by Sharon Page
“These women are starving and they have children to feed. I think what is beyond the pale is that there is no real help for these women. Their husbands were our heroes. And I don’t believe they enjoy what they are doing,” she said shortly.
Cal grinned. Not such a snob, then. He liked seeing Lady Julia with her blood running hot.
“My dear girl,” Bradstock said condescendingly, “we can’t just hand out money en masse. Times are hard for all of us. This year, I could only put in half the order for the wine cellar at my hunting box. Austerity has hit us all.”
“Hate to think you had to live without a bottle of wine,” Cal said. “If Julia is helping the widows of servicemen, I think that is pretty damn admirable.”
Bradstock glared at him. “A gentleman doesn’t use language like that at the dinner table.”
“Where I come from a ‘gentleman’ doesn’t tell a woman what to do when she doesn’t want him to.”
“And I’ve heard where you came from was some kind of cesspool,” sneered the duke. “You must be extremely grateful you were saved from whatever ditch you were in.”
“James, please. And Worthington, I do appreciate your support, but there is no need for heated discussion.”
So the duke got a “please” out of her and he got told off. “Get used to it, angel,” Cal said. “I’m the earl now.”
Her eyes widened in shock.
“If the man from the slums of New York agrees with you, my dear, isn’t that a sign you are doing the wrong thing?” Bradstock asked, looking down his nose. Cal would sorely love to rearrange that nose on the handsome idiot’s face.
“James, stop it. Let’s speak of something else. And do remember Worthington is your host.”
But Bradstock wouldn’t give it up. “If I were your brother, Julia, I should give you a spanking for being so naughty.”
Cal didn’t like the hot, appraising look in the bastard’s eyes. “If you don’t leave her alone,” he said heatedly, “I would be happy to beat you up.”
“Please, Worthington. Don’t. He is teasing.” Julia’s hand touched his wrist. Once, when he’d been working in a factory after the War, before he went back to life with the Five Points Gang, he’d gotten a shock from an electric outlet. The sizzle and tingle that had shot through his arm was nothing like the one that came from her touch.
Hell, she was everything he didn’t want. Privileged. Ladylike. Superior.
Except she had a heart and was willing to defend her beliefs. He liked her—and he hadn’t expected to like any of them.
All the men at the table—the Duke of Bad Manners, the Earl of Whatever, Viscount Something—watched Julia. They couldn’t take their eyes off her. Which didn’t seem to be making the Countess of Worthington too happy.
Just to piss them off, he said loudly to Julia, “You asked me if I like Worthington. For one man to get all this by the accident of his birth is wrong. A man should earn what he gets.”
She didn’t look shocked. “I can assure you that an earl who runs his estate properly works extremely hard. A responsible earl ensures his estate prospers, cares for his tenants and acts in a just manner. We are not frivolous and we don’t spend money lavishly on ourselves off the backs of others.”
He looked pointedly at the marble and gilt. “Don’t you?”
“Worthington Park would no longer exist if the men before you did that. Anthony’s father was one of the best landowners in the country. He was progressive, fair, compassionate. If he had not been, Worthington would have been destroyed by the harsh times that came both before and after the War.”
“And you’re telling me the tenants are happy to be poor while the earl is rich?”
“The tenants are happy with their treatment. On an estate like this, everyone knows the value of their place.”
So damned arrogant. Cal saw red. “I bet that footman over there would rather be sitting at this table than serving it. In America, he could be—if he worked hard and fought for it.”
His voice had dropped, low and angry. Lady Julia stiffened in shock.
“Maybe it would be better to keep the riffraff from inheriting,” Bradstock sneered. “Stop bothering Julia. You’re not fit to clean her boots. Wasn’t your mother some servant?”
Damn you. “My mother was a maid who worked in a mansion on Fifth Avenue and my father met her, fell in love with her pretty face and seduced her.”
He heard someone’s fork clatter to the plate. Anger drove him on.
“My father didn’t leave her high and dry when she became pregnant. He married her and got disowned for doing the right thing by her. But he loved her and she loved him. They spent their lives in squalor and as far as the Earl of Worthington was concerned, my mother, my brother and I didn’t exist. We could rot in hell. Too bad for all of you that I didn’t rot.”
For the first time, the countess spoke to him. “Worthington, we do not discuss our private matters at the dinner table.”
“Get used to it,” he snapped, like he’d said to Julia. “I’m not ashamed to say where I came from. And truth is, I don’t give a damn what you want.”
The countess went white.
He knew his mother would have been shocked at his behavior. She had struggled to raise him to be honest and decent and good—then he’d had to throw all that away to survive and help his family after his father was killed.
A lot of good it had done. He’d had to do bad things to bring home money for her and his brother, to support them, to make sure his family survived. He’d had to work for the gang who... Hell, it was join them or be beaten to death by them. After all that, Mam had died anyway—
Cal felt everyone’s eyes on him. They all looked at him with disgust or anger. Good—there was no point making them like him before he ripped the estate apart and destroyed Worthington Park—destroyed everything they cared about.
* * *
After dinner, Lady Worthington approached her. “I am exhausted. Fear is a very draining thing. Julia, my dear, do help me upstairs.”
Then Julia saw Lady Worthington look at Diana and frantically move her head to urge Diana to go to the group of gentlemen who were moving toward the drawing room—Cal, along with the duke and the viscount.
Julia knew what the countess was up to—getting her out of the room to give Diana a better chance to pursue the men.
Then Julia saw Nigel was heading toward her, leading the Earl of Summerhay.
And all she wanted to do was escape. She couldn’t face making polite conversation with a man who might want to marry her, when she didn’t want him. “I would be happy to take you up to your room, Lady Worthington.”
But the countess didn’t look pleased her plan had worked. She still looked afraid. Deeply afraid.
When they reached the door of the countess’s bedroom, Julia knew she must speak her mind. “You must not force one of your daughters into an unhappy marriage. I will not let the new earl destroy Worthington. Or hurt you.”
She was again reminded of the promise she’d made Anthony when he had gone away to war, a promise to look after his family if he didn’t come back. His family desperately needed help now, and she must live up to that promise.
The countess laughed. A hard, mirthless laugh, just like Diana’s, and it shocked Julia just as much. “What can you do, Julia? Accept that you are as powerless in this as I am.”
With that, the countess opened the door to her bedroom and her lady’s maid quickly came toward her.
When she returned downstairs, Julia did not go to the Oriental drawing room where everyone had gathered. Instead she slipped through the music room and went out to the terrace that looked over the east lawns and the woods.
The other drawing rooms overlooked the ornate gardens and decorative fountains. But Julia had always loved the vi
ew of the woods, which were wild and tangled. Ferns grew all around the edge of them, and the shadowy depths looked like a place where you could find faeries if you were very quiet and waited without moving. Julia used to do that with Diana, Cassia and Thalia when they were children.
Later, she would walk through the woods with Anthony. Looking at them brought that poignant mix of emotion, remembered happiness and pain.
Was she powerless to help? Or could she be like Zoe? Be courageous and grasp life. She believed the countess—who had been so kind to her when she was young and her own mother had fallen deeply into grieving—and Diana, her good friend, were worth fighting for.
“Lady Julia.”
She knew who stood behind her from the husky male voice with its distinct American twang. She turned, rubbing her arms as a cool breeze rippled over her. “Good evening, Worthington. It’s a lovely night.”
He came out onto the terrace, his hair almost silver in the bluish moonlight. Shadows made his cheekbones look even more pronounced, revealed a slight cleft in his chin and curved around his full, sensual mouth. He definitely looked wilder, rougher than Anthony had done. Cal looked untamed and by comparison Anthony had looked gentle and domesticated.
Cal grinned at her around an unlit cigarette he had clamped in his teeth. “I saw you sneak past the drawing room to come out here. Escaping your suitors?”
So he’d noticed that. She was surprised. “I just needed a bit of air.”
“You’re shivering,” he observed.
She turned from the balustrade, toward the glass-paned door. “I should go back inside.”
“Don’t go back in. Here, have this—” In a quick movement, he pulled off his jacket and gallantly draped it around her shoulders. She was wrapped in his warmth, in his masculine scent—slightly smoky and earthy, and crisp with witch hazel.
He held it around her and stepped close to her. “You’re different than the rest of them.”
Caught in the embrace of his coat, she felt a shiver go down her spine. He looked so much like Anthony, yet he was so utterly different. It was confusing. Her heart raced, and she felt, strangely, on the verge of tears just from looking at him. She couldn’t stop gazing at his face, thinking how familiar it was. But this was not Anthony. He wasn’t Anthony come back to her. He was someone else.
“You’re angry with me still,” he said.
“No. I was just...just lost in thought. In memories.” Then she thought: she must get to know this man. If she were to do battle with him, she must understand him. “How am I different?” she asked.
“You welcomed me and you don’t talk to me like you hate the sight of me. I’m sorry I was rude to you at dinner. You didn’t deserve that.”
He looked so forlorn, her heart suddenly panged for him.
This didn’t sound like an angry, vengeful man. How hard this must be for him, to suddenly become an earl, to be thrust into a position of responsibility, with a family he didn’t know.
“You must understand Lady Worthington,” she said impulsively. “Women in our situation know someone new will inherit and we could lose our homes. That is why the countess is so sharp. She really is a good person—she was always like a second mother to me. She is simply afraid. If you were to reassure them they have nothing to fear, I am sure it would help.”
Cal looked at her thoughtfully. “What’s she so afraid of?”
“She fears you will turn her and her daughters out of the house with nothing.”
He stepped back from her. From a pocket, he drew out a silver-colored lighter and lit his cigarette. He leaned on the balustrade and smoked, his shoulders hunched and tense.
“The estate is mine now,” he said. “I can do whatever I want with it. Maybe she’s right to be afraid.”
Julia’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean? What do you mean to do?”
“Maybe exactly what she fears,” he said softly.
“What did she do that deserves such a punishment?”
He blew smoke into the dark. Then he said, “I’m gonna sell the other estates—the hunting place, the house in Scotland. As for Worthington Park, I’m gonna sell it piece by piece.”
Horror gripped Julia. She stumbled back, gripping his coat. “You can’t do that! You can’t destroy Worthington!”
“The countess was right. To say I’m bitter and vengeful would be an understatement. I want to torture the Carstairs family with the pain of watching something they love die.”
“You cannot do this! Think of the tenants—all the people who live on this estate and rely upon it. What are you going to do with them? This house has been in the Worthington family for four hundred years.” She began to tremble. Anthony had loved Worthington Park. He was devoted to keeping it strong and secure. She and Anthony would talk of future plans when they were married—improvements to the house, a new nursery, a garden in which children could play. New equipment for the farm, improvements to the school so all the children of the estate would be educated.
“You can’t destroy the estate,” she went on, trying to fight the shakiness of her voice. “It would be heartless. Senseless. If you really want revenge, be the most beloved Earl of Worthington there has ever been. Prove them wrong.”
He laughed—a hard, bitter laugh. “No one here is ever going to love me. These estates should be ripped apart. They belong to the people. There should be no lords and masters.”
Her heart thundered. “Well, there are even in America. Can you tell me that in America, rich men believe poor men are equal to them? You can’t, I’m sure.” She leveled him with a firm gaze. “And I will stop you.”
He looked amused. “How do you plan to do that, Lady Julia?”
“I will—” She didn’t know what she would do but she had to think of something. She couldn’t watch Worthington—the place Anthony had loved with all his heart—be destroyed. “I will make you understand you have a responsibility to the land, the house and the people who live on the estate. I won’t stop until you love Worthington so deeply, you won’t let it go because it is a part of your soul.”
“That’ll never happen.”
“Yes, it will.” She pulled his tailored tuxedo jacket off her shoulders and shoved it at him.
He caught it and straightened, towering over her. A roguish smile curved his lips. “We’d better go back inside, Lady Julia. Even I know that if we’re away from the crowd long enough, people are gonna start talking about us.”
He took out the cigarette. His mouth lowered toward hers.
She was literally shaking in her shoes. Shaking with fury. But also with something else. With heat and confusion and a sudden, intense...whoosh.
Dear God, she wanted to kiss him.
And he was awful. Cruel. The enemy.
She took a determined step back and glared at him. “If you think I would kiss you after you just announced you would destroy this beautiful place and ruin hundreds of people’s lives, you are mad. Nothing is going to happen between us. Not ever.”
She turned and walked toward the door, determined not to shiver in the cool night air.
“I think you’re wrong,” he called out behind her.
She turned. In clear, no-nonsense tones, she said, “The only thing that will happen between us is that I will make you see sense, Worthington.”
She had no idea just how to do that at the moment, but it made a rather lovely exit line. Julia tipped up her chin and went inside, for once thankful she had been trained with a book on her head and could glide in victorious manner with aplomb.
3
Two Proposals of Marriage
Julia stormed back toward the drawing room.
How could she have felt a sudden, dizzying whoosh for that man?
The whoosh had been something she’d experienced with An
thony—that sudden feeling of the world stopping on its trajectory, while she looked into his eyes as if for the very first time.
She’d felt it with Dougal Campbell within minutes of meeting him. It had been when he had begun to describe the surgery he had performed to repair a child’s leg and save it from amputation. Her head had swum a little at the thought of an operation, but she had fallen in love with him right then, right there, because he had been so passionate about what he’d done.
Dougal—well, she’d lost Dougal forever now. He was marrying the daughter of a doctor, a girl who would make the perfect doctor’s wife. She was happy for him—he deserved the perfect wife.
But after caring so deeply for Dougal, how could she have had that devastating moment of—of something with Cal?
He actually thought he could kiss her after what he’d threatened to do to Worthington. Well, really! And she now knew why she had been riveted to the spot, unable to move. She had been shocked. That was all.
The man was infuriating. Not because he was angry and hurting—she could understand that, if his family had been rejected by the previous earl. His father had been disowned after all.
No, he was infuriating because his mind was closed. This was the modern world—every breath you took was full of change. He must let the past go.
Destroying something never fixed anything. Heaping on more pain never made pain go away. She was certain of it. Healing was the most important thing in the world. Zoe had healed Nigel, helping him finally escape the way the War had hurt him. Her mother needed to heal more from the grief of losing Will—if Mother could, she could be happier.
Julia knew the power of healing. She had to make Cal see it.
“Julia.”
She almost collided with the Duke of Bradstock as he stepped out of the shadows.
Frowning, he looked down at her. “You were outside with that American, Julia. I saw him follow you out onto the terrace. Did you invite him out there?” he demanded.
