by Amelia Hart
She stared at him very hard, her nostrils flared. He met her gaze unflinchingly.
"Have a care, Mr Holbrook," she warned him.
"In matters of importance, I always do."
He had made her unhappy, and in a moment she excused herself and left him alone. She crossed the room to where Mr Carstairs stood speaking with three other men, more of their neighbors who had been invited for dinner. Deftly she detached him and whispered in the ear he obligingly bent close to her, his hand catching hers and his other arm going around her waist. A moment later his eyes suddenly met Colin's under lowered brows, and the look was a dark one. For the first time Colin had a clear sense how dangerous this man must have been on the battlefield.
But then so had Colin been dangerous, and again he met the stare without hesitation, and lifted his chin in cool challenge. Mr Carstairs patted his wife's hand, then came towards Colin.
"My dear wife is full of speculation tonight," Mr Carstairs said straight out as he reached Colin's side, and his polite smile did not reach his eyes.
"Any friend of Miss Preston's must be glad she has such an ally."
"More than one. Be very certain she does not stand alone."
"Be very certain she is not under threat."
"If I felt such certainty, we would not be having this conversation."
"My intentions are of the most honorable."
Mr Carstairs's chest rose and fell as he took a slow breath and weighed these words. Finally he said, "That is worth knowing, but ultimately it is the lady's intentions that must carry the day."
Colin smiled a wintry smile. "Of course. Perhaps we would do better to leave things in her hands rather than decide them between ourselves." Mr Carstairs narrowed his eyes, the distinguished air of a gentleman barely masking the implied threat. If Colin had been a different man he might have felt fear. Instead he bared his teeth a little. "I say again how relieved I am to find the lady so well protected."
"You took poor care of her before, if Mrs Carstairs was correct and that was you Miss Preston encountered under Mrs Trent's roof."
Colin looked away, pressed his lips together to quell the surge of temper at this accusation. "I courted her as best I might, then declared myself. She would not have me unless I proved myself faithful. I withdrew, accepting her commission. I had no word from her that she was in dire straits. She had only to send for me and I would have been at her side as fast as a horse could bring me."
Mr Carstairs considered this, and then there was a sense he had come to some decision as he turned his head to survey the room. "I'll warrant that is fast enough."
"Yes."
"Keep a good stable, do you?"
"The best."
"I'd like to see it some time."
"I'm at your service. And at hers."
"So you proved yourself faithful, did you?"
"I did."
"This was a matter of some doubt?"
"We move in the same circles. Perhaps you are aware of my reputation."
"Perhaps."
"It is exaggerated, and I'm afraid Miss Preston formed an unflattering picture of me I could not shake."
"How inconvenient." Mr Carstairs's sardonic twist of lip indicated he had heard enough about Colin from other sources to draw his own conclusions.
"Quite."
"Miss Preston is not your usual sort, from what I've heard."
"Of course the woman one seeks to marry may be different from those with whom one wiled away time when younger and less discerning."
"Certainly. And you with so many years in your dish. No, don't square up at me, young cockerel. I think I understand you. But understand me. I'll not see her hurt or bullied. She stands under my protection."
"I wish for her happiness."
"Then leave. You have only to look at her to see how happy she already is."
"She is meant for more than a life of staid respectability. There is a fire in her-"
"Yes, yes, do not preach to me of fires. I am not so old I have forgotten what that is like." For a moment his gaze rested fondly on his wife, who watched them anxiously - if covertly - from where she stood with some of her guests. "Miss Preston is to be treated with the utmost propriety. I won't have you starting rumors about her again."
"I am sure I shall be as restrained in my courtship of her as you were in yours of your most admirable wife."
Mr Carstairs shot him a look as hard as iron, and said through gritted teeth. "I waited many years. Restraint was my watchword."
"Yes, I've heard that story too," said Colin, enjoying the sudden reversal.
"If you have heard any other story you may disregard it as a lie. That is tiresome old gossip, false and most annoying to Mrs Carstairs."
"Consider it forgotten."
"You are a very provoking man."
"You are not the first to say so."
Mr Carstairs gave a sardonic bark of laughter. "No, I imagine I am not. Very well then. I can't say you have my blessing, but you may at least speak to Miss Preston. Do not put a spoke in Mr Kingsley's wheels."
"I intend to put the very greatest of spokes into the man's wheels."
"Do not drive him away, out of spite. Do not make her choose between you or a life lived only as a governess. She deserves a family of her own. She is an admirable woman."
"You've no need to tell me that, sir. I see it perfectly clearly. I would spend my life giving it to her."
"You are very glib, though I suppose that's to be expected of a man in love." He eyed Colin to see if he would refute this statement, but Colin only looked back blandly, not to be goaded. "The utmost decorum, mind you."
"Sir. Your very obedient," Colin drawled in faint mockery, and Mr Carstairs sighed.
"No time like the present." And with that he crossed the room and inclined his head politely to Miss Preston, who looked up in immediate enquiry. He said something to Mr Kingsley and to her and held out his hand. Unsuspecting, she put her own into it, spoke an aside to Mr Kingsley with a warm smile that made Colin suddenly want to hit the man, and stood. Mr Carstairs led her back over the intervening distance to where Colin stood. He watched her face change as she saw their destination, saw the aborted movement that signaled her desire to escape, waited quietly as she was delivered up to him all unwilling.
This was not how he would have chosen to speak to her. He had no wish for an audience, and every desire for privacy that would allow him to take the same liberties he had taken with her before, to feel the tentative flutters of her response, caged by her inhibitions but instinctively passionate for all that. He remembered words were not the best way to woo her, for all the pleasure she took from talking, and was prepared to use every resource he had at hand to prove to her how right they were together, despite her apprehensions.
No, in the center of this calm, neighborly gathering, quiet and sedate, was no place for a declaration of his undying passion. Yet this was the time Mr Carstairs had granted, and all Julia was likely to allow him given how she already avoided contact.
". . . think the sooner Mr Holbrook's curiosity about the ruins is satisfied, the sooner we can set him free to resume his journey. If you will only take a few minutes now, I'm sure everything can be made clear and settled in his mind. Then he is freed from our sedate company. It must be tiresome to be mewed up with yokels such as ourselves."
"Oh, certainly, Mr Carstairs," she said with wry sarcasm justified by her employer’s place at Court and in the highest social circles in the land. "Yokels indeed. Very tiresome."
"In fact these past months I have been a yokel myself," said Colin with calm deliberation.
Julia turned her head to him, the first time she had met his eyes directly this evening, and raised a single eyebrow. "You?"
"I. I've discovered the delight of estate management, far from the heaving bosom of the City and all its temptations."
"Heaving bosom indeed. You must have been distraught at the deprivation."
"Not at all. I fou
nd it refreshing. Clarifying too. It gave me a chance to reassess my life-"
"I'll leave you two to discuss it, shall I?" murmured Mr Carstairs, and Colin ignored the man's faint smile as he turned and walked away, pleased with his mischief.
"I'm certain there are many heaving bosoms to be found in the countryside," she said, barely pausing until her employer was out of earshot.
"I'm sure there are, if one seeks such a thing. I did not."
"So you say."
"And so it was. I do not lie. Not to you."
"Am I to be impressed by such nobility?"
"You damned well ought to be. It's you who brought it on."
"Mind your language, if you please."
"You're right. This is not how I meant to say this at all. This deuced audience. Will you not walk with me out on the terrace-"
"Are you mad? It is freezing out there. Besides, I'm not going anywhere with you. All too well do I remember what you are capable of."
"What we are capable of."
"Pardon?"
"We. You and I both, together. If I took liberties then so did you."
"I did no such thing."
"I'm wounded you do not remember, when I recall those moments so fondly. Your hands on me, your lips on mine, the feel of you against my bare skin. Quite wonderful memories," he said with a reminiscent smile. He could not resist the chance to see that glorious wash of color sweep up from the modest neckline of her navy blue gown all the way to her sharp cheekbones.
"Stop it. Stop remembering those things at once. How dare you."
"Your skin is smoother than silk, softer than rose petals, and warm. When you are so close I can smell you again-" she immediately took a step away, and only the knowledge of watching eyes kept him from matching her step for step, stalking her, the most delightful prey, her eyes wide and bewitched in her fine-boned face, "smell that scent like fresh-cut lavender, clean and light, and the woman beneath it. Our shared delight, with you standing with me in the darkness, then not quite standing but leaning, giving your weight to me as I taught you something new about yourself-"
"Stop it at once. You are indecent."
"I was. I was indecent. You were right. But I changed. You wanted me to find a better path. I thought your fears were maidenly naivety but there was a deeper truth behind them. I have admired you for your perception. That you knew me better than I knew myself. You had the wit to really see me-"
"You read too much into our brief - terribly brief - acquaintance. You make it out to be something it was not."
"Do I? Do I really? Was there no significance to it, then? No significance to the way you let me touch you, so intimately." He held a hand up between them. "My fingers know the tenderness of you, want to know you again, to bring you that pleasure again and again, a hundred thousand times."
She stared at his hand, seeming dazed for a moment, her pupils very wide. Then she blinked and shook her head.
"Always you confuse these things." She shook her head again, her mouth pinched up tight. "You think physical satisfaction - even lust - is a justification in and of itself. You are wrong."
"What is it then? Explain it to me, how it is a woman can come to pleasure on a man's fingers and then dismiss it as nothing."
"I expect you've done the same to a hundred different women in a hundred different places,"
"Not a hundred-" he saw a spasm of feeling pass over her face, that looked like pain, and immediately realized even one other was too many for her. "Not one like you. Not one who had me drawn tight as a bow with longing and triumph to hold you, feel you tremble and hear you sigh against me. Not one to make the world tilt on its axis like that, Julia, my love. Not one."
"Words. Only words."
"Truth. Sweetheart, you drive me near despair. What more will you ask of me? I swear I will give it all to you, I will give you anything, only say you will marry me."
"You are dreadful," she whispered, and now her face was chalky white, stricken and unearthly.
"Why is my love dreadful? What is wrong? Julia?"
"My father was a charming man. Oh, how I loved him. Mother loved him too. Too much. Never marry a rake, she told me, and she cried and cried with her heart broken. Late in the night, and I would crawl into her bed and try to comfort her and she would clutch me and weep and make me promise I would never, ever marry a rake. A man who would go to fill the beds of other women and leave his family alone and longing for him. Do you know what it is to love someone and hate them at the same time? I know. No, Mr Holbrook, I will never marry you. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, I will never marry you."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For a long moment she did not see him, so consumed was she by the memory of Maman's body shaking with sobs against hers, her cheeks wet with their mingled tears, and a gaping hole in in her own heart where she discovered love was not enough to keep a woman safe. Promises were not the same as deeds and a man's character could not be changed by wishes or prayers.
Maman might have learned that lesson too late, but not Julia. Never would she make the same mistake. Never would she be hurt like that by a man.
"Don't believe him when he says he loves you," Maman had exhorted, lapsing back to the French of her childhood. "Rakes lie. They tell you what you want to hear. They are masters at that game. Then when they are done with you, they move on."
"Will Papa move on from me?"
"No, sweet child. You are his daughter. You will always be his daughter. But I? I am only his wife. Which is to say I am nothing. Just one more woman. The only foolish woman stupid enough to tie herself to him for a whole life. What an imbecile. What a stupid, stupid imbecile."
"You are not an imbecile, Maman. You are clever, and you are beautiful. I love you. I shall love you always."
"Beautiful? What is that worth? There is always another woman more beautiful, younger, more enchanting. Be thankful you are not beautiful my darling. You will never have the misfortune to catch a rake. You will marry a good man, one who will love you forever."
"I am not beautiful?"
"Oh, you are beautiful to me, my little English sparrow. But no, you have taken all the wrong things from Papa and me. Do not fret. Beauty is not everything. It is not anything, really. It cannot make you happy. You will be so happy, married to your good man. You can laugh at all the stupid, beautiful women who chase rakes, who see those handsome faces and charming ways and want to keep them forever. You can laugh. Let us laugh."
But Maman's laugh broke in the middle and then she was weeping again, wildly, so hysterical it made Julia terribly afraid. Surely the whole world must be falling apart if Maman could cry like this, like the howl of a wounded animal.
Over months, years, she had learned it was best not to go to Maman in the nights, no matter what she heard. By morning Maman would be calm again, bitterness hidden away, and they would pretend all was well with such determination she could believe it was true.
Beautiful Maman. Sad Maman, who had been stupid enough to love a rake.
When she blinked again, back to this cheerful room full of neighbors and quiet conversations, she was not sure exactly what she had said to him. He had such a peculiar expression on his face, like recognition, and pity, and horror too. She did not like to see it there, but it had been necessary he know. What had he been thinking, to come to her here like this? She had never deceived him about her feelings. As for his, she did not understand him. Why would a man who could woo and win anyone he wished - should he ever break all habit and decide on marriage - settle upon plain Julia Preston, bluestocking spinster, staid governess? He was clearly unbalanced. Months ago she had thought it some odd whim that he spoke of marrying, said lightly to win her over to seduction.
Now he was a hundred times more fervent, more determined, as if there was steel behind his intention, not the whimsy of the hour. Yet it was insane.
As was that part of her that longed to say, 'Yes!' to his ludicrous proposal, to take a chance, to ga
mble her whole life's happiness away. Insanity. She slammed the impulse away behind locked mental doors.
"What do I say to you?" he said, not at all despairing but as if he sought the information he needed, another piece in the puzzle that was she. "What can I say to make you see me as I am, not as some faceless seducer of women but as-"
"No," she said, stood and walked away without excuse or explanation. She could feel deep tremors move through her core. Mr Kingsley turned her way in clear expectation but she walked past as if she had not noticed, wanting to run, to flee madly, but stilling the desire. Staying calm, looking like she was on some errand, sedately purposeful steps, out of the doors, away from the hum of polite small talk and the watching eyes. Down the candlelit hallway, up the small flight of stairs for the servants, faster now, feet hurrying, breath coming swiftly, almost sobbing in her throat.
Too much. It was too much to manage: to be sane and rational and think clearly when a man like him came and said wild things to her like that. Too hard to hold together as he looked at her with those blue eyes, so fierce and compelling, as if he would draw love from her soul somehow. A look that told her there was something inside her that was his until she almost felt she believed it, that wildfire and his name ran through her veins and-
Craziness. He made her as lunatic as himself.
She wanted him. Abruptly she stopped her mad flight, panting, on the third floor now, near a window that let in the streaming moonlight. She sat down in a pool of it, splashed harshly over the stairs, and buried her face in her hands. Never had Mr Kingsley made her heart leap as Colin did. Never had she longed to lean into him and feel the hard strength of him wrap around her, to take away thought and give her something new and better.
What a fool. As susceptible as the next woman, for a pretty face and a charming way. A well-delivered line that she - even she, frustrated spinster - was woman enough to wish was true.
Did he believe it himself? She wished he did, wished it so hard she could not believe her own senses that whispered he spoke the truth.
Even if he did, he did not know for certain he could be faithful. Not for certain.
