Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 74

Chapter Thirteen

‘Coom oop, Daisy! Get along there, Molly!’

‘What the hell?’ Will sat up and Julia scrabbled at her rising hem. ‘Oh my lord, the herd is coming in. Up you get.’ He hauled her to her feet and began to bat at her skirts as Julia brushed straw off his coat-tails.

‘Too late...here they come. For goodness’ sake, Will, tuck in your shirt!’

The dairy cows pushed through the wide entrance from the field, bringing the smell of grass and manure as they stared with wide, curious black eyes at the interlopers in their milking parlour. ‘Go on, get along with you.’ Julia waved her hands and they wandered off placidly, each to its own stall, blinking with their preposterously long eyelashes.

‘My lady! Oh, and my lord too. Never realised you was in here.’ Bill Trent, the dairyman, stood in the doorway, staring at them with as much surprise, and rather more speculation, than his cattle.

‘We came up against the quagmire out there, Trent,’ Julia said. ‘And we rather misjudged the distance when we tried to get across it. Have you seen our hats? They must have fallen off when we jumped.’

‘There they be, my lady.’ Bill pointed to the ground behind the straw pile. There was no way the hats would have fallen in that position except from their heads as they sprawled there. On the other hand, she comforted herself as she went to retrieve them, Bill Trent was not perhaps the brightest of the farm workers and might not have the imagination to draw the very obvious conclusion about what the baron and his wife had been doing.

‘Come along, my dear.’ Will sounded so pompous that she could not decide whether he was perishing with embarrassment, fighting the urge to laugh or was unfairly furious with her for landing him in such a position.

‘Of course. Thank you, Trent.’ Julia managed as dignified a nod as she could under the circumstances and let Will usher her out of the milking parlour into the main yard. Fortunately there was no one in sight and Will strode across to the drive with Julia in tow. ‘Oh dear. I am afraid that was not very decorous.’

‘It was, however, exceedingly amusing.’ His voice was shaking with laughter.

‘Will!’

‘And arousing. I assume, my lady, that you will now find it necessary to take all your clothes off in order to remove the lingering traces of the farmyard?’

‘Indeed, my lord. And you will doubtless wish to take off your clothing also to assure yourself that no harm has come to those fine boots. Or your breeches. And I fear your shirt may be torn.’

‘Quite. This is obviously an emergency. Can you walk any faster?’

‘No, but I can run.’ Julia took to her heels with Will beside her, burst through the front door and was halfway up the stairs before Gatcombe emerged to see what the commotion was.

‘My lady?’ He took one look at Will and effaced himself.

‘We will have scandalised the entire staff at this rate.’ Julia fell panting on to her bed as Will came in behind her and turned the key in the lock.

‘I have no intention of having anyone else as an audience,’ he promised as he threw his coat on to a chair and began to untie his crushed neckcloth. ‘One yokel and one butler is more than enough.’

Julia watched appreciatively as he dragged his shirt over his head, then bent to unlace her boots. ‘I am not a very dignified baroness, am I?’ she asked, studying the muddy, battered footwear. A real lady would not have been seen dead in those boots, or in a cow shed, either. She would probably have no idea how milk was extracted from a cow and would faint at the sight of a dung heap.

Julia chided herself for the negative thoughts. For the first time I feel at ease with him, for the first time this feels like a normal marriage. They had shared secrets and painful memories and, for the first time, Will had been clear about his feelings over the management of the estate.

If only she did not feel so guilty whenever she thought about the secret she was keeping from him. He was coming to trust her and yet what she was hiding from him was awful beyond anything he might imagine.

‘Do you think so?’ Will said, jerking her back to the moment. What had she said? Oh, yes, something about not being dignified. He sat down to pull his own boots off. The muscles in his back rippled as he moved and tugged and Julia felt her mouth go dry. ‘Rolling about in the straw is not dignified, I will agree, but it is perfectly suitable for a milkmaid and her rustic swain. Why do you want to be dignified, anyway? I don’t want you to turn into a sober matron, Julia.’

‘My clothes are not very... I suppose I should dress better.’ Julia pulled up her skirts and untied her garters, conscious of Will’s eyes on her hands.

‘That footwear is suitable for walking around the yards or the fields,’ Will said, standing his boots by the chair and pulling off his own stockings. ‘But do you not want to buy new gowns? Or slippers or hats? Some feminine frivolity?’

‘Frivolity,’ she said blankly, then hauled her concentration back from the contemplation of Will’s bare feet—who would have thought that feet could be so attractive?—and thought about his question. ‘I did not like to spend the money on frivolities. It did not seem right.’

He had saved her life, given her hope. It had seemed immoral to indulge in what seemed like luxury with his money into the bargain. And even the fleeting thought of wandering around a large town, visiting shops amidst a crowd of strangers, brought back that feeling of panic and foreboding. She shrugged. ‘I do not like shopping much.’

‘I cannot believe that I have married the only woman in the country who doesn’t enjoy it.’ Will stood up to unfasten the fall of his breeches. His eyes narrowed and she realised she had run her tongue along her lips in anticipation. ‘We will go shopping together in Aylesbury and then in London and I will teach you to be frivolous.’

‘You want me to buy lots of new clothes?’ She slid off the bed as he came towards her.

‘Oh, yes,’ Will murmured, turning her so he could undo the buttons at the back of her gown. ‘Then I can enjoy taking them off you. Silks...’ he pushed the sensible heavy cotton off her shoulders and it fell to the floor ‘...and satins.’ He began to unlace her stays. Julia shivered despite the warmth. ‘And Indian muslins so fine they are transparent.’ The practical, sensible petticoat joined the gown on the floor. ‘And when I get down to your skin, like this...’ he began to nuzzle along her shoulder and into the crook of her neck ‘...there will be the scent of edible, warm woman, just as there is now, and perhaps just a hint of something exotic and French.’

Julia reached behind her and found the waist of his unfastened breeches and pushed down, her palms running over the smooth skin of his hips as they fell. Against her bare buttocks she felt the heat of his arousal branding her with its length and pressed back with a little wriggle.

Will groaned, pushed her forwards so that her hands were on the bed, and then entered her from behind with one swift stoke. ‘Julia.’

The blatant carnality of his need, her own excitement, the overwhelming sensations the position produced, all sent her tumbling helplessly over the edge with dizzying speed. She heard Will gasp, his hands tightened on her hips and then they fell on the bed in a panting, uncoordinated tangle of limbs.

* * *

Will rolled on to his back and pulled Julia against his side. It was not easy to find words and he was not certain she wanted any just now as she relaxed confidingly in his arms. Something had shattered the pane of glass that had been between them ever since he came home. Was it that shared laughter, or his realisation of how deeply she had been hurt by the loss of her child? Whatever it was, the results felt good. That hollow well of loneliness inside him that had ached ever since he had been given that death sentence by the doctors was being filled with something warm and soothing. He grinned at the whimsical thought. He had not realised just how much the loss of his siblings, the lies and secrecy, had hurt him until he had told Julia about it.

‘You are quiet,’ Julia said, her breath feathering across his chest.

‘Just thinking.’ He wasn’t ready to share that feeling of loneliness with her yet. It felt like weakness: a man ought to be able to look death squarely in the eye and not fall prey to self-pity.

‘I had never heard you laugh like that before.’ Julia sat up, curled her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised I had been so dour.’ When he looked back he could not recall laughing about anything since he had fallen ill. Things had amused him occasionally. The discovery that he was recovering and would not die within months had filled him with happiness, but not laughter. Not the healing, playful laugher that they had shared that afternoon. Perhaps today he had finally accepted that he had his life back to live.

‘It was the release after the sad things we spoke of earlier, I expect,’ she said. ‘Sometimes laughter brings healing.’

Will sat up too and tipped his head to one side so he could see her face. ‘I am glad you talked about it to me and that you understood about my parents. I am glad that you could trust me. That is important to me.’

‘Trust?’ She slanted him a look.

‘Yes. I suppose it comes from growing up in a household with so little honesty and so many secrets. You must not think it was the fact that you had a lover before that disturbed me when I found out. It was the fact that you had not told me the truth about how you had come to be by the lake that night.’ Julia went very still. ‘That was all it was, wasn’t it? A reluctance to tell a stranger about how you had been led astray and betrayed?’

‘Of course,’ she said and smiled at him, her eyes clear and limpid. So why did a drop of doubt send ripples to mar his certainty that his marriage was, finally, in calm waters?

‘And you have no secrets from me, do you?’ she asked, her voice light as though she was merely teasing him.

‘Of course not.’

‘So you have no regrets that we have consummated the marriage?’ She was staring at her toes now. ‘There are no possible grounds now to set it aside.’

Something knotted inside him. Did he regret it? No. He did not love Julia. But he liked her, he admired her. He certainly desired her. She would make a good mother.

‘Of course I have no regrets,’ he said firmly and saw her shoulders drop a little as though she relaxed with relief. Some demon of impulsiveness made him add, ‘Are you asking if I still love Caroline? Of course I do not. I never did—it was a suitable marriage, that was all. That is over and done with.’

Julia stiffened slightly, or perhaps it was his imagination. ‘I would not dream of prying into your feelings for Miss Fletcher.’

Will opened his mouth and shut it again. I protest too much. I should never have mentioned Caroline.

Julia slid off the bed. ‘Look at the time! I must wash and dress.’ She seemed perfectly composed and yet something in the relaxed atmosphere had changed.

Will gave himself a shake. Imagination and a slightly guilty conscience at his ineptitude just now, that was all it was.

* * *

‘Is it this morning that you were going to call on Colonel Makepeace about the pointer puppies?’ Julia enquired at breakfast as Will broke the seal on the last of his post. Every month on this day she had been helping Henry with his accounts and it had not occurred to her to write him a note and say that now he should come and ask Will for his counsel instead of her. Henry was not comfortable with his cousin yet and she had no idea how patient Will would be with him.

One more time, she told herself. Henry would turn up this morning as usual, full of his usual mixture of enthusiasms, doubts, hare-brained ideas and, increasingly, thoughtful insights into his responsibilities. Will would be safely out of the way and she could persuade the younger man that her husband would not scorn his efforts to deal with his debts and the needs of his own estate.

Will looked up from the letter. ‘Yes, it is. Do you want to come along? Or was there something you need me to do?’

‘Oh, no, I was just wondering.’ She did not like prevaricating, but if he did not know she was still helping Henry he could not tell her to stop. Which was a very dubious argument, she knew.

* * *

An hour later she was profoundly grateful Will had gone out. Henry was pale, distracted and seemed almost on the verge of despair, however hard he tried to cover it up.

Eventually Julia gave up on the accounts, put down her pen and demanded, ‘Henry, what on earth is the matter with you?’

For a moment she thought he would deny anything was wrong, or refuse to answer her, but he slammed the ledger closed and said, ‘It’s Mama. She is matchmaking again, only this time she’s invited Mary...this young lady and her mother to stay. She’s never done that before and it is so marked an attention when there are no other guests that I know they will be expecting a declaration from me!’

‘That is somewhat obvious, I agree. Have you shown any interest in this girl?’

‘No!’ Henry looked positively flustered.

‘Is there someone else? You must tell your mother if you have formed an attachment elsewhere.’

Henry got to his feet and went to look out of the window without answering. The tips of his ears had gone red.

‘So there is someone? Someone unsuitable,’ Julia guessed. She got up and went to sit on the window seat, close, but not crowding him.

‘God, yes.’

‘Has it been going on for long?’ He turned his head away so she added, ‘I swear I will not mention a word to a soul. You know I keep my promises, Henry.’ It would not do, of course, this attachment to an ineligible woman, but there was no need to add to his misery by telling him that, he obviously already knew it perfectly well.

‘A year.’

Serious, then. ‘Is it a courtesan, Henry?’ Perhaps he had sought to deal with his shyness with girls and had become attached to the professional he had gone to. A vehement shake of the head. ‘An older woman?’ He shot her an incredulous look. ‘Someone not of your station?’ He bit his lip. Ah, that was it. ‘Someone of the merchant class? A servant?’

He had gone white now. ‘A servant. I cannot tell you, Julia. You will be shocked.’

‘No I will not, truly I will not, Henry. I have not led a very sheltered life, you know. Tell me about her, do.’

Henry sat down abruptly next to her, his hands fisted on his thighs as if to stop them shaking. He seemed unable to speak and a suspicion began to creep over her. ‘Henry, is it a young man?’

‘How did you—?’ He broke off, his face stark with the realisation that he had given himself away. Julia managed to keep the shock out of her voice. Henry was confessing to something that could, at the worst, see him go to the scaffold.

‘I just guessed. Henry, is this serious? Who is he?’

‘A valet. I met him at the Walsinghams’ house party and then... Well, you don’t need the details. But it is serious, Julia. I love him and he loves me and I don’t know what to do. Mama keeps on about me marrying.’ He seemed to run out of words.

Yes, it was serious, she could see that. Lethally serious, if not for him, a gentleman, but certainly perilous for his lover. And Henry looked desperate enough to do something foolish. This was no time to be shocked and uncomprehending—she had to help him.

‘How often do you go up to London?’ she asked, thinking aloud. ‘Quite a lot, don’t you?’ He nodded, bemused. ‘Where do you stay?’

‘Hotels, sometimes with friends. But what—?’

‘It would be more economical, and an investment, if you bought a small apartment,’ she suggested. ‘You would need a manservant, of course, to maintain it while you were not there and to look after you while you were in town. Many young men do just that and no one thinks anything of it. A young man trained as a valet would be ideal, don’t you think?’

‘Julia, that is brilliant!’ Henry took her hands and beamed at her. Then his face fell. ‘But Mama keeps on trying to pair me off with girls.’

‘Learn to flirt,’ Julia said with sudden inspiration. ‘Cultivate a reputation for being dangerous and the mamas will flee at the sight of you. Become a rake and a ladies’ man. Your mother will be furious with you, but it should disarm all suspicion.’

‘Will you show me how?’

‘Certainly not! You’ll have to be observant and work it out for yourself. Oh, Henry, don’t—’ There were tears in his eyes despite his smiles. ‘Just do be careful, my dear. It will be more than just a scandal if you are discovered.’

‘Thank you. Oh, thank you, Julia.’ The next thing she knew she was in Henry’s arms and he was hugging her with desperate affection, his cheek pressed against hers.

The door banged closed. Henry started and clutched her tighter. ‘A touching scene,’ Will remarked. ‘Henry, get your hands off my wife and come here.’

‘Will—’

But Henry was already in his feet. He tried to thrust her protectively behind him even as she resisted him. ‘Don’t you dare look at Julia like that, as if she could do something wrong—as though she would dream of it! You can name your seconds, Cousin!’

‘And cause a scandal? I don’t think so. And as for my wife’s capacity for wrongdoing, well, Cousin, you have a far longer and more recent acquaintanceship with her than I have.’

Henry went very still. ‘You are just like your father,’ he accused. ‘I can remember him all too well and you—’

‘That is enough, both of you.’ Julia stood and put herself between Will with his clenched fists and his hard, angry eyes and Henry’s rigid form. ‘I have just given Henry some advice with a difficult problem that was worrying him and he was relieved and grateful. If you believe I would be unfaithful to you, and with a young man I regard as a brother, then, my lord, I am sorry for you.’

‘What problem?’

Beside her she heard Henry’s sharp intake of breath. ‘That is a confidential matter. I do not break confidences, my lord. Not yours, not anyone’s.’

The dangerous silence stretched until she thought she would faint from holding her breath, then Will said, ‘Very well. Keep your hands off my wife in future, Cousin. I do not care how grateful you might be feeling.’ He turned on his heel.

‘I think it might be best if you come here only in company for a week or so,’ Julia said as the door closed with exaggerated care behind her husband. ‘Will does not like secrets.’