Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  “Ah!” The duchess regarded Miss Leyland with some interest. For all the severity of her gray gown and swept-back hair, the girl made a fine appearance. A remarkably handsome woman. Not the companion a wife would care to have in a household with a virile young husband. “Yes, I quite understand,” she murmured.

  Julia could not resist a sharp glance at her potential employer who made no effort to disguise the irony of her tone.

  “Tell me, Miss Leyland, did you enjoy your life as a companion to Mrs. Tarleton?”

  “Enjoy?” Nerves taut, stomach churning, Julia had not expected that particular question. “Mrs. Tarleton was very kind,” she managed. “Most thoughtful. I quite felt one of the family.” She should not have said that! Encroaching, you foolish widgeon!

  “Somehow, Miss Leyland,” the duchess responded, “for all you sit there trying to fade into the upholstery, I cannot picture you fetching and carrying. Leading a tribe of Amazons perhaps, or a fitting consort to a Viking prince.” She saw the hurt of rejection in the young woman’s eyes and was not impervious to it. “Do not be upset, child,” she added briskly. “I am paying you a compliment. You were never destined for obscurity. You may possibly wish it but it is not for you. Do not try to turn me up sweet, because I know we would not suit. Your strength and vitality would have me seeing myself as an old woman in no time at all. Believe me, I am doing you a favor in sending you on your way. Go find yourself a young widower who will need more of you than fetching a shawl or reading a book in bed.”

  At the outrageous double entendre Julia’s effort to maintain her dignity failed, disappointment giving way to shock, which rapidly dissolved into hilarity. She put her hand to her mouth to cover her twitching lips, bit her fingers and, finally, catching the duchess’s twinkling eye, burst into a rolling chuckle. When she had at last wiped her streaming eyes and subsided into a rueful grin, Julia made her farewells. “I hope, Your Grace, that you do not give such advice to all the young ladies you interview,” she ventured.

  “Believe me, my dear, you are quite unique. I fear you may have to look far for the right position, as humility is expected in both companions and governesses and I doubt it is a virtue with which you have much acquaintance.” The duchess held out her hand, which Julia grasped. “Do not despair, my dear. Good fortune will find you, I am certain of it.”

  “And I am certain,” Julia returned, “that no prospective employee ever received a more gracious rejection.” She made her farewell and went on her way, strangely encouraged by her extraordinary encounter with the Duchess of Marchmont.

  Julia approached her fourth interview much wiser but no less nervous. She had been rejected out of hand by a wealthy cit who wished a companion to teach her daughter how to go on in society. Mrs. Hiram Higgins took one look at the statuesque Julia towering over her fubsy-faced daughter like Juno paired with a gnome and dismissed Miss Leyland without a single question.

  The Countess of Millbury had, however, treated Julia to a fine display of the manners expected from a leading political hostess. She smiled benignly, examined Miss Leyland’s references with care and asked all the proper questions. There was no doubt that Miss Leyland would manage her two youngest children admirably but her eldest son and heir—at that impossibly impressionable age of twenty—oh, no, quite out of the question. She thanked Miss Leyland for coming. She would make her decision when she had interviewed all candidates. She was certain Miss Leyland understood her desire to be thorough.

  The following day Julia—determined on a course of humility and self-effacement—fairly slunk into the spacious bookroom of Albemarle House, London residence of James Blessington, Viscount Albemarle. Eyes downcast, heart pounding, she followed the butler across the room and sank into a curtsey before raising her eyes to discover that her interviewer was male, not female. Was there hope then? Perhaps, raised as she had been in a world of men, she had more chance of establishing rapport with the handsome smiling gentleman who was acknowledging her curtsey with a gracious nod. Not more than thirty-five, he was, according to Miss Spencer, the father of two small children just reaching the age to graduate from nurse to governess. A not onerous position which both Miss Spencer and Julia felt she could manage more than adequately. This was not, however, the widower of the duchess’s imagination. Miss Spencer had described Lady Albemarle as a darling of the ton, a leading luminescence in London’s social swirl. More plainly, a woman who had fulfilled her duty to her children and her husband on the day they were born.

  Julia sat in the chair indicated by a cavalier wave of the viscount’s graceful hand. She forced her whole body to wilt into a slump so meek she appeared round-shouldered. Instead of her usual brilliant smile, she favored the viscount with a tentative upward curve of her generous lips and fixed her eyes on his face with utmost intent. She would not fail this interview. She would not!

  When, sometime later, Viscount Albemarle rose and offered his hand in an obvious end to the interview, a dazed Julia was almost too immersed in the role she was playing to realize the viscount was assuring her he was looking forward to Miss Leyland joining his household on the morrow. Reality, however, snapped back with a sickening start as she became aware he was still holding her hand, the firelight dancing on his golden hair and tawny amber eyes which were level with her own. With awful clarity she saw the sudden flare of male appreciation give way to a gleam of pure speculation.

  Julia ruthlessly shut out the flutter of disquiet occasioned by Viscount Albemarle’s assessment. She would have a roof over her head, a place to hide. Relief lent wings to her half boots as she glided back to her modest room and set to the immediate packing of her few belongings.

  * * * * *

  The long gallery stretched into infinity, its yawning rectangle dwindling into a distant pinpoint of blackness. There was no light, yet everything was clearly visible. The ghostly mists parted, as they always did, to reveal a full-grown Nicholas hanging on the wall. The arm stretched out in greeting was firm and strong, covered in the fine wool of rifleman green. He smiled. Not at her but beyond. Toward the great looming catafalque crashing through the glass. To the figure laid out upon it, black hair streaming over the white velvet covering the bier, the porcelain skin gently warmed by the Iberian sun, long sooty lashes, a soft rosebud mouth, hands too delicate to have ever done a day’s work. Doña Violante. The death knell of Julia’s hopes.

  The mists closed round the catafalque, obscuring its exquisite burden. It would end now, this hideous nightmare. The Spanish violet had replaced the mother and child. It was over. Time for tears and anguish. Time to wake up.

  The ice cold mists swirled through her head, refusing to depart. They shot through the infinity of the gallery in great swirls of white, thinning, coalescing into whirlwinds of ice crystals, dissipating, dissolving…

  The gallery became an oven. Warmth, blessed warmth suffused her body, driving out the cold. The mists melted away, the catafalque remained. The covering was red velvet. Resting on it was the form of James Blessington, Viscount Albemarle. And next to him, herself. His eyes flew open. He turned on her a predatory smile. She tried to scream, tried to run. In the manner of nightmares, she could do neither. In one fluid movement he turned and seized her in his arms, his lips scalding as he pressed them to hers.

  Around them, the remaining glass windows shattered, the pieces clinking against each other as they fell. The catafalque exploded in a shower of wooden splinters. For a fraction of a moment their bodies were suspended in air. Then they too shattered into a thousand shiny fragments, falling, burning to black ashes, which drifted down onto the red velvet.

  Released from her nightmare at last, Julia screamed. Gasped. And finally sobbed, clutching her knees to her chin and rocking back and forth in her bed while the other residents of the rooming house beat vainly against her locked door.

  Julia took a frantic gulp of air and forced herself to a semblance of normalcy. “It’s all right,” she called. “Only a nightmare. I’m very sorry. P
lease go back to bed. I’ll be fine now.”

  Fine. What a monstrous lie!

  A few more reassurances to the surprisingly concerned boarders outside the door…and then time to think. To reason. Part of the nightmare was easy enough to understand. Nicholas did not dissolve into a skeleton because he still lived. The significance of Doña Violante replacing the poor mother and child was equally obvious. But Viscount Albemarle, that pillar of London society and member of the House of Lords? Surely a silly vagary of her imagination, a haunting produced by her intense relief at finding a position at last.

  No, it was more than that, she was certain of it. Julia forced herself to recall every look, every gesture, that final brief but blatant flare of anticipation in those amber eyes. Viscount Albemarle had not employed her for his two children. He had hired her for himself.

  No, no, no, no! She could not give up this position on the evidence of a nightmare. She couldn’t. She could not go back to Miss Spencer yet again, pleading God knew what as an excuse for refusing such an advantageous position…

  But she would. She would have to.

  Julia lay back down, pulling the covers up to her chin. Her lips quivered as she longed for the days when the phantom lover of her dreams had kept The Nightmare at bay, bringing her love and warmth. Cherishing. Days now gone forever.

  * * * * *

  “I am so very sorry,” said Julia to Miss Portia Spencer the next morning. “I was so pleased to have the position but then…I remembered how he looked at me…” Her voice trailed away as her great anguished eyes met Miss Spencer’s stern gaze across the expanse of her utilitarian pinewood desk. “I suppose I am being foolish, for I know quite well that men do not find me attractive. I am too tall, too opinionated. But—you must believe me!—there was just something wrong. Yes, yes, I am certain his interest was-ah-personal.” Julia hung her head, clasping her hands tightly together in her lap as was her habit in moments of extreme stress. “I sent round a note this morning, saying that I was called home due to an illness in the family. I know that was quite wrong of me but I could think of nothing else…”

  Miss Spencer frowned, adjusting her spectacles with one long thin finger. Wisps of gray hair flared above her ears, softening the effect of her tightly pulled chignon. Her lips twitched. “You may not see yourself as others do, Miss Leyland,” she intoned. “We have touched on this before, I believe. The day you first walked into this office I nearly stood up and addressed you as ‘my lady’, for even your modest gown could not disguise that you were, as the saying goes, to the manor born.”

  Startled, Julia frowned at Miss Spencer’s thin face. “You are not pretty, Miss Leyland,” that lady pronounced. “You are something far more than that. You are regal. Striking. Yours is a beauty which will last a lifetime. Long after prettiness has decayed into soft flesh and a sullen pout for lost admiration.”

  Miss Spencer held up a hand, stifling Julia’s automatic protest. “Whatever you were, or thought you were in the past, my dear, you are now a woman whose vibrancy and intelligence cannot be hidden behind dowdy gowns and a thin veil of humility. I wished to help you—it is my job, after all—but I should have told you that very first day that no woman in her right senses would have you in her household. The Duchess of Marchmont wrote to me, praising you highly. She even offered to employ you if a better opportunity did not present itself. But she feels quite strongly that your destiny is to have your own household, the position of wife and mother.” Julia’s eyes widened.

  “Yes, indeed, she was quite explicit about the type of employer I should find for you. Which is possibly why—since I too am guilty of a certain modicum of stubborn pride—I have not mentioned the one position which met the duchess’s most specific suggestions.”

  “Ma’am?” Julia felt a frisson of excitement. Miss Portia Spencer was not going to show her door. She was, in fact, about to present an alternative.

  “There is a gentleman from Somerset who came to me more than a week ago with a request for a governess for his daughter of some six years. He is a widower.” Portia Spencer faltered in her aplomb and was forced to fix her gaze on a portrait of George III hanging on the wall. “In truth, I might not have been so stubborn about the duchess’s advice except that I felt that you and Mr. Thompson would not suit. Too much alike by half,” added Miss Spencer with considerable fervor. “Arrogant. Willful. Each of you walks into a room as if you owned it. My first impression was that you would annihilate each other within twenty-four hours.

  “But now…” Portia Spencer took her time surveying Julia from head to foot. A man would have to be dead not to find the girl attractive. Sending her to the home of a widower was reckless. Irresponsible. But then again, the girl was not some delicate schoolroom miss. “I thought Mr. Thompson a man who preferred a milk-and-water miss, a mealy mouthed, namby-pamby chit who would run to do his bidding and gaze worshipfully at him from her humble corner. Unfortunately, I seem to have been mistaken, for he has rejected each candidate out of hand. In truth, I have no one left to send but you.”

  “I should try very hard to be humble…”

  “I do not recommend it,” Miss Spencer snapped. “You do it badly. Just be yourself and if you have not boxed each other’s ears within the first hour, then you may well suit. It is possible he prefers a woman of, shall we say, strong character.”

  Julia fished in her reticule for a handkerchief. “Thank you, ma’am!” She managed a watery smile. “I am truly grateful. I will take your advice, be myself and hope for the best.”

  “Mr. Thompson is staying at the Clarendon. I shall contact him immediately. Perhaps an interview may be arranged for later today.”

  After a renewed profusion of thanks, Julia took her leave. As she walked back to her lodgings, Miss Spencer’s words kept running through her mind. Was it possible? Could it be that her irregular collection of features and her height had finally assembled themselves into something other than an ill-favored gawk of a girl?

  Regal. A nice word. In truth, she had thought little about her looks, having dismissed them as hopeless at the age of fifteen. She’d settled for being the beloved daughter of the regiment, with a care for her responsibilities, remarkable endurance and a fine seat on a horse. Perhaps…perhaps if she had really looked at herself in the mirror this past year or so, she might have seen a girl now grown into the full confidence and vibrancy of womanhood. A woman capable of running her own life. A woman who had known love.

  Who thought she had known love.

  That Miss Spencer and the duchess thought her attractive was all well and good but the fact remained that she was not attractive enough for Nicholas Tarleton. And there was nothing else that mattered.

  When a message arrived instructing her to meet Mr. Richard Thompson at four o’clock in his suite at the Clarendon, Julia dressed with extreme care. From the three new gowns of half mourning she had brought with her, she selected the most stylish, a soft silver-gray wool with long sleeves and a high waist. A narrow band of black velvet cording and a small frill of black lace adorned the high neck and cuffs and banded the skirt some twelve inches above the pleated hemline. Too stylish for a governess, yet some remnant of feminine vanity had kept her from leaving it behind.

  Julia did not pull her hair back as tightly as for her other interviews, allowing a few wisps of shining brown to peek out from under a gray bonnet lined in black velvet. Solemnly she studied her face in the small clouded mirror which was all the room provided, regretting she had no rose petals to rub upon her cheeks. She pinched them instead and rubbed her lips together. Slowly, she pulled on her gray kid gloves, checked her reticule for her references. Over it all she draped her black wool cloak. She was as ready as she was ever going to be. Be yourself. Not easy when you were unsure of who yourself was. Certainly not Nicholas Tarleton’s wife. For nearly two years she had been a nobody and had not known it. Now she must find not only a new position but a new self.

  At the Clarendon her inquiry for Mr. T
hompson was tended to with alacrity and respect. As Julia was led along the carpeted hallway to Mr. Thompson’s suite, she attempted to stifle her qualms. Her store of coins was growing slim, her confidence slimmer still. She needed this position badly, not the least of its appeal being that it was in Somerset, which was a long way from Lincolnshire.

  The young man who had shown her to the suite announced her, proffered a respectful bow and left. Beyond a blazing fire in the black marble fireplace there was no sign of life. No one emerged from either of the two doors which led into adjoining rooms in the suite. As Julia reexamined the back of the large wing chair set facing the fire, the occupant—obviously frustrated by the long series of failures sent to him by London’s finest employment agencies—snapped, “Well, come here, girl and let me look at you.”

  Anger flared. Julia stalked across the room and swung about to face the source of this arrogance.

  Steel gray eyes blazed as the man slowly unfolded himself to his full height and glared down at her.

  “You led me a damn merry chase, my girl,” said Nicholas Tarleton.

  Chapter Ten

  She ran. In a blinding miasma of pain Julia bolted for the door. As she reached for the knob, strong hands clamped down on her shoulders. Her frantic struggle was brief, the arms encircling her unshakable, the voice in her ear not at all what she expected to hear.

  “It’s me, missus! Daniel. Stop, missus and listen to me! It’s Daniel. There now, missus. Hush!”

  Julia leaned her head into his shoulder and quivered, lungs struggling for air. “Let me go, Daniel,” she hissed. “You can’t do this to me. I thought we were friends, you and I.”

  “That we are, missus. And if I didn’t know the major be a right ’un, you’d be gone from here in a flash. But you’re his wife and he’s responsible for you. You can’t be going off like a ghost in the night and expect him to let ye do it.”