Regency Romance: The Duke’s Ever Burning Passion (Fire and Smoke: CLEAN Historical Romance)

by Charlotte Stone

  Shep noticed there was a softness to her that was new. Or perhaps it had always been there and he hadn’t been paying close enough attention. Was it the baby? Did the baby bring out this softness in her? Had it been the library and what happened between them? But deep inside of him, a voice whispered that perhaps there had always been this softness inside of her, only he had not wanted to see it or admit that she could be both bold and fearless as well as gentle and soft. “I never meant to hurt you, you know. I did not know I could.”

  Julia wanted to weep over the fact that they were finally having this conversation, years too late, when he was a widower and she was all but set to marry someone else. She knew him well enough to not question the veracity of his statements or his regret. But what was it worth now? Timing had never been on their side.

  Normally, she would raise her eyebrow and pretend it was impossible to hurt her. But she did not have the energy to playact. She was even willing to make a concession. “I made sure that you did not know you could hurt me. It terrified me, you know.”

  “I cannot imagine you terrified. What could terrify you?” he asked as he turned toward her finally. Perhaps that was part of the problem. He could never imagine her anything but the strong woman who could arch her brow with cynicism. She had leaned forward so her nose brushed the baby’s head. A few strands of hair had escaped from her pins, curling at the back of her neck. “The idea that I might hurt you?”

  She looked up at him slowly. “No.” She shook her head. “When I realized how much of my heart belonged to you and that I could not control how much you meant to me.”

  Neither of them knew at which point he had walked nearer to her. He touched her face, his thumb wiping away the tears she had shed earlier. “Jules,” he whispered as his heart thundered in his chest. How many chances had he squandered? “I did not know.”

  She turned her face away from his hands slowly, with no malice, and then went to put the baby to bed. It was not easy, because for so long she had wanted him to touch her with such tenderness. “What would it have mattered?”

  “It would have mattered,” he insisted. He wanted to believe it would have mattered. He wanted to believe it could have changed everything.

  She shook her head. He had to know better. He was rewriting history. “You wanted something else. You wanted someone else. You made that clear. That part, at least, was never your fault.”

  He wanted to deny it, but he could not. And besides, even if he had the words to explain that he had loved her, had loved her so much that it had terrified him too, she had already quit the room.

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  She closed her eyes and cried herself to sleep …

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  CHAPTER NINE

  Expectations

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  “Congratulations!” Everyone was so happy to hear the news that Cat was expecting again. It was a small gathering, en famille, with the dowager in attendance, as well as Shep. Julia was so happy for Cat and her brother and for George, too. Her heart ached as she realized she just did not know if she would still be living at Pritchford Place by the time this baby came, because just before this very happy announcement her mother made quite a different one.

  “I have written the marquis to invite him to come stay with us for several days,” Mama told the table, her eyes on Julia. “I expect everyone to be especially kind to him.” It was clear that by everyone, she was referring to Julia specifically.

  Julia struggled to swallow her food and set down her fork. She pressed her own nails into the palm of her hand to keep from jumping away from the table or yelling at Mama that she would not be kind to that man. It was not because of his age. It was not because she did not love him. It was all of that and the fact that he could be so vulgar at times. Was this to be her life?

  Once, she would have stood up and fought. The fact that she did not surprised everyone, especially Shep. But Julia felt as if she had completely surrendered and come to terms with the state of her life. What was the use?

  “Perhaps you should have asked me about your plans,” Ben ventured, as he glanced at his sister. It was still a delicate balance, just a few years since his father died, now that he was the Earl of Wembley and his mother the Dowager Countess, when it came to matters regarding running the estate.

  “I thought you would welcome it,” Mama retorted as she picked at her food. “Do you want to see your sister married or not?”

  Looking at Julia’s pale face, Ben replied simply, “I want to see my sister happy.”

  “Then you should want her to have her own home, her own marriage, her own children. Then she would be happy,” Mama snapped. She blamed herself for indulging Julia for far too long as it was. “Should she spend her life looking after your son? She is not happy!”

  “I am happy now, here,” Julia murmured. She was glad that Ben had taken up for her, but she hated the way her mother claimed to know what would make her happy.

  The dowager shook her head. “You have not been happy for years. I have eyes, you know. I could tell you exactly when the light went out of your eyes. But that is to change. It is settled. He is coming, and you will be most welcoming to him.”

  Julia could feel Shep’s eyes on her as she nodded politely. “All right, Mama.”

  “And when he asks you to marry him—”

  “Mama,” Julia interrupted as her cheeks heated. “Please.” She did not want to speak at of this at the dinner table, not in front of the servants or in front of Shep. She did not want to speak of this at all. But her mother barreled on.

  “I expect you to accept his hand.”

  There was an awkward silence for several minutes before Catherine had looked Julia in the eye and announced to the table her impending pregnancy.

  Julia mouthed the words, “Thank you,” to her sister-in-law after everyone settled down. She avoided Shep’s eyes the rest of dinner. When the ladies went through after dinner and the men enjoyed some port, Julia claimed she had a headache before the men could rejoin them.

  Julia retired early, feigning exhaustion to Smith. She was not fit to be with others. She wanted to snap and shout at everyone. She wanted to cry and throw a tantrum. Instead, she was calm as Smith helped her prepare for bed. She waited to blow the candle out though. Instead, she climbed back out of bed and found the box beneath the bed. Perhaps she would not destroy this box. If she married the marquis…

  She would think of these letters differently now. If there would be no love in her life, in her future marriage, then these letters were the only vestiges of love she would ever experience. They should be treasured for that alone. She would stop trying to blame the boy and girl who wrote them. They had not known better. At peace with at least one part of her life, she once again fell asleep reading.

  21 November 1816 Oxford

  Dear Julia,

  I read your letter with a trembling breath and I am writing you back immediately. How I long to see you, to touch your hair, those little curls which frame your face, to press my mouth to yours. If that is not to be, I would be happy to sit in your presence, to watch you raise your brow at something ridiculous someone says, to hear you passionately debate how important women’s education is, to hear you speak of anything at all, your voice cold and exacting, when I know the warmth that resides within you.

  I dream deliriously of hearing you say my name, to see it formed on your lips, swollen from our amorous kisses.

  I think of you all the time. You have consumed my thoughts in a way that I am sure I should not admit to you. You have the advantage here, Jules. I am afraid I am at your mercy.

  When will it be possible to see you again? I know I need to speak to Ben but I must see you first, just to know that the feelings we write of are real. Can you secure me an invitation for Christmas? Any guilt I feel at deserting my family would be
erased at the sight of you.

  You are the only one I think of, the only woman I write to. Though I have no right to ask you such things, I must know. Am I the only one for you too?

  Yours Completely,

  Shep

  19 December 1816 Cunningham

  Dear Julia,

  By the time you receive this, if all goes according to plan, I shall be with you at Pritchford Place. By the time you receive this, I shall have already cupped your face in my hands, held you in my arms, pressed your lips to mine, and whispered words of affection in your ear…the ones I have longed to say for quite some time.

  To think that as you read this, all of those things will have already happened, will be happening, nearly makes me delirious with happiness. I cannot say my parents are pleased that I will not be home for the holiday, but they are never pleased with me and I cannot find room to care. Not now.

  I cannot find room to care because my heart is full of you. I cannot find room to care because right now, as you read this, I am somewhere in Pritchford Place thinking of you. Perhaps I am sitting across from you at breakfast, though I have never known you to read a sweetheart’s letters at the table. But then I think of what you wrote me last, and I know that this is not a trifling matter between two young people playing at matters of the heart.

  How incredible it is to realize that even as I ache for you while writing this, by the time you read it, we shall be together and that ache will diminish. It shall never go away completely. I can tell. My feelings for you have taken up residence inside of me and will never leave. But if we are together, the churning passion I feel toward you must be calmed. Do you not agree?

  It would not be possible to live in a tempest such as this all of the time.

  Yours Completely,

  Shep

  1 February 1817 Cunningham

  Dear Julia,

  I know I must talk to Ben. It is the first day truly back at university and I already feel overwhelmingly guilty for keeping this secret from him. You are his sister. I know what you shall say, that he is not your keeper, that you are not in his charge. And you are not wrong in these assertions.

  But he is the best friend I have ever had besides Reg. And I cannot keep secrets from him. I am not good at it. If we are to be together, and I do desperately want us to be together, then I must tell him. I shall not say anything until I have your letter in response to this but please understand why I feel the way I do.

  More than anything, I want you to be sure of my feelings for you. I know that I am.

  Yours,

  Shep

  She remembered writing him back, enraged that he would put Ben before her. She had been unkind and harsh in what she wrote. She told him his feelings must not be what he had declared in person. She had been sure he would write back in apology, but he had not written back at all. She had been much too proud to breach the gap and apologize. How stupid she had been. Their next communication would be that summer, the summer of 1817, and they would find a way to put the pieces back together for at least a few glorious months.

  But she would always wonder if her answer to the letter she read now, had it been more measured, more mature, if she had been willing to see things from his point of view… Well, she would always wonder if that would have changed something when it all came crashing down.

  She picked up one of the last letters, knowing she would be reading the beginning of the end, but her eyes clouded with tears. She closed her eyes and cried herself to sleep, hating herself for it, the last of the letters unread.

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  “Leave me alone.”…

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  CHAPTER TEN

  No Choice

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  The next morning, Julia felt a hand on her arm as she walked down the stairs. It took her a moment to realize it was Shep. “Let us take a walk in the gardens,” he said in her ear. “It has been so very long since I saw them after all,” he added more loudly for the benefit of the servants so they would not think anything untoward was taking place. They would never think that, of course, not about Julia and Shep. They loved Shep as if he had been brought up at the estate. In many ways, he had been.

  “But what of breakfast?” Julia asked, as he propelled her out the front door that Carlisle held open for them. That this was the only argument she could come up with, as he pulled her along, annoyed her to no end. He got whatever he wanted. He decided everything.

  “That can wait. What I have to say to you cannot wait,” he insisted, letting go of her arm but not before turning her so they could face one another.

  She was dizzy for a moment, at the loss of contact from his arm. She could smell roses in the air but it was the intensity of his green eyes that captured her attention. She could not face whatever he had to say. She had gone through enough emotional torment when it came to him and she had to prepare herself for the marquis’ visit, which would be a whole other type of torture. “Well, I am hungry and I had a long night so I would rather…”

  This time, he grasped her hand and pulled her toward the gardens. “This is serious. The marquis is coming tomorrow and I think we ought to discuss it.”

  “Discuss it?” she asked in confusion. “Discuss what?”

  As soon as they were hidden by the hedges and rose bushes, Shep faced her. “I have met the man. He is horrible.”

  “You think I do not know that?” Julia sniffed and folded her arms in front of her. She did not like being here, not with him. It had been one of the places where once upon a time they would have sought one another’s embrace. They would plan a time, with Julia usually arriving first, so that when he finally approached, he used to sneak his arms around her waist, his hand pressing her back to his front, as he whispered, “Hello,” into her ear and pressed a lingering kiss to the skin of her neck. Eventually she would turn in his arms, desperate to kiss him and to be kissed, to run her fingers through his hair. “Please do not rub it in. You know him socially and do not like him. At least you have not had to listen to him make innuendos about what a wedding night might be like.”

  Shep took a step toward her, aghast by her admission. “He has said such things to you? He goes too far!”

  She shrugged flippantly but she did not feel flippant. She felt sick over it. “It was nothing horribly brazen, and it is not as if I have not heard it before. It is just, at the time, the man whispering innuendos to me was not fifteen years my senior.” She did not add that Shep had once whispered about a wedding night to her, because that had never been vulgar but romantic, a dream, a hope, something she believed at the time would happen without question.

  “He crossed a line,” Shep insisted seriously. His eyebrows drew together. He looked awfully cross.

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. But what am I to do about it? I am in no position to change his character.”

  Shep took both of her hands in his. She looked down at them strangely, as if their hands belonged to two other people. “Reject him. Do not marry him.” He tugged her closer, pleading with the pressure of his fingers and his words.

  She snatched her hands away. “That is very easy for you to say, is it not? I do not have a choice! You must see that.”

  “How can you, of all people, even be considering this?” Shep cried. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. He had not slept after hearing the way Lady Wembley had demanded Julia marry that awful man. And now to hear this! He could not bear it. “You are the strongest woman I know.”

  She raised her brow at him. It was the first time he’d said such a thing without it sounding like an accusation. “Thank you for the compliment, but even the strongest woman you know does not have the options that a man in her position would. Should I live off my brother the rest of my life? That’s not a life. And it would not be right!”

  “You know Ben would support y
ou!” Shep continued passionately. His breath was coming out quickly and he felt panic in his throat. He had to convince her. He would never forgive himself if she married that man. “He would not wish such a life for you with the marquis. And I know he would not want you to feel as if you do not have a choice. You are a fighter. You always have been. So fight. Do not marry him!”

  “I know Ben would support me, but I do not want him to have to do so. Don’t you see?” She was angry and her voice was growing louder. “It is so easy for you to demand I make the choice to reject him, as if it is a choice. I do not have the luxury of a choice! I do not know how I can be clearer, Shep.”

  “Jules.” He took a step nearer to her, his hands cupping her shoulders. For a moment, he could see in her eyes that she wanted to melt into him as she so often had done in the past. But in the end, she straightened her back.

  She threw propriety out of the window and shoved him back with both of her hands. Since he was so substantial, it had little effect. “Do not call me that!” she yelled. “Don’t you understand? I loved you. I loved you, and I waited for you, and I put off suitors because I thought you felt the same. And then I received a letter with your most sincere regrets telling me of your upcoming attachment to someone else, asking for my blessing. My blessing!” He opened his mouth to speak but she barreled on, her breath heaving in and out, her hair falling from its pins with her passion. “My blessing for you to be with someone else when I would have done anything for you, to be with you. And then after that, I was so heartbroken, so beside myself I cut down any man who dared to come near me. At first because I was sure they would never measure up to you and then later because I never wanted to love a man as I had loved you, because then I could be hurt again as I had been hurt by you. So it is my fault. You must see that! The marquis being my only choice is my fault. I should have never loved you, and I should have never let my heart break over you.”