Courting Julia

by Mary Balogh

  But they got to the other side too quickly, long before Julia had recovered from the renewed agitation that had taken her a few hours to recover from just that morning. She did not want to go back so soon. She did not want to have him rushing to help Camilla out of the boat and feeling obliged to lend her a hand too. If she had to be that close to him again today, if she had to touch him again, she would explode. She would treat the whole family to the delightful spectacle of Julia having the hysterics and either hurling foul imprecations and fists at all and sundry or else sobbing beyond control and soaking every handkerchief that would be thrust at her. Neither prospect was in any way appealing.

  “It is far too soon to go back yet,” she said gaily when Malcolm offered to take over the oars.

  “What do you suggest, Jule?” Frederick asked, smiling lazily at her. “Rowing in circles for the next hour?”

  “I wish we could,” Camilla said with a sigh. “It is lovely out here. And so very peaceful. But there are others waiting for the boat.”

  “I don’t want to go back yet,” Julia said. “There are too many people.”

  “What?” Frederick chuckled. “Too many people for Jule? I thought you thrived on having an audience.”

  “Well, there you are wrong, Freddie,” she said. “I like being solitary especially when nature is so beautiful.” She had a sudden idea. “Set me down on the bank here and I shall walk back.”

  “It is too far, Julia,” Camilla said “It must be all of two miles around the bank to the boathouse.”

  “Pooh,” Julia said. “That is not far. The walk will help me work up an appetite for my tea.”

  Frederick laughed. “The aunts and Dan will have a collective fit if you are let off to wander alone, Jule,” he said. “If you want to be eccentric enough to walk when there is a boat to recline in and look pretty in, then I shall play gentleman and come with you. It is Malcolm’s turn to row anyway.”

  “I would not dream of inconveniencing you, Freddie,” Julia said.

  “It is no inconvenience at all, Jule,” Frederick said, rowing the boat against the bank, scrambling out, and holding it steady against the side with one hand while extending the other to her. “In fact the more I think of the idea, the more merits it has.” He grinned.

  Julia looked down into the boat when she was standing on the bank beside Frederick. “Do you mind being abandoned?” she asked Camilla.

  Camilla smiled back. “Not at all,” she said. “Malcolm will take me back safely. I hope you do not get blisters, Julia.”

  “That was bad of Freddie,” Camilla said. “You were her escort this afternoon, Malcolm. Would you have preferred to go with her yourself?”

  He gazed at her for a while. “No,” he said. “Should I have, Camilla? I would far prefer to be here with you. She will be more at ease with Freddie.”

  She laughed. “I am not sure that Mama or Daniel would approve of their going off alone like that,” she said, “though I can see no harm in it when they have been brought up as cousins. And I cannot think that Freddie would hurt her despite his shocking reputation.”

  “Perhaps we should not have let them go,” Malcolm said.

  Camilla smiled. “Can you imagine stopping Julia from doing something she had set her mind to doing?” she asked. “It was either alone or with Freddie.”

  Malcolm rowed in silence for a while.

  Camilla closed her eyes and turned up her face to the warmth of the sun, “It is so lovely out here,” she said. “And so peaceful, Malcolm. You are such a peaceful companion. One does not have to make a constant effort to keep a bright conversation going. I feel utterly happy.”

  “Do you, Camilla?” he asked

  “I have not felt happy since Simon’s death,” she said, “though I decided this spring to return to living. Unfortunately, when we were in Bath, Mama pushed any number of older gentlemen my way. She thinks that having experienced one unhappy love match, I cannot want another.”

  “Don’t marry an older man, Camilla,” Malcolm said. “And don’t marry for less than love.”

  “I don’t intend to,” she said, smiling at him. “But I will think of all that later in the year when Mama wants us to go to London. For now I want to enjoy the summer and the lake and the sun. And your company.”

  “You can have that as often as you wish, Camilla,” he said, “if it will bring you some happiness.”

  She smiled at him with gratitude and affection, and he smiled back.

  Julia and Frederick walked for a few minutes in silence. The trees were denser on this side of the lake. The air was filled with the sounds of water lapping and birds singing and insects droning. It was wonderful.

  “I thought Malcolm was the afternoon’s favorite, Jule,” Frederick said, “You were prepared to entrust him to Camilla’s care?”

  “It was not very kind of me, was it?” she said, lowering her parasol when she found it snagging on too many twigs and brushing against too many leaves. “Poor Camilla. It is well nigh impossible to hold a conversation with Malcolm.”

  “I don’t think Camilla has that problem,” he said. “They grew up as close chums, you know, rather like you and Gussie. I think it was the general belief that they might end up together. But then Camilla fell for a military uniform.” Julia looked up at him in surprise. “Camilla and Malcolm?” she said. “No. They are both too quiet.”

  “Perhaps Camilla allows him to get a word in edgewise,” he said.

  “Meaning?” She looked up at him indignantly. “Meaning that I talk too much, Freddie?”

  He chuckled. “Not for me, Jule,” he said. “I can always shut you up when I have a mind to it.”

  “Well,” she said, trying to remain indignant but laughing instead.

  “So Malcolm is being rejected,” he said, “and Gussie already has been. Dan has never been in the running. How did you take to Les’s offer this morning?”

  “I was moved,” she said.

  “Moved?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “He is sweet and kind,” she said. “Les knows how to give. In fact.” She frowned. “In fact, according to one definition I heard recently, I think Les knows a great deal about love.”

  Frederick chuckled and set an arm about her shoulders. “And so do I, Jule,” he said. His voice was lower suddenly, more husky. When she looked up at him, it was to find him regarding her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “We were interrupted a week or so ago. I decided that maybe I should back off and let everyone else have a chance with you too. I think it is time to resume our—conversation. Don’t you?” Yes, she did. She had something she desperately wanted to forget and replace with another, less disturbing experience. “Yes, I do, Freddie,” she said.

  He stopped walking and turned her to face him, setting his hands at her waist. She spread hers over his chest and beneath the lapels of his coat. His muscles, she was relieved to find, were quite as solid as Daniel’s. His chest was just as broad. He was a little taller. Her hands had to slide up a little farther to his shoulders.

  "That’s what I like,” he said. "A willing wench.” His dark eyes were smiling at her.

  She felt a twinge of fright. But it was only Freddie. “I am not a wench,” she said. "And I don’t know quite what you mean by willing.”

  "What are you willing for, Jule?” he asked. His voice was low and he dipped his head to kiss her below one ear. He took her completely by surprise by nipping her earlobe with his teeth.

  "Oh,” she said, breathless. But she was not going to back off. She had a few ghosts to banish. And a future to secure. "I want you to kiss me, Freddie. Will you?”

  She was walking into fire with her eyes wide open, she knew. They were quite hidden among the trees and miles from anyone. She reminded herself again that he was just Freddie. But she had a sudden and quite irrational longing to see one of the Daniel sextuplets come wandering out of the forest so that she could berate him for always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would look at her mo
st scathingly for putting herself in such a compromising position, she thought. But she would be safe.

  “Always willing to oblige, Jule,” Frederick said, drawing her against him so that she could feel his size and strength and know her utter helplessness. He splayed one hand against her back below the waist and set the other arm about her shoulders. She lifted her face and waited for a repetition of that morning’s experience. Except that Freddie did not have the dislike of her that would cause him to put an end to the embrace as soon as reason could see past lust.

  But it was quite different. His lips were parted, as Daniel’s had been, but his mouth did not assault hers. His lips caressed and teased, as did his tongue. She relaxed her own mouth and allowed him his will. It was—it was pleasant, she thought.

  He kissed the end of her nose and gazed at her with those incredible bedroom eyes that would surely reduce to mush any woman who had not known him all his life and did not know that he was merely Freddie.

  “Mm,” he said. “More of the same, Jule? Or are you willing for something a little different?”

  She was being given a choice? His arms were loose about her. She would be able to draw free of them if she wished and walk away. She lost her fear suddenly. He was not dangerous, as Daniel had been dangerous that morning.

  “Maybe something a little different, Freddie,” she said cautiously. “But not too different.”

  His eyes laughed at her before his mouth returned to hers. And his hands moved slowly, lightly, circling her upper back, smoothing over the sides of her breasts, cupping them gently. His thumbs feathered over her nipples. His tongue stroked over her lips, probed lightly up behind them.

  It felt good, Julia thought, and quite unthreatening. She was enjoying the embrace. If he were not Freddie, she might be quite excited by it. It would be very possible, she thought, to become mindless with the pleasure of it. And so he would find her willing for a little more and a little more until...

  Oh, yes, she thought suddenly, sliding her hands along his shoulders and admiring their rippling muscles, Freddie was every bit the expert that everyone said he was. The master seducer. He would not overpower with the strength of his passion. Not an innocent and potentially skittish partner, anyway. He would have infinite patience, leading on by slow and pleasurable degrees until he had what he wanted and his partner would be convinced that she had had what she wanted too—his worshipful love.

  She was intrigued by this insight into a Freddie she knew of but did not know. A woman would not feel ravished or ruined by Freddie. She would feel beautiful and she would feel loved. She would feel that she was the one finally to entrap him and his eternal love and fidelity. Freddie’s path through life must be strewn with broken hearts.

  “Freddie,” she said, setting a hand on either side of his head, drawing back her own, and then returning it to kiss him once lightly on the mouth, “that was nice. But I am not willing for any more.”

  “Nice!” He smiled lazily at her. “Faint praise indeed, Jule. But the rest can wait. I don’t intend to rush you. I think you are worth waiting for.”

  And Primrose Park too, she thought and immediately felt mean for the mental sarcasm. He was being very gentlemanly—well, to a certain extent anyway.

  “Do you?” she said. “Are you in love with me, Freddie?”

  “I think,” he said, bending his head to kiss her below the ear again, “I may surprise us both by being so before I am finished, Jule.”

  Which was, she had to admit, a clever answer. And a flattering one. And perhaps a true one. It was impossible to tell if Freddie was acting a part or for once in his dealings with women telling the truth.

  “I like the way you kiss, Freddie,” she said. “It is unthreatening.”

  His smile became a grin for a moment. “If I were you, Jule,” he said, “I would never try to earn a living from paying compliments. I think we should marry. Soon. To hell with this monthlong game. Make us both happy. Marry me. Let me announce our betrothal today.”

  It was so very tempting. Freddie was by far and away the most attractive of her cousins—the eligible ones, anyway, and by far the most interesting too. And she would be happy with him. Until he gambled Primrose Park all away and until she began to have incontrovertible evidence that he was dallying with other women. She would never change him, she knew. She would only be changed by him. Changed for the worse.

  “I don’t know, Freddie,” she said. “I’m not sure. I need more time.”

  He dipped his head and kissed her again, openmouthed, more fiercely than he had up to that point She felt instant alarm, but he drew back almost immediately and smiled at her.

  “Take all you need, Jule,” he said. “I can wait. But the siege is on, I warn you. I want you. For my wife. I think perhaps if I examine the state of my heart—something I assiduously avoid doing—I will find that I have already fallen.”

  “In love?” She could swear he meant it.

  “In love,” he said, releasing her and stooping to pick up her parasol, which she had dropped earlier. “But don't force me to examine my heart just yet, Jule. I am terrified.”

  They walked on, talking amiably about all sorts of inconsequential matters until they came in sight of the boathouse and the blankets and the gathered relatives.

  “We could have the wedding here,” Frederick said, having finished amusing her with an account of a curricle race between London and Brighton—one in which he had not participated, though Julia guessed that he must have bet heavily on its outcome. “It would be a lovely setting for a wedding, Jule.”

  “Yes, it would,” she said. “Perhaps, Freddie. I need time.”

  “Granted,” he said, smiling at her. “You are lovely, Jule. Lovely to look at, lovely to hold, lovely to kiss and to touch.”

  Even when one could recognize flattery for what it was, it was easy to be warmed by it, she thought. “Thank you, Freddie,” she said, smiling back at him.

  And then Uncle Paul was calling him to help steady one of the boats so that Aunt Millie could climb safely in, and he hurried away. Julia stood looking after him. What a pleasant hour it had been, she thought. It had quite restored her spirits, which had been severely bruised that morning. She felt quite genuinely cheerful again.

  Until she saw the Earl of Beaconswood walking her way—obviously with deliberate intent.

  12

  At first when he saw the boat return with only two passengers instead of four, the Earl of Beaconswood had the horrid suspicion that she had gone swimming. Probably her pretty white muslin dress—for once she had looked like a lady that afternoon—was folded neatly at the bottom of the boat with her slippers and parasol. Or more likely, tossed into the bottom of the boat. Freddie—he could see that Malcolm was rowing—had gone with her. He shuddered at the thought of her appearing on the bank, in full view of the uncles and aunts and cousins—and his mother—as she had appeared to him early on a certain morning.

  It was an enormous relief—for a while—to find out from Camilla and Malcolm that they had only gone walking, the two of them, having disembarked at the opposite side of the lake. Except that at the opposite side of the lake the woods were dense and in fact there were trees all around. The walk from the point at which they had disembarked must be at least two miles long. It would take them over half an hour even if they walked without stopping.

  She would be alone with Freddie for more than half an hour—unchaperoned. The foolish, foolish woman. He could only hope that no one would notice, that everyone would assume that she was off walking somewhere with plenty of company. Did she care nothing for her reputation?

  Freddie would not try anything with her, he thought, pacing the bank of the lake and smiling whenever he caught someone’s eye and trying to look as if he were enjoying himself immensely. Freddie had some sense of what was right and proper, surely. But he himself had lost that sense during the morning and he had not even set out to fix her interest. Indeed, he did not even like her. But Julia ha
d that effect on men. It was not just her prettiness. There were any number of pretty women around. She was just so damned attractive—and so recklessly available.

  And then it happened.

  “Daniel,” his mother said, “where is Julia? Did she not go out in one of the boats? I did not see her return.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking about him to see who else was absent at that particular moment. “She is off walking somewhere with Stella and Les, I believe, Mama. And Freddie.”

  “Well, that is strange,” she said “I did not see her come back. I hope this having power over the future of five gentlemen has not gone to her head. Julia does sometimes have a tendency to imprudence.”

  “She is strolling, Mama,” he said. “As several other people are.”

  He hoped that she was. Half an hour had passed and there was no sign of her. He damned well hoped she was strolling. He hoped she was not... He had an unwilling image of her flat on her back by the stream, helping him undo her buttons, both pairs of hands fevered, and guiding his hand beneath her shift to her breast. As mindless with desire as he had been. And she was with Freddie. God!

  And now she had caused him to lie to his mother. To cover up for her indiscretion. He stared broodingly out across the water until a boat cut across his line of vision and he was forced to smile and wave at two uncles and two aunts. Why had he lied? Why would he even want to cover up for her?

  He looked to where she and Freddie would emerge from the trees when they came. There was still no sign of them. He was going to give them two more minutes and then he was going to go in search of them. If he found them in a compromising position, he would... He drew a deep, steadying breath. If Freddie had touched her, he would kill him. It was as simple as that. And if Julia had allowed herself to be touched, he would—he would do something to her. It alarmed him that he seemed so often to be contemplating violence against Julia. He was not a violent man. In particular he disapproved very strongly of using violence against women.