“Honestly.” It was as much feigned indignation as Julia could muster. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off Jasper when he was flushed and perspiring from wrestling their boat into the water. She could only imagine what he looked like coming back from a fight. The thought of it hurried her through preparations for the dinner and had her waiting in the foyer to catch a glimpse of him.
Unfortunately, a bath and Nora’s ministrations had done their job a little too well. When Jasper came down the stairs in another borrowed set of Nicholas’s evening clothes, Julia couldn’t detect any sign of his ferocious afternoon activities.
Five of them, with three women in formal attire, meant taking two carriages. Despite her attempts to arrange it differently, Nick thwarted her and Julia was forced to give up her hope of riding with Jasper alone.
“Do you think they’ve killed each other?” Julia wondered. “The carriage would stop if it came to blows, wouldn’t it?”
They followed behind the DeVere carriage, and Julia had kept up a steady stream of pondering. It helped keep her from being nervous. Her first invitation to a dinner.
Nicholas shook his head. “Jasper and Lady Ruby are as devoted to each other as you and Amelia. They just show it differently.”
“They argue like sworn enemies.” Julia pressed her face to the glass, trying to see ahead of them.
“How long will we have to stay, do you think?” Amelia also looked out the window, but not with excitement.
“Unbelievable. And here I thought we had no friends because I destroyed our reputations at birth,” Julia said.
Amelia shook her head. “Convenient scapegoat. In fact, people wanted to be friends with us, but I’ve been writing them hateful letters to make sure they never made the attempt.”
“This whole time, sabotaged by my own sister.” Julia threw her hand against her forehead and flopped dramatically across the carriage bench.
“It’s true. I’ve actually received loads of dinner invitations, I’ve just never gone because none of the hosts seemed very interesting.”
“But the Hathaways piqued your interest.” Julia let her eyes go wide. “They’re very exciting, those Hathaways.”
Amelia joined the game. “I heard they served the fish before the soup once.”
“I heard they robbed a mail coach once.”
“It’s probably too late for me to decline on both your behalves.” Nicholas leaned back against the bench, shaking his head.
Julia leaned forward, tugging on his arm. “Come on, Nick. Play with us.”
Nicholas stared at them both. And then, in his most pompous Lords of Wakefield voice, he said, “I heard the Hathaways once ate in a public dining room.”
Amelia and Julia went wild.
“Scandal!”
“Mayhem!”
“Surely not.”
They were still at it when the coach rolled to a stop. Nicholas had to stifle them with his very sternest tone. The groom helped them down, and the nerves Julia had been distracting herself from started up again. Would they ask about her limp? What if another headache came on? What if something worse happened? What if they hated her? She followed Nicholas and Amelia to the door under a cacophony of worries.
When they reached the entry hall and were introduced to their hosts, Julia received an immediate answer to one of her questions.
Amelia leaned over to discreetly whisper, “Is that…”
“Yes.” The face was different, older, but there was no mistaking it. It was the same face that had sneered at Julia all through childhood. The same face that had rallied all of the women in what passed for society in Julia’s neighborhood to boycott any store that allowed Julia to shop there.
Lady Hathaway was the previous Miss Prudence Northam, daughter of Lord and Lady Northam, neighbors to the Bishop estate, and all around awful human being. She knew Julia and Julia knew her—and they definitely hated each other.
Chapter Eleven
“We’re the real reason for this asinine invitation,” Ruby said in a lowered voice. “The question is, which DeVere are they after—me or you?”
Jasper couldn’t argue with Ruby’s assessment. The introductions made it painfully obvious as Lord Hathaway fawned all over him and his sister.
“We’re absolutely delighted you accepted our invitation. Absolutely delighted,” he was saying. The marble floors echoed with his assertions.
Jasper inhaled through his nose. “Nicholas accepted it, actually. You sent it to him.”
“Right, right. Wakefield’s a good man. Neighbors with my wife growing up, isn’t that right, Pru?”
The thin brunette’s smile fell short of her eyes. “Our estate was near the Wakefield’s and the Bishop’s, both. You probably don’t remember, but we were both at Lady Amelia’s engagement party. To Lord Montrose, that is. I don’t recall being invited to the second one.”
A tense silence fell over the entry hall.
Amelia’s chin lifted. “There wasn’t a second one.”
“What party was this?” Ruby’s interest did what manners should have, intimidating Lady Hathaway into silence.
Unfortunately, Jasper was immune to Ruby’s intimidation and not inclined to let the dig pass. “The one where I punched Amelia’s fiancé—the awful one, before she married Nick.”
Behind him, Julia snickered. Nicholas developed a sudden cough.
Lord Hathaway’s nervous glance flitted from guest to guest. “You’re very close with the Bishops, then?”
“Very,” Jasper agreed. “We think of Nicholas and Amelia as family—don’t we, Ruby?”
She sent him a bored scowl, but she played along. “Indeed, we do. We were guests at their wedding. The only guests, in fact. My grandmother can’t wait to have Amelia back at the London house.”
Lady Hathaway’s skin paled noticeably.
Jasper could have kissed his sister. Whatever else was between them, his sister was marvelous at wielding the family influence.
“Hopefully, we will all think of each other as family someday. Let this dinner be the happy beginning,” Lord Hathaway announced.
Not bloody likely.
“I hope you don’t mind—we invited my brother to round out the numbers. Lord Bellamy, Lady Ruby, may I present Mister Frederick Hathaway.” He stepped back with a sweep of his arm, like he was presenting a new carriage, revealing a youngish man of unremarkable looks.
“And this is my wife’s sister, Lady Julia Bishop,” Nicholas was saying.
“A pleasure.” Frederick Hathaway’s obsequious attention to Ruby’s glove made their intentions obvious. His lack of interest in meeting Julia made them more so.
Ruby yanked her hand back with a tight smile.
Lady Hathaway’s drooping curls tipped at a curious angle and her eyes narrowed. “How good of you to come, Julia. I know it must be…difficult, for you to get out.”
“No, not particularly.” Julia kept her face smooth and her voice impassive.
Amelia’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Nicholas’s instinctive Wakefield aversion to unpleasantness took over. “Is there more to the house, or just the foyer?”
“Oh! Where are our manners?” Lord Hathaway shot a glare at his wife.
“Where, indeed,” Amelia mumbled.
“Let’s stop loitering, shall we?” Lord Hathaway swept his arm in a welcoming gesture. “There are drinks in the drawing room.”
In the drawing room, Jasper found himself and Nicholas monopolized by Lord and Lady Hathaway while the presumably marriageable Mister Fredrick Hathaway did his best to secure Ruby’s affections. Given the daggers she was glaring at Jasper every chance she had, Jasper suspected he would not be attending a wedding anytime soon.
When Lord Hathaway made the mistake of engaging Nicholas in a discussion of the law as it related to landowners, Jasper saw his chance. A good brother might have gone to rescue Ruby, but she’d made it perfectly clear only one thing would put him back in that category to her m
ind. Besides, she was more than equipped at fending off unwanted suitors. Julia, however, was alone, perusing paintings on the wall by the door.
A footman left the drawing room, and Jasper wrapped his arm around her waist and snuck them both out into the hall in the servants’ wake.
She looked up at him expectantly as he maneuvered them into an alcove. “May I help you with something, Lord Bellamy?”
“In fact, you may.” He covered her mouth with his. All day and all night, he’d been wanting to do that. Fighting hadn’t done a thing to diminish wanting to be close to her, and watching that awful Hathaway woman taunt her had only made it stronger. He coaxed her lips apart, asking for and receiving her soft moan.
Their tongues danced. Her fingers teased the hair at the back of his neck. He covered her hand with his own, closing her grip. Jasper pressed her tight against the wall, breathing in the smell of her, reveling in her taste. He filled his senses with her, and some of the tension he’d been feeling eased out of them.
He drew back with kisses, making each one softer and more teasing than the last. “I missed you.”
“So it seems.” Julia’s breasts rose and fell hypnotically as she regained her breath. “I heard you were in a brawl today.”
Jasper nodded.
She reached up to cup his chin. “You’re still as pretty as ever.”
He buried his face in her neck and laughed. “Julia…”
“Yes?”
It wasn’t the right time to tell her that something was happening to him—between them—that he’d never felt before. Not here, in this awful house with its rude hosts and its fading wallpaper. “You should go back before someone notices I stole you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Will you be coming back?”
Jasper nodded. “In a few minutes, once it’s not obvious.”
“All right,” she said. “Don’t make me wait too long.”
They both knew she wasn’t talking about the party.
The isolated sofa Julia and Amelia were perched on had an uninterrupted view of their hostess. Julia’s eyes kept returning to Prudence as she waited for Jasper to rejoin them. “Did you know she’d married?”
Amelia glared at Julia. “Of course not. Do you think we would have come? I would have told you.”
“Prudence bloody Northam.” Julia looked up to the ceiling. “Why not just strike me with lightning and get it over with?”
“It is a little funny. The meanest girl from our childhood is throwing us a dinner party. What is she thinking? She had to have known.”
Some days, her sister’s naïveté was adorable.
“They’re trying to pawn off Lord Hathaway’s brother on Lady Ruby,” Julia explained.
Amelia looked over to where Mr. Hathaway was leaning in far too close to Lady Ruby. Her mouth dropped open. “Are they mad? Her and him?”
“Some people are optimists.”
“Like us, thinking this dinner would be anything but a disaster.” Amelia sipped her drink and grimaced. “Even the champagne is bad.”
One time, as children, Prudence Northam had actually thrown rotten fruit at Julia while she was running errands in town with her mother. And now she was the host of Julia’s first real social engagement. Life’s ironies were in rare form lately.
“How have you clever young women managed to secure a Hathaway-free island in this nonsense?” As promised, Jasper had delayed his returned to the party long enough to allay suspicion.
He approached them now as if nothing had happened, but Julia didn’t miss the glance he slid her when Amelia wasn’t looking. With Mister Hathaway earmarked for Lady Ruby, that meant Jasper was officially her escort for dinner. Perhaps they’d find another opportunity to sneak away. His eyes shone as he looked at Julia, and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
“As a scandalous Bishop, I have a great deal of experience as a pariah,” Amelia said, oblivious. “It’s a natural sort of insulation that cannot be trained.”
“May I at least bask in its peaceful aura for a while?”
Julia lifted her chin, peering down her nose. “That depends. What have you brought as tribute?”
“I have…” Jasper searched his pockets. “One silk handkerchief, and—” He did an acrobatic sidestep that took him into the path of a footman, from whom he liberated a tray. “Approximately thirteen canapes.”
Julia held up her hand. “Handkerchief, please.”
Amelia considered. “I will accept no fewer than three canapes.”
He handed over the payment and took the chair across from them. “I take it you and Lady Hathaway have a history?”
“She was cruel to us as children,” Amelia said.
Julia said nothing. He didn’t need to know the specifics. She didn’t need him to pity her.
“If it’s any consolation, Ruby is going to tear poor Frederick to shreds. She has eviscerated far loftier hearts than the eager Mister Hathaway.”
“Not much consolation,” Julia answered. “But a little.”
“Would you like me to punch someone?” Jasper offered. “I’m newly practiced, and feeling rather confident.”
Amelia pursed her lips. “You do have lovely form.”
“Unless the person you intend to strike is Lady Hathaway,” Julia countered. “I’m not sure it will give the desired satisfaction. Neither Lord Hathaway nor his brother have wronged us.”
“We’re nothing, if not just,” Amelia agreed.
“I’m afraid I have to draw a line somewhere, and I’ve chosen to draw it at striking women.”
“Admirable,” Julia said.
Amelia’s face lit up. “Julia could do it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Jasper punched Montrose at my engagement party, and I slapped Charlotte Chisholm at her coming out ball. You’re the only one of us that has not yet become a violent offender during a social event, and Prudence Northam has had it coming for years.”
“Not to mention, it would probably put a quick end to the evening,” Jasper added.
“I thought you objected to striking women?”
“I object to me striking women. What you do amongst yourselves is your own affair.”
She wanted to. God, did she ever want to. She thought of every time Prudence had sneered at her, screamed insults down the driveway and run off, thrown things. She thought of all of them—every horrible child and all their horrible parents. But if she struck Prudence once, she might not be able to stop. And Julia still had designs on sneaking off with Jasper again. “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”
“You’re a better person than I.” Jasper took a sip of champagne and coughed. “God. That’s awful.”
Before too long, dinner was announced and they were dragged off to the dining room. Julia was placed between Nicholas and Amelia, across from Frederick Hathaway. Lord Hathaway monopolized Amelia’s attention so that his brother could menace Lady Ruby. Given the choice between speaking with Jasper or Nicholas, Lady Hathaway chose to devote her attentions to Jasper. That left Julia and Nicholas to make conversation with each other.
“Are you and Lord Hathaway going to elope together?”
Nicholas scowled into his soup. “That man is an idiot. Did you know he thinks we should bring back the feudal system? As if that were even possible with the legislation from—”
Julia held up her hand. “Nick.”
“Right.” His expression fell slack. “You don’t care about the law.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“You ought to, you know.”
“So you keep telling me.”
He leaned back to let the footman clear away his dish. “Traditionally, a good dinner companion will at least pretend to be riveted by their partner’s interests.”
“Oh?” Julia sipped her wine to remove the taste of whatever that fennel monstrosity had been. “So you would like to feign interest in the latest news about Victoria and Albert’s marital strife? Or the proposed names for thei
r children?”
Nicholas looked like he might be ill. “Well played, Bishop.”
The next course arrived and Julia realized they had a dreadfully long way to go before dessert. “All right. Tell me about feudal property law.”
“Really?”
“I can’t promise I’ll look interested, but I’ll listen.” Heaven help her.
On Nicholas’s other side, Lady Hathaway had taken on an insistent tone. “But surely you don’t intend to refuse a dukedom. All of London has been talking about it.”
Jasper looked thoroughly bored. “My grandfather was a great man. I don’t think we should be in such a hurry to replace him.”
“But he’s dead.”
He blinked at their hostess.
“It’s rather remarkable, really. Dukedoms rarely go to someone so young—so vital. Though I suppose if your parents hadn’t drowned, it wouldn’t have.”
Drowned. Jasper’s parents had drowned.
Lady Hathaway continued, oblivious. “Dreadful business, being trapped like that. I was too young at the time, but my mother was scarred for life after the articles about it. My whole childhood, she worried whenever our carriage went over a bridge.”
Their hostess showed no sign of shutting up, even though Jasper had gone completely rigid. At the other end of the table, Lady Ruby was similarly frozen. Julia thought of all the times she’d shaken with rage while some ninny prattled on about her limitations, like they knew anything about her.
Julia pushed out her chair and stood up.
“Julia?” Nicholas moved to rise, but she put her hand on his shoulder.
Prudence was still talking, unaware that Julia had come to stand beside her. If common decency wouldn’t shut her up, Julia would.
“Prudence?”
“Yes?” She turned, and was startled by Julia’s closeness. Her upper lip curled in disgust—whether from Julia’s absent dinner etiquette or just from her general person, it hardly mattered. Prudence’s eyebrows raised in a wordless question laced with superiority, and years of sneering taunts from that same smug face welled up in Julia’s memory.
“You are an abominable hostess and a detestable human being.” With a prayer that she wouldn’t lose control and accidentally murder the woman, Julia slapped her.
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