Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  It wasn’t possible.

  Julia clasped her arms around the solidity of the heavy weight pinning her to the bed. Her eyes flew open. By the time she realized her dream had become reality, it was far too late.

  She welcomed him, this man who was her husband, giving of herself with all impediments washed away by love. No longer a green girl, she opened to him, meeting every touch, every stroke with an urgent response of her own. Intense joy filled her, with nothing held back. If this was all the love she was to have in her life, then she would make the most of it.

  They clung together at last, ragged sobbing breaths still shattering their bodies. Nicholas’ long sandy hair fell over her breast, his sweat-glistened face lay against her shoulder. What had begun as a dream had become startlingly solid, tangible proof she was as bound to this man as it was possible to be.

  Gradually, as their labored breathing dwindled into silence, Nicholas forced himself back to a world which contained something other than two people and a bed. With a groan he rolled over onto his back, one arm across his eyes to shut out the harsh reality of his own unconscionable behavior. “What witch’s brew is this, my girl?” he murmured, as yet more dazed than angry. “I fall asleep in my bed, I dream a dream I’ve had countless times before and I wake…here. Would you care to tell me just what in the name of God or the devil is happening?”

  As he spoke his voice grew stronger. With his last words he rose above her, pinning her wrists to her sides. “Answer me, dammit! How did I get here?”

  As baffled as he, Julia stared up at him, scarcely noticing the punishing grip on her arms. “You say you dreamed? A dream you’ve had before?”

  “Yes,” he hissed between his teeth. As Nicholas vividly recalled the content of those dreams, a slow flush spread up from his neck, creeping to the roots of his tousled sandy head. The thought of what he had just done—and done a hundred times over—with his colonel’s innocent child pulled a heartfelt groan from the depths of his soul.

  Fascinated, Julia ignored his anguish. “Am I in your dreams?” she ventured.

  Nicholas gazed at her wide blue eyes, the long brown braid still lying over one bare shoulder, the familiar features of her face. The cold horror began to fade. This was Julia. His friend. His wife. He loosed his grip on her wrists, reaching out to pull the covers back up to her chin. The view, he growled to himself, was far too distracting for a man with a problem to solve. “Yes,” he murmured, frowning in thought. “In every dream. It was always you.”

  The mists of love were dissipating, allowing an idea that set Julia’s mind racing. “Did the dreams seem real, Nicholas? As if we were really together? And did we sometimes do…um…other things? Things beyond my experience?”

  Nicholas balked at a path that was clearly leading toward a realm of experience a hard-headed pragmatic soldier wished to know nothing about. “How the hell would I know what is beyond your experience?” he barked.

  Thoroughly angry, Julia pulled herself up against the pillows, not forgetting to keep a good grip on the bed covers. “You, Nicholas Tarleton, are the only man I’ve ever been with in my life! And my memory is quite clear. Don’t you see? They’re your dreams, not mine. Oh, I have them too but somehow, some way, I’m having your dreams for there’s no possible way I could know some of the positively shocking things you’ve expected me to do!” Unable to look at him, she studied the quilt as she felt red suffuse her whole body. “It wasn’t so bad when you were in the monastery,” she conceded, “but later… Do men and women really do those things, Nicholas? Or was it all imagining?”

  Ignoring her questions, which were altogether too uncomfortable, Nicholas went straight to the heart of the matter. “You’re saying you have dreams too?”

  “Oh, yes. They began about three months after La Coruña—perhaps shortly after you awoke in the monastery? They’ve been with me ever since. As often as once or twice a week, though there were none these past days in London. I felt so alone. Bereft. But tonight it suddenly came tumbling back. Or so I thought. I suppose it was the same for you. Except…we made it real. You cannot call the witchery mine, Nicholas. It is you who left your bed and came to me.”

  “At the witch’s call!”

  “If there’s witchery, it’s you who did the conjuring!”

  “Enough.” Nicholas pressed a hand to his forehead, which was beginning to protest his night on the town. “Whatever the cause—and I cannot deny something inexplicable has happened here—it would seem we are in a devil of a coil.”

  The possible repercussions of a not-so-phantom lover who sleep-walked had already occurred to her. “Which is why,” Julia stated with a cool efficiency belying her infinite hurt, “we must discuss where I am to live. Since you do not wish me to be independent, I must find a quiet place where I may wait until I am free to live as I choose. I was thinking of Bath, for I am told it is quite lovely. Then again I fear there will be too many people with too many questions. Perhaps the Devonshire coast. I have always loved the sea.”

  Julia had her chin up, pride furled into full armor. She stared straight ahead, pointedly ignoring the totally nude body of her husband sitting by her side. He could not, after all, hurt her any more than he already had.

  She was wrong.

  “Don’t be absurd!” Nicholas retorted. “I didn’t come chasing over half the countryside looking for you so you could go haring off again. You’ll go nowhere but The Willows, my girl.”

  Words of protest tumbled out in a stream of nerves. “You’ve windmills in your head, Nicholas Tarleton! How can you even think such a thing? Crawl back to Grantley—the discarded wife! To Ebadiah Woodworthy’s smug smile, the sniggers on the street, the tabbies whispering behind their hands, the pity of my tenants? Your tenants. I arranged the altar flowers, for heaven’s sake. I took baskets to the needy. Gave jobs to as many as I could. I founded a new industry, Nicholas! And all for your people. Imagine—just try to imagine—the humiliation of living there as nothing more than your humble pensioner. By God, I’ll not do it, Nicholas! You can’t expect me to stoop so low.”

  As Julia railed at him, she gradually became aware of what she was seeing. Nicholas. All of him. The white of his body strongly contrasting with his sun-bronzed extremities. He sat facing her, hip to hip, only a few layers of fabric separating their nakedness. This man had just made love to her and yet he had the incredible insensitivity to demand she suffer the final scourge of becoming a nobody, an outcast in the first place she had ever been able to call home. He was…despicable!

  She loved him to distraction.

  To his credit, Nicholas considered his wife’s protest. He had thought only to protect her, to honor the guardianship he had pledged, the vows he could not remember. That she would be horrified, humbled, humiliated by his plans for her never entered his head. Unfortunately, it was possible her objections might have merit. But not when weighed against the alternative of allowing her to disappear into the English countryside where he could not protect her. This was a battle he had to win. By fair means or foul.

  Julia had turned her back to him, ostensibly losing herself in contemplation of a particularly gory hunting scene which marred the delicate silk floral pattern of the wallcovering. The sheet had fallen off her back, presenting Nicholas with a delightfully statuesque array of bare skin including the rounded contours of her derrière just above the point where her nether cheeks disappeared under the bed covers.

  “What about Willow Herbals?” he inquired sweetly, his lips twitching into a speculative grin as he ran his forefinger down the length of her spine, setting off a noticeable quiver of female flesh.

  Julia gasped, her thought processes once again dissolving into a muddle. “What do you mean?” she murmured.

  “After all I’ve heard about the herb business from Daniel, I can’t believe you’d be willing to just go off and leave it.” His lips feathered kisses along the nape of her neck.

  “I can’t live at The Willows. You know I can’t�
�” Her voice trailed away to a whisper.

  Nicholas’ hands insinuated themselves around her waist, the tips of his fingers stretching toward her most intimate flesh. He flexed his fingers, moving slowly, teasingly upward. Against her shoulder his lips moved. “Sophy Upton would share her cottage.”

  Julia jerked away, once again swirling the sheet into a protective cocoon as she faced his challenge. “The cottage is full of herbs and quite untenable,” she declared, grimly triumphant. For a moment she had wavered but common sense broke Nicholas’ powerful spell. This was a battle she could not lose. There was no way she would live in Grantley.

  “The cottage is easily cleaned.” Nicholas, undeterred by the concealing sheet, resumed his teasing caresses, his long fingers moving over the fullness of her breasts as if they had every right to be there. Julia gritted her teeth. The muslin sheet was no defense against the erotic images that threatened to cloud her mind.

  “You cannot!” she protested with her last ounce of determination. She would not succumb to his blatant wheedling. Absolutely. Would not. “The herbs are not dry, they would be ruined,” she added weakly.

  “I’ll pay the damages.”

  “You don’t understand, Nicholas,” she said, eagerly welcoming the intrusion of a firm argument into the precarious moment. “Your money is no good. It’s a matter of pride. We’ve worked so hard to reach this point. To have so many orders, to know our cottagers are making money through their own efforts and not starving or living on the dole. Willow Herbals is not a toy, Nicholas. If we are to stay in business, we must fulfill our obligations. Sophy, Daniel and Meg can run the business without me but the business cannot survive without the herbs.”

  Nicholas thought she looked rather like a mummy whose head had not yet been wrapped, sitting there glaring, defending his cottagers to him as if he were the enemy. God, she was magnificent! Not his kind of woman, of course but magnificent nonetheless.

  Julia’s few moments of sanity were overwhelmed by a rising desire so blatant she was shocked by its intensity. She could feel his seduction all the way down to her toes. There was no mistaking the gleam of appreciation in those steel gray eyes. But never…no, never again would she let him see how much she cared. To protect her soul from the piercing intensity of those gray eyes, Julia turned abruptly away, bidding Nicholas a brisk, dismissive good night. Like a babe returning to the womb, she added as many bed coverings as she could grab to her cocoon and snuggled down on her pillow, presenting him with an uncompromisingly stiff back.

  The corners of the major’s mouth turned up in a secret smile. A challenge, by God.

  His seduction had been lighthearted—the little nothings which had worked so well on his mistresses when they were in a pout. But Julia had held firm and it was he who had been seduced. Before him, however angry, was a warm, loving woman who just happened to be his wife. The taste of her he had just experienced was the stuff of dreams. Too ephemeral by half. And yet he knew what lay behind the resolute back and beneath the covers. The generous mouth, breasts which so amply filled his hands, hips that welcomed, moving to meet his every thrust…

  Nicholas, who no longer questioned why he had gone to Julia Litchfield’s room and not come out ’til morning, consigned honor and scruples to limbo. She was his wife and rational thought could wait ’til morning. With a powerful sweep of his hand he ripped the sheet aside, shoved the bed covers onto the floor. He silenced Julia’s feeble protest before it began. His mouth, his tongue, his hands, the whole of his flesh came home to their proper place. She melted into him, warm, pliable and more than willing. He was not dreaming. Nor would he forget this night. Ever.

  * * * * *

  The occupant of the post-chaise shifted his weight on the padded squabs in a vain attempt to ease the strain on his leg. The dull ache with which he had started the journey had blossomed into a continual series of sharp stabbing pains. He glanced at his companion who appeared to be as sorely tried as himself. “No need to look so long-faced, Tom,” Avery Dunstan offered in an encouraging tone. “We’re nearly there. A half hour and you’ll be snug with a cup of tea and a dollop of brandy. Strictly medicinal of course.”

  “Yes, Sir,” mumbled the lanky corporal, summoning a ghost of a grin.

  “The arm will mend, Tom,” Avery Dunstan assured the corporal. “After a bit of rest, we’ll return to the Peninsula hale and hearty.” Seeing no sign that his words had altered his traveling companion’s lugubrious features, the newly promoted captain added, “’Twas good of you to see me home, Pickering and I am sincerely grateful.”

  Uncomfortable with praise, the bandsman shrugged his bony shoulders. “Arm may heal enough for hospital work, Sir. Doubt it’ll be good enough to play the fife.”

  “Nonsense,” returned young Dunstan, who had learned a number of hard lessons about being a good officer, “you’ll be playing again before you know it.”

  “Yes, Sir, if you say so, Sir.” For a moment Tom Pickering examined the white bandages swathing his right forearm, then he quite deliberately lifted his eyes to the fields and hedgerows passing by outside. The captain was right. No sense brooding about it. He was about to spend his leave in the home of a real live earl. And wouldn’t that be a tale to tell when he got back to Portugal?

  Unembarrassed by his own excitement, Avery Dunstan, Viscount Cheyney, pressed his nose to the glass, drinking in the glorious well-tended acres that one day would be his. If he lived. He was no longer the vainglorious boy who, scorning his title, had insisted on following the heroic Major Nicholas Tarleton off to war. He had discovered the high price to be paid for the hours of camaraderie, the moments of glory. He didn’t have to go back to the Peninsula, of course. As his father’s heir, no one had ever expected him to go to war and no stigma would be attached to his selling out. But he would go back. There was no way he could live with himself else.

  With a sudden exclamation Avery pulled the checkrein, shouting, “Stop! Stop, I say!”

  As the startled coachman slowed his team, the young captain flung open the door, peering out across a fallow field to a stream where several men were struggling to repair an earthen dam. One of the men towered above the others by half a head. In spite of the late October chill he had shed his jacket, his billowing white shirt a striking contrast to the flow of his rich chestnut locks whipping in the wind. Fifty yards or not, Avery Dunstan would have recognized his brother anywhere.

  The wounded captain struggled to his feet. While balanced on his one good leg, he employed his best battlefield voice, bellowing, “Jack, Ja-ack! I’m home, Jack!”

  The workers paused, leaning on their shovels and gazed in surprise at the coach. Captain Dunstan, precariously balanced, waved and shouted once again. The broad-shouldered worker with the mane of chestnut hair responded with an answering whoop, threw his shovel aside and started for the coach on the run. In moments the two men were bound in a joyful reunion modified only by Jack Harding’s care of his half brother’s wounded leg. The bare bones of Avery’s return were soon told. “You’ll not go back,” said Jack flatly.

  “I will,” said the young captain in a tone that left no doubt he would no longer bow to the dictates of his adored older brother. “I’ll go back as soon as I am able.” He waved a casual hand toward his leg. “This is nothing. Too many good men have died.” His eyes grew dark. “Nick Tarleton among them. I’ll not rest until Boney is rolled up, horns, tail and all.”

  “Ah, yes, the major,” said Jack softly. “Move over, Brother and let me ride with you. I’ve a tale to tell…

  Chapter Fourteen

  A scant few hours behind the post-chaise of Captain Avery Dunstan, the lumbering eighteenth century coach once belonging to Laetitia Summerton entered Lincolnshire. The animosity of the two antagonists inside contrasted sharply with the harmonious reunion enjoyed by the sons of the Earl of Ellington. On the long trip from London Nicholas and Julia had, in fact, exhausted every argument and counter-argument two lively minds could contrive, p
unctuating seething silences with hot bouts of quarreling that drowned out the rumble of the ancient coach’s massive wheels. Daniel Runyon, after several attempts at mediation, retired from the lysts, feigning sleep for most of the long day’s journey.

  Julia and the major continued their harsh words over luncheon at an inn of fine repute, deeply offending their host by the amount of food returned to the kitchen by his short-tempered guests. During the long afternoon that followed the atmosphere in the coach cooled from acrimonious to sullen to long-suffering silence, broken only near journey’s end when Nicholas announced, “The thing which most appalls me is that I was going to let you do it.”

  Not at all mystified by this obscure remark, his wife snapped back, “I have told you—I will not be an obligation!”

  “Obligation?” The major swelled with fury. “How many times—”

  “That’s what I have been all along, is it not?” Julia interrupted, very much on her dignity.

  An ominous note tinged the major’s smooth reply. “That’s what I was last night, I take it. I was obliged to be in your bed? I think not, my girl. I was wide awake the second time and knew exactly what I was doing…and I’d wager you did too.”

  Julia drew breath for a withering reply, paused…snapped her mouth shut without uttering a word. She was defenseless. He was entirely right.

  With the superior nod of a person who has just been proven correct—a nod Julia would have found intolerably smug if she had not turned her back on him—Nicholas continued, “So it’s settled then. You’ll come home as my wife…and no more nonsense about an annulment.”

  “No.”

  “Dammit, Julia! I’ve told you Don Raimondo and Violante have removed to Ellington’s dower house. I made the arrangements before I left The Willows. You may think me an insensitive clod but even I never expected to keep a wife and a fiancée under the same roof.” Unfortunately, the major spoiled this semi-conciliatory remark by adding, “Violante is of a delicate nature. Her spirits would have been quite crushed if she had been forced to encounter you at every turn.”