Читать книгу Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 13

JULIA SAT IN THE MAIN salon at Becket Hall, her stomach comfortably full after a plentiful and well-prepared dinner, wondering how long she would have to wait before she’d be allowed to retire to her newly assigned bedchamber on the second floor.

She hadn’t seen Chance Becket all day. He’d simply left her alone outside the morning room to muddle through coddled eggs on her own, and she really was more than a little angry with the man. Even if he had looked so very handsome tonight at the dinner table, arriving late, with no apologies and only a warning squeeze of her shoulder as he bent to kiss her cheek before taking up his own chair.

Callie had giggled, and Julia had known that her cheeks had gone red. But then everyone had started talking at once again and Julia had had to choose whether to sit and stew or join in. She’d joined in. And taken peeks across the table, drat that huge candlestick, to see if Chance might be looking at her.

He had been, several times. But was that because he wanted to see her or because he thought he should appear as if he wanted to see her?

If only she could forget that assault on her person this morning. And, more especially, her reaction to Chance’s kiss, the intimate way he had touched her, the words he had spoken to her. Open your mouth…let me in….

She felt caught up in a dream, one that could just as easily become a nightmare. Even now, Julia’s head was still spinning from everything that had occurred from the moment the coach had stopped on the Marsh last night.

She’d come face-to-face with the most benevolently frightening man she’d ever seen. She’d met Cassandra and the rest of the Beckets. She’d been kissed by Chance Becket.

She’d kissed Chance Becket.

At least the family called “happily uncivilized” by Chance Becket had adopted the trappings of civilization. Becket Hall was wonderfully appointed, if located in a very isolated area of Romney Marsh.

And his sisters were delightful.

Morgan Becket amazed Julia, simply amazed her. The young woman was exotic, with darkest brown hair and deep gray eyes. She had the glow of the sun about her on her flawless skin and she seemed…ripe. Yes, that was the word. Ripe. Lush. Stunningly beautiful. But perhaps what was most beautiful about Morgan Becket was that the girl seemed to have no idea of that beauty—or, at the least, did not act as if she cared.

Morgan Becket walked and spoke as if she wore breeches, not her simple but well-made palest blue gown, more than once quietly cursing her skirts for tangling when she crossed her legs at the knee.

She’d told a story at the dinner table, a more than slightly bawdy joke, then waited until Ainsley Becket had smiled a small, indulgent half smile before she’d laughed.

Julia thought at the time that Morgan hadn’t really understood the joke but had simply parroted something she’d heard and hoped for a reaction from her family.

For as lively and animated as Morgan was, another Becket “daughter” was quiet.

Julia looked across the large room, pretending not to watch as Eleanor Becket adjusted the skirt of her simple gray gown over her legs, then bent to rub at the calf of one of them. Eleanor was small and slight, ethereal-looking, with huge brown eyes in a gamine face that wore a much too serious expression for such a lovely young woman.

“Her leg pains her,” Cassandra whispered as she sat down beside Julia. “We don’t notice.”

“I’m sorry,” Julia said, quickly lowering her eyes. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

“Elly didn’t see you looking,” Cassandra assured her, then popped another sugarplum into her mouth. “Now please pretend you are enjoying my company very much or else someone will take it into their head to send me back upstairs to bed, and I’m heartily sick of being sick in bed.”

Julia smiled at the girl. “I think we’d be smart to keep Alice away from you. You may be a disquieting influence on her.”

Cassandra considered this. “No. That would be Fanny. Odette says she’s got the devils in her. I’m simply spoiled straight down to the bone because Papa thinks I look like Mama, and he loved her very much.”

“Is that her portrait above the mantel?” Julia asked, sure it was, for Cassandra looked very much like the smiling young woman in the portrait, captured in all her youth and beauty. The woman’s hair was darker, but the smile was so like her daughter’s it was almost uncanny. “She’s wearing the most beautiful gown. All those colors!”

Cassandra looked at the portrait. “Odette says Mama called it her rainbow gown. Papa found the silk somewhere and brought it to her as a present. But it’s gone now. It got lost.”

“Callie, why are you still here? I went to your room to tuck you up and you weren’t there.”

Cassandra Becket sighed theatrically and Julia hid a smile behind her hand.

“You didn’t want to tuck me up, Fanny,” Cassandra said. “You wanted to ask me questions about Julia. What’s she like, Callie? Will I like her, Callie? Why don’t you just sit down and find out for yourself?”

“You’re an odious child,” Fanny said in an offhand tone that told Julia she’d offered those sentiments often in the past, and then she smiled at Julia. “Callie’s such an infant. Come along, infant, you belong in bed. If Papa comes in here after his brandy and cigar and sees you, he’ll look at you. You don’t want him looking at you, do you?”

Apparently Cassandra did not. “I have to go upstairs now, Julia,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “But don’t worry, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Julia watched Cassandra and her sister Fanny leave the room holding hands, Cassandra already chattering to her sister, Fanny nodding her blond head as she smiled a delightfully wide smile down at Callie.

“Fanny makes it sound as if Papa would punish Callie if he found her still here,” Eleanor said from her chair. “It’s hardly that. Callie’s been sick, and no one wants to worry Papa about anything.”

“I see,” Julia said, not seeing at all. Ainsley Becket certainly hadn’t given her the impression that he needed to be shielded from anything. He’d generously included her in their dinner conversation and seemed to listen with both ears when she’d talked about her late father and their life in Hawkhurst.

Julia had gotten the feeling that there was nothing Ainsley Becket saw or heard that he didn’t remember. And that some of what he’d seen and heard still hurt him very badly.

“You’re feeling overwhelmed, aren’t you?” Eleanor asked, sitting very still in her chair, her hands folded in her lap. “We Beckets can be a bit…daunting.”

“Not to mention numerous,” Julia said as she stood, walked over to seat herself in a chair closer to Eleanor. “I should like to write all of your names down on scraps of paper, then pin them to you until I can sort you out.”

Eleanor’s smile was glorious, lighting her entire solemn little face. “I felt the same at first. Perhaps I can help?”

Julia wondered what Chance’s answer would be to that question, wondered how much he really wanted her to know about his “family.” But then again, Chance was with Ainsley and his brothers, still in the dining room. “Yes, please. As you said, I am feeling a little overwhelmed.”

“But certainly not because we all look like peas from the same pod,” Eleanor said, then sighed. “I’m sure Chance told you at least that much? That we’re Papa’s children but not really his children, except for Callie?”

“Yes, he did tell me that.” Julia looked toward the closed double doors to the dining room, hoping they’d stay closed until Eleanor had told her more about her siblings, most especially about Chance.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Eleanor said. “They’ve left the dining room by now and are shut up tight in Papa’s study, all of them ringing a peal over Courtland’s head for some reason or another, or so Morgan told me. They’ve been at it all day, and I doubt they’ll be coming in here any more tonight.”

“Courtland’s rather a serious sort, isn’t he?” Julia asked, remembering the man who had sat across from Eleanor at the dinner table. Courtland Becket was tall but shorter than Chance and built along sturdier lines. Only his longish, unruly light brown wavy hair softened his features and kept him from looking petulant rather than intense.

“Courtland enjoys being dour and sober,” Eleanor said, then sighed. “Life is very serious to Courtland. I think Callie’s the only thing that keeps him from becoming positively grim. It’s as if the weight of the whole world is on his shoulders, and what isn’t there, he’ll pick up for the rest of us and carry it. He feels responsibility for everyone, you understand.”

“But he’s not the oldest,” Julia said, remembering what Chance had told her at the inn. “Chance is the oldest. I’m sure he told me that.”

“Yes, all right, we’ll do it that way,” Eleanor said. “There are two ways, you understand. Our ages or when Papa found us. Chance was both the first and the oldest. Papa always kept him close, so that’s why it’s so difficult that…”

“That Chance doesn’t visit Becket Hall very often?” Julia supplied helpfully, trying not to sound too eager.

“They had a falling-out when…some years ago. It’s why we’re all so glad he brought Alice here—and brought you here. To be fair, I think he tried to mend things before, by bringing Beatrice and Alice here, but his wife made it very plain that she wanted nothing to do with us or with Becket Hall. She called us a “barbarian menagerie” and much worse than that. Of course, Fanny did put a dozen frogs in her dressing room, with Callie’s assistance, which didn’t really help matters.”

Julia laughed. “No, I suppose not. How old is Fanny?”

“Sixteen, so she’s not the one I should tell you about next, although she is one of the last Papa adopted. Both Fanny and Rian the same day.”

“Those are Irish names, aren’t they? They’re really brother and sister? By blood?”

Eleanor shook her head. “No. But they were orphaned at the same time. Rian is six years older than Fanny. They used to be very close, but now he and Spence call her a pest. And she is, I suppose. Not quite a child, not quite grown. She still thinks she should be running free and even refuses to put up her hair.”

“Spencer,” Julia said, remembering the dark-haired young man who’d sat at the table looking very much as if he longed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. “He and Morgan seem somewhat alike—in their coloring, that is.”

“Some Spanish somewhere or even Portuguese,” Eleanor said, nodding. “At least Papa thinks so. They’re both very…passionate people. And when they argue? It’s really almost funny, unless Morgan is throwing something.”

Julia pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “I think I’m even more confused now. Eight of you! I know that isn’t a large family, especially here on the Marsh, but I had no siblings at all. Now let me see if I have this correctly. Chance is the oldest, then Courtland, then—Rian or Spencer?”

“Spencer by a year. Then me, then Morgan, then Fanny and lastly Callie. Papa hadn’t planned on us girls, not at all, but here we are.”

“So you’re the oldest girl,” Julia said, believing that would mean she had known Chance the longest. “What was it like growing up on the islands?”

Eleanor looked at her hands again. “I have no idea. Papa…found me on his way here, to England. I’m his bit of flotsam, I suppose.” Then she smiled. “Well, that’s the lot of us. And if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go up to bed now. You’ll be all right here by yourself? Morgan or Fanny might come back downstairs, but I can’t be sure. You can ring for someone if you need anything.”

Julia watched as Eleanor left the room, a graceful figure, only slightly favoring her left leg. Then she sat back and counted Beckets on her fingers and decided she liked Ainsley Becket very much, for he had chosen to provide for all these children, now mostly adults.

And they must have great affection for him, for none of them had left, save Chance.

Julia looked about the large, lavishly appointed room, enchanted once more by the portrait hanging over the fireplace, then realized that she was the lone female and could soon be surrounded by five Becket males. Did she really want that? Was she really ready for that?

It had been difficult enough sitting at dinner this evening, being welcomed to the family, and she’d felt a fraud as she’d coaxed Eleanor into telling what very well could be family secrets.

She probably should go to bed, as she’d really like to rise early, be ready to walk on the beach the moment the morning mist dissipated. She hadn’t been out-of-doors all day, what with settling in both herself and Alice, and both she and the child could use a bit of fresh air.

But first, Julia decided as she climbed the stairs, she would check on Alice in the nursery.