by Edith Layton
“My dear lady,” Nicholas said sweetly, “it’s grown extremely warm in here, and Julia and I should like to stroll in the cool of the evening before retiring.”
“Ah. Of course. And so it is. I will just take my shawl against the threat of sudden breezes, which are not all the thing for the constitution,” Lady Preston said as she gathered up her reticule and shawl, “and I shall have a seat outside as well. What a good idea.”
How odd, Julia thought as the three of them stepped out of the salon and then down the hall to the back door that led to a cobblestone-paved courtyard garden area. How strange, she thought as Lady Preston nodded with satisfaction and took a seat on a bench beneath a sheltering tree. For Lady Preston merely said, as she seated herself in the dark as comfortably as if she were in a drawing room, “I should suggest you avoid notice, but at least I shall be here should you need me.”
Julia’s feeling of wrongness, the sense of something sadly askew, increased as she paced quietly by Nicholas’s side and he led her deeper into the darkened garden. But then she thought, Of course! It is he who pays her wages, and I, after all, really have no champion at all. It came to Julia all at once, like some blinding revelation, so complete and unexpected that she paused in her tracks. She is a lady, of that there is no question. Yet she never was here to ensure my reputation, but only to swear to it.
Nicholas spoke quietly and Julia started. Was he inside her head again, she wondered, could he see through her eyes as well as into them? For he said as though he had been privy to her innermost thoughts, “It’s not only you, Julia, nor is it only your chaperone and her circumstances. Society knows that a female may be ringed around with armed guardians and yet be unchaste. We’ve grown past the days of bolting up our women as we did our castle doors. A chaperone is employed to lend respectability, but everyone knows that respectability can’t be lent, it must be kept. Now,” he said in warm and friendly accents as they stood quietly in the shadows, “allow me to illustrate the point.”
Without any fuss, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he gathered her up in his arms and bent his head and kissed her. At first she only offered no resistance. And then, to her shock and his delight, she followed his lead and offered a great deal more to him than lack of objections. After long and languorous moments, he raised his head again and she lay stunned against his chest.
Then he murmured, with traces of suppressed, luxurious triumph in his voice, “Now, what is this of ‘cannot’ or ‘could not’ when I speak of love, when I speak of a future for you and me?”
With effort, Julia straightened herself and drew apart from him. She sought to find her normal voice and composure and only when sure that she could speak coherently, she replied, “ ‘Cannot,’ ‘will not,’ you refine too much upon my every word,” she said with a shaky laugh. “So I’ll try to say it plainly and be done. I won’t be your mistress, Nicholas, because I am Julia Hastings, and she is not the sort of girl to become anyone’s mistress, even though she is the abandoned sort of female who will tell you straightaway that if she could be anyone’s, she would be yours. But wait,” she said, knowing he was about to speak and wanting to get it all out in a rush for fear that her lower lip, which had begun to quiver, would impede what she had to say, what she knew she ought to say, “there’s more.”
She drew in a deep breath and then said, closing her eyes so that she could see the shape of her thoughts and not his face, “I will not because of things that you would consider foolish, like conscience and morality. But if it makes you feel any better, I cannot as well. You see, I couldn’t even if I were the graceless wanton you think I am. I just wouldn’t be satisfactory. You can ask Robin,” she said at last, unable to say another thing as her voice broke on the “Robin” at the end.
She fought to get her countenance under control, and had almost successfully commanded her chin to cease trembling and her lip to steady itself, when he undid her. He didn’t say a word, but only took her in his arms again and held her very close. Only that. Then, of course, she had no choice at all left. She wept.
When she had steadied herself at last, or at least become still enough to begin to feel ashamed of her outburst, and aware of his arms about her, he spoke.
“Julia,” he whispered into her ear in the quiet of the night, “you must tell me. It cannot be that shameful a thing. It can never be that ugly or that hideous to me if it concerns you. What happened that night, what occurred between you and Robin? I cannot know you, indeed you forbid my knowing you by continually evading the truth of it. Is it fair to condemn me for hurting or misjudging you when you keep this important a thing to yourself? You arrange it so that I am fated to lose whatever I do. It simply is not fair to me. Tell me, Julia. Here and now. Please, Julia.”
“But I have never—” she began, but he cut her off by saying softly, “I know, and that is why you must.”
So there, in the midnight garden of a hotel in Paris, Julia lay her head upon the Baron Stafford’s breast, and with the steady beat of his heart against her ear, comforted like a homeless puppy with a ticking clock in its basket, she softly spoke of the events of the night that was to have been her wedding night.
But for all that it had changed her life, for all that it had so constantly shaped her every action since, it was overall a very brief tale. And when she was done, Julia stood silent, resting against Nicholas, still feeling his hand absently stroking her hair, as he had all the while that she spoke. But then she began to feel a little foolish, a bit childish, as people always do when their worst despair has abated and they become aware that they are still being comforted.
“I must find Robin,” he said at length, as though he did not know he spoke aloud, for then he dropped his mouth to her ear and whispered for her to hear, “I must find Robin. There is some misunderstanding in this. The fault is not in you, Julia. I could swear to it, but only Robin can attest to it. I must find him.” Then he put her away from him, but only an arm’s length away, and he still held her by both shoulders as he looked down into her face and spoke.
“It is what I set out to do, but you, you wicked creature, you made me falter in my determination. I tarried because I enjoyed your company so much I was loathe to part from you, or so I told myself. Now I think it was rather that I didn’t wish to force the final confrontation. Perhaps I wished to delay the moment of truth. So I lingered, little Circe, and you did indeed change me into a swine. For after a while I never gave a thought to ending the matter. I was so very busy thinking up ways and means to get you into my bed.
“Now I shall leave for Brussels in the morning. And I shall ask you, Julia—mind, I said ‘ask’ you—to remain here to wait for me. I shall, if I can, bring Robin back with me, and then we shall have the whole thing out in the air at last. It is time, and past it, to end this matter.”
“And then?” Julia asked.
“Why then, you shall be free. That is to say that you are free as of now, but then there will be no further constraints upon you,” he said, still holding her by her shoulders and unconsciously tightening his hands upon her even as he said “free.” So the next question came to her quite naturally.
“And your offer?” she asked softly, seeing the answer in his face even in the darkness before he spoke. The bright white of his eyes was obscured for an instant as he closed his lids as though in pain.
“Forget it, Julia,” he said heavily, and then in an attempt at humor, he said as he let her shoulders go, “At least, I hope you do. Lord! What a family we are for making you offers. I should not blame you if you never wished to clap eyes upon any of us again. But please,” he said at once, as though his own words had alarmed him, “tell me. Even though I repeat, you are free, will you at least stay here and wait for me? I think it to your advantage to, Julia, for it is only Robin who can explain that night to you, and answer all of the questions that may enable you to live your life more fully and freely in future.”
When she did not answer at once,
he asked again, “Julia, will you wait here for me? At the very least you must allow me to see you safely home from this adventure.”
He spoke of safety and he spoke of freedom, Julia thought as she stood chilled in the warm night air. And he did not know that she never felt safe from him while he breathed upon the earth, although she never felt safer than when she was with him. And as for freedom, she thought sadly, he had only removed her from her cage. But it hardly mattered now, since like a wily falconer, he had trained her with soft words and rewards to come to his hand whenever he put out his finger.
“I shall wait,” Julia said.
14
Everywhere that he went, they wondered at why he had not yet met up with his friend. At first, he had been amused, and then by slow degree as he had ridden from villa to village, from city to countryside, he had grown annoyed, then vexed, and then decidedly angry.
“But, old man,” Lord Blake had said in Lille, as he poured another glass of port for his unexpected overnight guest, “you only missed him by inches, I’d swear it, for no sooner did his dust die down than you appeared. Not that I’m not delighted to see you, old man, for I am, you’re like a spot of England. Tell me, how are things at home?”
“Good heavens, Nick, you would have met in the doorway had he stopped to tie his shoe!” John Taylor had said in Ghent. “Not two days past!” the Hawkinses in their ornate rented house in Bruges had marveled. “He was here yesterday, and you arrive today. Now who’s chasing whom?” Cyril Hampton, Duke of Austell, had murmured thoughtfully as he settled back in his armchair in his hotel in Brussels to interview his guest.
He had been traveling for two weeks now, and everywhere, every weary mile he progressed, he heard of how odd it was that he had so narrowly missed encountering his good friend Sir Oliver Sidney. But nowhere did he hear a word that could lead him to Robin, and nowhere, he heard, was Sir Sidney able to find out about his nephew’s whereabouts either. “I say,” Lord Beddoes had murmured, “Why don’t you two fellows link up? Save yourselves a deal of trouble, you know.”
“I would love to,” the baron had managed to say through his tightly clenched teeth. And so he would, he thought, although he did not think it would save Sir Sidney a whit of trouble if he did so.
This night he lay in his bed in a fine hotel in the heart of Brussels and knew that Ollie rested somewhere in the same city. But he did not believe that Robin did, no, in fact he was almost sure now that Robin did not. For he had one advantage over Ollie, and that was that once he had known Robin, and his nephew’s essential self would not have changed, no matter how time and tide had shaped his life. If Robin knew he was seeking him, nothing would keep him away. So he would make a few more searching inquiries for his nephew to be completely certain that word of his quest was known everywhere, and then he would gladly be out of this city and this country. He would leave the barren field for Ollie to winnow. Let him come up with a handful of dust for his efforts, Nicholas thought as he laced his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, to match the lungfuls of dust that I have gotten as I unwittingly followed behind him on every step, of my search.
But he was weary of this place, he thought as he settled himself into bed in preparation for his now expected nightly bout of sleeplessness. And if a fellow could weary of such a beautiful city, then there must certainly be something amiss with him. And, of course, Nicholas thought wryly, there was.
For he hadn’t known such sleeplessness existed before he had met her. He hadn’t ever found exotic foreign cities a bore nor itched to be quit of them. Even in the days of his disappointment and turmoil over Ivy’s defection, he had been able to comfort himself with available females, if only for the mundane expediency of getting past the lonely midnight hours easefully into a new day. But now nothing brought him solace but the thought of her, even as the thought of her brought him only the desire to be back with her again. And that desire kept him as constant to her as though she had been at his side as a spectral presence gravely watching his every action for every interminable moment that they had been apart.
Grave considerations indeed, Nicholas thought as he frowned to himself and found his feather pillow grown as comfortable as a tombstone. He smiled at his own play on words and thought that she would have liked it, for her lively sense of humor was perhaps the best thing about her. That was, he corrected himself, if one forgot her sympathetic nature, her inquiring mind and high spirit and beautiful face and exquisite figure and delicious lips, and he rose from his bed and went to look out the window to see if there were any lights to see still lit at this small hour of the night.
Bedeviled as well as besotted, he thought as he stared out into the blind night. For when he thought of those soft and yielding lips, he remembered how untutored they were and how he had delighted in teaching her how to return his kiss in the way to please both herself and him. But remembering her innocence, his desire turned to despair again. Then he recalled her brief story, and that transmuted his desire to sorrow, his ardor to shame.
Instead of seeking her out in her pathetic exile in the countryside and offering her payment to confront Robin again, Nicholas thought as he lay his head upon his arm upon a dark windowpane, he should have sought her out to beg her pardon and pay her well to forget the whole affair. But then he might never have gotten to know her, he thought, and that would have been a loss as great as the one he risked in losing her now. And he would lose her, he thought wretchedly, unless he had both skill and luck within the next few weeks.
It was the confused telling of her tale that had made all his suspicions comprehensible to him at last. It was her inability to understand that which now was increasingly and shatteringly clear to him, which even as much as her kiss had confirmed his belief in her essential innocence. He must find Robin, he thought with such an overwhelming sense of urgency that he was tempted to rush from his room out into the moonlit streets seeking some sign of his nephew. He himself could explain a great deal to Julia, but only Robin could completely lift the burden of her disgrace so that she might believe in herself again.
It was amusing, he supposed wearily, that this search, which he had begun so that Julia might persuade Robin to return home, was only continuing now so that he might persuade Julia to come home with him. He still had obligations to his family and he would attempt to fulfill those, but no more than that.
Thoughts of his nephew made him heart-sore so it was as well, he rationalized sadly, that he was so totally preoccupied with Julia. Then too, Robin was, after all, just as his stepfather had said, a man now, and able to make his own decisions.
As for himself, his decision had been made before he had even become fully aware of it. He had wanted her in his bed even when he had believed the worst of her. Then he had wanted her companionship, even as he mistrusted her. Now he wanted her in any way in which she choose to come to him. But he knew she must come to him, and as his wife, if he were ever to know peace.
This was an altogether new experience for him. With all his wide experience of women and the various pleasures they offered, and for all her ignorance of his sex, in many ways she made him feel, strangely enough, almost virginal in his emotions. For he found himself in the odd position of pursuing a female for the usual purposes, only to discover that he eventually valued her so much as a person that her womanhood became almost an incidental gift. He had always loved women, yet he knew that this was the first time that he had ever loved a woman completely. He had been his mama’s and sisters’ adored child, just as Ivy, he saw now, had been his adorable, amusing infant. Other women had been plush cornucopias of goodness, satisfying but replaceable. Julia Hastings was unique. She was the only person he wished to share his life with.
But had she spoken of impediments? He laughed to himself as he left the empty window to pace his room. What she perceived as hindrances to her future were only illusions, shadows thrown against the wall by ignorance and fear, which could be banished in a moment by exposing them to t
he full light of truth. Robin could do that for her, and then she would be free to choose whatever course she would. But once she was able to build her new life, how could she choose himself as life’s-mate, he wondered, after all that he had done and been to her? Deceiver, kidnapper, seducer, and blackmailer, oh yes, Nicholas thought with a weary sardonicism, she has every cause to love and respect me.
That she had kissed him and confided in him was as nothing, he thought bitterly. That she desired him was no credit to him, for she was just as she had claimed, very ignorant of such emotions and very unused to the ways of men. And that she trusted him now was the opposite credit to him, for she was, just as she had often denied, still so very young, and as was pitifully apparent to him, so very alone.
She had been right about him at the outset, Nicholas thought despairingly, for he was certainly mad. How else could he possibly entertain any notion of her forgiving him or wanting him as husband after she had gotten her self-respect back again? And he knew it would be more than wrong, it would be dishonorable to press his suit while she was still confused or still dependent upon him. He could only wait upon matters, attempt to bring her Robin as embodiment of the truth, make restitution, beg her forgiveness, and in the fullness of time, hope to receive it and more.
Nicholas lay down and closed his eyes, now only hoping that when he opened them again it would be to the sunlight of another day, so that he could be up and off about his business once more. But he opened them a second later to see the same shifting shadows of bleak night. For in that moment of half sleep he had seen Julia’s face, remembering it as it had been in that moment after he had struck her, and then it struck at his heart with as much force as a blow, that he could never hope to make restitution, that he could never hope to honorably have her.
