Iain hummed along with the music for a minute before pushing off the despondency that threatened him. He tugged his cravat loose and pulled it free from his neck. Tossing it on the bed, he shrugged out of his jacket and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Although he’d forced himself to walk more today, his legs still pained him.
Just as he was about to sit down to remove his shoes, he heard a scratching at his door. Crossing the room, he pulled the door open.
She stood before him, looking not at all as she had the last time he’d seen her. Her face was full of colour, and not the ghastly blue-tinged hue of when he’d held her in his arms. Though dressed in a simple gown, she could not have looked more beautiful to him. His hands left his sides and reached for her before he could even think, but luckily he stopped them before he touched her.
‘Julia,’ he said. He clutched the side of the door and braced himself against it—partly to balance himself and partly to keep her in the hall. ‘You look well.’ Surprised that his voice did not shake, he peered down the hall to see if anyone waited for her. ‘Why are you not at the ball?’
‘I needed to speak to you, Iain,’ she said softly.
‘You should be at the ball,’ he repeated, nodding his head towards the music that he could hear clearly now that his door was open.
She met his gaze then, and Iain lost his breath. He recognised a vulnerability there now that was new. The confident Julia had been chased away, leaving this new uncertain one in her place.
‘You saved my life, Iain. I cannot find the right words to use to thank you for such an act.’
He stepped from his room completely then, not trusting himself if she entered his chambers. Tugging the door behind him, he cursed himself for his current state of undress. Lowering his voice, he remembered his decision to leave her.
‘I nearly cost you your life, Julia. Assign no heroic actions to my account.’
She twisted her hands in front of her, standing head bowed. ‘Billy told me what you did. I did not know you had followed me that day, or why, but I do know that I would be dead now if you had not.’ Julia lifted her eyes to his. ‘I can never repay you for saving my life at the risk of your own.’
His anger surged then, for she was ascribing the wrong motives and reasons to his actions of that morning. Clenching his hands into fists, he shook his head at her.
‘First I chased you from the house with my disregard. Then I could not follow you to stop you from your folly.’ She began to speak, but he shushed her with a shake of his head. ‘I could not follow you, Julia! Any man can walk fast enough. Any man has enough strength in his legs to walk a few furlongs. Yet I do not.’ He forced the words out through clenched jaws. ‘You fell through the ice and I could neither run to your side nor lift you from the water.’
He ran his hands through his hair and groaned at the memories of her disappearance into the frigid water. ‘My legs gave out, Julia. My legs, damn them. They gave out and I could not walk on the ground or on the ice to reach your side.’
‘Iain,’ she said, ‘you saved me that day. Billy said you pulled yourself along the ice and then slid me out of the water to safety.’
He clenched and shook his fists. ‘I could not walk to you, Julia. You fell into that water and I could do nothing.’ Did she not realise his horror at his inability to help her when she’d needed him the most? ‘What will happen the next time an accident befalls you? Must I stand by and watch you die?’
Iain dragged in a ragged breath and shook his head at her. He noticed the tears in her eyes, but he must make her understand the danger of continuing any alliance between them.
‘I cannot be the cause of harm that might come to you because I cannot walk…like any other man can. Or because I don’t have the strength to reach you…like any other man can. Please, Julia, do not ask me to stand by and watch…’ His voice trailed off. He could not bear to see the disappointment in her gaze, his failure once more reflected in the eyes of someone he loved.
He loved.
‘You expect too much, Iain,’ she whispered. ‘Most other men would have died from the injuries you received. Most other men would never have survived what you have faced, and you are stronger for it.’
‘I am no hero.’ He knew he must end it now. ‘You will find your knight in shining armour, Julia. And he will be able to ride his horse and walk at your side and dance with you at your ball.’
The strains of music echoed down the hallway to them. It seemed a perfect and poignant reminder of what he could not do.
She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingers. He fought the urge to turn his face into her palm and feel her skin against his. ‘I have faced death and thought I would never wake when I fainted in your arms, Iain. And it was the loss of you that grieved me most. I swore that I would not let you go without telling you…’
‘Julia, please do not say something you will regret.’ His heart wanted to warn her off, and yet wanted to hear the words she threatened to speak. ‘Please.’
‘I have always loved you, Iain. I know it began as a childish obsession, but it grew into something else. I hoped you’d wait for me, but you moved on with your life.’ She paused and stepped close enough that he could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. ‘I have always loved you, and hoped you could love me too.’
Time did not move. The very air around them grew still as he heard the words that any man would be thrilled to hear from her. Any man who could offer her a life and his love in return. But he could not be the man she needed, the man she wanted, the man she deserved.
‘I cannot return your love, Julia,’ he whispered, lying with his words even as his heart screamed out the truth from within him. ‘I do not.’
She flinched as though struck, and he was certain his words had hit her as surely as if he’d raised his hand in a blow. The colour seeped from her face then, and her hand slipped from the caress so recently given. In spite of his rejection, she shook her head at him.
‘You are afraid, Iain. I understand that—I do. But together we can…’
Afraid? He was terrified inside at the thought that he could be the cause of harm to her because of his disabilities. But not so tied up by it that he could not see what he must do.
‘This is not about fear, Julia. I have faced death myself—too many times to count in these last few years—and I have found a way back. This is about the impossibility of something more between us.’
She would not back down, it seemed. No matter that he had insulted her and rejected her love and her heart, she came back at him in ways unexpected.
‘Not afraid?’ she asked, stepping back a few steps and holding out her hand to him. ‘Then be by my side and dance with me.’
The musicians had tuned their instruments for a new dance and he recognised it immediately—a waltz. The strains of it floated down the hall and encircled them like some kind of mesmerising spell. A chance to hold her in his arms and to believe that she could be his…His heart raced in his chest and the blood pounded in his head as he stared at her hand and considered what she offered. He was not certain that he could take even a few steps of the dance she offered, but he wanted to try.
All he would need to do was take her hand and her love.
His palms itched to move; his feet ached to step forward to her side. His heart demanded again to take her love, and to give his in return. But it was his cold, rational mind that gave the answer.
Iain took a step back into his room and closed the door behind him, leaving Julia with an expression of disbelief and devastation in her eyes. Leaning against the door, he waited and listened. After a minute or an hour, he knew not which, he could hear the sound of her feet padding down the hall.
Better, he told himself a million times, to disappoint her now than to risk her life and her safety later. The words and the sentiment rang hollow to his ears and to his heart, and he knew they would sound no better when Christmas Day dawned over Wesley Hall the next morn.
&
nbsp; Chapter Eight
She could not breathe.
It felt as if the icy water was swallowing her again, the cold pulling her down and chilling her to the bone. No matter that she told herself she was safe, and her ordeal was over, Julia shivered as she watched the door close in her face.
Certain that he only needed the reassurance of her love and support to consider their future, she’d held out her heart to him. Iain had thrown it on the ground and stamped on it.
Tremors shook her once more, but she waited. He would open that door and come to her side—she knew it. He loved her—she was certain of it. He would…
He did not.
The silence deafened her. She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself and shook even more. The tears burned her throat and her eyes and she felt them trickling down her cheeks.
Music pierced the silence that held her and grew in intensity, and Julia knew that the waltz was nearing an end. Soon people would come looking for her. She’d promised a dance to two of the young men at her sister’s request, and they would notice her missing.
This time she did not want to be found. The pain that flooded her heart and ripped her soul in two grew, and she could face no one in that moment. What good was there in realising that the feelings one had felt and thought only infatuation were something stronger, something more substantial, and then to have them disregarded in such a fashion as this?
Julia had thought Iain would at least hear her out. She knew enough about men to understand their sense of pride. Iain continued to argue that he was not able to be like other men, but Julia knew it for the lie it was. While lying in her bed, recovering from the incident that had nearly taken her life, she had learned many things.
She loved him. As simple as her declaration had been, it was a powerfully true statement.
She wanted him. Inexperienced though she was, her body had come alive beneath his touch, and kissing him simply made her want for more.
She wanted the kind of life he could offer her. In spite of the chance to experience the luxury offered by her brother-by-marriage’s fortune and title, Julia did not need the same in order to be happy. Iain would have a respectful income from his work for his family’s businesses and could support her comfortably. And though she’d travelled the length and breadth of England, visited London and Paris, and had savoured every moment of those experiences, if she never left Scotland again—whether the Highlands or its cities—she could live quite happily.
With Iain.
Julia shook her head, finally accepting that he would not return and accept her, and walked down the hall to the Earl’s library. Nothing at the Christmas Eve Ball appealed to her any longer.
Closing the door behind her, she made her way to the corner collection of chairs and sat in one of them. The same one where she’d sat the day when Iain had kissed her. Looking up, she lifted up on her toes to reach the now offensive branches above her. Tugging once, she pulled the bundle of mistletoe free and tossed it on the floor in the corner. Then, curling up in the cushions, she leaned her head back and watched the Christmas snow fall silently outside the window and form a new layer on the old one there. The lake’s shiny surface in the distance seemed to mock her sadness and remind her of how fragile life could be.
Trey left Anna in their chambers and went off, as she had requested, in search of Julia. It was not difficult to guess where he would find her. Although Julia had seemed to regain her strength after her accident, something had changed in the girl—and he suspected he knew what it was. It did not take a scholar to recognise a young woman in the throes of first love.
Nor the look of a young man in the same condition.
Trey felt very much the man in the middle now, watching his wife and her sister struggle to make others proud and happy while ignoring their own wishes. Julia, he knew, went along with Anna’s matchmaking because she felt beholden to her for the years when Anna had given up her own happiness and dreams to protect and care for her sister and aunt. Anna, after dealing with years of deprivation and need, wanted to make certain that Julia never faced the same desperate situation, and so she looked to arrange a marriage that would take care of her in that regard.
Noble sentiments, acceptable behaviour, and yet she was too stubborn to see the wrongness in her actions or the ultimate unhappiness that could and would result from it. Unless someone who loved them both could make them see the truth.
Someone like him.
His attempts to draw Julia fully into their family had met with measured success—although he thought of her almost as a daughter, there were times when she seemed to hold herself apart from them. At first she’d seemed to enjoy the changes that his marriage to Anna had brought. Even the addition of his natural daughter to their household had pleased her, for it had given her a playmate and a sister to replace the one he’d stolen away as his wife. Then, as she’s travelled and met more of those in his circle of friends and society, Julia had seemed to grow more and more discontented.
Anna had read this as a challenge to see her happily settled, and once she’d reached eight-and-ten years of age Anna had set off as on a mission from the Almighty to find her sister a husband. Now, if either or both did not stand down, the results would be catastrophe or broken hearts or worse.
Trey walked quietly to the corner of his library and peered down in the darkness at the sleeping girl. The tracks left on her cheeks by tears were obvious even in the low light from his candle. Her face was pale, paler than this last day, when she’d risen from her bed and returned to a more usual schedule. She needed rest, a good night’s rest, and a chance to recover more from the shock of facing death.
Placing his candle on the table, he crouched down in front of her and said her name softly. Repeating it again, he watched as her eyes fluttered open and she recognised him.
‘Come, Julia. Allow me to escort you to your chambers,’ he offered as he stood. ‘Anna is worried about your condition so soon after your accident. I told her you are as stout and steady as a workhorse, but she doubts my word on it.’
She did smile then, just for a moment, in a hint of how much younger her face looked when not so tense and burdened. ‘A workhorse, my lord?’ she asked. ‘Surely you could have come up with something more stylish?’ She tried to keep her tone light, but sadness crept in. ‘I did not mean to worry her, Trey. Truly not.’ She pushed out of the chair and stood before him and he could see some new pain there in her eyes.
‘Julia, what has happened?’ he asked.
Tears poured freely down her cheeks and she began to shake. Opening his arms to her, Trey held her close, soothing her much as he did his young sons. ‘Julia, sweet, tell me what has happened.’
‘He does not want me, Trey. He does not want me.’
She sobbed now, leaning against his chest with her tears soaking into his dressing robe. He let her finish, and when she raised her head and stepped away from him he knew she was ready to discuss it with him.
‘Do you think that is his problem?’ he asked. He’d learned long ago never to protest the innocence of the man involved when women decided a man was wrong.
‘He is so proud, and yet so corkbrained at the same time.’
‘Is that not your complaint about most men of late?’ Trey shrugged. ‘How is he different from the rest of us?’
‘Oh, Trey!’ she said. ‘I do not think of you so. You have only treated me with the best of intentions and attentions. And although you do sometimes succumb to the weaknesses and peculiarities of your gender, I think you are one of the most sensible men I have ever met.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, with a nod of his head. ‘But you have not told me young Iain’s problem.’
She took in a ragged breath and released it, sitting down and motioning him to take a place on the other seat there in the corner.
‘He saved my life, yet he refuses to see his own worth!’
‘He still struggles back from his injuries, Julia. ’Twill take some time
, I suspect, before he gains confidence in any physical abilities.’
‘Trey, Billy told me that Iain dragged himself across the lake using only his hands. He is stronger than he realises, but will not listen to anyone who speaks of it.’
‘You tried, then? Tonight?’ he asked.
‘Yes. He did not come to see me after the accident, so I went to see him, to thank him for saving me…’ Her voice trailed off, leaving out the part she did not wish to speak of, but the part he could guess—she’d offered Iain her heart as well and been rejected.
‘Sometimes a prideful young man needs time to accept that he is not the failure he believes himself to be.’
‘Oh, Trey, how can he not see it? He is indispensable to his uncle. He is competent. He is talented and thorough. How can he not see that?’ She wiped her eyes and leaned back in the chair.
‘He was gravely injured. He did not know if he would survive and he suffers with serious pain every day of his life. Everything he did with ease before that terrible day he can no longer do. Every step he takes threatens to land him face-down in the dirt. That is enough to make him doubt everything he knows or thinks he knows about himself and his abilities.’ Trey reached over and lifted her chin so that she met his gaze. ‘Surely you can allow him that much? He has the best reasons for doubting himself.’
‘Then why does he doubt me, Trey. How can he doubt me?’
Her words were almost whispered, but the depth of the pain there told him so much. She waited for words to give her the reassurance she so desperately needed. Could he give her that? What if Iain had other reasons not to accept the feelings between them?
‘If he cannot trust himself he can trust no one else, Julia. Not his uncle, not even you.’
‘But I love him, Trey,’ she protested.
Surprised at the strength of her feelings, he said, ‘And you told him of your feelings?’
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