by Sharon Sobel
She would expect nothing else. She already knew about his honor and compassion, and some things about which Raffles could have no idea.
Will was just as engaged in his reading as was she, and undoubtedly trying very hard to avoid saying anything to her. She had no one but herself to blame for this stupid impasse.
Julia looked out the window, sensing that the coach had slowed in its path. For the first time in her strange and arduous journey, she recognized some things along the way, and knew they were close to their destination. There would be questions to be answered, adventures to be recounted, suspicions to be allayed.
The coach took a wide turn to the left, and Julia leaned to the right. As Will shifted in the same direction, he looked up, startled.
“We have arrived,” he announced.
“I know, Will. I have been here before.”
He spared her a glance, but said nothing.
The first of Laurentia’s statues came into view, a rather elegant piece of a woman holding a bird in her outstretched arm. It was characteristic of Laurentia’s approach to her art, and what she considered a work of beauty. To Julia, it also seemed a bit of rebellion against the rather pedestrian classical statues that stood in niches in the large entrance hall at Seabury. Those were splendid, but Laurentia’s pieces were extraordinary.
Laurentia. Indeed, it was past time for explanations.
“I owe you something, too, Will,” Julia said quietly. He looked at her curiously, but she did not know if he recalled her words of some hours before. “I have been here many times, for Laurentia is my sister-in-law. She was sister to Lord Leighton Kingswood, my late husband. Before my marriage, I was indeed Miss Julia Townshend, but being his wife elevated me in ways I had no reason to expect.”
He studied her, waiting expectantly.
“And what is more, you have been to my home, as well. I could not be sure until you spoke of that day, when you were invited to Lord Kingswood’s London townhouse with the statues in the garden. Do you recall? That was my house once. And I was your hostess.”
Chapter 5
JULIA SAW AT once that she was too late, that if she owed him anything, it was that she should have been honest with him about her name and her relationship to the people who now awaited them on the steps to Seabury. But just yesterday, she still doubted that he would deliver her to this place, to her dear friends, and that he would prove honorable in his intentions. Each time she had been tempted to reveal the truth, there had been a reason why her words went unsaid. At the time, she had believed it was just as well.
But all was not well. On these last moments when she had him all to herself, he seemed to retreat to another place where they were still strangers who happened to share a coach. He took the sheath of papers from her hands, and shuffled them neatly into a pile before placing them in his leather bag, and then made a bit of a fuss about securing the fasteners just so. He shrugged on his long coat and pulled on his gloves, apparently indifferent to her presence.
As Milton drew the horses right up to the base of the steps, the coach came to a full stop.
“We have arrived,” Will said again, as if it possible she didn’t notice. But it didn’t feel like an arrival after her difficult journey. For without Will it was closer akin to a parting.
The door opened with a rush of cold air, and she saw Geoffrey’s look of puzzlement when he saw her.
“Why, what is this? And Will, as well? What has happened? And where is my coach and that blasted driver?” Laurentia pushed her way in front of him.
“How did this happen? Did you two meet up at an inn? What a fortunate coincidence! I didn’t even realize you two knew each other.” Laurentia and Geoff might have gone on and on, not allowing a pause between them, but Will held up his hand.
“It is a long story, and we will explain everything in due course. Let it suffice to say that Lady Leighton . . .” He paused and there was no mistaking his particular emphasis on her name. “Lady Leighton and I met on the road in rather unusual circumstances. She is well, but I’m afraid your coach is gone.”
“And Mimma?” Laurentia asked fretfully.
Will edged to the door and grasped the bar on the wall. “If Mimma is the lady’s maid, she is gone along with the driver and the horses, and everything of value. Though I believe they left the real treasure behind.” Will backed down the steps of the coach, and looked at Julia as he said those words.
She felt a flutter in her breast that she was coming to recognize, and met his eyes. Perhaps all was not lost. Or perhaps, he had merely decided to be cordial before the audience of their friends. But she suddenly had reason to hope that they might return to the place they had been only hours before.
Will reached for her hand to help her out of the coach and delivered her into Laurentia’s embrace, where she suddenly broke down and sobbed like a child. Relief, joy, exhaustion: everything conspired against her as she clung to her dearest friend and sister.
“Your entertainment shall go on this Christmas Eve, my dear Lady Laurentia, for I have heard Lady Leighton, and she sings like a bird,” said Will, after a patient interval. Julia could feel his presence just behind her.
“In that case, Miss St. John, one of our guests, will be especially charmed, for she is quite an expert on birds. But we shall all be delighted,” said Laurentia, patting Julia’s back.
Julia finally caught hold of herself and raised her head, hearing the crunch of heavy footsteps on the gravel as the men walked away.
Laurentia took a step back and held her at arm’s length. “What did you do to that man?”
“Do you mean Geoffrey’s driver?” Julia asked, though she knew precisely whom Laurentia meant.
“I am speaking of the gentleman whom, for years, managed to evade all attempts at matchmaking and would scarcely notice a woman, even if he had to climb over her prone body to get to the dinner table.”
Julia dropped her hands, and the two ladies turned toward the open door of the house, where a slew of servants were anxiously waiting for them. She glanced to her left where Will, Geoff, Milton and two servants were having an animated discussion, undoubtedly about the miscreants.
“Well, that explains why he noticed me,” Julia said. “He could scarcely step over me, as the wreck of Geoffrey’s coach blocked the road.”
“And you were . . . ?”
“Within, left for dead in the snowstorm of three days past. Lord Willem found me there and saved my life, though there was nothing he could really do about the coach.”
Laurentia’s lips twisted. “Well, the adventure did nothing to diminish your sense of humor, though you put me in mind of a mischievous Christmas sprite who had an unfortunate run-in with a bough of holly.”
Julia brushed her wet, cold cheeks with the back of her hand. “I must look a wreck.”
“Not to everyone, I daresay. I saw the way Lord Willem looked at you just now, and if it is as you say, you are a very fine wreck indeed.”
“I have a cut at my forehead, and this dreadful bruise on my cheek,” Julia said as they started up the steps.
“And your eyes look like you rubbed an onion against your lids.”
“Oh, dear heavens!”
“Yes, indeed. And to think my Christmas party has scarcely begun!”
Julia paused to greet several of the servants, those whom Laurentia offered employment after Leighton died and Julia no longer had the means to support a large staff. A cousin inherited Leighton’s property and his title, and brought his own people with him to Kingswood. Once again, she regretted that the small Christmas gifts she had made for her friends at Seabury were now gone, for it mattered very much that they knew she missed them, and wished she could have prevented the upheaval in their lives. That she was the one who suffered the most upheaval was rarely something she considered. It was one
thing to mourn a loss, but quite another to be self-pitying.
Laurentia finally pushed her through the door, into the great anteroom lined with statues of all the luminaries of the Howard family. One would think that all these stone-faced gentlemen somehow managed to achieve prominence without any help from the women in their lives, for there were no female statues to be seen.
“We can just as easily discuss your journey in a warm hall as on a cold drive. You must be freezing,” said Laurentia, unwrapping Julia like a large present. “Wherever did you find this dress? Surely my brother did not leave you this bad off, did he?”
“It may have been Mimma’s. Lord Willem said that she and the driver took everything of value, but apparently her carpetbag wasn’t worth rescuing. I did manage to acquire a simple ball gown on my adventure, however.”
“Something of high style in East Sussex? I daresay there were clusters of oversized rosebuds at the breast?”
“It is Christmas, my dear. It is adorned with little sprigs of greenery,” said Julia. “I am thinking it will do for Boxing Day.”
“I am sure Lady Jersey will take note, and soon every lady in London will demand some version of the gown for the next season.”
“Lady Jersey?” Julia asked. The patroness of Almack’s had welcomed her when she had first come to London as a married lady, and had always treated her kindly. “I shall be happy to see her again.”
“As she will you,” Laurentia commented, a bit distractedly. “Now, please tell me why you purchased a ball gown, when you ought to have spent your coin on a decent day dress that has not been mended twenty times.”
“Lord Willem and I went to an Assembly in Langerford. We were snowed in that evening,” Julia said. Any notion that she might have entertained about discretion quickly vanished.
“I see,” Laurentia said thoughtfully, though Julia was not certain she did. “Ah, well, here is my newest creation!”
Julia looked up at the deep niches in the walls, looking for something unexpected.
“Not the statues, you idiot,” Laurentia said affectionately. “The baby!”
And thus was Julia introduced to little Leighton, bundled in a cocoon in his nurse’s arms. He didn’t wake as Laurentia took him, or when she placed him in the bend of Julia’s outstretched elbow. He was a tiny thing, but heavier than she thought he would be. That seemed right, for he had some weighty responsibilities.
“I know how much you wished for a child,” Laurentia said softly. She pushed the baby’s blanket away from his mouth so Julia could see his full lips, so much like Leighton’s.
“We both did,” Julia said. “We imagined filling Kingswood with children, until we could no longer recall what silence was.”
Now, there were so many hours of silence in her dowager’s cottage, only her own singing pierced through the shroud of loneliness.
“But we thought we had all the time in the world,” Julie continued. “And so I busied myself with garden parties and bringing baskets of food to our tenants, and Leighton worried about the estate, and drains, and why his horse was off his oats.” Still holding the baby, Julia brought herself back to a cloudless summer day when everything seemed possible. And then, in an instant, it wasn’t.
“You are still very young, of an age when many ladies have not yet married. And you have many people who care for you,” Laurentia reminded her.
Julia said nothing, but put her finger on the baby’s sweet lips, prompting a little sigh.
“I have made you sad, I think,” said Laurentia. “And yet I wished for us to celebrate a season of joy together.”
Julia thought about Lord Willem Wakefield, and the days they shared and how she had managed to tear things apart with her misguided reticence. And yet, no matter what had happened between them, something had changed in her life, in her new world. She had sensed it days ago, and it refused to be dismissed.
“I am not sad, Laurentia, for I wish you and Geoffrey and little Leighton joy of each other and of the season.” The baby started to cry, which was the perfect cue to return him to his mother. The nurse stepped forward, but Laurentia waved her away.
“I am not sad, Laurentia,” she repeated, though more to herself than her sister-in-law. “For I find that, for the first time in all these months, I have reason to hope.”
SHE WAS LADY blasted Leighton blasted Kingswood, Will reminded himself. All the while he was worrying that he was bringing a common girl to the Howard’s Christmas party, or at best, an opera singer who may or may not have been invited to sing for them, he was actually escorting a sister of the household, someone whom they welcomed with more excitement than they did him.
And he had shared his papers with her, and bought her necessities, and laughed with her over meals, and waltzed with her at a Christmas Assembly. He had shared extremely close quarters with her. He had kissed her.
And she had kissed him.
But she had not trusted him enough to reveal herself. He had seen her in her shift and tucked her into bed, but she had still not revealed herself.
He stood at the window in one of the guest bedchambers, while one of the servants unpacked his bags, and another brought him biscuits and coffee. But he was more interested in the darkening sky, from which snow was once again falling. It appeared that they made it to Seabury just in time.
Indeed, they had. Another night in a country inn with the splendid Mrs. Julia Townshend might have been one night too many. For he would have kissed her again, mistletoe or not, and then she would have kissed him. And then they might have decided that it would be warmer to remain together. And then they would have done precisely that.
She had been a married woman. She knew what would have followed, and he thought he knew her well enough to imagine she would have enjoyed herself.
But then, he scarcely knew her at all.
Lady Leighton Kingswood. He remembered her husband, who seemed a thoughtful and intelligent soul. He was young and fit, and like all young fools, probably imagined he would live forever. Will had imagined pretty much the same thing before Tambora destroyed a society and wreaked havoc on the rest of the world.
Neither he nor Kingswood would have seen the end coming, but he was lucky enough to have survived. If he remembered the story, Kingswood was doing nothing more dangerous than riding his horse, overseeing some work on his estate, when he plowed into the low-hanging branch of a tree, killing him almost instantly. And so such things happened, even to men who imagine they would live forever.
He could not imagine the widow had been more than twenty-five years of age, and was already wiser than that. If her sudden loss of property and status had not already taught her about the fragility of life, her more recent adventure on the road could have left her in no doubt. She might have frozen to death in the snow, discovered too belatedly for any attempt at a rescue. Almost all of her valuables had been stolen, along with nearly anything that might have helped in an identification.
A wise woman would have had every reason to be suspicious of her rescuers. And Julia was undoubtedly wise.
Will helped himself to the pot of coffee and returned to the window. Another coach pulled up, and several young ladies disembarked with the help of the groom. They scurried towards the house, clutching their capes about them.
For the first time in several days, he wondered if his hosts were as intent on a mission as he was here at Seabury. He had a case—and a very hefty manuscript—to present on behalf of Thomas Raffles, and Nick Hawkely had a case to make for himself. But there were the ladies, who would wish to play at charades, and hang all sorts of things around the mantles, and who would wait patiently for him to ask them to dance. There was one who would sing.
He twisted off his ring, the only thing he had of Leena aside from his memories, and placed it in the top drawer of the cabinet next to his bed. He would never f
orget sweet Leena. But he resolved to dance with all the ladies, and even play Sinterclaus in their charades, if they wished him to. He had done it before, and probably for a less appreciative audience. For all that, he wished for approbation from only one lady, if she was allowed a respite from her singing to notice.
Will placed his empty cup on the small tray that had been set out near the washstand. He picked up a few cookies and savored their sharp and spicy scent. So nourished, he set out for the parlor, where his old friend Geoff was undoubtedly holding court.
JULIA LOOKED UP from her tea when the door opened once again. After she refreshed herself in her lovely bedchamber and chose a pretty dress from Laurentia’s own wardrobe, she felt well enough to join the arriving guests in the Howard’s vast parlour, where the gentlemen often remained in one quarter and the ladies in the other. She remembered such afternoons when she was with Leighton, and how important it seemed to occasionally meet his eyes and smile.
But her hosts had dispensed with that arrangement today, for it was an afternoon to make new friends and share gossip and stories. She met Lady Shepworth, Miss Charlotte St. John’s Aunt Catherine, who spoke adoringly of her charge. At the same time, a cousin of the local vicar looked adoringly at Lady Shepworth. Another lady, no longer young, spoke of Lady Sally Jersey and wondered if that estimable person could exercise as much control over a masquerade ball in Rye as she would at Almack’s in London.
“Have you studied music for very long, Lady Leighton?” a man seated near her asked. He was the famous violinist from Vienna, though he admitted he lived in Manchester for many years.
Julia replaced her cup in its handpainted saucer. “You must think me rather elderly, Mr. Wolfe.”
“I did not mean . . . I do not wish to suggest . . .” Mr. Wolfe said, flustered.
