The emphasis she put on the last word made it clear she was calling into question the tale of their secret marriage and divorce in New York City.
Julianna forced a smile. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I do not believe our paths have crossed.”
It was an underhanded insult, the sort Julianna would not ordinarily issue. But then, she was not often confronted by her husband’s mistress—or former mistress, she knew not which—at the breakfast table while a horrified butler looked on.
“Wentworth, you may go,” Shelbourne said curtly, as if belatedly becoming aware of their audience. “Our guest will be leaving in but a moment, and I will ring for you when necessary.”
The butler bowed and made haste to disappear discreetly.
Which left Julianna, Shelbourne, and Mrs. Edwards alone.
She could not help but to notice the other woman resembled her quite a bit in appearance—brilliant red hair, blue eyes, pale skin. But where Julianna wore her freckles with pride, Mrs. Edwards appeared to have concealed hers with a liberal dose of pearl powder.
Shelbourne turned to Julianna next, his expression pained. “Julianna, you do not need to be present for this.”
She was not going anywhere. “I think I should remain.”
“Of course you must, Lady Shelbourne,” their unexpected guest drawled. “I shan’t be long. I merely wanted to see his lordship in person so that I could inform him what I thought of his parting note.”
Julianna’s stomach churned. She wanted nothing more than for this dreadful woman to go away. For Shelbourne to go away as well. Had he been keeping this woman as his mistress during the entire time Julianna had been in London? During their marriage? If she had ever been uncertain about a return to New York City, surely this wretched interloper was the personification of her answer.
Go.
Flee.
Run, Julianna. And make bloody haste.
“Charlotte, this is unnecessary,” Shelbourne said, stepping between Julianna and the other woman, as if to protect her. “Please spare yourself the embarrassment and go.”
Charlotte gave a bitter laugh. “Spare you the embarrassment, you mean to say, Lord Shelbourne, do you not? Have you any idea how sought-after I am? The Duke of Rutland has been begging me for a supper and I have refused him again and again out of loyalty to you. Loyalty which was obviously terribly misplaced. All this time I have waited for you.”
Shelbourne’s shoulders stiffened. “I am sure Rutland will be pleased to find you no longer encumbered. I, however, am most displeased at having my private breakfast with Lady Shelbourne disrupted in such a careless and disrespectful manner.”
Julianna stepped around Shelbourne, facing the other woman. “I strongly urge you to do as his lordship has requested.”
“Do you know who I am?” Mrs. Edwards demanded, her lip curling. “I am one of the most sought-after actresses in London and the Continent. How dare you think you can dismiss me? And how dare he?”
Julianna suspected the other woman’s rage was founded in her own ego and pride. Of course she would be a celebrated actress. She was lovely, even more so than Lady Richards. But she did not accept rejection well, and that much was apparent. Julianna would have pitied her had she not known in excruciating detail just how much it hurt to be the woman watching Shelbourne with another.
“Mayhap you ought to consider who I am, madam,” Julianna said. “I am the mistress of this house and Lord Shelbourne’s wife. Your understanding with him is at an end, and if you do not leave, you will be forcibly removed.”
Shelbourne drew alongside Julianna, putting a protective arm around her waist. “You heard Lady Shelbourne. You have caused enough of an upset here. Whilst I would prefer not to have a pair of footmen haul you from Cagney House, I will if I must.”
“Bastard!” Mrs. Edwards hollered, listing to the left before recovering herself. “I will ruin you!”
That was when Julianna realized the other woman was in her cups. At this hour of the morning. That explained the almost feverish glow to her face, the glazed look in her eyes.
“I have already ruined myself,” Shelbourne said grimly. “I fear there will be nothing left for you. But do your worst. Now get out.”
But his spurned mistress was not finished yet. She reached for the nearest available object—which turned out to be Julianna’s heavily laden plate—and heaved it across the room. The plate hit the damask wall coverings, splattering egg, fruit, and bacon everywhere as it smashed. Mrs. Edwards reached for Shelbourne’s cup of coffee next, but Shelbourne moved quickly. He rushed forward, seizing her arm in a staying grip that sent coffee spilling all over her green silk instead of the wall and carpets as she had undoubtedly intended.
The angry woman struck at his chest. “Look at what you have done! How dare you?” Her face crumpled, her outrage quickly devolving to waterworks. “How dare you?”
Julianna watched as Shelbourne grimly stood, bearing the woman’s physical attack. Outrage mingled with pity. This woman was soused, but that did not give her the right to abuse Shelbourne. Julianna intervened, drawing an arm around the other woman’s shoulder and guiding her away.
“Come, madam,” she said calmly. “I shall see you to your carriage.”
“Julianna,” Shelbourne protested. “This is not necessary.”
She shot him a quelling glance. “Yes. It is.”
The other woman was sobbing, but managing to hurl more threats and insults through her tears. “I shall have Rutland! You will regret this!”
Julianna guided her toward the door, helping the redhaired beauty to maintain her balance when she would have swayed and fallen to the floor. Pity triumphed over her indignation. She wondered if Mrs. Edwards had been tippling as a result of Shelbourne bringing their understanding to an end or if she always drank heavily in the morning.
“You are being kind,” the actress sniffled, disbelief in her voice as she almost stumbled on her hem. “I would not be so, were I you.”
Wentworth and a brace of footmen rushed toward her as they made their way slowly down the hall.
“Everyone needs some kindness now and then,” Julianna told her, meaning those words.
Because she, too, knew what it was like to love Viscount Shelbourne. And she, too, knew how crushing it had been to lose him.
By the time Mrs. Edwards reached the front entry, she was docile as a lamb, and quite apologetic. The footmen bundled her off to her waiting carriage under Wentworth’s watchful eye, and Julianna headed back to the abandoned breakfast room and the man she had married, heart more in tumult than ever before.
He was waiting for her where she had left him. A pair of maids were seeing to the removal of the breakfast Mrs. Edwards had catapulted at the wall.
“Will you walk with me?” he asked, solemn, as if he was uncertain of her response.
She supposed she could hardly blame him since Julianna herself did not know. She hesitated, feeling as if she were once more hovering on the edge of heartache.
“Please,” he entreated. “A turn about the parterre while the room is straightened.”
Did he still intend to have breakfast following his former paramour’s shocking appearance and outburst? Julianna’s stomach was too tense, churning into a tight knot. Food was the last thing on her mind at present.
“I think breakfast has been quite ruined,” she managed, before glancing back toward the table, where the gift he had left her waited.
Unbidden, the line from the Keats poem he had transcribed in the book hit her.
“O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!”
The words would have meant so much more had they not been followed by the drunken appearance of his former paramour.
He fetched the volume and offered it to her, his countenance sheepish but intense. He cast a meaningful glance toward the domestics within earshot. “Must I beg you to accompany me? I will if I must.”
“No begging,” she relented, accepti
ng the book and hugging it to her breast. “I shall accompany you.”
She was in a hopeless muddle. Before the ignominious arrival of Mrs. Edwards, he had been offering his version of what she had seen. They still owed each other some explanations, and after what had just transpired, he now owed her more. More, she feared, than he could reasonably elucidate.
He offered her his arm, and she settled her hand there as if it belonged. His familiar bay scent washed over her, reassuring. The day was preternaturally warm for autumn when they emerged, the sun shining, nary a hint of fog.
They made it no more than three paces before he stopped, turning toward her. “I am sorry, Julianna. You never should have been witness to such a scene.”
“Mrs. Edwards is another mistress of yours,” she said unnecessarily.
“She was,” he confirmed, grave. “I have not seen her since you have returned to London until today.”
Resignation swept over her. “You are a rogue.”
She wondered how many women had warmed his bed in the two years she had been gone, and then she hated herself for wondering. She did not want to know. It did not matter.
Did it?
“You left me, Julianna. What was I to have done? I had already followed you to New York City only to find you the darling of the town, a beau on your arm.”
“You are the reason I left you,” she countered. “You and your mistress. Two years later, and here I am, facing the same man, the same problem, the same broken heart.”
“You should have asked me. When I came to you to ask you to marry me, you laughed at me and said you had no wish to wed. You said what happened at Farnsworth Hall had been a distraction, nothing more. You said you wanted to experience life, to take other lovers.”
“Because I wanted to hurt you.” The admission was torn from her. “I wanted to hurt you the way you had hurt me.”
It had been small of her. The natural reaction of a woman who’d had her heart dashed to bits the day before after witnessing that kiss.
“Have you ever stopped to think what would have happened had you been honest with me that day, Julianna?” His jaw was hard, and she had the fleeting thought that if she ran her fingers over it, that rigid angle would slice her open.
But that was fanciful thinking. Because the only way he could slice her open was with his actions and words.
“I was too devastated by what I had witnessed to ask,” she confessed, a tremor in her voice that had her nails biting into the tooled leather of the Keats volume she held. “What was I meant to think? You had returned to London from the country, and I had not known you had arrived. But she did. She did, and she was not just there with you, but kissing you. You had never mentioned her to me once in all that time at Farnsworth Hall.”
“Was I to have announced to you that I had a mistress?” He raked his fingers through his wavy hair. “It is common enough in our set, I know, but it is not the sort of topic a gentleman broaches with the woman he wants to marry.”
“Not two years ago and not now either,” she observed bitterly.
“Christ, Julianna. Charlotte means nothing to me.”
Charlotte. His familiarity with the beautiful woman hurt, and she could not deny it.
“Cease calling her by her Christian name, curse you!”
He frowned. “You are shouting.”
“Your mistress threw my breakfast at the wall. What would you have me do?” She scowled at him, irritated with herself for the biting sting in her eyes.
Tears.
She would not cry.
Would. Not. Cry.
Must not—
Her vision was swimming. She blinked, and fat droplets rolled down her cheeks.
“Julianna, love.” He reached for her, his voice soft.
She sidestepped him. “Do not touch me, Shelbourne.”
She could not think when he did. Could scarcely muddle a modicum of sanity in this man’s presence.
“I promise you that I have not seen her. I sent her a note this morning, informing her our arrangement is officially at an end, but it has been over from the moment you trespassed in my library. I would have given her the courtesy of informing her earlier, but to be honest, I had scarcely spared her a thought. Since you have returned, my life has changed unalterably, and I am glad for it. I have devoted myself to being a father to Emily and to being your husband.”
She could not argue. He had proven himself an excellent father to their daughter, a doting and loving one, the flower-eating incident aside. And she could not deny their marriage had become easier in recent days. They had almost returned to the friendship they had shared at Farnsworth Hall. But the past and all its secrets, lies, and hurts had remained between them.
They were still there, a jagged wall built high and firm and daunting.
The question was, did she want to dismantle it or leave it standing?
Leaving it standing would be safer. Easier for her heart, certainly. Better for her. Shelbourne could not disappoint her, wound her, or break her heart if she kept that wall standing.
She dashed at her tears with the back of her hand. “I…I need time, Shelbourne. Time to think. Time away from you.”
He jolted as if she had struck him. “Time away from me?”
“Yes.” She could not think with him here, so near, so handsome, so beloved. “I cannot help but to feel as if we are at a crossroads.”
“There is no crossroads, Julianna. We are married.”
Of course they were. Inextricably. That much would not change. However, now was the time to close her heart off to him for good. To make her future for herself, to find her freedom. He had hurt her, disappointed her.
But he had also told her she was perfect as she was. He had kissed her beneath a summer moon. He had given her Emily. He was the man who had told her, once upon a time, that if she found herself in trouble, he wanted it to be with him. And he was also the man who had said she was glorious and that all the world deserved to know.
She was terribly afraid of making the wrong choice.
“I am sorry, Shelbourne,” she managed to say around another assault of tears threatening to rain down her cheeks and choke her voice. “I need to go.”
She rushed past him, unseeing, still clutching the book.
“Where?” he called after her. “Damn you, Julianna, come back!”
But she did not turn around. And neither did she go back to him. Just as she had two years before, she ran.
Chapter 20
I loved Sidney then. I love him now. I never stopped loving him. He is my bright star. But the trouble with stars is that they burn out. They leave us bereft and wanting, beneath an endless blanket of night.
~from the journal of Julianna, Viscountess Shelbourne, 1885
“Tell me everything, and if he has done anything to hurt you, I will blacken his eye myself.”
Julianna blew her nose into her handkerchief in as ladylike fashion as she could manage. Which was not terribly ladylike at all. But she was a hideous, crying mess, and her sole audience was her dearest friend, Hellie, who had graciously received her at Wickley House in the crimson drawing room. This time, when she had run, Julianna had not gone far.
Not across an ocean. Merely over a few streets.
“His mistress arrived at breakfast and threw my plate at the wall,” she announced, dabbing surreptitiously at her nose.
It was terribly stuffed up from all the weeping she had done on the carriage ride here. Her eyes felt swollen and scratchy. The tears had inevitably dried, but she was suffering the aftereffects. As was her heart.
“Mrs. Edwards, the actress?” Hellie frowned. “I thought he had thrown her over some time ago.”
“If he had, he neglected to inform Mrs. Edwards herself until this morning in a note,” she said wryly. “Apparently she did not take kindly to her dismissal.”
“Never say he invited her to breakfast!” Hellie’s golden brows rose. “Surely that would be beyond the pale, even by
Shelbourne’s disreputable standards.”
The urge to come to her husband’s defense was sudden, strong, and…strange. Certainly, she did not owe him a defense. Did she?
I kept Emily from him, she thought.
“Of course he did not invite her,” she reassured her friend. “Shelbourne would never do something like that. But when Mrs. Edwards received her note, she apparently found her way into some strong spirits, and then she decided to march over to Cagney House and confront Shelbourne.”
“Oh dear.”
“Precisely.” A new wave of misery crashed over Julianna. “It was plain to see the anguish beneath her rage, and I understand it all too well. Her heart was broken over him. Just as mine was.”
“You are in love with my brother.” Hellie’s voice was certain, free of question.
“I have been from the moment I met him,” Julianna conceded.
And how freeing it felt, that burden gone from her chest. The last secret she had been keeping from her friend had been revealed.
“You never said a word!” Hellie did not sound angry, but rather shocked. “I would not have even guessed until you came here to tell me about Emily.”
“I have kept the secret well. I have not told Shelbourne himself. I trust I have your confidence?”
“Always.” Hellie nodded. “I wish you had told me before. I feel so certain all this heartache the two of you have suffered could have been avoided.”
“I hardly think Shelbourne suffered heartache,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. “He has certainly kept himself occupied in my absence.”
For so long, she had resented him, raged against him from afar. She had been destroyed by what she had supposed then to be his crushing betrayal. But if she believed him now, the kiss that had destroyed her world had not been at all what she had supposed.
“My relationship with my brother has been strained, Julianna,” Hellie was saying now. “For two years, he has not been himself. He has been callous, unfeeling, and distant. Drinking too much, sleeping too little, carrying on with the Marlborough House set. But I did not understand the significance of that time—two years—until you told me about Emily and revealed you and Shelbourne were marrying. I realized then that he has not been himself ever since you left.”
Lady Wicked: Notorious Ladies of London Book 4 Page 26
