to actively dislike her as her brother did.

Juliana’s eyes had gone past the two children to another boy who slouched against the bookcase behind him, his hands thrust into his pockets and a closed, sullen look on his face. He was a few years old than Juliana, with thick black hair, messily tumbled about his face, and black eyes. He looked at Juliana without expression as Juliana studied him curiously.

“Hullo,” she had said finally, intrigued by the boy, who seemed to her much more interesting than the other two. “I am Juliana Holcott. Who are you?”

“What do you care?” he had replied.

“Nicholas!” the governess exclaimed.

“He lives with us,” Seraphina volunteered.

“He’s an orphan,” Crandall had added with a sneer.

The boy cast a dark look at Crandall but said nothing.

“He is Nicholas Barre,” the governess had explained to Juliana. “The children’s cousin. Mr. Trenton Barre is his guardian. Mr. Barre is, as you know, a most generous man and kindly took him in after his parents’ sailing accident. However, your question was quite rude. You must learn to mind your tongue.”

Juliana had looked at the woman in surprise, saying, “But how else was I to learn who he was?”

Miss Emerson had frowned at her and cautioned her once again to curb her tongue. Juliana, remembering her mother’s strictures, had swallowed her protest. She had glanced over at Crandall, who was smirking at her, then at Nicholas, who was watching her impassively.

They had begun their schoolwork. Juliana, whose scholarly father had taught her in the past, found their schoolwork easy enough and frankly boring. When Miss Emerson read to them from a book that Juliana herself had already read, it had been a struggle to keep her eyes open. A glance across the table told her that Nicholas, head down on the table, was not even pretending to listen. Juliana secretly wished she could be so bold.

Later in the afternoon, as Miss Emerson stood at the chalkboard on the wall, writing math problems, Crandall squirmed and twisted in his chair, obviously bored. After a moment he pulled out the contents of one of his pockets; then, after putting the rest back in his pocket, he picked up a small, smooth stone. Looking around, he noticed Juliana watching him, and he grinned, waggling his eyebrows at her, then turned and lobbed the pebble at the governess. The small stone missed her, cracking into the blackboard, and Miss Emerson jumped in surprise.

The governess whirled around, her eyes blazing. “Nicholas! That was a dangerous thing to do. Hold out your hands.”

She marched across the room to him, grabbing up her ruler.

“I didn’t do it!” Nicholas shot back furiously. “It was Crandall.”

“And now you are adding lying to your sins?” the governess asked. “Hold out your hands this instant.” She raised her ruler.

“I didn’t do it!” Nicholas repeated as he rose to his feet and faced their teacher pugnaciously.

“How dare you defy me?” Miss Emerson cried, looking a little frightened. “Go to your room.”

“But he’s telling the truth,” Juliana protested. “It was Crandall who did it. I saw him.”

Nicholas’s cold dark gaze turned to Juliana. The governess whirled to look at her, too, her face alight with anger.

“Don’t lie to me, young lady,” she told Juliana sternly.

“I’m not lying!” Juliana exclaimed, incensed. “I don’t lie. It was Crandall. Nicholas didn’t do anything.”

Her words seemed only to infuriate the woman even more. “Has he corrupted you already? Or are you simply of the same sort of seed? No doubt that is why you, too, have been cast upon the world. Having to depend on others’ generosity…”

Tears sprang into Juliana’s eyes, and she was filled with a desire to fling herself at the woman, kicking and hitting.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have to depend on your generosity,” Nicholas told the governess, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “It’s clear you haven’t any.”

“Go to your room. Right now. Let’s see how defiant you are tomorrow after no supper tonight.”

“That’s not fair!” Juliana cried.

“And you, miss, will go stand in the corner until I tell you otherwise. I suggest you think over your actions just now and ask yourself whether a proper lady would say and do the things you just did.”

Nicholas strode out of the schoolroom and into a small room adjoining it, slamming the door behind him.

Juliana took up her place in the corner, and later, when Miss Emerson allowed her to return to her lessons, she kept her mouth shut and ignored Crandall’s smug looks. During luncheon, she sneaked a few bits of food into her pocket. Later, when the children were supposed to be reading but Miss Emerson had nodded off in her chair and the others had taken the opportunity to lay their own heads down on their desks to nap, Juliana crept over to Nicholas’s door and eased it open.

Nicholas was standing on a chair, gazing out the high window, and he whipped around at her quiet entrance. Frowning, he hopped lightly down from the chair and came over to her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a none-too-friendly whisper. “The Dragon’ll punish you if she catches you.”

“She’s asleep,” Juliana whispered back, reaching into her pocket, then pulling out the napkin and passing it across to Nicholas.

He looked down at the roll and ham that Juliana had secreted there. He looked up at her questioningly. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I thought you would be hungry,” she replied simply.

He looked at her for another moment, then began to eat.

“You shouldn’t do that, you know,” he told her.

“Give you food?”

He shrugged. “And contradict the Dragon. Crandall is always right, you see. And I am always wrong. That is the way to get along at Lychwood Hall.”

“I don’t understand. That’s not fair.”

Again he shrugged, the look in his eyes far older than his years. “Doesn’t matter. That’s how it is.” He jerked his head toward the door. “You’d better go now.”

Juliana nodded and crossed the room quietly. As she reached for the doorknob, Nicholas said quietly, “Thanks.”

Juliana turned and smiled at him. He had smiled back at her, that rare, sweet smile that transformed his face. In that moment, the bond between them was formed.

The lessons Juliana learned on the first day were confirmed in the days that followed. Crandall and Seraphina Barre were never wrong and never punished. Nicholas was invariably held to blame for whatever misdeed occurred.

Juliana complained to her mother about the governess’s unfairness, but her mother shook her head, the anxious frown that was becoming more and more familiar to Juliana forming on her forehead.

“Don’t argue with your governess,” Diana warned Juliana. “Obey her and be a good girl. Do you really think she would act that way on her own? She is hired by Mr. Barre. She would never do anything to cross him. No one here would.”

Juliana had not understood at first exactly what her mother meant, but the very mention of Trenton Barre’s name was enough to still her protests. Juliana found him to be a frightening man—quiet and calm, not a man who raged, but with a cold, flat look in his eyes that could quell anyone. Even Crandall’s whining and tricks would stop short when his father turned that gaze on him.

Nicholas was the only person who would face his uncle’s gaze, his back straight and his head raised, even when he knew that his “impertinence” would inevitably lead to a caning in Trenton Barre’s study.

Juliana had never understood where Nicholas found the courage. However able she was to fight back with Crandall or to stand up to Miss Emerson’s strictures, her spirit always quailed in front of Trenton. Though she called Mrs. Barre “Aunt Lilith,” as Nicholas did, she found herself unable to address Trenton as anything but “sir.” He dropped by their cottage periodically on a courtesy call, and Juliana dreaded the times when he came. Her mother would call her in to greet Mr. Barre, and she would have to join them in the parlor and give him a polite curtsey. Juliana was rarely able to lift her head and look him in the eye, which he seemed to find amusing, and as soon as he waved her away dismissively, she fled to her room and shut herself in for the remainder of his visit.

She knew her mother worried about these visits; she could see the tension in her mother’s face when she heard his voice at the front door. Diana would look Juliana over anxiously, tugging at her braids and retying their bows, smoothing down her skirts, and Juliana was certain that her mother was afraid she would embarrass her or offend Mr. Barre somehow.

When Juliana complained about having to make her polite appearance, her mother would rebuke her. “Don’t say that. The Barres have been very generous to us. We have nowhere to go if they don’t let us stay here. You cannot offend Mr. Barre. And, please, do not say anything to him about that wicked boy.”

“Nicholas is not wicked! It is Crandall who’s the wicked one.”

But the sight of her mother’s pale face, stamped with anxiety, would make her stop. She schooled herself to be polite and endured her hours with Seraphina and Crandall.

At the time, Juliana had not thought about why the Barres had been so generous as to take her in. She had simply accepted it as a part of her life. As she grew older, though, she had wondered at Trenton and Lilith’s generosity. They were not kind-hearted people, by any means, and while it was little enough expense for them to allow Juliana and her mother to live in the empty cottage on the estate, even such a small act of kindness seemed out of character for them. She had once asked her mother about it, but her mother had looked pained and a little frightened, as she always did when their precarious position at the Barre estate was discussed, and had told Juliana that she should not question their good fortune.

Looking back on it years later, when she was grown and had moved away, Juliana decided that Lilith and Trenton had invited them to live on the estate only because it would have looked bad in the eyes of Society if they had callously left a penniless, widowed cousin to starve. She was certain that their actions were not from some sudden upsurge of human generosity. And, when she found out that it was really Nicholas who would inherit the estate, with his uncle merely holding it in trust for him, Juliana realized that even that bit of generosity had been out of Nicholas’s pocket, not their own.

During those first few years at Lychwood Hall, it was only her friendship with Nicholas that made her life bearable. Even though he had been four years older than she, he had allowed her to tag along after him, and he had more than once protected her from Crandall’s malicious words and pinches. Even though Crandall could ensure that Nicholas would be punished for anything he did or said, still Crandall was scared of him. There was something about Nicholas’s cold, implacable stare that made Crandall back down.

With Nicholas as her ally, Miss Emerson and the Barre children could be ignored. Even the fact that her mother never regained her once-happy personality could be endured.

It had devastated her when Nicholas left. Juliana had understood it, of course. His life was miserable at Lychwood Hall. He wanted to return to Cornwall, where he had lived as a boy with his parents. But his departure had left her chilled and alone.

Now, after all these years, Nicholas had come back. She could not help but wonder what impact his return would have on her life. Juliana sat down on the side of her bed, frowning. She picked up her hairbrush and began to brush out her hair as she thought.

Obviously Mrs. Thrall and Clementine thought that they could use her friendship with Nicholas to snare Clementine the Season’s prize marital catch. Juliana sincerely hoped that her old friend would not be foolish enough to be taken in by Clementine’s beauty. But neither was she so naive as to revive her own long-moribund dreams of love and marriage.

Indeed, she was not sure what she hoped for with Nicholas. She only knew how delightful it had felt to sweep around the dance floor in his arms, how her heart itself had seemed to warm at his smile. And, for the first time in a long time, she was looking forward to the morrow with excitement.

JULIANA WAS IN the sitting room early the next afternoon, embroidering fine stitches on a handkerchief, when the parlor maid announced the arrival of a visitor for her. Juliana took the engraved calling card and stood up, her heart picking up its beat, as the maid ushered Nicholas into the room.

“Nicholas!” She could not stop the delighted grin that spread across her face.

“Juliana.” He crossed the room and took the hand she extended. “You look surprised. Did you think I would not come?”

“Of course not. I just…” She gave a little shrug. She could not really explain her surprise and pleasure that he had found calling on her important enough to do it so soon after seeing her last night. “Please, sit down.”

She sat back down on the sofa, and Nicholas took the chair across from her. His tall, masculine presence somehow made the rather small sitting room seem even more cramped. Juliana was aware of a flutter of nerves in her stomach. She looked at him, suddenly unsure of what to say.

He removed his gloves, and she noticed the ring on his right hand, a plain gold signet ring. It was small and simple; she had not noticed it the night before. But now she stared at it, recognizing the ornate H engraved upon it.

“My father’s ring!” she said in amazement.

“What?” Nicholas followed her gaze down to his hand. “Oh, yes, it is the ring you gave me when I left.”

“You kept it all this time?” Strangely, she felt her throat close with tears.

“Of course.” He grinned. “It’s been my good luck charm.”

Juliana swallowed hard. She felt inordinately pleased to learn that he had kept the memento of hers close to him for so long, yet at the same time she felt uncomfortable.

“I—it has been so long, I scarcely know where to start,” she told him with a little laugh. “Where did you go? What have you been doing? The town is full of rumors about you, you know.”

He made a wry face. “And what do they say about me?”

“Oh, that you have been everything from a smuggler to a pirate to a spy. I suspect that the truth was probably something more prosaic—a sea merchant, perhaps.”

His dark eyes lit with amusement. “All of them, perhaps, have some truth to them. Although I do not think I have ever actually stopped a ship and demanded chests of gold and gems.”

“How disappointing,” Juliana commented. “I shall not let all the young girls know. It will quite spoil the picture they have built up of you.”

“Please,” he said in a heartfelt manner. “I wish you would spoil their view of me. I should very much like to go somewhere without finding an empty-headed chit and her odious matchmaking mother determined to cast their lures at me.”

“There is little hope of that,” Juliana retorted. “You are reputed to be quite wealthy. And with a title, as well…I am afraid you will find your path quite littered with them until you finally decide to marry one of them.”

“Never,” he remarked, with a grimace.

“Then I should warn you that you should not linger here,” Juliana went on.

Nicholas’s dark brows rose, and then understanding dawned in his eyes. “The blond girl?”

Juliana nodded. “Clementine.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but just at that moment, as if the conversation had called them, there was the sound of hurried steps outside, and Mrs. Thrall swept into the room.

“Lord Barre! What a delightful surprise! I am so sorry I was not here to greet you when you arrived.”

With a rueful glance at Juliana, Nicholas stood up and made a polite bow. “Mrs. Thrall. We were just speaking about you.”

The woman tittered, casting a flirtatious look at him. “Flatterer! I’ll warrant I know who it is you are interested in seeing, and it is not me. Don’t worry. Clementine will be down in a moment.” She turned toward Juliana. “Juliana, dear, why don’t you ring for tea? Let’s have it in the drawing room.” She turned back toward Nicholas with a smile. “It is much roomier, my lord. I cannot imagine what Juliana was thinking of to receive you in here.”

Nicholas cast an indifferent glance around the room. “I was more interested in talking to Juliana than in the room.”

“Prettily said, sir, but, still, I think we will find it more pleasant to converse in the front room.”

There was little to do except go with Mrs. Thrall as she ushered Nicholas out of the room and down the hallway to the more formal drawing room at the front of the narrow house. Juliana rang for tea, as her employer had requested, and sat down, resigned to having her chat with Nicholas spoiled.

Clementine came rushing in a few minutes later, breathless and attractively flushed, and Juliana noted that she had paused to put on a different dress than she had been wearing earlier, and tie a new blue ribbon through her curls.

“Lord Barre!” She came forward and dropped him a pretty little curtsey, extending her hand and smiling at him. “I was so surprised when Mama told me that you had come to call on me.”

Nicholas raised one brow at this bit of news. “Actually, I called on Miss Holcott.”

Clementine’s eyes widened a bit at this unexpected rebuff, but her mother jumped in to cover her momentary silence.

“Yes, we were so surprised to hear that dear Juliana was acquainted with you,” Mrs. Thrall said. She wagged a playful finger at her employee. “Such a naughty girl you are, keeping your news a secret.”

Juliana was tempted to reply that who she knew or didn’t know was no business of Mrs. Thrall’s, but Nicholas intervened, saying smoothly, “No doubt Miss Holcott did not deem knowing a reprobate like me worthy of your attention, madam.”

Mrs. Thrall’s response to this was a shrill whinny of laughter. “Oh, you…” She snapped open her fan and covered the lower half of her face in a girlish way that looked bizarre, given that she was well into middle age.

Clementine, annoyed at not being the center of attention for so long, jumped back into the conversation. “Your life must have been so fascinating,” she said to Nicholas, gazing at him with wide, limpid eyes. “You have seen so many places. I can scarce imagine what you must have done.”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Thrall agreed. “You must tell us about your travels, Lord Barre.”

Juliana could envision the woman storing up tidbits to drop into her future conversations. “As Lord Barre was saying to me the other day…” or “Lord Barre told me he found India quite…”

She glanced at Nicholas, whose expression indicated that he had little desire to conduct a travelogue for Mrs. Thrall and her daughter. He glanced toward Juliana, then turned back to Mrs. Thrall, saying, “You must forgive me, madam. I am afraid I haven’t time to stay and chat. I just came by to invite Miss Holcott to come riding tomorrow in my curricle.” He looked over at Juliana. “If you would like to, I could come by in the morning.”

“That would be lovely,” Juliana replied quickly, not even looking toward Mrs. Thrall for permission. She was not about to let the woman ruin another visit with Nicholas by giving her a chance to thrust Clementine into their party.

“Excellent.” Nicholas rose to his feet. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must take my leave of you ladies. Mrs. Thrall. Miss Thrall.” He sketched a brief bow in their direction. “Miss Holcott.”

“My lord.”

Clementine stared after Nicholas as he left the room, too astonished for a moment to even say anything. Then she whirled around to face Juliana, her face contorting with anger. Juliana had a sudden, wicked desire that the girl’s suitors could see her as she looked now.

“No!” Clementine exclaimed. “You cannot go. I won’t allow it.”