As she felt for the pins that should have been anchoring it, Cuthbert turned back to her and offered her
his hand. "If you will permit me, my lady?" Gratefully, she accepted his aid in rising. When she was on her feet, he indicated her hair. "If I might be so bold?" At her nod, he extracted several U-shaped hairpins that had come loose, and handed them to her.
"Oh, dear. I must look a fright," she murmured, again feeling her hair, this time to assess the damage to her coiffure.
"You could never look a fright, my lady," Cuthbert gallantly responded, "though you might do with a bit of tidying before going to your father. Perhaps you will allow me the privilege of attending to the monkeys while you see to the matter?"
Julia smiled and nodded, perfectly at ease with the notion of placing her sisters in the warmhearted man's care. "If you please, Cuthbert, my sisters wish to go to the garden. Mr. Mullock has promised to show them a nest of newly-hatched goldfinches."
Cuthbert nodded back, then directed his attention to her sisters. "Ah, yes. I know the very nest. However, before going to the garden, might I suggest that we visit the kitchen and request a crust of bread for the mother? No doubt she can use some refreshment, as could you ladies after your romp. If my nose does not deceive me, I smelled the aroma of baking wigs when I passed the kitchen not more than a half hour ago." Wigs, flat, yeasty buns flavored with nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, ranked among her sisters' favorite treats. Thus, it took no further enticement to persuade them to accompany him.
As they walked away, chattering childish nonsense to the indulgent majordomo, Julia called out, "Maria? Jemima?"
When they looked back, she pointed to the Cuthbert's back and mouthed, "He loves you, too."
They grinned, a sight that kindled her heart, then resumed their trek to the kitchen.
Julia rushed to her chamber to tidy herself. A quarter of an hour later she was knocking at her father's library door, armed with complaints against Aurelia and arguments against the use of backboards. Though she did not really expect him to heed the former, her numerous complaints against her aunt having thus far fallen on deaf ears, she fervently prayed that he would at least listen to her case against the latter.
"Yes?" his voice called out in response to her knock.
"It is I, Julia. Cuthbert said that you wish to see me."
Several moments later the door swung open, opened by- her father? Julia frowned, taken aback that her imperious father would stoop to extend such a humble courtesy, especially to her. After all, he seldom troubled himself with anyone else's comfort or feelings, unless, of course, he had something to gain in doing so. Highly irregular! More irregular yet, he was smiling that false, fawning smile he employed when wooing the ton. Now looping his arm around her waist in an unprecedented gesture of fatherly affection, he drew her into the library, booming, "Come in! Come in, my dear. I must say that you look exceptionally lovely today, a veritable picture of youthful radiance. The sight of you has quite brightened
my day."
His flattering speech instantly put Julia on her guard. She, who he regularly referred to as a thorn in his flesh, brightening his day? Again, it was beyond irregular. Her frown deepening, she murmured, "Is something amiss, Father?" It had to be for him to be behaving so queerly.
"Amiss?" He chuckled as if she had just authored a particularly droll witticism. "Of course not. Whatever makes you ask such a thing?"
"It is just that you seem so ... so"-she shook her head, trying to think of an appropriate word to describe her impression of his conduct. When she could think of none, at least none that would not bring him offense, she settled for- "happy. You seem inordinately happy this afternoon."
"And why should I not be happy, pray tell?" he inquired, practically beaming at her as he led her across the impressive green and ivory library. Decorated in the grand rococo style, three of the four walls were covered by mahogany bookcases that ranged from the polished oak floor to the magnificent plasterwork ceiling, their every shelf filled with leather-bound books, marble busts, and other tastefully decorative gewgaws. The fourth wall boasted a splendid marble fireplace and chimneypiece, flanked on both sides by several floor-length Venetian windows that overlooked the terraced formal garden.
Again at a loss for a response, Julia weakly replied, "I merely meant that it is rather early in the day for you to be so cheerful." Truth be told, it was early for him to be up and about, much less in good humor. Indeed, her parents seldom rose before noon and almost never emerged from their respective chambers before three, having usually not returned home from their social rounds before dawn.
"Ah. But this is a special day. One that shall no doubt hold a place of honor in your memory forever." He stopped before one of the pair of tapestry-upholstered sofas that overlooked the garden. "Do sit, my dear, while I impart my good news."
Her wariness now metamorphosing into suspicion, the dreadful, sinking kind one felt when they sensed that they were not going to like what they were about to hear, Julia did as directed. When she was seated and her father had settled himself by her side, she prompted, "Well?"
He contorted his lips in what was no doubt intended to be a grin, displaying both rows of his slightly yellowed teeth. "Congratulations, my dear. You are to be wed."
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach with a sickening thud. "W-what?"
His smile seemed to waver; then it broadened and he repeated, "You are to be married. Is it not wonderful news?"
Julia merely stared at him for several beats, too stunned to do anything more. Then she somehow managed to gasp, "No-no! It cannot be true."
"I assure you that it is. You will be wed before the end of the Season."
"But how-what-I mean, why-" She broke off, gesturing helplessly as she fought to master the panic tangling her thoughts.
He chuckled, a light sound edged with darkness. "Should you not be asking 'who'?"
Who? The word took a moment to penetrate her frantically scrambling mind. When finally it did, it triggered an alarming image. Lord Wolton! It could be no one else. Unable to speak for the horror of the thought, she shook her head over and over again, her gaze mutely imploring him to tell her that it was not so.
"It is Gideon Harwood."
Julia felt her jaw drop, even more surprised by the name of the groom than by the news of her impending marriage. Gideon Harwood? Of all the men in London-
"Why?" she blurted out.
Her father frowned, his patience growing visibly thin. "Why what? Why did he offer? Or why did I accept him?"
"Why on both counts," she replied, grasping to make sense of what she was hearing.
He shrugged. "He offered because he wishes you for a wife. Why else? That a man should desire to wed you should come as no great surprise, not after the number of offers you have received."
"The men who made those other offers did so after courting me for a respectable period of time to make certain that we suited. Mr. Harwood met me for the first time last night," she pointed out. In instances like this, their encounter at the bookstore most definitely did not count as a meeting. "Considering the briefness of our acquaintance, he cannot claim to know me, not even the slightest bit. Why would any man wish to marry a woman he does not know?"
Another shrug from her father. "You should know the answer to that question readily enough. You look in the mirror every morning, do you not?"
Julia emitted an unladylike snort of disbelief. "Mr. Harwood hardly seems the sort of man to wed a woman solely for her looks. By the same token, I am not the kind of woman to marry a man who would select a bride based on such cabbage-headed reasoning."
Her father's mouth took on an ugly twist. "Willing or no, you shall wed him, Julia. Make no mistake about it."
Oh, they would see about that! Now changing her tactics, hoping to strike at her vain father's inflated sense of social conceit, she inquired, "Of all the men who have sought me for a bride, why are you forcing me to wed Gideon Harwood? Not o
nly is he a commoner, but both his past and his character have been repeatedly called into question by the ton. In view of that fact, whatever will your noble circle say when they hear that you have matched me to such a person?"
"They shall not say a word. They shan't dare," he ground out from between his teeth. "Do not underestimate my influence in the ton, daughter, or my ability to make any match I choose acceptable to them."
"But why would you do such a thing?" she countered, unable to imagine why her father would go to such lengths on behalf of a mere commoner. It was not as if he had anything to gain from the match. She shook her head in bewilderment. "Judging from your discourse with Mr. Harwood last night, you cannot expect me to believe that you harbor a fondness for him. Indeed, had anyone asked me last night what you thought of him, I would have said with certainty that you despised him."
"Then you would have been wrong." He more spat than uttered the words. "Damn it, Julia! Why must you always be so blasted stubborn on the subject of marriage?"
"You know why," she flung back. "I have told you over and over again."
He grunted. "Your childish prejudice against Aurelia hardly qualifies as a credible reason."
Childish prejudice! Why-"Perhaps if you spared Maria and Jemima more than a passing glance, you would see how very wretched they are," she exclaimed. "The poor darlings are terrified of Aurelia, and she wickedly preys upon their fears."
"They are girls, and girls are unhappy creatures by nature," her father parried harshly. "That point aside, it is right that they fear Aurelia. How else is she to make them obey her?"
"Through love and kindness," Julia thrust back. "True obedience comes from a desire to please. Jemima and Maria obey Aurelia only to spare themselves the pain of her displeasure."
Her father shrugged, contemptuously dismissing her argument. "What do the methods matter as long as the results are satisfactory? And I am exceedingly satisfied with their progress." When she opened her mouth to argue, he cut her off with a chopping hand motion. "Aurelia will remain in charge of the girls, and that is my final word on the matter."
"Then I shall not marry Gideon Harwood, and that is my final word on that matter," she hurled back.
"You shall, damn it!"
"I shall not. You can drag me to the altar, but you cannot force me to speak the words!"
For several long moments they engaged in silent battle, Julia sitting stiff and bristling as she defiantly returned her father's cold, furious gaze. When, at last, her father spoke, his voice was taut and urgent. "If you truly love your sisters as much as you claim, you will do as I say."
Julia frowned, caught off guard by his change in strategy. "No. If I truly love them, I will stay at home where I can shield them from Aurelia's spite."
"You will not have a home to stay in if you do not wed Gideon Harwood. None of us will."
Again, he caught her off guard. "Pardon?"
"I am sorry, Julia. I had hoped to spare you the true reason for this marriage. Unfortunately, you have left me with no choice but to tell you." He sighed and shook his head, his expression regretful. "The truth is that you must wed Mr. Harwood in order to pay your mother's gambling debt to him."
"Mother gambles?" Julia choked out. It was the first she had heard of her mother's vice, and vice seldom passed the sharp-eyed notice of the ton without provoking scandalized comment.
Her father nodded. "Your mother has an inordinate fondness for the card table. However, until now her debts have been manageable enough, so I saw no reason to worry myself over the matter. Then again, she has never before gambled with Gideon Harwood. Though I shall never be able to prove it, my guess is that he cheats. The bastard is simply too damn lucky not to be guilty of hocus-pocus. Unfortunately, he is also cunning and-"
Julia waved her hand to halt his rant. "Are you saying that mother offered marriage to me as a wager?"
"No, of course not. Your mother would never do anything so very vulgar."
Had Julia not been so overwhelmed by everything else her father was saying, she would have been wounded by his claim that her mother had refrained from the wager not out of love for her, but out of a desire to avoid vulgarity. Now wanting nothing but to make sense of what she was hearing, she shook her head and said, "I do not understand any of this."
"To put it bluntly, your mother lost a great deal of money to Mr. Harwood. Everything we own, and more, to be exact."
Julia gasped her dismay. "Oh, no!"
He nodded, his expression grim. "Oh, yes. When I called on Harwood this morning, begging on your mother's behalf that he forgive the debt, he handed me a most shocking proposition: He said that he will pardon the debt if you consent to be his wife. If you refuse, he will call in the debt. If he does, everything we own will be auctioned, and within a fortnight we will be living in the streets. My guess is that he planned all this, that the idea planted itself in his mind when he met you at Vauxhall."
"But how? When?" Julia shook her head. "I mean, how was it that Mr. Harwood had the opportunity to wager with mother? He does not belong to the ton, and I cannot imagine mother gambling outside her circle."
"It happened at the Bittlestons' rout last night, after our visit to the Garden. If you will recall, you begged off attending by pleading a headache."
Julia nodded. It was true. After several hours in Lord Wolton's company, she had not had to pretend to have a headache.
Her father nodded back. "From what I can ascertain, Harwood persuaded Shepley to allow him to attend the affair with him. Once there, it was simple enough for the scoundrel to lure your mother into playing with him. Within two hours of doing so, he had achieved his vile purpose."
"But why is he so very set on having me?" Julia asked. It was too impossible to believe. "By all accounts, Mr. Harwood is wealthy enough to buy a dozen brides, should he desire to do so. To be sure, there are peers who would gladly exchange their daughters for the fortune he would bring their families."
"True, but he could never buy a bride like you, not one who can gain him certain entree into the ton."
Julia gasped her comprehension.
Her father inclined his head, confirming her conclusion. "Make no mistake, Julia, Harwood is a man with high aspirations, and he is ruthless enough to sacrifice anyone or anything that gets in the way of his ambitions. Thus, I have no choice but to allow him to wed you. Surely you see that it is the only way out of this tangle?"
Unfortunately she did see, just as she saw that the marriage was the only way to save her sisters and brother from being forced to live in the streets. Oh, blast the detestable Mr. Harwood! How dare he use her in such a manner? And blast her mother. Her mother was a woman grown and should have known better than to gamble so deeply. As for her father, well, double blast him. He should have done more to rein in her mother's gambling and thus he shared her guilt. Her siblings, on the other hand-
Julia's insides knotted into a sickening coil as she pictured her sweet sisters and their cherubic brother dressed in rags and shivering in the cruel London streets. Poor darlings. They were utterly blameless in all this and should not be made to suffer for their parents' weakness. Damn it! They would not suffer. She would not allow them to do so.
Feeling as if someone had just pulled the world out from under her, Julia sighed her surrender. "I must marry him, I suppose. And that is that."
Her father had the good grace to look ashamed. "Er-I am afraid that that is not exactly that. There is a bit more to the matter."
"More?" Julia echoed faintly.
"The bastard put several conditions on the bargain."
Though she hated to ask, Julia knew that she had no choice but to do so. "What conditions?"
"One is that you must pretend to fall in love with him. He wishes the world to believe that your marriage is a love match."
"Impossible!" Julia spat. And it was. How could she possibly pretend to love someone she so thoroughly loathed?
Her father scowled at her response. "Unless y
ou wish to see your siblings living in the streets, you will do your best."
Of course he was right. Now feeling the beginnings of a headache lurking in her temples, she murmured, "I will try."
He nodded, visibly satisfied by her obeisance. "He also wishes you to take his household in hand after you are wed."
"Fine." It was a simple enough request.
"The third and last condition is that you must never reveal any of this to anyone. That includes your mother." When she opened her mouth to ask why, he silenced her with a wave of his hand. "Harwood does not want your mother to know of his blackmail, so as to be free to court her patronage in the ton. No doubt she will give it readily enough if she believes that he graciously forgave her debt. She is also likely to view your marriage to him with favor out of a sense of gratitude. In short, you must never let her so much as suspect that you know about her debt."
"Yes, yes," Julia miserably agreed.
"Good." Her father smiled and nodded. "Mr. Harwood will call on you tomorrow afternoon to outline his plans to court you. No doubt he will also have ideas on how you should conduct yourself in order to convince the ton of your mutual infatuation. I expect you to be at your most charming."
"Of course." What did it really matter what she agreed to at this point? Her life was over.
Chapter 6
There were some fashion foibles that certain women should shun. The rage for wearing white was one that Lady Julia Barham should avoid at all costs, Gideon decided, pasting a cordial smile on his lips as he bowed to the object of his less-than-favorable observation. Indeed with her pale ivory complexion and regrettable reddish gold hair, he could not imagine any color that could be less flattering. As he straightened back up from his bow, his gaze again filling with the sorry sight of her, he could not help wondering at her unfortunate choice of attire.
Hmmm. Could it be that she was cursed with poor eyesight? That would certainly explain her failure to see how her virginal white gown with its missish puffed sleeves and prim, lace-trimmed ruff made her look like a whey-faced dowd. It was also possible, he supposed, that she actually liked the hideous frock and believed that it complemented her insipid looks. After all, one could not always account for the tastes of others.
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