* * *
Sidney was the same sapskull who had ventured across an ocean to seek out the woman who had laughed in his face following his proposal of marriage. And that had never been more apparent than during the previous evening’s game of billiards when he had so stupidly confessed to her.
There was wooing, and there was handing himself to her on a silver salver.
But even through his dismay at his own stupidity, he had still played his hand according to the plan he had formulated over the course of their first round. He had allowed her to win that final bout. Oh, it was not as if Julianna was not an excellent billiards player; she was. She was the sort of woman who naturally excelled at almost anything she tried. Mayhap it was her innate grace. Or perhaps her sense of competition, or her stubborn nature. Whatever the case, she was certainly a worthy adversary.
He had wanted an excuse to buy her a gift, it was true. And the billiards challenge had presented him with an excellent opportunity to claim that desire. Following the conclusion of their game, he had escorted her to her chamber. There, they had parted ways for the evening. He had not kissed her, and he was proud of himself for his unparalleled restraint.
Everything within him had been screaming with the need to take her mouth with his and make love to her all night long. However, bedding was not wooing. He knew the difference. If he wanted to get to the truth of what had happened between them two years ago—where they had gone so helplessly, hopelessly wrong—then he needed to take his time. To give this marriage all the attention and care it—and Julianna—deserved.
He had also sent a note to Charlotte first thing this morning. A congé letting her know their understanding was at an end and that she could call upon his jeweler, who had been provided with a fund and the instructions to give Mrs. Edwards the parting gift of her choosing.
This was his second chance with Julianna, and he intended to seize it with both hands. Not to bloody well muck it up again.
Even so, those same hands he intended to do the seizing still trembled as he left the gift for her at her place setting at the breakfast table that morning. An extraordinarily early outing, along with the greasing of some palms and pulling of some strings, had enabled him to secure it. An original printing of a Keats collection.
He flipped it open with his thumb, revealing his inscription on the blank page preceding the frontispiece.
1885
To Julianna from Sidney
His forfeit
“O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!”
Was the line from To Fanny too much? Mayhap. But he had already written the words, and there they were, silent and mocking. Moreover, he meant them. He wanted her, all of her, now and forever.
Sidney closed the book, frowning at himself. He had not had a drop of alcohol to drink in the days following his marriage. But the urge for a glass of wine—hell, a whole bloody bottle of Sauternes—walloped him now. He scratched his temple, thinking it a hell of a thing. Years had passed, and yet it was as if none had. He still wanted her desperately, loved her madly, and longed for her as if she were a part of him which had been torn away.
Because she was.
She was the best damned part of him.
Until she had decided she no longer wanted him. He had to decipher why. He had been close last night, he thought. But he was going slowly. He did not want to push her too far, too fast. He was willing to take his time.
Hell, they had the rest of their lives.
But he would be damned if it took that long, he thought with a renewed frown of displeasure.
“What has you so Friday-faced this morning?” Julianna asked brightly.
“Fuck,” he grumbled, his voice so low he was certain she would not overhear.
There were no servants about; he had dismissed them because he would be damned before he would make a lovesick fool of himself before the goddamn footmen. He could be as unfettered as he wished.
“You truly must pay more attention to your vulgar language,” his wife said as she approached.
Well, damn it. Apparently she had overheard after all. But never mind that. He was trapped in her thrall as she approached him.
Had pink ever looked so sumptuous on a female before? He was certain it had not. Her gown was embroidered with red roses and blonde lace adorned the décolletage and sleeves. A line of buttons he could not help but to be tempted to undo bisected her bodice. Her overskirt was gathered and held in place with a spray of silk roses. The pink complemented her fiery hair, creamy skin, and pale-blue eyes to perfection.
He forced himself to bow. “Forgive me, chérie.”
He truly did have to curb his wayward tongue. And he would. Old habits and all that. One of which was dipping into a curtsy, offering him a hesitant smile.
“If Emily repeats one of your curses, I shall blacken your eye,” she declared, quite dampening the effect.
“Never fear. Thus far, her favorite word seems to be Papa,” he countered with a grin and a wink. “Shall I fill your plate for you?”
“You have dismissed the domestics?” she asked instead of answering him. “They are quieter than mice in the larder hoping to avoid discovery.”
“I requested solitude.” Truth. She need not concern herself with the reason why.
“If you intend something nefarious—”
“Such as seducing you on the breakfast table?” he interrupted.
A flush stole over her cheeks. “My lord.”
“Shall I fill your plate?” he pressed again, ignoring her look of admonishment, which was bloody adorable.
He enjoyed performing this small task for her. Enjoyed taking care of her. He had missed it. Had missed her. And now that his ire had experienced some time to settle, embracing those old feelings was a welcome change.
Her lips pursed. “You do know I am capable of fetching my own breakfast, do you not?”
Stubborn woman.
“You have reminded me, chérie. I assure you, I have no designs on your independence. All I want is to do something for you.”
To love you.
Wisely, he kept that bit to himself as he strode to the sideboard and removed the covers, selecting everything he knew she would like and heaping it upon her plate.
“What is this?”
Her query reached him, and his gut clenched as he thought about the inscription. As he wondered what her reaction would be. By God, if she laughed, he would be mortified. He reminded himself he was following through with Northwich’s battle plan. He was wooing the hell out of his wife, damn it.
“It is your gift,” he managed with studied nonchalance, selecting a rasher of bacon as his final adornment to her dish.
He looked down at the mounds of food he had piled there and wondered if he had been a tad overzealous in his effort to offer her sustenance.
“You did not need to buy me a gift,” she said. “I hardly expected one. It was nothing more than a game.”
It had been far more than a game to him. Everything between them was. It always had been. Clenching his jaw, he turned back to her, carrying the plate and depositing it beside the book, which she had yet to touch.
“It shan’t bite you,” he told her wryly. “Go on. Have a look at it.”
Her eyes went to the plate first. “Good heavens, Shelbourne. You have filled it with enough food to feed a regiment of infantrymen.”
“Hmm.” He did not like that he was Shelbourne once more. “And how many regiments of infantry are you acquainted with, darling?”
“None, of course.” Her gaze flicked back to him. “But that is—”
“Julianna,” he interrupted firmly. “Accept the breakfast and the bloody gift.”
She caught her upper lip between her teeth and picked up the book at last. His courage fled him, so he returned to the sideboard and piled his own plate full.
“A volume of Keats. That was quite thoughtful of you.”
Thoughtful. He grimaced. Had she read the inscription?
He scooped up some strawberries with so much force, he sent a few errant fruit to the Axminster. They rolled. He glared at them.
“Oh,” she said then.
And he wondered if she had witnessed his incidental catapulting of the berries.
Gritting his teeth, he chanced a glance in her direction.
Her luminous eyes were upon him. “Sidney.”
“Julianna.” Nodding in her direction, he returned to the breakfast table as if nothing were amiss.
Every modicum of sangfroid he possessed was being called upon as he seated himself. Took a nonchalant sip of coffee.
“Why did you select a line from To Fanny?” she asked.
He held her gaze. “You read it to me once. At Farnsworth Hall. Do you recall?”
“I do.”
Was he imagining it, or was there a wealth of meaning in her tone, her expression, the way her eyes seared him?
“You were in the library and it was well after midnight,” he said softly. “I met you there. You were in a dressing gown that buttoned to your chin, and your hair was bound in a fat braid that ran down your back. We sat on the carpet before the fire.”
“You teased me desperately about those buttons.” A small smile curved her delectable lips.
Yes, he thought. Remember us. Remember me. Let us go back to the Julianna and Sidney we were that summer.
He swallowed. “I had no trouble undoing the tiny buggers, despite the impressive number of them and their unusually diminutive size.”
Her flush returned, but she did not look away. “I read the poem to you, and you kissed me. You told me you felt those words to your soul. That you felt as if it had been written for you.”
He had. What a besotted arse.
“I still do,” he admitted.
Her lips parted. “I wish I could believe that. But the poem is no truer now than it was then.”
“You doubt my sincerity?”
“I doubt myself when I am in your presence.” Her chin tipped up in that way she had that suggested she was donning armor and preparing for battle. “You are disastrously charming when you choose to be. I allowed it to dupe me before, and it was nearly the end of me. I cannot afford to do it again.”
What the bloody hell was she on about? Charm? Him? He was reasonably certain he had none. But that was hardly the most serious accusation she had just cast upon him.
“I never duped you, Julianna.” He searched her eyes, trying to understand her. Failing. “Everything I said to you that day, that summer, was true. It remains true now.”
He was putting his pride in jeopardy, taking a risk. Making himself vulnerable to her. The last time he had done so, she had laughed at his proposal and disappeared to New York City, only to return two years later with the daughter she had been keeping from him.
He had to know why.
Sidney knew what had happened to force her return; she had wanted her inheritance so she could run her business and live as Emily’s mother. What he did not understand was why she would suppose he would want nothing to do with their daughter. Why she would keep her a secret.
What had happened to change her mind two years ago, to make her run, to send her away from him?
“I wish I could believe that,” she told him, her voice sad, resigned.
She still held the book in her hands. Neither one of them had touched their breakfasts.
“You can believe it,” he urged. “Believe it, Julianna. Believe me.”
“Sidney, stop. Please. I cannot do this with you.”
“Cannot do what?” He tamped down the urge to slam his fist on the table and give vent to the frustration coursing through him. “Why not with me? Speak, damn you. Explain yourself.”
Her lips compressed. “I have married you. Let that be enough. Do not ask more of me, I beg you.”
Did she truly believe he could be satisfied with having her body and not her heart? With living this half life? He had married her to raise Emily as his own, but it had not taken him long to discover he had also married her for himself.
“Look at me, Julianna,” he said when she glanced away, attempting to erect a new wall of defense. To the devil with that. He would scale that wall just as surely as he had scaled the others before it. “There was not one day in the time we were apart, not one bloody day, when I did not think of you, when I did not long for you.”
Her gaze returned to his, bright and so very blue. “Why are you saying these things to me now?”
“Because they are true.”
And because I love you. Though he did not say the last aloud. He kept it within, his last secret from her. His only secret from her. Whilst she had kept so many from him.
“Why did you not say them when I returned? Why wait?” she asked.
“Why did you refuse to marry me?” he countered. “You gave me leave to court you at Farnsworth Hall. We parted as friends and lovers. Yet when we met again in London, it was as if you were a stranger to me.”
“You were the stranger, Sidney. I thought I knew you, but when I saw you that horrible day, I realized I never had.”
“When you saw me? Where? What day?”
“Here,” she whispered. “Outside Cagney House. I chanced to be driving by just after you had returned from Buckinghamshire. Only, I had not known you were arrived just then. Not until I saw you in the street with Lady Richards. You had run out to her barouche with a box—a gift, I can only suppose. And you kissed her, there in the midst of everything. You kissed that woman just as you had kissed me, only a fortnight before. That was betrayal enough, but I realized you had informed her of your arrival before you had even bothered to send word to me.”
He was cold.
Numb.
He had never imagined she would have been there that day. That she would have seen…
“Christ.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I did not kiss her. She kissed me.”
Julianna rose with such haste, her chair upended, toppling to the floor. “That is all you have to say for yourself? All this time, a sliver of me hoped you would have an explanation. One I could forgive.”
He shot to his feet as well. “That is not all, damn you. Lady Richards was my mistress. The only reason she knew I had returned to London was because I had sent her a note with the intention that she should prepare herself for my visit. I was going to pay her a call and end our understanding. Instead, she misunderstood the nature of the note and came to me. I delivered the news to her just the same. What you witnessed in the street…”
“Save it,” she snapped. “I do not want to hear more of your lies.”
“I am not lying, damn you. I am telling you the truth. The same truth I would have told you two years ago if you had but asked!”
The words fled him with more sharpness than he had intended. She recoiled as if he had slapped her.
“What was I to have said, Sidney? Thank you for offering to marry me out of some misplaced sense of guilt, but would you mind telling me why I saw you kissing a beautiful woman in the street yesterday?”
He winced. “It was not that way. She was my mistress, it is true, but that was before you. I had no intention of continuing my arrangement with her. I broke it off. The gift I gave her was a parting one. It is customary. I’d had it for weeks, knowing I would have to give it to her, but I had been too busy to see her and have done with it. I had not seen her in weeks by the time you and I were together at Farnsworth Hall.”
“That does not explain why you were kissing her.”
He rounded the table, intent upon reaching her, upon ending the distance between them for good. “I gave her the parting gift, and she kissed me before I knew what she was about. I stopped it the moment it started. Make no mistake, Julianna. I ended things that day.”
Sounds hit him then, breaking the silence. A feminine voice, raised in ire. Male voices. Footsteps. A flurry of them. The cacophony grew louder, nearing the dining room.
What the devil?
The doors burst
open.
And a red-haired woman came storming over the threshold.
She was dressed to perfection, as always, her olive, silk skirts swirling about her, a matching dolman fastened at her throat, a jaunty hat perched atop her brilliant curls. But she was in high dudgeon. And drunk, judging from her glassy eyes and vacant expression.
“Charlotte.” He bit out her name as if it were an epithet.
Because in this moment, it most assuredly was.
Damn it all to hell.
Chapter 19
I loved Julianna then. I love her now. I never stopped loving her.
~from the journal of Viscount Shelbourne, 1885
Charlotte?
Who the devil was Charlotte?
“A note!” the beautiful woman who had burst in upon their breakfast cried. “How dare you send me a note, Lord Shelbourne?”
Wentworth hovered behind the outraged interloper, grimacing. “Forgive me, my lord, my lady. The interruption shall not last long. I have called for some footmen to escort our guest to the street.”
Where she belongs, seemed to be what he left unsaid. There was a definitive lack of approval on the butler’s grim countenance.
Julianna well understood the reason. The scene unfolding before her was quite uncommon.
“Kindly leave, Mrs. Edwards,” Shelbourne said coldly. “You are trespassing where you are not wanted.”
“Dear me, have I interrupted your breakfast?” Mrs. Edwards asked, her voice dripping with feigned concern. “How rude of me.”
Julianna gripped the back of her chair, watching the melee before her, a sinking sensation sliding through her. The outrage emanating from the woman before her could only mean one thing.
Here was another of her husband’s paramours.
“You are embarrassing yourself,” Shelbourne said softly. “You would do well to leave as you have been asked.”
“I wanted to offer you my felicitations,” the other woman said, her blue eyes running over Julianna in an assessing fashion. “I had not realized you were getting married. Again.”
Lady Wicked: Notorious Ladies of London Book 4 Page 25
