‘Rakes have feelings, too,’ he said. His voice sounded gruff, and he was breathing hard. He avoided her eyes. ‘I think we should return to the picnic, Miss Swifton.’
She was not going to let Lionel’s rejection affect her. The same wildness that had led her to kiss him now drove her to prove to him that he did not interest her in the least.
She left him, to flit down the pathway to where Lord Benedict and Miranda had been seated. But they had already returned to the picnic site. She crossed the cow pasture, went back through the turnstile and heard the others, chattering and laughing as if nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened.
She went straight to Benedict, who lay on his back on the blanket, staring at the copper leaves and speaking to Amelia. She threw herself down beside them.
‘La, it’s so windy, I thought I would be blown off the side of the hill,’ she said, loudly.
And she kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter until much later, when Lionel reappeared. And until the footmen appeared to gather up everything and take them back to their carriages.
CHAPTER 19
She cringed as they rode in the carriage down from Box Hill. Cringed as she thought of his lack of response. Cringed as she wondered why she believed she could be anything other than Julia Swifton, Bluestocking. Cringed even as she thought how close she had come to giving away everything for a few moments of passion. And how Lionel had the sense – or the experience – to put a stop to her folly.
She had gambled, and lost. And there was the end of it.
She did not know how she would ever be able to look Lord Thorwynn in the face again.
She would have liked to curl up in the corner of the carriage in sheer misery. If at least Lady Bullfinch was riding with her she could have confessed; she could have burst into tears and let Grannie comfort her. But she had chosen to return in another carriage with Lord Yarfolk, Lady Gragspur, and Lady Thorwynn. Their horses followed behind.
If she were more intimate with Amelia, she could have spoken to her. But every instinct recoiled at the suggestion. She could not reveal her idiocy to the younger girl.
So the first part of the journey was spent in silence. Thankfully. Distracted by their own thoughts, neither of the two tried to sustain a social conversation. But then Amelia suddenly began to chatter, and though Julia did not listen, she was obliged to at least pretend to be civil.
‘So he asked me to run away with him, can you imagine?’
Amelia’s words reached Julia as if from a long distance, but they startled her into awareness. ‘Run away with him? Who?’ she asked, bewildered.
Amelia looked at Julia scornfully. ‘You haven’t heard anything I said, have you?’
‘Yes, of course I have,’ Julia assured her quickly. ‘But I just wanted to be certain I had understood you. Eloping with someone is hardly something to be taken lightly.’
She sighed dramatically. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me that I shouldn’t even contemplate it. That I’ll be miring myself in scandal and all that faradiddle. But I don’t care a hoot about what Society thinks.’
Julia was still in the dark, but she suspected she knew who had suggested such a course of action.
‘If you mean that you plan to elope with Neave, well, yes, I don’t think you should contemplate it,’ said Julia, forcefully.
Amanda’s eyes flashed defiance. ‘But it’s all so wonderfully romantic. And if you love someone, you should be prepared to sacrifice everything for them.’
Julia shook her head. She had to find a way to convince Amanda that Neave was far from the romantic figure she imagined. ‘I think – perhaps – that Lord Neave is not all he seems. He has a rather unsavoury reputation,’ she said. ‘And why is he in such a hurry to marry you? He could wait for a while at least. You’re still very young. Perhaps your parents will relent and accept his suit.’
‘My father will never relent,’ she said, passionately. ‘It’s useless to hope for such a thing.’
‘You may be able to convince him. Give it time.’
‘I don’t have time,’ she said. ‘Warren was very hurt by my father’s treatment.’ Warren? So they were on first-name terms, were they? ‘After all, he’s not exactly an outcast in Society. He’s received by all the hostesses, even the highest sticklers. So I don’t see how his reputation can be as you say.’ She scowled. ‘He is so distraught by my father’s rejection, he has fallen into a fit of despondency. In fact, he was ready to give up, saying there’s no point in pursuing our relationship when my father is so opposed to the idea.’
‘He sounds weak-willed to me,’ said Julia.
‘Weak-willed?’ cried Amelia, looking at her as though she had two heads. ‘How can you say something like that? When he is suffering! Can you imagine the humiliation of being turned out after offering for me, like a common beggar? He’s the heir to an earldom. And yet my father, who is a baron himself, treats him like a commoner.’
She sputtered into silence, her indignation knowing no bounds. She stared out of the window, anger turning her parchment skin into a mottled pink and beige Comblanchien marble. Julia decided there was no point in remonstrating with her. She was beyond redemption.
Julia turned instead to that pit of misery inside her – that churning whirlpool that sucked everything into its ruthless depths. How had she imagined that, plain as she was, inexperienced, with the social finesse of a mastiff, she could actually seduce someone like Lionel? A rake, a gentleman with the vast advantage of experience, and who no doubt was accustomed to turning away women who pursued him. Her pathetic attempt at a kiss had left him cold. She could have been kissing the chalk escarpment beneath her, for all the reaction it had produced.
So much for her brief – and already dead – aspiration to be a seductive Cyprian. She wouldn’t know how to do it if her life depended on it.
Which it did. Not in an immediate sense, of course, but in the sense that it could change her life. Because she wanted Lionel. She wanted him enough that her life was nothing but a hollow ruin without him. She thought of an abbey she had once visited, burned down during the Reformation. The dark gutted ruins stood stark, its blind windows staring at the sky.
That was her life.
She threw a glance toward Amelia, sympathy for her plight surfacing. It was not fair to judge her, simply because the object of her love was unworthy. Who was to say the object of her own love was any more worthy? Just because Julia loved him did not change who he was.
The notion hit her like Sir Isaac Newton’s apple, a blow on the head.
She loved him.
Such a simple thing, staring her in the face all this time, and yet she had not known it. Worse, she had allowed it to happen, when all her life she had sworn that she would never love a rake as her mother had.
There was the saying, after all, like mother, like daughter. Perhaps it was simply a law of nature, with no escape from it, like death. She was to repeat the mistakes of her mother, to suffer like her, once her husband abandoned her to pursue his own pleasures. Except that she had thrown away even that chance. The opportunity for marriage had come and gone.
The future stretched interminably ahead, a void to which there was no end.
‘Why will nobody understand that when you love someone, you want to be with them, now?’ said Amelia, her voice full of torment. ‘You don’t want to spend your life waiting endlessly to see if your parents are going to approve or not. And what if they never do?’ Amelia’s intense eyes bore into Julia’s.
She wished Amelia would just go away and leave her to her own wretched reflections.
But Amelia couldn’t. She was waiting for Julia to say something. Julia marshalled her thoughts and tried to answer, if only she had any answers herself. ‘I do understand. More than you could possibly know,’ she said to her companion. ‘But you’re still young, and marriage is forever. Once you enter it, only death will relieve you from it.’ Julia paused, as she debated whether to tell her somethi
ng she had never discussed with anyone but her closest relations. ‘My mother made that mistake. Of marrying very early. She ran off with my father. He, too, was a man with a long established family, though he was – is – only a baron. They married in Gretna Green, and she was ecstatic, despite the scandal that ensued. Her family welcomed back the young couple openly, and did everything they could to help them.’ She sighed. She did not really know her mother’s story. She had only heard it second hand. ‘My mother was wildly in love with Lord Swifton, you see. So it broke her heart when two months later he was seen at the theatre flaunting his mistress on his arm. Wherever she went, people whispered about it, as if it wasn’t already bad enough to have to endure his infidelity.’
Amelia listened, wide eyed.
‘This was only the first of many scandals. My mother had a considerable fortune, you see, and it enabled him to live a much more luxurious life than he had lived until then. He used her money to buy extravagant gifts for his light skirts, and he paraded them everywhere.
‘In the end, it wasn’t the scandals that really hurt her, but the knowledge that all he had married her for was her money. It was fortunate that a large portion was tied up, otherwise he would have left her, and me, penniless.’ It was her grandmother who had made sure of that. She had tied up several of her daughter’s properties and investments before she had come out, and made them inaccessible to any fortune hunters who night have coveted them.
‘Finally, tired even of the pretence of marriage, or annoyed perhaps by her requests for him to be less reckless, he left, never to come back.’
Julia looked down at her hands, examining the uneven lines that ran across them. ‘A month after I was born, she fell into a decline from which she never recovered. She scarcely had the energy to take care of me. Even when she was alive, it was always Grannie.’ Julia paused to consider this. ‘Not long after, she died of some trifling illness.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Amelia.
‘After my father left my mother, he never set eyes on me again.’ Julia looked at her. ‘Is that what you want the fate of your child to be?’
Amelia recoiled angrily. ‘It’s a tragic story,’ she said, ‘and I’m sorry for your mother. Sorry, too, that you never had a father to care for you, although sometimes I wonder.’ The combative look reappeared in her eyes. ‘But you can’t compare Lord Swifton to Warren. Warren loves me. And he will cherish me after we marry. I know it.’
Julia had tried. If even Julia’s most personal circumstances did nothing to sway her, nothing would. ‘If he loves you, then I am glad for you. I wish you well,’ she said, resignedly.
‘Do you mean it?’ she said, shyly. ‘I hope you do, because I’ve made up my mind to do it.’
‘Do what?’ said Julia.
‘To elope with him, of course. I already told you I was considering it. But my conversation with you has convinced me.’ She rubbed her hands together excitedly. ‘In fact, it’s all arranged. For Monday night,’ said Amelia, lowering her voice. ‘After the masquerade ball. I think it’s wonderfully exciting, don’t you?’
Julia did not answer. She did not think Amelia wanted an answer. She was too busy daydreaming, building for herself a magical castle with Neave as the hero. God help her.
Well, she would have some opposition. Julia would not allow her to throw away her life on someone like Neave.
She threw a quick glance out of the window. The weather was still pleasant, apart from the gusting wind. She knocked on the carriage roof to draw the coachman’s attention.
The carriage halted.
Amelia looked at her in surprise.
‘I feel rather unwell,’ explained Julia, ‘Perhaps some fresh air will help me. I think I’ll ride the rest of the way.’
‘I hope it’s nothing serious,’ said Amelia, with concern.
Julia shook her head. ‘A slight headache. Nothing to worry about.’
The postillion opened the door. ‘I believe I need a breath of fresh air,’ said Julia ‘Is Hamlet saddled?’
‘I believe he is, Miss Swifton.’
‘Then I will ride.’
Sounds of consternation came from the various carriages as the whole procession of carriages came to a standstill, compelled to wait. The window of Lady Thorwynn’s carriage opened and Lady Bullfinch’s head appeared.
‘What’s happening?’ she said, casting a disapproving glance on Julia.
‘Nothing, Grannie,’ Julia replied. ‘I just decided I want to ride. It’s too hot in the carriage.’
‘Then for God’s sake get on with it, girl. You’re holding us all up.’
Lady Thorwynn’s anxious voice reached Julia from inside the carriage. ‘Has anything happened, Lady Bullfinch? Has there been an accident?’
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Just some fool notion my granddaughter has taken into her head.’ She slid the window shut. If she could have slammed it, she would have.
Julia wanted to object to her characterization of her. I do not take fool notions into my head.
Except for kissing gentlemen who are known to be rakes.
Somehow, she didn’t think her grandmother would qualify that as a fool notion. She would probably applaud. Except that she had kissed the wrong person. Lionel had made it abundantly clear that he was not interested.
And now she was going to turn to him for help. She would be left with her pride in tatters. Like the grass Lionel had torn between his fingers.
She chided herself for thinking that way. In a matter as grave as Neave’s abduction of Amelia, she could not afford to let her pride interfere. Whatever his intentions, whether they were indeed an elopement to Gretna Green, or something more nefarious, they could be nothing but disastrous to the young girl. Julia had to set aside her pride and help her.
It was not easy. Her face burned as Lionel rode towards her, and she avoided eye contact with him.
‘Anything the matter?’ he asked, examining her anxiously, with that grave new look he seemed to have acquired recently.
‘The groom is fetching my horse,’ she said.
He looked down at her suspiciously. ‘Perhaps it would not be wise—’
‘This has nothing to do with you,’ she snapped, stung by the implication that she was pursuing him.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Then I am intrigued,’ he murmured.
The groom approached, leading her horse. He threw her up into the side saddle, and Julia found herself level with Lionel. She gestured for the carriage holding Amelia to move on. The procession continued on its way.
‘I need to talk to you and Lord Benedict,’ said Julia. ‘It’s a matter of urgency.’
She remembered that Lord Talbrook was also riding. It would be awkward to exclude him. But she could not involve him in Amelia’s affairs. It was bad enough that Julia was planning to betray her confidence to others.
‘I cannot find a way to exclude Lord Talbrook, however, so perhaps you could explain the matter to Lord Benedict afterwards.’ Her tone was distant, carefully detached. She did not want Lionel to think she was inventing excuses to be alone with him.
They had reached a bend on the road, and Julia could not help exclaiming at the sharp incline below her feet. This was what an abyss was like. An edge that cannot be stepped over.
She could not bear to glance at Lionel. His assumption that she wished to resume her flirtation smarted, salt in a wound. Did his arrogance have no bounds?
So she came directly to the heart of the problem, without prelude. ‘I’m afraid we have another urgent Neave situation,’ she said.
‘What the devil!’ said Lionel sharply, alarming his horse, who tossed his head in protest.
‘This time it doesn’t involve me,’ she said. ‘It involves Amelia.’
‘I’m aware that I’m betraying her confidence,’ she continued, ‘but I know that I can’t stop this by myself. There’s too little time. Especially since we won’t be returning to London until tomorrow.’ She related what Amelia had told her,
drily, and without intonation.
There was a short pause after she had completed her narrative. ‘Thank heavens she decided to confide in you,’ said Lionel. ‘You should not feel guilty, however. You are attempting to save her from ruin.’
Julia did not answer. Instead, having explained the situation, she fell back, joining the other riders. Before long, she was riding alongside her cousin, exchanging reminiscences about one of their childhood companions.
Meanwhile, Lionel and Lord Benedict rode ahead, deep in earnest discussion, no doubt determining how best to deal with Amelia’s elopement.
The evening at Lady Thorwynn’s country estate was coming to an end. An impromptu dance had followed dinner, in which the younger persons had been reduced to hilarity watching Lady Bullfinch and Lord Yarfolk vigorously hopping a quadrille until perspiration ran down their cheeks. But after a long day out in the outdoors, the general trend seemed to have an early night. Amelia and Miranda had already retired upstairs, and after a rather unsuccessful game of whist in which she partnered Nicholas against Lionel and Lord Benedict, Julia rose and excused herself.
To her surprise, as she reached the bottom of the stairway, she heard her name. It was Lionel.
‘We need to talk about our plans,’ he said. ‘I will need a minute of your time.’
Because she had not expected to speak to him tonight, and because she was still mortified by her actions earlier, she responded coldly. ‘Unless you are planning to leave very early,’ she said, ‘I suggest we postpone this conversation until tomorrow morning. We can hardly talk in the hallway.’
‘There is always the library,’ he said, grinning.
She stiffened. ‘I do not think that is a good idea,’ she said, icily. ‘Considering the circumstances.’
Lionel ran his hand through his hair. ‘You may wish me to Jericho,’ he said, ‘but the fact is we have some unfinished business. You cannot simply abandon Amelia to her fate.’
An Improper Suitor Page 20
