Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 78

Chapter Seventeen

Will was as good as his word about the shopping. He gave Julia one day to settle into Grillon’s Hotel in Albemarle Street while he had his hair cut, ordered his boots from Hoby’s, wrote to summon his tailor and sent messages to his lawyers and bankers, then the next day swept her out to, as he put it, discover the lie of the land. With Nancy in attendance, so she knew where she was going when Julia wanted to shop in future, they explored Bond Street, located Harding, Howell and Company in Piccadilly, scanned the myriad of temptations in the Parthenon Bazaar and came home loaded with bandboxes and armed with the latest guidebooks.

Julia was thrilled to discover that King Louis XVIII had stayed at Grillon’s Hotel in 1812 and even more excited to discover they were opposite the offices of James Murray, the publisher. It was only when Will pointed out that she would not recognise any of her favourite authors if she saw them that she could be persuaded away from the window.

‘Would you like to see the City?’ he asked over dinner. ‘St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England? We could even climb up the Monument if you feel really energetic.’

‘Yes, please. All of those are on my list and I am hardly a quarter of the way through the guidebook yet.’

‘I am not certain we can do all of them in one day. I must call on my bankers in the morning and then my lawyer, who is in Amen Corner.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘It is by St Paul’s, which I suppose accounts for the name. We can decide what to do when we see what the time is, but we can certainly fit in the cathedral.’

* * *

Julia had tried to be patient, but an hour sitting in the banker’s outer office, even sustained with coffee and ratafia biscuits and the copy of La Belle Assemblée, which she had prudently brought with her, was more than enough tedium.

As the hackney carriage made its way along Paternoster Row she asked, ‘Is there any reason why I cannot walk around outside with Nancy while you are with the lawyer? The sun is shining, the shops seem to be cheaper than they are in Mayfair...’

Will nodded as they drew up in a narrow lane. ‘I do not see why not. You can hardly get lost, not with the dome of St Paul’s to act as a landmark. Shall we say you will be back here in an hour?’ He helped them both out, making Nancy blush at the attention, then pointed. ‘Go down Ave Maria Lane there and turn left and you’ll find all the shops around St Paul’s Churchyard.’ He felt in the breast of his coat and handed her some folded banknotes. ‘Do not let anyone see you have that.’

‘Thank you.’ Julia cast a quick look round, found the lane almost deserted and stood on tiptoe to drop a swift kiss on Will’s cheek.

‘Cupboard love,’ he said with a smile and paid off the cab.

The previous day had been unalloyed pleasure. Julia had not felt at all alarmed in the fashionable streets, despite the numbers of people. On Will’s arm, and in such fashionable lounges, her fears seemed foolish. Now she set off with confidence, Nancy at her side. They emerged from Ave Maria Lane to find themselves on a busy street with a pronounced slope. ‘Ludgate Hill,’ Julia said with the certainty of someone who had studied the map.

‘My lord said to go left,’ Nancy said as Julia turned downhill.

‘I know, but see this silversmith’s shop—is that not a delightful ink stand? I think something like that would make an admirable present for Lord Dereham.’

And the next shop down was a print seller with amusing cartoons in the window. And the next a jeweller’s, its window stuffed with enticing oddments.

‘My lady, it is getting rather crowded.’

Julia looked up. In front of them a press of people were heading into a street parallel to Ave Maria Lane. They were noisy, a motley crowd of working people and tradesmen, men and women. They seemed in good humour, but Julia’s old fears came flooding back to cramp her stomach.

‘Yes, we must turn back.’ As they did so another crowd swept down the hill towards them. ‘Nancy!’ Julia was jostled, caught up. She struggled to find her feet and fight her way back, but she was carried, like driftwood on a stream, down the hill and round the corner.

Julia tried not to panic, knowing if she struggled she would simply exhaust herself or fall and be trampled. She let herself be borne along and tried to think coherently. Nancy would be all right, she was sure, for she had been further up the hill. If she could just get to the end of this street and turn right, go uphill again, keeping St Paul’s in sight and then turn right, surely she’d be back in Ave Maria Lane?

Then the movement began to slow. She was still crushed against unwashed bodies and rough clothing, but at least there was no longer any danger of falling over and being trampled. Julia stared around and found the street had widened into a square shaped like a funnel. The crowd milled about, elbowing for room, but everyone faced the building that towered over them on her right. Wedged in place, she had no option but to turn with them. In front of her was the massive bulk of a grim stone building.

‘What is that?’ she asked the man at her side, a prosperous shopkeeper, she guessed.

‘Why, that is Newgate Prison, ma’am. Aren’t you here for the hanging, then?’ He pointed and her reluctant gaze followed. High above the heads of the mob, the scaffold and the noose stood waiting for their first victim of the day.

‘Let me out!’ Julia turned and burrowed through the tight-packed spectators, fear and desperation lending her strength as she used her elbows and pushed, shoved, wriggled through every tiny gap that opened up, like a mouse through long grass with a hawk hovering above. Her bonnet was dragged off, she lost a shoe, but there was a thinning of the crowd ahead of her and she fought her way towards it.

Laughter, improbable in this mayhem, made her glance up to the right. There was an inn and, surrounding the swinging inn sign, its windows were crowded with people laughing and chatting as if they were in the boxes at a play. Horrible, she thought. How could they? And then a woman turned and nudged her husband and pointed at her and she found herself staring up at Jane and Arthur Prior, her cousins.

Julia gasped, stumbled and when she looked up they had gone. It was imagination, that was all, she told herself as she struggled on, the panic beating in her chest like a trapped bird against a window. With shocking suddenness she was finally out of the press, stumbling on the uneven cobbles. Her unshod foot jarred against a stone and she fell, throwing out her hands in a vain attempt to save herself.

The cobbles were rough, disgustingly dirty and wet. Her hands hurt. Almost winded, Julia lay where she was, felt the blood oozing through the split in her glove and wondered if her heart was going to burst.

‘Julia! Sweetheart, it is all right. I’m here. Are you hurt?’

And, miraculously, there Will was, gathering her up in his arms. Julia turned her face to his shoulder and clung on as he lifted her, then carried her to a hackney carriage where Nancy waited, white-faced.

‘My lady—oh, your poor hands.’

‘Just grazed. I am not hurt otherwise,’ she managed to reassure them as Will gently opened her fingers and wrapped them in his handkerchief, still holding her hard against himself. ‘Are you all right, Nancy?’ Concern for someone else helped, she realised. The panic was ebbing, her breath was calming.

‘I am fine, my lady, just all shaken up. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t reach you, or see you, so I ran back to the lawyers and made them get my lord. What was it, my lady? A riot?’

‘No, a hanging.’ She would not be sick, not if she closed her eyes and thought of nothing but Will’s arms around her, keeping her safe.

‘It is Newgate Prison,’ he said, his voice grim. ‘I should have warned you not to go that way, it isn’t very salubrious at the best of times, but when there’s an execution it is a glimpse into hell.’

‘People were watching from the windows, as if it were a play,’ she managed. Jane and Arthur. It couldn’t be. It was my imagination, my fear, a couple who looked a little like them. I haven’t seen them for almost four years, she comforted herself. They will have changed, I wouldn’t recognise them now if I really saw them. I am safe with Will, I don’t imagine things when he is here.

‘It is disgusting,’ Will muttered, his voice rough with anger. ‘They moved the hangings from Tyburn because it was supposed to be more civilised to do it outside the prison instead of parading the condemned through the streets to the place of execution. It is not my definition of civilised. Just try to relax, sweetheart. I’ve got you safe.’

‘I know,’ Julia murmured and closed her eyes so that her entire world became just Will. She inhaled slowly and there was the familiar smell of his skin, of clean linen and the sharp male edge of fresh sweat. He had run, and run hard, to reach her. The feel of him was familiar too, the strength that made her feel so safe, the warmth of that big, desirable body under fine linen and smooth broadcloth. She listened to the sound of his heartbeat against her ear, a little ragged still. Home. I am home when I am with him.

Will cared for her, he was angry for her. He shifted a little to hold her more securely and she felt his cheek press against her hair and something happened in her chest as if a bell had tolled silently, reverberating through her whole body.

I love him. She felt herself go still as though to move would shatter the moment, break the spell. This was nothing like her emotions for Jonathan, this was a deeply complex, rich emotion like velvet swirling around her feelings. It was not about desire or liking or respect, although those were all in there somewhere. It was inexplicable and unexplainable and that, she supposed, was how she knew it was love.

She would tell him this evening when they were alone, when they were in bed together: it would be the naked truth, after all. He did not love her, she knew that, but that was all right. Well, no, perhaps not all right exactly. But she could not hope for the moon and the stars. She would explain to him that she did not expect him to feel the same way, that she was not asking him to pretend and to lie to her.

‘Better, sweetheart?’ Will murmured in her ear.

‘Much, thank you, Will. You keep me safe.’

‘Always,’ he said and his arms tightened around her.

* * *

‘I will sleep in the dressing room,’ Will said from the open door of the bedroom as the clocks in their suite struck nine. ‘You should be asleep.’ Julia was pale against the heaped pillows. He wished he had her home again where she would feel safer as she recovered from her ordeal and not here, in a strange place.

‘I have slept, for hours,’ Julia protested. And she did look better, despite the pallor. ‘That hot bath was like taking laudanum! Come to bed, Will.’

‘You are still nervous? Then of course I will sleep with you.’ He closed the door behind him and watched her carefully as he shed coat and waistcoat. No wonder she was so reluctant to go into the neighbouring towns for anything but the most essential shopping if crowds made her so frightened. Some people had a fear of them, he knew. It was like the fear of heights, or spiders—not something that seemed to be rational to anyone else, but very real to the sufferer. And a public hanging was probably, short of a riot, the most frightening mob to find oneself in.

‘I wish you had told me how you felt about crowds,’ he said as he pulled off his neck cloth.

‘It was so irrational, I thought you would think me foolish,’ she said, not meeting his eyes. ‘I pride myself on common sense and keeping calm and then to experience such panic when no one means me any harm...’

Her voice trailed away and he bit his tongue on the reproach that she had kept this a secret from him. It was not a rational fear, he reminded himself, so perhaps she found it harder to confide about it.

‘We all fear something,’ Will said and sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots.

‘What do you fear?’ Julia curled round on the pillows and watched him as he tossed his stockings aside. ‘I did not think you were afraid of anything.’

‘Lies and powerlessness,’ he said instantly, then stopped undressing to think about what he had said. ‘Not seeing the whole picture when there is something to confront, so all the time you think there is something worse lying in wait. I think that was what was so dreadful with my parents when I was growing up: I did not know what was wrong, no one would tell me the truth and admit that the marriage was a sham. I was expected to act as though we were a happy family and nothing was amiss, yet I sensed the world as I knew it was all falling apart.

‘And then at first when I was ill, no one would tell me the truth—or what they thought was the truth. In my heart I believed I was dying and yet I could not face it, deal with it, because the doctors insisted I would be cured in the end. I have no idea why they wouldn’t tell me. Perhaps they thought I couldn’t cope with it, or perhaps they thought I was a better source of income if I was hoping for a cure! It took three months before they would admit the truth, that they were certain there was no hope.’

‘Was it any easier after that?’ Julia asked. She reached out a hand and laid it over his on the bedspread. She did nothing except press lightly, but it was curiously comforting. Will curled his fingers into hers and dug deeper into his feelings than he had for a long time.

‘It made the dying easier,’ he confessed with a grimace. ‘Which seems strange, but I suppose I had suspected the worst for so long it was a relief to know what I was dealing with. But then the powerlessness over King’s Acre, that was terrifying.’

Julia’s fingers closed tighter. ‘You are in control of all of it now.’

All of it except my wife, Will thought wryly. He honestly had no idea what Julia would do next or how she would react to what he said or did. Most of the time that was refreshing, but there was still some secret, deep down, he was certain of it and it nagged at the foundation of trust that he thought they were building together. At least he understood her reluctance to leave the estate now if crowds brought on attacks of panic.

She began to stroke the inside of his wrist and Will lost the thread of his thoughts as desire began to build, hot and heavy. He tugged his shirt over his head and let Julia pull him back on to the bed. ‘Nothing is going to get you in here,’ he protested.

‘I am not afraid,’ Julia murmured, running her nails lightly down his torso. ‘I am...’ She blushed.

‘Lustful?’ Will suggested as he rolled over on his back and began to unfasten his breeches. It was not the easiest thing to do flat on his back, with an erection and with a wanton wife crawling over him.

‘Will! Amorous sounds better.’

‘Both of them sound good to me,’ he growled as he kicked his legs free and sent the breeches flying. Julia gave a soft huff of laughter as he rolled over on top of her, but as she lay looking up at him the laughter ebbed away, leaving her serious. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what was wrong when she pulled his head down and lifted herself to kiss him.

It was the first time she had ever taken the initiative in their lovemaking. Before she had been responsive and willing to follow wherever he led, but he sensed that this exploration with soft lips and delicate strokes of her tongue was different.

Her hands drifted down his rib-cage, down his flanks, stroking in fluttering caresses that made him want to purr like a big cat and then to plunge into her to assuage the ache that gripped him. He was almost impossibly hard, aroused, simply by a sweet kiss and gentle hands. This was some enchantment she was weaving, it had to be.

Without freeing his mouth she wriggled, almost tipping him over the edge beyond control, then wrapped her legs around his hips so he was cradled against the hot, wet centre of her. Will tried counting backwards, then doing it in Arabic. He was going to lose his grip any moment and behave like an animal and it was obvious from Julia’s gentle, languid movements that was not what she wanted.

It was also obvious she had no idea whatsoever that she was driving him to the brink, he thought in despair as she fastened her teeth on his earlobe with a delicate nip.

Then she wriggled again, and tilted her pelvis and he realised through the fog of desire that she knew exactly what she was doing. They were positioned perfectly for her to arch up and take him into her in a smooth, seductive glide that had him gasping for mercy until, somehow, he wrenched some self-control back.

And then he found that he could slow down, be as gentle as she was, make this exquisite pleasure last and last until there was nothing in the world except for their ragged breathing and the scent of arousal and the sound of their bodies moving against each other.

‘Will.’ She shuddered under him, around him, the force of her orgasm caressing him until he was falling with her. He knew he called her name, knew he found her mouth and stifled both their cries with his kisses, and then the world was still again.

‘Will.’ Seconds later, hours later? He had no idea. All he knew was that was the most perfect physical experience he had ever had in his life and that, somehow, it went beyond the physical into emotion. He opened his eyes and raised his head from the softness of Julia’s breast and saw her eyes were wide and dark as her mouth trembled into a smile. ‘I love you.’

It took a long moment before her words sank in. ‘Julia—’ He did not know what to say, what to feel.

‘It is all right,’ she murmured, lifting one hand to brush his hair back from his face. ‘You don’t have to say it too. I know you don’t love me, but I had to tell you. How could I keep that a secret from you?’

He was squashing her, Will thought distractedly. But if he rolled off her she would think he was avoiding meeting her eyes. Those painfully clear, honest eyes. Will took more weight on his elbows and sought for the truth. ‘I don’t know about love,’ he said at last. ‘I was not in love with Caroline, I know that. Just dazzled and charmed and rather a lot in lust.’

That made her laugh, a soft gurgle of amusement. ‘I know you were not. That is why I was not more angry with you after the dinner party. And I want you to be honest. I would hate to think you were telling me you love me and lying to be kind.’ She hesitated. ‘That would not be...kind.’

‘I know.’ How did he feel? ‘I desire you more every time I lie with you, every time I kiss you. I like you. I miss you when we are not together. I admire your intelligence and your strength of will and I like that you need me to protect you sometimes despite it. I do not know what that adds up to, sweetheart.’

‘Enough for any woman,’ Julia said. ‘I can live with that and be happy, believe me.’

‘I believe you,’ Will said, knowing in his heart that it was not enough but that he could not give her what he did not possess or understand. He pulled her with him as he rolled over, then gathered her against his chest. ‘Go to sleep now, Julia.’

So that was what the secret was that she had been keeping from him, he thought as he began to drift off to sleep. She had needed the shock of that day’s events to give her the courage to tell him how she felt. Perhaps he did love her. If only he knew what it felt like so he could recognise it. But whatever this was, he decided as Julia’s breathing became slow and her body relaxed against his in complete trust, it was the start of happiness. A more complete happiness than he had dared hope he would ever find.